Category Archives: Analysis and Opinion

Analysis and Opinion

TSM Academy vs. Cloud9 Academy, LCS Academy Finals Preview

It’s a North American League of Legends tale as old as time: TSM versus Cloud9, the original fan favourites against the team that stole their crown as NA’s best. As the LCS squads prepare to fight for a World Championship spot on Saturday, their Academy teams will put an Academy Championship on the line the day before. Both matchups have the potential to be close, and hotly contested, but I’ll leave my LCS preview for tomorrow; today, let’s look into the Academy series that will cap off an excellent year of tier 2 North American competition.

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Win Conditions

TSM Academy

  • Neutralize the early game
  • Draft for team fights and let Lost and Treatz go to work

Continue reading TSM Academy vs. Cloud9 Academy, LCS Academy Finals Preview →

Analysis and Opinion

TSM vs. Golden Guardians (rematch), LCS Summer Lower Bracket Preview

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What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
– Ecclesiastes 1:9

If TSM want to produce a different result in their second best-of-five against the Golden Guardians, they are going to need to find something new under the sun. Could that be a substitution at Support? A change of draft priorities and in-game strategy? A mental reset?

For this preview, I’m not going to outline win conditions and key players for each team; I’m going to focus strictly on TSM’s opportunity to alter the outcome. Continue reading TSM vs. Golden Guardians (rematch), LCS Summer Lower Bracket Preview →

Analysis and Opinion

Cloud9 vs. Evil Geniuses, LCS Summer Lower Bracket Preview

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I definitely didn’t expect to be writing a Cloud9 vs. Evil Geniuses preview today. I’m still a little in shock at not only the fact that Cloud9 lost to FlyQuest, but the way the lost.

Hopefully C9 recover from that shock more quickly than I do, because they have a series to prep for, and they’d better not take it lightly if they want to maintain a shot at reaching Worlds.

Win Conditions

Cloud9

  • Take some deep breaths
  • Play the early game

I can’t imagine how tilted the entire Cloud9 roster and staff are feeling after yesterday. They need to breathe some fresh air and pull out the early game-oriented strategies that they’ve hopefully put at least some practice into during the past couple of weeks, because that’s where they’ve found their success all year.

Evil Geniuses

  • Attack Blaber
  • Draft reactive scaling picks (e.g. Shen and Gangplank)

FlyQuest just lobbed an alley-oop pass to Evil Geniuses, so EG need to jump up and slam it home with momentum.

Prediction

Continue reading Cloud9 vs. Evil Geniuses, LCS Summer Lower Bracket Preview →