In a surprising turn of events, TSM’s academy roster looked very good during the first day of Lock in with a 1-1 record against FlyQuest and 100T. This team is refreshingly aggressive in the early game, which is led by jungler Hyper and mid laner Takeover. While the sample size is still relatively small with just 2 games played, Hyper is clearly the match that lights the fire under TSM as he finishes with 87% KP and 100% first blood participation. He’s a jungler that sacrifices individual cs leads in order to generate pressure in his lanes. TSM has shown that it can fight with the lower echelons of the LCS, and we’re happy to see this development roster do so well on the LCS stage.
Cloud9 also surprised us with a solid showing despite the Fudge role swap and 3 subs for the duration of lock in. Their drafts have been especially helpful for players like Fudge, who got to play Jayce and Viktor in his first two games as a mid laner. The meta allows for neutral matchups in the mid lane, while also giving junglers lots of room for playmaking in the form of Lee Sin and Xin Zhao. We can see the LS influence in the draft through interim head coach Max Waldo with counterpicks like Jayce and Ziggs into Corki and Aphelios. We don’t think C9 is a top 2 team at the moment, but they have certainly shown their ability to draft intelligently and play the map well enough to win games. On another note, Darshan’s itemization of Akshan into Ornn was puzzling to say the least, and we hope he loses less to Borris (the shopkeeper) in the future.
Prediction: TSM was able to topple FlyQuest, but we don’t think C9 will fall that easily. Our analysts predict this will be a closer game than people expect, with C9 winning out either through draft or better micro/macro play.