Overall Champion Popularity: NA LCS Spring Split 2015 [Infographic]

In the NA LCS Spring Split--92 games and 920 champion selections--we saw 70 champions played on the Rift (roughly 56% of the current champion pool).  Some were incredibly popular (Janna and Rek'sai headed the top of this list) and others were one shot wonders (as you'll see on the infographic).

From the looks of it, if you want to win on red side, you'll need to include Sejuani in your line up.

Look for more infographics in upcoming articles on teams' favorite picks, their highest win rate champions, and their greatest weaknesses.

• Counter Logic Gaming and Cloud 9 picked Nidalee the most--3 times each.

• Lissandra was banned in 58% of all games.  She appeared in 28% of games.  She appeared in either picks or bans in 86% of games.  Next behind her was Rek'sai, who was either picked or banned in 78% of games.

Cloud 9 vs Counter Logic Gaming: By the Numbers

It looks as though Sunday proved to be even more eventful than previously anticipated.

With their lost to Team Impulse, Counter Logic Gaming's 2nd place spot (and first round bye for the playoffs) was forced to a contested tiebreaker match against Cloud 9, who made it big this weekend by beating both Gravity and Team SoloMid.

And they came bringing the best game we've seen all season.

It was apparent that both teams had made preparations beforehand for this match.  Counter Logic Gaming took a fairly standard approach, except for a last pick Vayne.  Cloud 9, on the other hand, pulled out a few pocket picks that haven't seen a lot of play on the Rift.  Meteos took Zac (a standard for him from Season 3), Hai took Jarvan IV mid lane (which has only recently seen competitive play over in Korea), and Sneaky took Draven.

Early pressure paid off for Cloud 9.  They managed to secure first blood on ZionSpartan at 3:53, and managed to bring down their first tower 40 seconds later.  Although Counter Logic Gaming pushed back fairly aggressively with a dragon and four kills, the early gold lead and lane dominance meant Cloud 9 never lost the gold lead.

Counter Logic Gaming tried to answer Cloud 9's aggression with towers, but C9 traded them for objectives and positioning.  A few blunders on the side of CLG lead to a few deaths in the mid lane, and eventually a baron for C9.  Another botched engage at the mid lane inhibitor turret threw things squarely in C9's favor, and they used the momentum to square away the game nicely in under 28 minutes.

ZionSpartan solo kills Balls in the top lane.

1.  ZionSpartan has brought something powerful to Counter Logic Gaming.  In the past, CLG has been the Doublelift show.  In game after game, Doublelift would rise above and become that fantastic carry that rolled over opponents game after game.  With Aphromoo at his side, CLG's strategy seemed fairly straightforward: filter kills on down to Doublelift, get him rolling, protect him in the late game.  In Season 5, things have changed dramatically with the addition of Link and ZionSpartan.  Link has proven to be a great mid laner (even showing up Doublelift a bit with his Ezreal mid lane pick) and able to make plays in his own right.  ZionSpartan, on the other hand, is a beast of the top lane, and really adds pressure where CLG needed it.  In this game, ZionSpartan really was CLG's threat: he lead his team in kills, damage, and gold--despite the early ganks.

Jarvan IV in the midlane.  What will we see next?

2.  Mid lane Jarvan IV is going to be a thing.  Let's be honest with ourselves first: Hai contributed to team fights and dropped well place ultimates, but for a full damage Jarvan, he didn't really show up in a meaningful way that regularly.  In the end, he only dealt 6.3k damage to champions, and took the least amount of damage (8.1k) of his teammates.  However, mid lane Jarvan did what a lot of other mid lane picks struggle to do: keep down Lissandra.  Prior to this match, the mid lane Jarvan pick has only showed up in the Korean scene in Season 5, and to similar effect.  What makes Jarvan scary, though, is his presence--every player is forced to save their escape to get out of that arena.  While the jury is still out about Jarvan's damage, his presence is enough to scare CLG into passive play.

CLG spreads a little too thin and gets punished heavily for it.

3.  Make a mistake?  Expect to be punished for it.  CLG seemed to be turning things around after getting answering Cloud 9's push with a few early kills.  However, CLG lived up to their reputation and began to collapse under LCS pressure.  Although similar mistakes were made often throughout the Spring Split, Cloud 9 showed exactly what happens when the pressure is on--punishment, time and time again.

Draven secures that first kill and cashes in on Adoration.

4.  With Draven, all it takes is a kill.  From Champion Select, it became obvious that Cloud 9's team composition was centered around getting this Draven rolling--and with a champion who gets a substantial cash bonus on getting a kill, all it takes for Draven to become truly scary is one kill.  Sneaky managed to get that around 16 minutes.  His next back Sneaky picked up an Infinity Edge (2/3 items already completed) and a Youmuu's Ghostblade (1/2).  Immediately, he garnered an item spike that allowed him to absolutely melt champions before they'd have a chance to build much armor.  Those first two kills guaranteed the landslide that would lead to Cloud 9's victory.

The tower fight that ended it all.

5.  This is what International play will look like.  We've seen a wide variety of play over the course of the last nine (really ten) weeks on both sides of the pond.  We've seen the best of what SK Gaming has to offer (the 1-3-1 split push and FORG1VEN focused play is key), and the intricate positioning and skill of Team SoloMid (especially at IEM Katowice).  We've also seen a healthy dose of experimentation (Keane's Urgot, later picked up by Bjergsen) and strategies that never seemed to come to fruition (Team Coast in every game except that one against Winterfox).  What we haven't seen a lot of, though, is the sort of international play that will set the stage for Season 5 in this Mid Season Invitational.  We got a glimpse in the best of five between TSM and WE, but really the best example we have of a team absolutely dismantling another strong team was played here in the tiebreaker match to secure Cloud 9's 2nd place position.  Hopefully we'll see more of the same in these Bo5 to come.

Team Impulse vs Team Dignitas: By the Numbers

If things had played out differently, we could have seen a very different Dignitas earlier this season.

