LCS Playoffs Spring 2020: Previewing FlyQuest vs TSM

Los Angeles, California – February 8: — during 2020 LCS Spring Split at the LCS Arena on February 8, 2020 in Los Angeles, California, USA.. (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games) /

We preview the coming contest in the LCS playoffs between FlyQuest and TSM.

The losers bracket of the LCS playoffs continues on tomorrow. One of TSM or FlyQuest will advance and be one more win away from a trip to the LCS Spring Finals, while one will see their Spring Split abruptly end. We break down which team might be which.

FlyQuest (10-8)

FlyQuest got man-handled by Evil Geniuses in the first round of the winners bracket, falling in four games. In these games, FlyQuest’s weaknesses were fully exposed, especially in the top and bot lanes.

Omran “V1per” Shoura played in the first two games before being replaced by Colin “Solo” Earnest. Solo did play admirably in his two games, including lifting FlyQuest to a Game 3 win on the back of a 4/2/10 Sett game. In the bot lane, Jason “WildTurtle” Tran was uneven in his performances but was generally outclassed by EG’s Bang.

TSM (9-9)

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TSM managed to take down 100 Thieves in a back-and-forth five game series after falling behind 2-1 in the series before rattling off two-straight games. This series was highlighted by some good (mid laner Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg played out of his mind, especially in the last two games), some bad (the team’s macro past about 20 minutes), and some ugly (jungler Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett being way too aggressive and giving up bad deaths in a lot of fights).

Head-to-Head

In Week 4, the two teams had their first meeting, which FlyQuest ultimately won in a 48-minute clash. The game followed the trail of most TSM losses: they jumped out to an early lead and then threw that lead with horrible macro decisions as the game went on until they got outscaled by the enemy team’s Ornn.

In Week 7, TSM cleaned up FlyQuest, still riding the high after having taken down Cloud9 the day before. That was the game in which Bjergsen popped off massively on Irelia, going 7/0/5 in a 33-minute game.

Key Match-Up

While TSM likely has massive advantages in the top lane and bot lane, but are probably disadvantaged in the jungle matchup, the mid lane matchup is where FlyQuest will be looking to exploit. That may sound ridiculous for a match-up going against Bjergsen, but Tristan “PowerOfEvil” Schrage has been playing at an MVP-level for this Spring Split.

The two players basically own the similar champion pools, but both have also shown that those pools are incredibly deep. With an obvious advantage on the 2v2 mid/jungle synergy, I would expect FlyQuest to leverage this advantage as their primary win condition.

Prediction: TSM wins 3-2

TSM is, when they’re playing well, the clear better team, but FlyQuest has been the more consistent team. I would normally choose consistency over a team with the higher peak, but FlyQuest actually hasn’t been all that consistent in the back-half of the split.

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In particular, the dysfunction in FlyQuest’s top lane, with them going back and forth between Solo and V1per, has really hindered the team and caused them to lose six out of their final eight games. While I think that Solo has been the better player, FlyQuest is clearly not sold on him because they started V1per in two of the games against Evil Geniuses. Regardless of who they choose to play, I can’t say with confidence that they’d be able to take down TSM.

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