Three thoughts from day two of the NA LCS scouting grounds
By Josh Tyler
Day one showed us strong play from one AD carry and provided a glimpse into what pros consider to be the meta picks. What new insight will day two of the NA LCS scouting grounds provide?
Day two of the NA LCS scouting grounds games is in the books. While most of the initial observations from day one still hold up – Kennen was picked in eight out of eleven games on day two and Prismal continues to be the strongest ADC of the bunch – more trends have begun to emerge.
Team Mountain Drake has emerged at the top of the pack. More players are showcasing unique picks and shifting more towards comfort to strengthen their profile. Some positions show great depth available, while others seem shaky. The pro NA LCS teams are still keeping a sharp eye on the competition, but here is what we can say after the day two matches.
Team Mountain is scary
Each team has played four total matches at this point, and faced every single one of their opponent teams. Only Team Mountain Drake is unbeaten, with a 4-0 match record and only dropping two of the ten games they’ve played.
Their ADC Jacob “Prismal” Feinstein continues to lead the way, as he did on day one, but today’s matches also showcased their talented mid laner, Max “Soligo” Soong. Soligo played five unique champions in his matches today and had some stellar performances including an 8/0/3 game on Leblanc and a 12/3/6 game on Irelia.
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Soligo did play well on day one, but four of his five games were on Syndra. By contrast, Soligo did not play Syndra once on day two, showing that he does have a diverse champion pool that he can carry with. Now that Team Mountain has two damage dealing threats, and possibly the two best players at scouting grounds, it seems that they will be hard to beat.
Pocket picks galore
Day two saw a lot more unique picks come out onto the stage, as players who didn’t have as strong a showing on day one leaned back into more comfortable champions to have a better showing.
For instance, jungler Luke “Metaphor” Canning of Team Ocean Drake picked Kayn in two games during the series against Team Mountain Drake. This champion is Metaphor’s second most played jungler on his primary SoloQ account, and helped Team Ocean hand Team Mountain one of their two-game losses of the whole tournament.
On Team Infernal, support James “Duoking” Stephenson brought out a pick that he twice showcased on day one: Soraka. Duoking played The Starchild three times on day two, winning two of those games. He also busted out another little-used champion in Sona during a win over Team Cloud Drake.
Speaking of Team Cloud, their top laner Thomas “Jenkins” Tran brought out a Kled pick in that same game. On his highest ranked SoloQ account, Jenkins played over 100 games on Kled in Season 8.
Inconsistent Junglers
In terms of which role has had the least strong performances, right now that would easily be the jungler position. Of the four tournament junglers, Metaphor, Kenji “Srkenji” Luke Kaneko, Kristopher “Fragas” Myhal, and James “Obese Panda” Ding, none have had a performance that would wow most observers.
True, Metaphor did have a 6/1/7 Nocturne game, leading Team Ocean to a win over Team Infernal on day two, but he was hardly the only carry on his team. Fragas has had some strong games on Team Mountain, but the when he is unable to get Prismal or Soligo rolling his team struggles. This was the story of a mediocre Camille game during Team Mountain’s sole loss, as Soligo and Prismal both struggled but still out-damaged their jungler.
Obese Panda did have a couple of strong Graves games on day two, but these were offset by some terrible performances on Camille and Nocturne. As for Srkenji, he has struggled all tournament on power picks like Xin Zhao and Nocturne. However, it makes sense for his uneven performance as Srkenji was primarily a support player previously.
Next. Four Thoughts after day one of scouting grounds. dark
With the final matches set to begin today, do you think we will see any more surprise picks? Will Prismal and Team Mountain Drake continue their dominance, or can one of the other teams hand them their first loss? Day three of scouting grounds continue today.