This match was a rather one sided affair.  Dignitas took the lead in the early game and didn't let go.  They were quick to rotate and collapse, forcing fights in their favor like we'd expect from Team Impulse.  Even XiaoWeiXiao fell behind in a lane heavily in his favor.

For Team Impulse, this was an unmitigated disaster.  Dignitas managed to get a few early kills, but nothing that would really put them that far ahead.  Instead of capitalizing on the unconventional jungle and the favorable lane match up, it seemed the pressure was too much to handle.  From 24 minutes on, Team Impulse had nothing to say about things.

Dignitas closed out the match just over 41 minutes, 16 kills to 5.  If we had seen a performance like this earlier in the Spring Split, instead of vying for 8th, Dignitas would have made it into the playoffs.

Impact is forced to farm under turrets and falls far behind in the early game.

1.  Minimize Impact's impact.  Even though Impact was able to contribute substantially to his team--he did the most damage on this team, after all--but when he resorted to using the Equalizer to wave clear, it became obvious Impact was falling far behind.  Between the unfavorable lane swap and a lack of mitigation, Impact fell behind early on and wasn't able to contribute as effectively as one would've hoped.

Shiphtur Shunpo's away from XiaoWeiXiao at the last moment.

2.  What happened to XiaoWeiXiao?  This was easily a favorable lane match up for XiaoWeiXiao.  Shiphtur has great mechanics, but LeBlanc is equipped with a kit that can explode Katarina.  It's clear that Shiphtur respected the LeBlanc early game, saving his trinket and Shunpo for the quick escape.  For fear of being punished for getting too close, most of Shiphtur's farm was done tentatively with an eye for an escape route.  In the end, though, Shiphtur really couldn't be stopped.  And XiaoWeiXiao?  0/3/0, with 10k damage to champions.  At least he beat Shiphtur with CS.

XiaoWeiXiao in and out for the dragon steal.

3.  That dragon steal, though.  If there was a moment that Impulse appeared to be about to turn it around, it was at that third dragon.  The gold lead was modestly in Dignitas's favor--about 1k--and XiaoWeiXiao was able to jump in and steal that dragon after Azingy preemptively used Smite.  Unfortunately that 6% wasn't enough to turn things around for Impulse.

Dignitas takes a fight near baron.  Incidentally, the fight started with a four man collapse on Gamsu.

4.  The damage game.  Most games are fairly close at the end of the game, with the winning team dealing slightly more damage than the opposing team.  This game, however, looked as though Impulse couldn't be bothered to do damage to Dignitas.  Overall, Dignitas did 24k more damage to Impulse than Impulse did back.  In terms of percentages, Dignitas did 150% more damage over the course of this match--over 1/3 of which came from CoreJJ.

Dignitas comes charging down the mid lane.

5.  Dignitas capitalizes on their lead.  When teams that traditionally haven't been doing very well in the Spring Split realize they have the advantage, it's as though a lightbulb turns on and an otherwise absent confidence and certainty reminds us all why they were LCS material to begin with.  After Dignitas lost their tier 2 mid tower but managed to secure dragon, that moment came for them.  Every two minutes from that point onward was another kill, another objective, or both.

Other interesting statistics:

• Azingy and KiWiKiD shared the brunt of the vision battle pretty equally, while Impulse relied fairly exclusively on Adrian.

• CoreJJ didn't just do a lot of damage to champions--he just flat out did a lot of damage.  In the end he'd done a total of 404.8k damage.  To put that in contrast, the next most damage was Apollo at 249.1k, followed by Shiphtur at 245.5k.

• Impact had the best kill participation at 80% (of 5 kills).  Three members of Dignitas had a 69% KP, though--Gamsu, Shiphtur, and CoreJJ.  

Week 9: Predictions for the NA LCS

Like the EU LCS, the NA LCS has promised to have a dynamite last weekend.  While the division between 1-7 and 8-10 has already solidified (the only thing we have up for grabs is who takes 8th and who takes 9th), the top 7 spots are all within a few wins, with every position viable for a contest.  Who will actually secure the first place spot?  Who will fall out of the LCS?

Full Schedule:

Saturday:

12:00 PM PST - Gravity (9 - 7) vs Cloud 9 (10 - 6)
Prediction: Cloud 9.  This is a toss up match.  Gravity has proven they have what it takes to take down teams with better records, but Cloud 9 is trying to defend a 3rd seed spot against Team Impulse and the rest of the group just beneath them.  Although the match could still go either way, expect this match to be a lot like the Team 8 vs Cloud 9 match last week, but with Cloud 9 turning to screws to close out the game.

1:00 PM PST - Team 8 (9 - 7) vs Counter Logic Gaming (11 - 5)
Prediction: Counter Logic Gaming.  Team 8 beat Cloud 9 by the skin of their teeth last week.  While Counter Logic Gaming has had a little bit of the same fizzle as last year, they still have an impressive squad and many favorable match ups.  Although it's sort of a toss up, be prepared for Counter Logic Gaming to bring one of their best games all split.

2:00 PM PST - Winterfox (5 - 11) vs Team Liquid (8 - 8)
Prediction: Team Liquid.  With so much winding down and with a relatively easy week, Team Liquid had better pull off wins against the 8th and 9th slots.  Although Winterfox did win their last encounter, it was in response to an unfortunate team fight that went the way of Winterfox.  Team Liquid should have what it takes to pull off a win this week with so much riding on the line.

3:00 PM PST - Team Coast (1 -15) vs Team SoloMid (12 - 4)
Prediction: Team SoloMid.  With Team Coast so far out of the running, expect them to pull out weird picks and experimental team compositions--but, as we saw from Team SoloMid vs Gravity last week, TSM might do well against the meta but is thrown off by outside picks.

4:00 PM PST - Team Impulse (10 - 6) vs Team Dignitas (5 - 11)
Prediction: Team Impulse.  Team Dignitas will have a rough time trying to lock down a win over Team Impulse--expect this match to go heavily one sided.  With a potential 2nd place spot on the line, Team Impulse will stop at nothing for a win here.

