After a five month break, Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng made his triumphant return to the North American League Championship Series. But instead of wearing his usual Team SoloMid jersey, Doublelift was cloaked in a blue Team Liquid jersey. Engaging in a quid pro quo agreement with Team Liquid, Doublelift has come back to try and save Team Liquid from relegation, while also trying to get himself back into form for summer.
But Doublelift wasn’t the only roster change to debut tonight. Former Team Dignitas substitute William “Stunt” Chen made his debut as Phoenix1’s new starting support. Filling the shoes of Adrian “Adrian” Ma, Stunt is now in charge of supporting Noh “Arrow” Dong-hyeon’s, the best AD carry in the NA LCS.
Cloud9 2-0 Team Liquid
Game one started out so well for Team Liquid. Finding kills in all three lanes, TL sought to snowball their lead for a quick win. Transitioning their lead to the mid game, this game started to look more and more like a TL win. But, one unfortunate teamfight loss in their jungle dashed all of their hopes. Cloud9, empowered by a Baron buff, completely turned the game around. TL, whose team composition was beginning to be upscaled, couldn’t win the following teamfights, and eventually lost the game itself.
Unfazed by TL’s Draven pick, C9 came into game two with a strong early game themselves. Making proactive moves across the map, C9 accumulated a lead by out-trading TL in kills and objectives. Despite being behind, TL did its best to defend its base, but once C9 took the Baron, that defense could hold no longer, thus ending the two game series with a C9 win.
Phoenix1 2-0 FlyQuest
Continuing with their trend of unorthodox champion picks, FlyQuest came into game one sporting Maokai support alongside Mordekaiser, their weird pick from last week. But unlike last week, these unusual picks did not get FQ an early lead. In fact, by the time the mid game hit, both FQ and Phoenix1 were dead even, with almost the exact same amount of total gold. This deadlock finally ended when a teamfight broke out in the dragon pit. Off the back of Arrow’s skillshot sniping on Ezreal, P1 found themselves not only with a dragon but also the Baron. Once they acquired the two buffs, the game was over. FQ’s low waveclear composition could not defend against P1’s push and was eventually run over.
Game two featured a much more proactive P1. William “Meteos” Hartman’s early game play created leads for the rest of his team, as well as himself, at one point having a 7/0/3 scoreline. As the game transitioned to the mid game, P1 maintained total control, not giving FQ a single kill. If not for the one kill FQ found on Yoo “Ryu” Sang-ook, there was a strong possibility that FQ could have ended the game with a goose egg. When it came to closing out the game though, P1 was met with some difficulty. Drafting a much better wave clear composition this time around, FQ decimated P1’s minion wave every time a siege was attempted. Staying patient, P1 chose not to risk a dive, but instead to wait until Elder Drake spawned. Forty-four minutes later and now with an Elder Drake, P1 finally concluded this long one-sided match, earning their first win of the week.
What was your favorite moment of the night? Let us know by tweeting us @GAMURScom.
Article by Malcolm Abbas. Follow him on Twitter @SmashhLoL.
