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League of Legends – LCS Week 4, Day 1 Predictions: This is Bang!

By Jack Coleman

GWANGJU, SOUTH KOREA - OCTOBER 28: Team Cloud9 of North America stand on the stage before the semifinal match of 2018 The League of Legends World Championship at Gwangju Women's University Universiade Gymnasium on October 28, 2018 in Gwangju, South Korea. (Photo by Woohae Cho/Getty Images)
GWANGJU, SOUTH KOREA - OCTOBER 28: Team Cloud9 of North America stand on the stage before the semifinal match of 2018 The League of Legends World Championship at Gwangju Women's University Universiade Gymnasium on October 28, 2018 in Gwangju, South Korea. (Photo by Woohae Cho/Getty Images) /
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LCS Week 4 is upon us and we’re still struggling to establish a clear power ranking. The only team that has a clear position in the league is Team Liquid who are undoubtedly on top with their undefeated 6-0 record. Perhaps this week will serve to dismantle the parity the LCS is currently undergoing?

LCS Week 4 is just about to start and the only constant right now is that Team Liquid wins every game. The league has become increasingly hard to predict as every team seems to be capable of beating every other team. Last week brought two big storylines, the first being the surprising 2-0 week for Golden Guardians, a team that hadn’t registered a single win before their matches against Optic and TSM.

The other storyline was the awakening of this 100 Thieves roster who had looked terrible despite the immense talent they had acquired. Two-time world champion Bae “Bang” Jun-sik had a particularly inspiring performance as he gave NA fans a taste of the skill which earned him his numerous trophies in Korea.

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With just two wins between Cloud 9 in second place and the four teams tied at the bottom, it’s a going to be a difficult task to succeed in all these predictions. We’re going to make firm statements about the outcomes of these matches so you don’t have to.

TSM vs. Optic Gaming

The opening match for LCS Week 4 is between two teams at the bottom of the standings. TSM is positioned there quite surprisingly, Optic is far more familiar with the league’s bottom positions than their opponents. Both teams are coming off a 0-2 week where they were both victimised by the explosive form of Henrik “Froggen” Hansen of the Golden Guardians.

Both of these teams have huge problems they need to iron out. TSM has a strong roster with a fantastic early game but it’s almost baffling how poor they are at pushing their lead to end games. Optic is a team of playmakers with very poor communication, their set-ups are stained by poor teleports and questionable flanks.

So how will they match up? Since TSM is a very good early game team I expect them to pull ahead due to the gank-heavy playstyle of jungler Matthew “Akaadian” Higginbotham. Teams like Cloud 9 are good enough to pull themselves together in the mid-game and out-team fight TSM but I don’t think Optic are capable of doing so due to how disjointed they look in their team play. Despite how prone TSM is to throwing leads, I think they should be able to keep the ship steady against Optic. TSM will pull ahead early and will be able to finish the game eventually.

Prediction: TSM

Golden Guardians vs. Team Liquid

Before last week this match would have been a clear-cut top vs bottom matchup, a real David versus Goliath. Though Golden Guardians are technically still tied bottom, they would be ranked a lot higher on the theoretical “form table” after winning both of their games last week. At the absolute top of the table would still be Team Liquid however who have been rampaging through their opposition in the LCS.

Team Liquid has been every bit as strong as they were initially predicted to be so far in the LCS. Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng and Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in look domestically unbeatable in the bottom lane and the acquisition of Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen in the middle lane has shored up a former weakness of the back-to-back LCS champions. Golden Guardians have assembled a very decent roster of players, almost everyone would agree it’s a step-up from the roster that finished dead last place on consecutive splits last season. Froggen was a force to be reckoned with last week but can he transfer this form onto a champion that isn’t Karthus?

Despite the vast improvements that Golden Guardians displayed last week, they won’t be able to compete with the raw skill of the league’s leaders. I expect a Team Liquid stomp where they play their min-max style and snowball the game to victory.

Prediction: Team Liquid

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