Sunday:

12:00 PM PST - Winterfox (5 - 11) vs Team Coast (1 - 15)
Prediction: Winterfox.  As before, Team Coast is facing relegation, and will probably do their best just to have a good game.  If there is a team they can beat, though, it'll be Winterfox.

1:00 PM PST - Cloud 9 (10 - 6) vs Team SoloMid (12 - 4)
Prediction: Team SoloMid.  If IEM Katowice taught us anything, it's that when TSM and C9 and put under a lot of pressure (like seeding in the NA LCS Playoffs), TSM turns up the pressure while C9 fizzles a bit.  While TSM frankly got a bye on Saturday, they'll need to pull out all the stops to secure their 1st place spot against CLG this game.  This is also the only game they've really had to prepare for this weekend, while Cloud 9 is facing two difficult opponents.

2:00 PM PST - Team Dignitas (5 - 11) vs Team Liquid (8 - 8)
Prediction: Team Liquid.  Again, Team Liquid has been given a fairly easy schedule this weekend.  This could work out well in their favor--if things go as predicted, they will end in a three way tie for 5th--but there is a chance that a determined Team Dignitas will pull out a win to secure 8th place and the chance to pick their CS opponent.

3:00 PM PST - Gravity (9 - 7) vs Team 8 (9 - 7)
Prediction: Team 8.  Like the Unicorns of Love and Gambit match up on Thursday, this match has a lot riding on it.  For both teams, they will have prepared extensively for this match.  However, in a head to head there's a lot of promise in Team 8's teamwork, which might be just enough to pull off the win over Gravity.

4:00 PM PST - Counter Logic Gaming (11 - 5) vs Team Impulse (10 - 6)
Prediction: Counter Logic Gaming.  Team Impulse will be fighting for this match tooth and nail because they'll have a shot at the 2nd place spot, but be prepared to see the very best Counter Logic Gaming has to offer as they defend their spot against the rest of the pack.

Giants vs Elements: By the Numbers

There’s a lot riding on this week.

Both Elements and Giants were invested in the win here.  In order to have a chance at securing the 7th place (and safe) spot, Elements would need to win this match (since the odds of winning the match against Fnatic today doesn’t look too optimistic), while the Giants need to win a match to save themselves from relegation—and this was their match to do it.

As could be expected of a team that has so many members who have competed internationally, Elements built an early lead with a 2:34 1st blood (Krepo kills Fr3deric) and a few kills in the mid lane.  Elements began to steadily take down Giant towers, while the Giants continued to slip farther and farther behind.  After the constant pressure on the mid lane, PePiiNeRO was forced time and time again to use his ultimate to escape ganks.  Things were looking to be solidly in favor of Elements.

Except they had such a struggle closing out the game.  They got through their first inhibitor just after 28 minutes, and through their second around 32 minutes.  With so much pressure on the base, a good application of pressure and solid awareness should have made this an easy win.  Instead, over confidence and a lack of respect for Giants led to 4 deaths and a base race that nearly cost Elements the game.

Rekkles prevents a repeat of their last encounter with well placed Chompers over the wall.

1.  Rekkles has regained some of his reputation.  Finally, we get to see some of his same game play that helped to bring down Samsung Blue back at Worlds a few months ago.  Even though his opening play was still on the passive side, he proved to be a force to be reckoned with on that Jinx.  Over the course of the game, he managed to do 27.2k damage--nearly 11k more than his next teammate--and had a 9.5 KDA and 76% KP besides.  Although they'll be hard pressed to win against Fnatic, it would be nice to see a similar caliber of game play today.

Krepo takes down Fr3deric at blue buff.

2.  The jungle isn't safe.  This isn't the first time that we've seen the early jungle gank.  It is, however, the first time that we've seen the support solo kill the jungle.  That's part of the risk of this new jungle--you go dangerously low so often in the first clear that a good guess can sometimes secure a kill.  To be fair, Krepo only had to do a little over 150 damage to get the kill (which he managed only by using his hook, flay, ignite, and autos) since the jungle had done the rest of the work, but it really gives a lot more sway to the top/jungle roam strategy that was so common at the end of season 4.

Froggen cleans up after a team fight at mid lane.

3.  Froggen.  Parts of this game could have been deemed the highlight reel of Froggen's mechanics.  Especially in the early game, Froggen was doing everything right.  He was everywhere he needed to be, and then--he disappeared.  He was still there in the team fights, still picking up kills, but it was as though he decided to hand the reins over to Rekkles.  By the end of the game, he had only earned 13.5k gold (4.4k behind PePiiNeRO and nearly 5k behind Rekkles) and had only 219 CS (an average of 5.9 CS per minute).

Shook turns back to get PePiiNeRO, and exposes the rest of his team to some punishment from the Giants.

4.  Over confidence.  Perhaps this is as a result of so much professional play, but there's a lot of over confidence in Elements' play style.  It's as though they're all caught up in the potential strength of their team that they forget how to concisely close out games as a team.  Missteps and over confidence is what gave Giants the opening to almost steal the game--if Elements want to make it into the Summer Playoffs (since they'll be hard pressed to get 6th), they'll need to put egos and reputation behind them, and instead move forward as a unit.

PePiiNeRO nearly wins the base race.

5.  The Spanish mid laner.  Spain has a propensity for turning out great mid laners.  Much like xPeke, PePiiNeRO has had a solid performance in the mid lane.  Unfortunately, Giants have bigger overarching problems that they'll need to sort out before they can expect to land a spot in the LCS playoffs, but PePiiNeRO is the type of player we can expect to see more of in the future.  He's also accrued a reputation for himself among the EU teams--enough that if they don't focus on the mid lane early in the game, they'll have the pay the consequences later.  After all, 4 members of Elements had 1 tower and 1 inhibitor to work through to get to the Nexus--PePiiNeRO had 4 towers and an inhibitor and nearly beat them to it.

Other interesting statistics:

• Shook placed more wards than Krepo (34 to 31), and Rydle placed more than either (37).

• If Elements had been able to close out the game when they intended, they would have won 11 towers to 5; instead, they finished the game 10-8.

