League of Legends LCS finals preview: How strong is the Liquid playoff buff?

The season history

TSM owned the season series against Liquid, beating them both times they faced off. Their first victory, of course, ended TL’s hopes for an undefeated season and proved to the rest of the LCS that the team was vulnerable after all.

At the time, however, most of that loss was shrugged off due to the perceived “troll” pick of putting TL top laner Jung “Impact” Eon-yeong on Yorick. He was promptly decimated by Broken Blade’s Jax, causing Liquid to watch helplessly as TSM destroyed their base.

The second meeting had nothing on the line, with TL already having clinched the first seed going into playoffs and TSM being locked into the third slot. However, Liquid was not only seeking revenge against TSM for that earlier defeat, but they were also trying to avoid losing their third game in a row, something that would have been inconceivable to suggest a month earlier.

But it was the same song, different chorus as Liquid once again fell to TSM, this time on the back of poor play from their bot lane. Zven went 4/0/6 compared to Doublelift’s 0/3/3 day, and TSM secured the win.

Incredibly, in Team Liquid’s back-to-back title defenses, they’ve never had to face down TSM. In the spring of 2018, TSM fell in a shocking upset to Clutch Gaming in the first round. In summer, it was Cloud9 who took down TSM in a five-game series before falling to Liquid in the finals. Thus, this will be the first time that Doublelift will be facing his former team in the playoffs, giving him even more motivation.

Despite these two regular-season losses, however, commenters have been quick to point out Team Liquid’s propensity to elevate their game come playoff time. During the previous three splits, TL had a 37-17 (.685 win percent) record in the regular season. In the playoffs, they have an 18-2 (.900 win percent) record.

But is that Liquid playoff buff enough to overcome their recent history against TSM? Let’s go through the matchups to see.