Typically you’d expect to have a clear favourite when one of the teams was seeded directly into the Lower Bracket, but 100 Thieves mopped up EG pretty convincingly in the teams’ last meeting, and the head-to-head role matchups stack up quite well for 100T. Both teams are top side-heavy, with relatively quiet contributions from the mid and bot lanes.
With such similar profiles on paper, preparation and coaching could make the real difference.
100 Thieves Key Player and Path to Victory
There has never been a question that Ssumday is the 100 Thieves’ best player, and given the Evil Geniuses’ insistence on playing through Huni as their win condition for much of their series against FlyQuest (despite my advice to play through Bang), that makes the Top lane even more important for 100T.
Ssumday has the skill and pedigree to be the very best player in the entire LCS, but I’d argue that he’s never really been in the right team context to realize his ceiling. I’m not especially enamoured of the roster built around him this split, as a whole, but the partnership he’s formed with Contractz has borne fruit. This playoff series is a perfect opportunity for the fruit to ripen. Contractz usually gets a winning matchup, using an 83% counterpick rate to generate a +408 GXD10 in 12 games during the regular season. Ssumday’s laning pressure helps to create opportunities for Contractz; that’s exactly what I want to see on Sunday.
Poome is a bit of a question mark. Typically, rookies are put under a microscope in their first playoffs appearance, and we wonder whether they’ll have to deal with nerves. From what I’ve seen of Poome, that won’t be an issue. The guy has been tilt-proof. Unfortunately, he’s had too many opportunities to prove it this split. It’s great if you aren’t tilting, but a tilted death is no less costly than a tiltless death. 100T don’t need Poome to be a star in this series, they just need him to play clean and allow the top half of the map to take over.
Evil Geniuses Key Player and Path to Victory
We’re going there: full Top lane priority for both teams in this match.
Against FlyQuest, I wanted Evil Geniuses to play through Bang and win dragon fights, but they decided to put more emphasis on Huni at first, with two Hecarim picks in the first two games before switching to a more team fight-oriented Gnar in game 3 and then, finally, a bot lane-focused Shen in game 4. Gangplank came through for game 5, a classic Huni pick that does very well at helping the bottom lane, but IgNar and Santorin had other ideas and FLY managed to outlast EG in a hard-fought series. I don’t blame Huni’s execution for the losses; I mostly have an issue with the game planning for the first two games.
Ironically, now that EG is going up against Ssumday and friends, I think top side focus is actually a good idea, except that I’d like to see more standard drafting, with a continued focus on getting Huni counterpick but not so much “cheese”. Huni needs to influence the map at least as much as Ssumday.
Elsewhere, Goldenglue had a rough time against PowerOfEvil in the first two games against FlyQuest, then looked much better in games 3 and 4 before fading into the background a bit for game 5. The good news is that his lane opponent on 100 Thieves should be an easier nut to crack than PowerOfEvil, and if he plays like he did in games 3 and 4, he’ll have a good shot at carrying some games. The main chance for Goldenglue to do that will be out-roaming Ryoma, since that has typically been Ryoma’s weakness.
For Goldenglue to do good work, a winning jungle matchup will really help. Svenskeren had some success with that on Friday, posting a +342 GXD10 against Santorin, one of the best Junglers in the league. As already mentioned, though, Contractz is no slouch. The last time these two teams met, Contractz was all over the early game on Nidalee, helping to unleash a dominant Camille by Ssumday. So Svenskeren will have to be in good form, too!
You might sense a theme here: EG weren’t great against FlyQuest, and they’ll need to be better against 100 Thieves. They may be the higher seed, but they can’t take this series lightly at all.
Win Conditions
100 Thieves
- Win the top/jungle 2v2 as convincingly as possible
- Match Goldenglue’s and Zeyzal’s map mobility
Evil Geniuses
- Get Huni counterpicks—but good ones this time
- Attack 100T’s weak vision game (LCS-lowest WPM)
Prediction
100 Thieves, 3-1
Bit of a gut feeling on this one, and maybe some Ssumday fanboyism, but I’m calling for the upset!