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I didn’t expect TSM to fall into the Lower Bracket right off the bat, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Dignitas probably didn’t expect that, either. Now we’re going to see two of the oldest orgs in North American LoL fighting for a chance to reach the next stage of the Lower Bracket.
For TSM, this is a chance to redeem themselves for an incredibly disappointing showing against the Golden Guardians. For Dignitas, it’s a chance to embrace the underdog role and win back some respect from a community that has set such low expectations for them all year long, myself included.
Dignitas Key Player and Path to Victory
For a long portion of the regular season, Aphromoo was in the running for an All-Pro spot, competing with players like IgNar and Vulcan (while CoreJJ ran away with the number one spot). Aphromoo quieted down a little in the last few weeks, but overall, this Summer regular season has still been his best split-long performance in years.
The Golden Guardians laid out a clear blueprint for beating TSM, and if Dignitas want to replicate that game plan, Aphromoo and Johnsun are the key pieces. It starts with beating Doublelift and Treatz in lane and putting them under pressure. Johnsun has been a decent laner this split, finishing on par with Doublelift in GXD10 (+50 to Doublelift’s +46), while getting counterpick in 42% of his games compared to Doublelift’s 67%. Aphromoo was given counterpick in 63% of DIG’s games, compared to Treatz at 25% (the lowest of any Support), and Support matchup can be an even bigger influencer of lane outcomes than Bot laner matchup, so look for DIG to create more counterpick opportunities for Aphromoo and use them to create winning 2v2s.
If Dignitas can manage to apply a similar level of bot lane pressure, Dardoch should get some good opportunities to make plays and build snowballs. He’s shown this split that he is still capable of pathing himself into a winning position (+254 GXD10, 4th among LCS Junglers) and carry games from that advantage (322 DPM and 18.8% damage share, both 2nd among LCS Junglers). Spica remains one of the more exploitable LCS Junglers, in terms of early pathing, so Dardoch can try to beat him to the punch on ganks, or simply power farm and hope his laners can avoid Spica’s early attacks.
DIG’s solo lanes, V1per and Fenix, just need to survive while Dardoch, Johnsun, and Aphromoo do the heavy lifting. That’s easier said than done, against the quality of players TSM have in those positions and the amount of ganking Spica likes to do, but it’s not the most difficult thing to ask for. And with DIG having a chance to watch TSM play, and seeing their draft priorities and game plans, maybe that will be enough to start a Lower Bracket run.
TSM Key Player and Path to Victory
TSM embarrassed themselves by losing 3-0 to the Golden Guardians, and one of the big reasons they suffered that result was too little investment into their Top laner. Going up against Dignitas, who have a similar, but more pronounced, weakness in the top lane, TSM should not make the same mistake twice: their clearest path to advancing through the Lower Bracket is equipping Broken Blade with greater tools to be a direct difference-maker.
Against Golden Guardians, Broken Blade was given Shen, Ornn, and Gangplank. All three champions can function well on the “weak side,” meaning that they can afford to be pressured and lose gracefully while still helping out the other parts of the map, either directly with their ultimates, like Shen or Gangplank can, or indirectly by scaling up and serving as a reliable tank even from a gold deficit, like Ornn. Broken Blade played fine on those champions, but TSM’s bottom lane—which received more draft resources and was supposed to be TSM’s “strong side”—failed to win their lane matchups, which didn’t give Broken Blade enough opportunities to get involved.
I’m not absolving Broken Blade of any blame for TSM’s loss, but I very much want to see TSM recognize that Doublelift is not the lane-dominant hyper carry that he once was. And that’s okay, by the way; Doublelift doesn’t need to play like Uzi to be a useful contributor.
Even if TSM still want to set up for bot side-focused drafts, they should be much better off against Dignitas. There is no FBI + huhi duo lane facing them this time. In fact, I don’t think any other bot lane duo in the LCS would do to Doublelift and Treatz what FBI and huhi were able to do to them. TSM can afford to be stubborn about their play style in this series and still come out with a comfortable win. I would just rather see them show that they can adapt and understand themselves better than they did against the Golden Guardians on Thursday.
Win Conditions
Dignitas
- Counterpick Support and Jungle
- Win game 1
If Dignitas can take the first game of the series, they have a chance to break TSM’s mental game and snowball themselves through to a series win. If TSM take game 1, though, I think it’ll be over quickly.
TSM
- Know thyself—let Broken Blade carry
- Don’t tilt
The Golden Guardians attacked TSM very intelligently and were able to match up their greatest strength—bot lane 2v2—against a TSM draft strategy that failed to respect or appropriately address that strength. And even under those circumstances, TSM were in very good position to take the first two games, which could easily have resulted in a 3-1 or 3-2 series win for TSM. Dignitas are not equipped with the same bot lane talent, and TSM now have a chance to reflect and properly adjust. I don’t think TSM will make the same mistakes this time around, and even if they do, Dignitas won’t be able to punish as effectively.
Prediction
TSM 3-0