League of Legends LCS predictions: Week 8, Day 2

On the last day of the second-to-last week of LCS play, who should be favored in today’s League of Legends matches?

Yesterday’s matches provided plenty of drama and intrigue in the LCS standings, with CLG winning, C9 losing, OpTic throwing their chance to leap into the driver’s seat, Golden Guardians taking the win over 100 Thieves, and TSM doing whatever the hell that was. Today’s League of Legends games promise to provide even more opportunities for upsets with match-ups between middle-of-the-pack teams like OpTic/Golden Guardians and TSM/100 Thieves. There’s also perhaps the biggest game of the split as C9 looks to rebound from yesterday’s loss facing Team Liquid.

Which teams are favored and which teams need to get themselves back on track (other than TSM)? Read on to see who should be favored in today’s games.

More from LCS

• EMENES retires following leave from Cloud9, cites military service
• EMENES Donezo Manifesto: Former Cloud9 Midlaner airs out grievances
• C9 Jojopyun: LCS superstar to Cloud9 after “a huge series of events”
• EG Sheiden reportedly staying on Evil Geniuses as starting jungler
• 2023 LCS Summer Split Awards – LCS All-Pro Team

OpTic (8-7) vs. Golden Guardians (7-8)

OpTic can all but assure themselves a playoff spot with a win, as they would have a two-game lead over Golden Guardians, Clutch, and 100 Thieves (regardless how the other two teams fare) with two games remaining. On the other hand, Golden Guardians are trying to fend off those other two teams for the sixth and final playoff spot.

Even though Golden Guardians won yesterday and OpTic lost, I’m feeling quite good about OpTic and how well they played against Team Liquid yesterday. The only problem I have with them is their match-up in the top lane; I fully expect Dhokla to get annihilated by Hauntzer.

Prediction: OpTic

TSM (9-5) vs. 100 Thieves (6-9)

This game is “do or die” for the Thieves, who can’t afford to lose another game and fall two games out of the final playoff spot going into the last week. Luckily for them, they’re playing a slumping TSM team who fell behind Echo Fox before coming back to botch the late game macro, nearly losing to the worst team in the LCS. It’s clear that whatever problems TSM has been dealing with over the past few weeks have not been solved.

If 100 Thieves are to win, they’ll need to do so as they have throughout their ascension, through bot lane. I do think that Bang/Aphromoo is a stronger duo than Zven/Smoothie, but a lot of that match-up could be determined by draft and jungle pressure.

Prediction: 100 Thieves