• Elements had a gold lead over their counter parts in every match up except mid lane, where even though Froggen had a 9/4/6 KDA, he was 4.4k behind PePiiNeRO (6/5/6) in gold.  Most of that could be accounted for with the 152 CS difference.

Week 9: Predictions for the EU LCS

The last week of the European LCS is sure to provide a lot of upsets.  While there's a fair bit of predictability to the NA LCS, EU seems to be all across the map.Although first place is secured (assuming that SK Gaming can manage to beat Meet Your Makers today), most everything else is up for grabs.  Who will get the guaranteed semi-finals spot--H2K or Fnatic?  Who will be able to secure 4th place to themselves--Unicorns of Love or Gambit?  Can Copenhagen Wolves secure the 6th place spot and go to the playoffs, or can Elements or ROCCAT take their place?  And who will be relegated back to the Challenger Series--Meet Your Makers or Giants?

Games to Watch:

With so much relying on victories this weekend, we've broken the games down into categories.

Survival.  These two teams need to do whatever they can to stay in the LCS.

1.  Giants vs Elements.  Between the Giants' two games this weekend, this is the one they are slightly more likely to win.  However, Elements are in the running with ROCCAT to possibly secure a 6th place spot in the place of the Copenhagen Wolves (assuming the Wolves have a really bad weekend)--or at least the 7th place safe spot.  Can the Giants save themselves from relegation?

2. Meet Your Makers vs ROCCAT.  After their win over Gambit last week, Meet Your Makers proved that they would do what it took to stay inside the LCS.  Unfortunately for them, they also faced H2K that week, and have now entered a two way tie for 9th place.  Like Elements, though, ROCCAT is in the running for 7th place (and perhaps even 6th).  Will Meet Your Makers prove that a horrible start is not enough to get eliminated?

Playoffs.  This match will effectively decide if the Copenhagen Wolves secure the 6th place spot and compete in the EU Playoffs.

1.  Copenhagen Wolves vs ROCCAT.  The Copenhagen Wolves haven't had an exceptionally strong season, but they've managed to secure a few wins over stronger teams.  Can they fend off ROCCAT for one game to defend their spot, or will we see ourselves in a possible tie for 6th place?

Seed Deciders.  These two sets of teams have a lot riding on these games to determine their placement in the Playoffs.

1.  H2K vs Fnatic.  The winner of this game will most likely secure the second place spot, and ensure they will go to the semi-finals.  H2K has had a meteoric rise over the last few weeks and has proven that they are contenders in EU, while Fnatic has shown that despite roster changes they can still be one of the strongest teams in Europe.  Will H2K be able to oust Fnatic for that second place spot, or will Fnatic take it back?

2.  Unicorns of Love vs Gambit.  Both of these teams have seen ups and downs throughout the season.  Both are known for bringing unique champions to the table.  Both are known for their off games and misplays.  Which team will step up and claim 4th place?

Full Schedule and Predictions:

Thursday:

10:00 AM PST – Copenhagen Wolves (7 – 9) vs ROCCAT (6 – 10)

Last Match: Copenhagen Wolves.  9 - 4 towers, 17 - 7 kills.  Match time: 42:17.  Week 5.

Prediction: Copenhagen Wolves.  The Wolves may have their next match tied up pretty well in their favor, but ROCCAT feels the same way about their next match as well.  A win for ROCCAT means the 6th place spot will fall to a tie breaker.  Despite the intensity that we can expect to see from ROCCAT, the Copenhagen Wolves have a better chance of weathering the storm and securing their 6th place spot.

11:00 AM PST – H2K (11 – 5) vs Fnatic (11 – 5)

Last Match: Fnatic.  3 - 11 towers, 6 - 21 kills.  Match time: 33:38.  Week 2.

Prediction: Fnatic.  H2K has two difficult matches this week: Fnatic and Unicorns of Love.  They'll probably spend much more time preparing for this match, since it is the tie-breaker for second place--but Fnatic really only has Elements to worry about after this, and will have no doubt put in a lot of extra preparation for this match.  Elements also managed to take down H2K last week, which doesn't bode well for the 2nd place contender.  When all is said and done, Fnatic is the stronger team, and will most likely take the match.

12:00 PM PST – SK Gaming (13 – 3) vs Meet Your Makers (4 – 12)

Last Match: SK Gaming.  8 - 4 towers, 10 - 9 kills.  Match time: 37:40.  Week 2.

Prediction: SK Gaming.  Although Meet Your Makers are fighting to stave off relegation, pulling off a win over SK Gaming at this point would be nothing short of a miracle.

1:00 PM PST – Giants (4 – 12) vs Elements (6 – 10)

Last Match: Giants.  8 - 7 towers, 10 - 22 kills.  Match time: 42:08.  Week 5.

Prediction: Elements.  Last week's win over H2K seemed to tell the story that Elements are finally pulling together as a team.  With the Giants not having much of an impact in the latter half of this season, Elements have a good chance of taking this game.

2:00 PM PST – Unicorns of Love (9 – 7) vs Gambit (9 – 7)

Last Match: Unicorns of Love.  9 - 2 towers, 18 - 7 kills.  Match time: 26:17.  Week 2.

Prediction:  Unicorns of Love.  There are a lot of similarities between these two teams: inventive junglers, solid top laners, aggressive mid laners, and a fairly consistent bot lane.  Hopefully we'll see some truly off the wall picks this match.  Between the two, though, Unicorns of Love are coming into this week looking like the better team.

Friday:

10:00 AM PST – Copenhagen Wolves (7 – 9) vs Giants (4 – 12)

Last Match: Giants.  1 - 9 towers, 5 - 18 kills.  Match time: 37:30.  Week 2.

Prediction: Copenhagen Wolves.  The Wolves need to win both matches to feel secure about their 6th place spot.  Between their two matches this weekend, they have much better odds of winning this one.  The Giants, on the other hand, will no doubt bring their best game in order to prevent relegation.  However, once the Giants had played enough games to reveal their LCS playbook, they've had a hard time competing on the big stage.  As long as Copenhagen Wolves remember to ban Jax, they should fare fine.

