Hey there, I’m Tate (aka captenredbeard). As part of the ‘Rift Life’ NALCS blog series, I’ll be chatting about week 2 games. The landing page for this week’s issue can be found HERE
What happened in week 2?!
SPOILERS FOR WEEK 2 NA LCS AHEAD
So last week I made my predictions, and in general. I was right on most accounts. Let’s take a look.
So the ones I got wrong... I really was hoping C9 would take down FOX, because I like C9 a lot and I have to, otherwise @morganaleflaye might be upset, but in the end, they came up short. I mentioned 100 wasn’t ready to take down the power stacked TL... I was wrong. FLY giving up a game to OPT was just sad really, but oh well.
Not bad, only got 3 wrong out of 10. Hopefully, I can get em all for the games this weekend. Let’s go into a bit more on the more interesting games.
CG vs. CLG
This was a fun game to watch, mostly because of two players. Febiven and Lira. Febiven on his signature champion (Azir) completely dominates the competition, managing to get his first pentakill on the pro stage.
Later in an interview with Travis Gafford, Febiven showed his surprise at how badly CLG played. It’s pretty clear CLG disrespected CG and it cost them big.
No disrespect but I feel like CLG, this game was really trolling. I’ve never had so many free kills in my career.
- Febiven, 2018
It wasn’t just Febiven getting massively fed in this game. Lira was basically playing on the edge of a knife the whole game. Some really scary moments when he’d go in for a fight with little health and come out pulling the play off for his team.
TSM vs. OPT
I just wanted to make a small comment on this game. TSM...seriously, get your stuff together. This felt like a tough game for TSM. If they are struggling so much with bottom tier teams, their dreams of worlds are going to be crushed this year.
C9 vs FOX
Tough game for C9, they took bad fights throughout the whole game. Unfortunately the failures just piled up and never stopped. Svenskeren stalled out the game at one point with a clean steal of baron, and C9 stopped their base from going down once, but in the end they just couldn’t take down FOX here.
100 vs. TL
In what might be considered an upset...100 takes down TL. 100 really had great control of this game from the beginning and really never gave it up. TL just didnt have an answer to 100. As much as this is an important match because TL managed to drop a game, the game itself really wasnt too incredible. If you removed the nameplates and colors, you likely would have just guessed that the winning team was TL, and they were playing a clean game to defeat the newcomer 100. Put the nameplates back on and it’s really quite impressive for the new organization. Congrats 100 Thieves.
The rest of the games were pretty straightforward. C9 taking down 100 was no surprise to me. CLG finally picking up their first win. My final comment was how disappointing the CG/TL game was. Hakuho is known for his Morgana support, I feel like if theyd run morgana support...this game would have gone A LOT differently. Instead, they picked Braum and the game basically just was a snowball for TL getting ahead early and not making any mistakes along the way.
Tate’s Rates
All that being said, let’s look at week 3 and make some predictions.
My boys, Clutch Gaming, really tough week for them. I’m not sure they are going to come out on top for either of their games, but...I’m going to bet on them anyway. If they can take both, or either, of these games it’ll be a big catalyst to their season in my opinion.
FOX is on fire, and they have an easy week. If they don’t end up 6-0 at the end of the weekend...I’ll be extremely surprised.
Again, TSM might pull off a win against the lower tier team of GGS...but they’re just not playing on the level of 100, FOX, C9.
So my standings prediction from week 2 was also mostly correct. I forgot that teams wouldn’t actually resolve into single places though.
By next week I expect the top 5 (1st to 5th) to be TL, C9, FOX, 100, CG
After this week not a lot will change. FOX will stay on top. 100 and TL will maintain 2nd with C9 and CG fighting for 3rd/4th (likely C9 coming out on top).
Let me know if you agree, disagree, or don’t care.
