Week 7 - Underdog, Overdog
FlyQuest and Golden Guardians are going to Worl- Oh, wait... We're skipping that bit?
Welcome back, Scuttlers!
Apologies for missing last week’s edition, but ScuttleStack isn’t a full time job yet. In fact, it’s still probably filed under “hobbies that my girlfriend won’t tell her friends I have.” But I digress.
While my time off was spent in the photo pit of a hard rock festival, that didn’t stop me from anxiously checking scores on my phone and catching up on games after the fact. Many of us didn’t expect the underdog wholloping, top-seed turmoiling, chat pog spamming weekend that Week 7 was.
Let’s hit the rift.
FlyQuest and Golden Guardians had high hopes going into this weekend. The pair of teams rode incredibly successful Week 6’s after moving Licorice from FlyQuest to Golden Guardians and FlyQuest deciding that their Academy team is probably better than their actual LCS core roster. The moves delivered them wins in Week 6, and that momentum carried over until just about Friday of Week 7. As FlyQuest took a game on TSM and Golden Guardians beat Evil Geniuses, fans rode these teams like they were esports crypto. However, crashes are always imminent.
FlyQuest lost to Evil Geniuses and 100 Thieves, so everyone bantering online that their stomp was unstoppable hit a brick wall. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot going for this team. Against Evil Geniuses, they took a bold first blood on Danny and Ignar that was supported by smart pathing from Nxi and a great teleport interruption from Kumo. The young squad played reserve and held their own until EG cracked the game open by exploiting some poor positioning and lacking playmaking. Evil Geniuses are explosive opponents, and they’re going to pick your indecision appart, so I can see how FlyQuest waiting for Ornn items could bite them in the butt. However, I like to see them taking chances and giving the third place team a run for its money.
Golden Guardians similarly took a big win against Evil Geniuses on Friday, picked up a free win against Dignitas Saturday and then hit a wall against Cloud9, who has been showing up to play, on Sunday. On the way, they did some really great things too. Against Dignitas, we saw a Tahm Kench in the mid lane, a Yuumi support and a Sivir on Stixxay as ADC. If you’re looking for a fun game to watch from Week 7, this is one of them. Golden Guardians applied a ton of pressure to the map late game and choked Dignitas out. However, that didn’t carry over to their loss against Cloud9, who closed the game pretty handedly.
The conclusion I have on these two teams focuses on finals, as these teams are practically fighting each other for the eighth playoff spot at this rate. FlyQuest seems to have a lot of upsides overall, but the creativity and cohesiveness that Golden Guardians has been displaying makes them a much better Best of 5 team, which will take them farther.
All of the top teams had an Achilles’ Heel this week. 100 Thieves took a loss to Dignitas and it wasn’t a pretty one. Outside of a really sloppy first few deaths, 100 Thieves just couldn’t get anything going. Dignitas played a solid game — not stellar by any means, but they played well — but I think 100 Thieves was their own worst enemy. We talked about Evil Geniuses and TSM losing to the Golden Guardians and FlyQuest respectively, so our eyes turn to Immortals who beat Cloud9. I’ll state my bias clearly: I really never got on the Immortals hype train. They’ve always been the “oh, they’re fine” team that was consistently alright. Cloud9 took two Barons, secured about a 9,000 gold lead and still threw. Good on Immortals for sticking with it, but really sloppy on Cloud9’s end.
We don’t really have tons of off-the-rift content to talk about this week. As we near the end of the split, we’re going to see a lot of teams really refine their strategies and rosters. I would expect less “drama” and more teams working toward consistency.
But that’s not what you’re reading this section for. Don’t worry, we’ve got some tea to spill.
In business developments, 100 Thieves is scooping up premium sponsors like nobody’s business. Outside of Rocket Mortgage and their recent collaboration with Gucci, they announced Lexus as a premium automotive sponsor. Apparently someone was jealous of Cloud9 giving cars away to their players. If they want to catch up, it’s probably best 100 Thieves x Lexus capitalize on handing something out to a talented, young newsletter writer.
The biggest piece of news is that after CLG’s rough season, they’ve picked up a new leadership under Greg Kim. Kim comes from Evil Geniuses, which runs a pretty tight ship, so I’m hoping he really turns things around for a team that hasn’t seen stellar results (and a marketing department that needs a Riot-level rework, apparently). At this point, CLG is a team with nothing to lose. Bringing any new leader in is going to cause a disturbance, but hopefully a good one. I’m hoping to see some long-term changes to follow, and hopefully in the right direction.
Who are the Worlds Frontrunners?
The end of the season is in sight, and while eight of the ten teams in the LCS make it to regional playoffs, only the top three get sent to represent North America on the world stage.
Let’s start by looking at the current standings.
The top of the leaderboard holds (in order): 100 Thieves in first, TSM in second, and Evil Geniuses and Cloud9 ties for third. Given 100 Thieves’ trajectory and ability to handedly trump top teams, I’m happy to confidently add them to the list of teams heading to Worlds. Following that, I’ve had my doubts about TSM. This is a team that’s consistent, but in that consistency is an expectation that they will make mistakes. Well, perhaps that doesn’t make them consistent at all... but the point is that you can expect TSM to take games on bottom teams while they hesitate against top teams. I think it’s a coin flip as to whether they make it to worlds or not, but if you’re looking for a solid bet for a third team, maybe they’re your guys.
Looking at Evil Geniuses, I see a team that is really in the spotlight. Evil Geniuses also suffers from sloppy, coinflippy games with Jizuke and some sketchy decision making. However, coach Peter Dun has said over and over that these mistakes are an effort to iron out wrinkles before playoffs. They want to shake up their champion pool, try new things and keep their eyes on end-of-season results. I truly think EG is a safe bet for being sent to worlds, which when paired with 100 Thieves, means that North America’s “Big Three” of TSM, Cloud9 and Team Liquid.
As for Cloud9, I still don’t see a team that has returned to form from their MSI performance after Spring Split. They’ve made massive improvements, but Blaber doesn’t feel as explosive and Perkz is uninspired. Cloud9 has historically been a jungle-mid team, but they’ve found success top side via Fudge. I just don’t see Cloud9’s gameplay fundamentally sound right now given the weakness of their core players. However, I think they can squeeze games out and perhaps secure the third spot on my list.
So overall, it’s 100 Thieves, Evil Geniuses and Cloud9 in my book for Worlds, with sneaky runners-up in Team Liquid (looking for Alphari to step up and greater team synergy) and maybe even TSM if TL and another top-three team shits the bed.
Closing Thoughts from the River
Just a quick shoutout to my small but mighty reader base so far. Sending some love to Marshal, Henry, Sasha and all of the other names I see. Sure, I’m probably the kind of guy that would stick my thoughts up on a blog just to write something (which is admittedly what I thought this would be), but seeing that view count pop up every week is incredibly rewarding, so I want to say thanks early on.
But on the LCS-side, I’m calling Golden Guardians 3-0, EG moves up to second place and I ask myself why the universe decides I should be a Dignitas fan.
Putting rocks in my pocket (because tenacity should make knockups less effective),
Nick Mo.