11:00 AM PST – Fnatic (11 – 5) vs Elements (6 – 10)

Last Match: Fnatic.  11 - 3 towers, 27 - 11 kills.  Match time: 35:02.  Week 2.

Prediction: Fnatic.  Elements had a pretty solid victory over H2K last Thursday, but Fnatic is another beast all together.  When they last faced off, Fnatic had a very convincing win--one that no doubt left Rekkles wishing he'd kept his spot--that set the tone for both teams this Spring Split.  Elements will be very hard pressed to win this match up.

12:00 PM PST – Gambit (9 – 7) vs SK Gaming (13 – 3)

Last Match:  SK Gaming.  2 - 9 towers, 5 - 15 kills.  Match time: 37:57.  Week 3.

Prediction: SK Gaming.  SK Gaming seems to have found their stride again.  Although they are wonderfully predictable, they are also wonderfully efficient with their 1-3-1 split push play style.  Gambit has an outside chance of pulling off a victory a la mode of Fnatic.  SK, though, didn't have as much to prepare for this weekend--they will have focused most of their efforts on this game.

1:00 PM PST – Meet Your Makers (4 – 12) vs ROCCAT (6 – 10)

Last Match: ROCCAT.  3 - 10 towers, 8 - 15 kills.  Match time: 44:21.  Week 4.

Prediction:  Meet Your Makers.  Albeit this is an outside chance, of the two teams most likely to break the 9th place tie with a victory this weekend, it is Meet Your Makers.  After last week's game against Gambit, Meet Your Makers proved that they were not done with the EU LCS.  ROCCAT will also be focusing a lot of their efforts on the Wolves game, and might not adequately prepare for MYM.

2:00 PM PST – H2K (11 – 5) vs Unicorns of Love (9 – 7)

Last Match: H2K.  10 - 4 towers, 20 - 10 kills.  Match time: 40:55.  Week 5.

Prediction: Unicorns of Love.  H2K still come in as the more solid team into this match up, but the Unicorns have an uncanny ability to pull off victories against stronger teams.  In the same grain of their victory over Fnatic (which, incidentally, made them the only team to have beaten Fnatic twice), we can expect a lot out of these Unicorns in the last match of the regular season.

NA Champion Select: Pick and Ban Order [Infographic]

Recently, we dove into Champion Select for the North American LCS and analyzed First Picks, Counter Picks, Winning Team Compositions, and Bans.  Today, we've expanded that scope to look at Pick and Ban order by win rates.

Many matches are won and lost in Champion Select.  Each locked in champion reveals a piece of that team's strategy.  If a team isn't careful, they can give away too much information about their strategy with enough picks left to do something about it.  Here are the most successful picks and bans (in the order they were picked) in the NA LCS.

Apparently, if you want to win on blue side, first ban Irelia and first pick Maokai.

Look for more statistics later this week about each team's favorite picks, highest win rate champions, and greatest weaknesses.

A few interesting statistics:

• Cloud 9 has chosen Maokai 1st pick blue the most (2 times).

• Of those blue first ban Irelias, 5 have been against Team 8.

• Of the red second ban Morganas, 3 have been against Team Liquid.

Team 8 vs Cloud 9: By the Numbers

For 82% of the fan vote, the way this game turned out was a surprise.  Even though we're used to seeing a little bit of shuffling around and middle-of-the-pack teams taking victories off of top tier teams (Team SoloMid vs Gravity, for example), the fact of the matter is that no one really saw Team 8 coming.

Although, their record is of note--they took down Team SoloMid in Week 1, and the last few weeks they've done rather well in their matchups.  Even when they lose they're looking like a better team than they were in Weeks 2 and 3, when it appeared they would need to struggle just to stay relevant.  Now, they're looking like they could make an impact on the Spring Playoffs.

For the vast majority of the game, the gold difference was in favor of Cloud 9--for as much as 8k gold at around 31 minutes.  Cloud 9 was reliably securing objectives, taking three dragons, a baron, and all tier 2 towers by 31 minutes.  Team 8 had been forced on the defensive from about 20 minutes on, only taking down three Cloud 9 turrets by the same point.  It looked like it would be a classic Cloud 9 game--out rotate, collapse quickly for the team fight, and ultimately allow the pressure to build enough so that the base would crack.  Cloud 9 even managed to apply enough pressure that the Team 8 top inhibitor tower and inhibitor fell around 34 minutes.

It all changed at the second baron.

With the pressure that they already had on the base, it seems in retrospect a misallocation of resources to go after baron.  Team 8 had only taken down one tier 2 tower at that point, and at most could break through the mid inhibitor before baron buff would wear off.  With super minions coming from the top and all the lanes pushing in favor of Cloud 9, there would be a limit to the amount of pressure Team 8 could apply.  Regardless, someone thought it would be a good idea to stop backing despite their low health bars and contest the baron.

Cloud 9 decides not to recall, but to contest the baron.

The mistake resulted in an Ace, and the gold difference shrinking from nearly 9k to a little less than 4k.  Cloud 9 still had the advantage at that point, but it seemed like the turn around at baron threw them off.  They did manage to collapse the top inhibitor again and pick up a dragon between that baron fight and the end of the game, but Team 8 started calling the shots from the baron fight onward.

Slooshi8 prevents Meteos from recalling.

Another catastrophic team fight at 44 minutes forced Cloud 9 into a corner where they were unable to recall safely, and effectively cost Cloud 9 the game.

The baron fight that went so wrong for Cloud 9.

1.  The shot calling.  There were some really good calls made by Cloud 9 at the beginning of the game--the out rotation that cost Team 8 four turrets in as many minutes was downright mechanical in precision.  It's unfortunate, though, that the incredible rotations won't be the highlight of this game, but instead the miscalls to contest baron and the misplays at the end of the game.  Cloud 9 had a comfortable lead, and could have closed out the game with some steady pressure, but the bad call led to an Ace and eventually the Team 8 victory.  On the other hand, Team 8 struggled with their shot calling throughout the first 2/3 of the game, but brought it back at the perfect moment with the baron rush.

