Tag Archives: Team SoloMid

Analysis and Opinion

TSM vs DIG: NA LCS week 2 Win Conditions

The most anticipated match of NA LCS week 2 is TSM vs Dignitas, taking place tonight. TSM need to regain some of their confidence after a disheartening 0-2 loss to Cloud9, while Dignitas have been exceeding expectations so far and can prove themselves as a top contender if they beat TSM.

Here are three keys to the series for each team.

Team SoloMid

Push the pace early.
Chaser has always played a slower, more methodical game out of the jungle, picking and choosing his moments with care. Svenskeren is at his best when he’s moving more quickly and pressuring the enemy’s jungle, ideally with Bjergsen available for backup. A faster pace could help keep Chaser off balance.

Get WildTurtle more involved.
TSM’s AD carry has the lowest kill participation on the team (59.5%) and has yet to be involved in a First Blood kill, but he’s actually been winning his lane, slashing +100/+3.6 GD/CSD@10. WildTurtle can be explosive when he’s given the chance, but TSM have been leaving him and Biofrost to their own devices most of the time. I want to see TSM give some more resources to their bottom lane to help WildTurtle break out.

Give Bjergsen counterpicks.
TSM are really going to struggle if they don’t make good use of their strongest player. We know Bjergsen can carry in the late game on scaling champions if the team lasts long enough to get there. (Just look at game 1 against the Immortals.) But TSM’s struggles so far have been losing too hard too early: they have the league’s worst GD@15, at -1,571. TSM should help Bjergsen get the upper hand by saving their mid lane pick for later in the draft and choosing a winning matchup against Keane.

Dignitas

Spill first blood.
In week 1, Dignitas earned First Blood in five of their six games. Chaser and Keane were each involved in four of those five kills. Mid and bot are both good targets: Keane could use the help against Bjergsen, though WildTurtle may be a slightly easier target to hit.

Ride Ssumday hard.
When you’ve just imported one of the very best top laners in the entire world, and when his first week in North America has gone this well, you’d better appreciate what you have. Ssumday’s impeccable team fighting and Teleports haven’t slipped at all. Whether Dignitas put Ssumday on a playmaking tank or another carry like Fiora, the rest of the team needs to be ready to take advantage of his strength.

Keep killing wards.
Dignitas are averaging a 23.9% invisible ward clear rate, which is good because TSM are leading the league in wards per minute. The more vision Dignitas can clear, the more risks Svenskeren and Biofrost will need to take when roaming and invading to refresh that vision. With players like Chaser and Keane ready to jump on enemy mistakes, and Ssumday available with his strong Teleports, vision denial could create some key opportunities for Dignitas to take control of the series.

Photo courtesy of flickr.com/lolesports

Analysis and Opinion

TSM at IEM: Looking Back; Looking Forward

One year ago, Team SoloMid lifted the IEM Katowice trophy, conquering Team WE in the Finals to claim their first international crown since 2012, in the days of the limited-field IGN ProLeague. They were on top of the world, if only for a little while. This year they’re pursuing a repeat, but aside from their team name, their Danish Mid laner, and the underdog mentality they’ll be nursing, the circumstances are very different.

Going into the 2015 IEM World Championship, TSM had an 11-3 domestic record, good for 1st place. They had just wrapped up an easy 2-0 week against Winterfox and Team 8, two lower-tier teams who would go on to finish 8th and 7th, respectively, while TSM would take the regular season title. Things were going fairly well for TSM, and they were carrying some momentum as they prepared for the tournament.

This year, TSM is arriving in Katowice with an 8-6 domestic record, three wins shy of their 2015 pace. They’re treading water in the standings, sitting just 4th in North America, and battling with the demons of their own inconsistency: with a 1-3 record in the last four games, and a crushing defeat at the hands of Team Liquid on Sunday lingering in their minds, TSM is certainly not carrying positive momentum into Poland.

This isn’t the stiffest field IEM could have assembled—teams like the ROX Tigers, Immortals, and G2 Esports have been left at home because of IEM’s qualifiers + invites approach—but it isn’t exactly a soft field, either. TSM’s path through Group A features ESC Ever, Royal Never Give Up, and Origen, with SK Telecom T1, CLG, the Qiao Gu Reapers, and Fnatic vying to emerge from Group B. TSM are certainly not among the favorites—Unikrn has given them 15:1 odds, third-worst for the event—but every attending team features its own set of question marks.

Can Team SoloMid repeat their 2015 accomplishment and claim back-to-back IEM World Championship titles? It won’t be easy.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

TSM had an offseason to remember, constructing one of the stronger super teams North America has seen—on paper. The reality has been nowhere close to the hype, with the star-studded roster stumbling and clearly failing to find synergy. They aren’t in danger of falling out of the playoff picture, but TSM has actually looked worse than their 8-6 win/loss record might suggest. According to gold spent percentage difference (GSPD), TSM’s +0.6% has them ranked a spot worse, at 5th. Compare that to the league-leading +12.6% GSPD they were enjoying at this time last year.

There have been some positives, of course…

Read at Unikrn →

Analysis and Opinion

Bjergsen + Doublelift + 3: Players to Target in TSM’s Rebuild

In the aftermath of Team SoloMid’s early exit from the 2015 World Championship, the team announced that they would be replacing four of their five starting players. Only Bjergsen remained to anchor the Mid lane. It was a drastic move, though not entirely unexpected.

The next move was bigger. Less than 10 hours after SK Telecom T1 clinched their World Championships victory, TSM dropped the bomb: the star player of their forever-rivals, CLG’s Doublelift, would be joining TSM for the 2016 season, the first new member of their revamped roster.

Let’s see if we can make any sense of this new reality. First we’ll explore the two keystone players TSM will be building around, and some implications. Then I’ll present some players I think they should consider for the other three roles.

Continue reading at Unikrn →