League of Legends LCS preview: TSM vs. Clutch – the final gasp of TSM?

Jungle

Mingyi “Spica” Lu vs. Nam “LirA” Tae-yoo

LirA is, in my opinion, a massively underrated jungler. His KDA stats are, granted, quite unimpressive (his adjusted KDA is 1.93 and his adjusted KP is 95.9%) but one aspect of LirA’s game goes overlooked: vision.

LirA is unquestionably the best jungler in the LCS when it comes to vision control, posting a ridiculous 2.23 vision score per minute (VSPM), which is higher than some supports. He is also, generally, a fairly efficient early pather, averaging more gold at 10 minutes than Wiggily or Meteos and more XP at that time than Xmithie.

For TSM, their season-long search for a jungler, deciding between Akaadian and Grig led them to go with…neither. Instead, we got to see Spica get the call to play in some of the most important games of TSM’s season. The decision reminds me of the scene in Major League II, where Ricky Vaughn elects to walk the batter to load the bases so he can face his nemesis (and the other team’s best hitter) for the final out in a playoff game, prompting the befuddled announcer to say “clearly [the manager] is thinking…I don’t know what the hell he’s thinking.”

Now, Spica wasn’t terrible in his first two games of LCS action and he has been quite good in his time playing in Academy. The team has also brought up the Academy coach Peter Zhang, who has had a focus in early-game jungle pathing, to help Spica so potentially there is some synergy there. That said, they are putting all their eggs in the Spica basket and there was nothing in those first two games to indicate that he is significantly better than Grig or Akaadian were this split.

Advantage: Clutch