Maplestreet takes his 8th straight kill.

2.  Maplestreet8 on Graves.  Even though things didn't go well for his teammates, Maplestreet8 had an exceptional game.  Overall he did 48.1k damage to champions (CaliTrlolz8 was next on his team with 38.4k), 9 kills, 6 assists and only 1 death.  The whole team can be thanked for his success, though, because so much of their composition hinged around keeping him safe.  When all was said and done, he took 27.3k damage--about half that of either Porpoise8's or CaliTrlolz8's damage.

CaliTrlolz8 and Porpoise8 effectively split up Cloud 9, allowing them to turn the fight around.

3.  CaliTrlolz8 has the top lane figured out.  The truth is in the gold differential between CaliTrlolz8 and Balls at the end of the game: 18.7k to 15.8k.  Both top laners served similar purposes--a tanky peel that could apply positioning pressure and lock down targets as necessary.  In that regard, they both did well--CaliTrlolz8 took 56.1k damage to Balls' 53.8k (which was nearly 14k more damage than Meteos and over 20k more than LemonNation).  CaliTrlolz8 brought his tankiness to bear in the team fights, but was also able to wave clear and split push as necessary.  He was also able to do all this on Vladimir, who hasn't seen much professional play since Season 2.

Baron  goes down for Team 8.

4.  Baron buff.  What is surprising about this match is how baron buff was used.  Typically, when a team takes baron, they take down a tower within a few minutes.  In this match, though, neither team used the baron buff to take a tower.  In fact, both teams used the baron buff to establish enough dominance that they could get another dragon.  Baron buff grants a buff to AD/AP (up to 40, scaling with game time).  It also gives players a faster recall and a movement speed boost upon returning to the fountain.  Minions receive a number of benefits, including reduced damage from Area of Effect spells and abilities, increased range (especially for cannon minions), and some damage buffs.  The buff lasts for 3 minutes.  In the long run, however, the benefits from Dragon 5 (Aspect of the Dragon) far outweigh the benefits one can receive from baron--12% increased ability power, a true damage burn, more damage to minions, towers, and monsters, and amplified movement speed afford a team more power in those 180 seconds.

Despite their great positioning, Cloud 9 lose this fight because they couldn't churn out the damage.

5.  Perhaps the double AD carry has met its stride.  The first time we saw the double AD composition it looked like this new team composition could pull off more wins pretty handily.  Now, though, in Week 8, we've seen our fair share of double AD carry--and it's frankly not looking very impressive any more.  It's nice that they usually have coordinated spikes, and that they are able to push down towers harder than most other carries, but the fact still remains that instead of one auto-attack reliant teammate, there are two.  In fact, the only real burst that Cloud 9 had to offer was Trinity Force combined with Corki abilities--which, although substantial, is much more predictable and less intimidating than a 100 to 0 nuke from more traditional mid lane picks.  It's a great composition for the team that plans to have a great deal of map control and pressure down objectives, but is lacking for the team that plans on diving in to team fights.

Other interesting statistics:

• Vision control is falling more and more under the wing of Junglers.  Porpoise8 dropped 55 wards to Dodo8's 52, and Meteos placed 47 to LemonNation's 48.

• Despite the loss, Sneaky earned the most gold (20k) and had the largest CS (429) in the match.

• Meteos and Hai had the best kill participation, at 89%.  Porpoise8 and Slooshi8 were right behind them, both with 81% KP.

Team SoloMid vs Gravity: By the Numbers

Week 8 has been an exciting week for outside picks--but there is outside (something like Nautilus support, where it's a rarity in competitive play, but still quite viable) and there is Urgot.

Now, he did get some buffs with patch 5.5.  His base shield was reduced, however it scales now with mana (+8% total mana, which equates to an additional 180 HP on his shield at level 18 with a maxed out muramana, or a little over 200 additional when the game ended).  The cooldown on his Ultimate also was reduced (to 120/100/80 from 120/110/100).

That said, it's still Urgot.

Zed takes a few shots at a dancing Urgot.

The game started out in TSM's favor.  Keane did manage to keep up pretty well with Bjergsen on CS, but he died twice (once because he was greedy, and once because his flash was down and Bjergsen called in a gank).  TSM was able to quickly capitalize on the misplays, and created a 4k gold lead around 17 minutes with the outer rim of towers down and 5 - 1 kills.
Around this point, three members of Gravity (Hauntzer, Saintvicious, and Keane) all started to build Frozen Hearts.  Since the vast majority of damage coming out of TSM would be physical damage, this would effectively frustrate whatever Bjergsen and WildTurtle could do.  This had immediate effect in a 4 - 1 team fight just right of the mid turret, where Gravity was able to catch TSM in a choke position.

TSM were running out of options to respond with.  That team fight nearly swung the gold deficit back to neutral, except now Gravity had the chunk of change it would require to build against further attack.  Towers started to fall one after another, and TSM couldn't respond.  After that 17 minute mark, TSM was only able to bring down one more tower (in response to Gravity taking baron).  With little effort, Gravity turned their attention the base and powered their way in through the mid tower and through TSM's base.

Bunny FuFuu's 4th hook that connected in less than a minute.

1.  Bunny FuFuu's Thresh.  There's a reason why he was picked as the most valuable player for NA Week 8--his hooks were on point.  Between the CD on his masteries and eventually the Glacial Shroud, Bunny FuFuu was able to toss out another hook every 8-9 seconds.  What made this especially impressive is that he managed to hook someone every time he wanted to.  There was a space where TSM was doing their best to defend a turret where Bunny FuFuu caught someone out time after time again, allowing his team to take a chunk of damage out of them.

It's hard to take down four tanks because they just won't die.  SPOILER: Gravity wins this fight.

