LCS predictions Week 1, Day 2: course corrections
By Josh Tyler
Echo Fox (0-1) vs. Golden Guardians (0-1)
The Guardians were one of the teams that suffered shocking upsets yesterday, at the hands of FlyQuest. It’s hard to blame one individual for this failing because no one played particularly well – the lone exception being Hauntzer on his top lane Vladimir.
On the other hand, Echo Fox stayed competitive in their first game against a Clutch team we thought would be strong this split. Indeed, there were plenty of encouraging signs, particularly from Fenix in the mid lane and Hakuho on the Rakan support. The worst performer on Echo Fox – Rush who went 5/7/3 on jungle Karthus – probably played better than just about anyone on Golden Guardians, which is not a good sign for this hyped team.
Prediction: Echo Fox
Cloud9 (0-1) vs. 100 Thieves (0-1)
This was probably penciled in as the marquee matchup of the day when the schedule first came out, but it has now been usurped by the last game of the day. Instead, we have two teams trying to recover from rocky starts.
On the one side, C9’s poor performance against Liquid was understandable to anyone looking at the rosters. Top to bottom, they were outclassed and even their incredible teamwork wasn’t enough to overcome that.
On the other hand, 100 Thieves falling to TSM yesterday was fairly surprising, given that they were returning most of the same roster from last year and the changes they did make were either clear upgrades – Bang for CodySun/Rikara – or maintain synergy – Huhi being a former teammate of Aphromoo. Instead, the Thieves looked a bit disjointed and out of sync. A lot of fingers can be pointed at Ssumday for his abysmal play on Viktor, yes, but the whole team had issues, which won’t be easy to fix overnight.
Prediction: Cloud9
TSM (1-0) vs. Clutch Gaming (1-0)
Clutch, I expected to be in this position, even though I thought their game against Echo Fox could have gone either way. Top to bottom, the team performed solidly and kept the gold lead throughout the game. It’s hard to leave yesterday’s performance feeling anything other than impressed by Clutch.
However, TSM shocked the heck out of me yesterday with their takedown of 100 Thieves. Not only did they defeat a team stronger than Clutch’s first opponent, but they really didn’t appear to have any glaring gaps other than falling behind in gold early. But once they got control of the game, they played out of their minds.
Zven returned to OG Niels form with a monster game on Ezreal. Rookie BrokenBlade won even in a losing lane, Akaadian was playing some high tempo jungler, Bjergsen had a ton of clutch Zilean ults, and Smoothie had a sick engage on Alistar to close out the final fight. Clutch impressed me, but TSM was more impressive, against a harder opponent, so it’s tough to pick against them.
Prediction: TSM
Next. Top five junglers in the LCS. dark
What do you think of these LCS predictions for day two? Do you have any different LCS predictions for today’s matches? Let us know in the comments!