2.  The patch of the tank.  Since Patch 5.5 went live, we've seen more tanks than ever.  Gravity decided early on that they wanted to run a tank heavy composition--aside from Cop's Corki, everyone on the team had enough damage mitigation that Bjergsen and WildTurtle--on two of their best champions--only took three kills a piece.  In fact, by the end of the game, Dyrus had done as much damage to champions as Bjergsen.  Apparently the tank comp is a real thing that teams will need to prepare for.

Cop secures a double kill at the top tier 2 tower.

3.  Cop, the unsung hero.  With an Urgot in the mid lane and a Thresh who never seems to miss a hook, a powerful AD carry can sometimes go unnoticed.  Cop did 33k damage over the course of the match--roughly 39% of all the damage Gravity did to TSM.  He, Hauntzer, and Saintvicious also had an impressive 94% Kill Participation in this match.

Dyrus gets caught out at his turret.

4.  Dyrus is back to having a rough time.  With a score like 0/6/0, Dyrus seems to be taking the brunt of the abuse.  It also goes to show that he's really not getting support from his teammates--of the 5 kills TSM got during the laning phase, 2 were in the mid lane and 3 were in the bot lane.  In the same time period, we see much more variety with Gravity--two towers, and dragon, a kill in the top lane, and a few close calls in the mid and bot lane.  When Dyrus is involved in regular play making, TSM does well--remember Dyrus's Equalizers in Game 1 of the Finals at IEM Katowice?  If Dyrus is involved from the beginning, he can turn the tide of games--but if he's left alone, he has a rough time catching up.

Keane uses his ult on WildTurtle to the latter's demise.

5.  Is Urgot really viable?  It's hard not to look at this match with rose colored glasses and say that Urgot might really be viable for competitive LCS play.  It should be noted, though, that this has been one of Keane's favorite solo queue picks for quite some time--to mixed results.  Urgot's viability is dependent on mid game spikes and a team composition that can help Urgot get a few kills.  It wouldn't be out of the question for Keane to bring out Urgot again (although the earliest we could expect it would be the Summer Split), but most teams probably won't invest a lot of resources in trying to prepare for the Urgot pick.

Other interesting statistics:

• Saintvicious was effectively the focal point of every team fight.  While he only died once, he took 34.8k damage--over 12k more than his next teammate (Hauntzer on Maokai).  He also incidentally took twice as much damage as Keane (17.1k), but had 3 fewer deaths.

• Saintvicious also warded more than Bunny FuFuu (39 wards to 29), and incidentally only dropped two fewer wards than Lustboy (41).

• Aside from Cop, every member of Gravity had built some sort of Armor item.  On the other side, Bjergsen had three armor penetration items (Brutalizer, Last Whisper, Youmuu's Ghostblade) and WildTurtle had one (Last Whisper)--but they barely ended up doing more damage than Dyrus with his magic damage.

Unicorns of Love vs Fnatic: By the Numbers

It's never over until the Unicorns say it's over.

Remember Team Liquid vs Team SoloMid back in Week 5, when TSM managed to beat back TL a few times, but then crumbled at a baron attempt?  The Unicorns did what TSM aspired to do.

Granted, TSM did face tougher odds.  Not that TL was a better team than Fnatic--TL would be comparable--but TSM had no more remaining towers in their base defense.  UOL, though, were coming back after losing 4 in a team fight, and barely saved their base with less than half it's health remaining.

Twice.

UOL has proven that neither gold nor kills secures a victory.  Fnatic spent 75% of the game with a 2k average gold lead over UOL.  They also maintained a significant kill lead over UOL the whole match.

UOL started the game with a little lead through the laning phase, but promptly lost it with three deaths and a tower.  Things started to look good for Fnatic; even though they lost the outer rim of turrets to UOL, they took down the Unicorn's mid tier 2 and kept finding UOL out of position.

The Unicorns carried on unabated, though, and pushed hard up the mid lane, exchanging for Fnatic's tier 2.  Fnatic was able to catch out PowerOfEvil (on Cassiopeia), but Vizicsacsi (on Yorick) had different plans.  Casting Omen of War on PowerOfEvil at the last second gave him enough time to deal massive damage to Fnatic.  4 fell in the ensuing battle, allowing the Unicorns to take a dragon and push the lanes up enough that the minions could take down another tower.  Fnatic was quick to respond, though, and took out three members of UOL before they could do much to respond.

After catching out a few of the Unicorns, Fnatic decided to start a baron attempt.  The Unicorns met them outside of the baron pit, and successfully beat them back--and secured the baron for themselves.  Fnatic was quick to punish them, and managed to secure two more kills.

With the baron buff, the Unicorns were able to crack into the base, and managed to bring down an inhibitor and a base turret.  Low HP bars, though, sent them on the retreat so they could regroup and get a dragon.

Fnatic, meanwhile, got the baron for themselves, and started to push hard up the mid lane.  It turned into quite a disadvantage for UOL in a team fight, and Fnatic was able to secure a 4 - 1 in the mid lane.  With the benefit of baron and a strong push, they were able to beat their way through the mid inhibitor turret, the middle inhibitor, both nexus towers, and over 90% of the Nexus health.

That is, until UOL respawned and as a last ditch effort managed to kill all members of Fnatic in their base.  For the time being, they had repelled the attack.  Since super minions were coming up the mid lane, UOL pushed back up the mid lane and took the fight back to Fnatic, taking down their middle inhibitor again.  They managed to bring down Fnatic one at a time, but not without casualties--so UOL backed off.  Realizing, though, that they had an opening, Fnatic pushed up the mid lane and brought the fight back to UOL's Nexus, this time taking it down to with an auto attack.

And Huni decided to auto Vardags.  This in turn cost him his life, and the trio of Vizicsacsi, Vardags, and Kikis pushed Fnatic back out of their base.  Again, the Unicorns pushed up the mid, and caught Fnatic just inside the base.

The fight didn't go particularly smooth for either side, both losing three.  UOL kept up the pressure, though, and managed to take down the Nexus turret and start auto-attacking the Nexus.  Steeelback and Huni did their best to repel the three remaining members of UOL, even bringing down Hylissang and taking huge chunks out of PowerOfEvil and Vardags.  Huni used Glacial Path to come in and catch both carries for massive damage, and PowerOfEvil unleashed on him, managing to bring down the Lissandra.  Now, everything rested on Steeelback--could he (with nearly full health) push off two carries with under half?  Vardags zoned his way around the Nexus, trying to keep himself away from any damage that Steeelback could dish out.  PowerOfEvil responded by unloading everything on Steeelback in the final moments, and finally took down the resilient AD carry while Vardags (with less than 100 health) brought down the Nexus.

Vardags finishes off the Fnatic Nexus.

Without a doubt, the most exciting game for the EU LCS all Spring Split.  Fnatic looked absolutely crushed as we watched the Nexus explode.  It should also be noted that Fnatic has never beaten UOL so far in the Spring Split.  Despite their awkward losses, the Unicorns have an odd way of keeping themselves always relevant.  Let's look at why this game turned out the way it did.

Huni falls behind on CS in the early game.

1.  Deny Huni farm.  Huni has proven to be the tide turner for Fnatic--while each player of Fnatic is solid, Huni's efforts seem to turn the tide in every game that Fnatic has won.  However, especially in the early game, Huni was marginalized and wasn't able to get rolling until the later game.  This offset allowed the Unicorns to take advantage of situations instead of playing tentatively around a fed Lissandra.

UOL gets collapsed upon in the top lane--but notice PowerOfEvil pushing up the mid.

2.  The Unicorns aren't afraid to play from behind.  This is not the only time we've seen the Unicorns win the game despite being behind in gold, kills, or both.  What makes them such an interesting team to watch is how every game is a learning experience.  They are not afraid to try something new and run with it even if looks like the odds are stacked against them.  Compare this to WE's performance in the finals at IEM--TSM only truly destroyed WE's Nexus twice.  Granted, the odds did look stacked against them, but most of this game the Unicorns looked like it was only a matter of time before Fnatic would win.

The Unicorns defend off a second base rush with precision.

3.  Communication.  The Unicorn's base defense shows an almost perfect execution of team coordination.  As Fnatic quickly pounded on the base, UOL didn't have time to make mistakes.  Instead, effective communication reigned.  With quick efficiency, the Unicorns dispatched high damage targets, zoned out potential threats, and demolished Fnatic.  Likewise, in their counter push, UOL was left with their carries alone with fairly low HP.  They were able to do what Fnatic could not--while Vardags pushed the Nexus, PowerOfEvil was able to peel for him and eliminate threats.  Their communication was a large part of the Unicorn's victory.

Cassiopeia comes back from the dead to help secure 4 kills.

4.  The Yorick and Cassiopeia combination shouldn't be underestimated.  We really only got to see its full effectiveness once, but when we did it was devastating.  What looked like a potential misplay by UOL was quickly turned around to a 4 for 2 trade, along with a tower and an inhibitor.  Although we're probably unlikely to see the combination again, it makes the Unicorns even more difficult to ban against.  They have so many successful pocket picks and strategies.  What can you ban? Vizicsacsi has such a diverse champion pool that a top lane ban is about as effective as using a fly swatter to drive off a bear.  Kikis can Jungle with just about anything.  We've seen PowerOfEvil effective on a wide swath of champions, and there's no truly effective way to ban out a bot lane that the Unicorns can't capitalize on.

Fnatic's base rush #1 ends with less than 200 Nexus HP.

5.  Never give up.  There have been dozens of games where a team has had as many members back at base, able to orchestrate the same sort of comeback that the Unicorns made--however, that sort of thing just doesn't seem to happen.  When Fnatic came charging into base the first time, with baron buff, and only Kikis to stall them, things looked pretty hopeless.  That wasn't enough to stop UOL, though.  Pulling off the defense was enough to give them the hope that they could do it again.  And that they did, to the same result.

Other interesting statistics:

• Vardags had a 1877 crit somewhere in that game.  His damage, though, was far behind PowerOfEvil's, who had 40k total damage to champions.

• Kikis actually placed more wards than Hylissang this match--41 to 36.  YellOwStaR had the most wards at 54.

• Despite being behind in gold the whole game, the Unicorns kept securing objectives about every two minutes.  Fnatic, on the other hand, secured their objectives in two frenzies--a 7 minute window between 9 and 16 minutes, and a 4 minute window between 29 and 33 minutes.

Week 8: Predictions for the NA LCS

Week 8 stands to be a very good week to watch games--we have a formidable three way tie for 5th place (which has a good chance at staying that way through the weekend); Team SoloMid has come back victorious through IEM (how will that affect their gameplay?); and Cloud 9 bottomed out in the second round of IEM.  Now that we're in the home stretch, we can expect to see a lot of noteworthy matches in the NA LCS.

Matches to Watch:

1.  Team SoloMid vs Counter Logic Gaming.  The rematch will prove to be a formidable one.  Last time, Counter Logic Gaming put up a really tough fight; this time around, Team SoloMid is just coming off of the IEM championship.  Has Team SoloMid found their stride?  Or will Counter Logic Gaming use all they could out of those IEM matches and find TSM's achilles' heel?

2.  Team 8 vs Cloud 9.  Of the three 5th place matchups against higher ranked teams (Team Liquid vs Cloud 9, Team SoloMid vs Gravity, and Team 8 vs Cloud 9), Team 8 and Cloud 9 look like they're bound to have the most heavily contested matchup.  Will Team 8 be able to pull ahead of the rest of the three way tie for 5th place, or will Cloud 9 rally after IEM and fend off Team Impulse and keep 3rd place?

3.  Team Impulse vs Winterfox.  Things have changed quite a bit since their last meeting in Week 4, when Winterfox pulled off a win over Team Impulse.  Will they be able to do the same again?  Or will Team Impulse be able to learn from their last match and take the win?

Full Schedule and Predictions:

Saturday:

12:00 PM - Team Coast (1 - 13) vs Team Impulse (8 - 6)
Last Match:  Team Impulse.  5 - 11 towers, 11 - 24 kills.  Match time: 39:40.  Week 4.
Prediction: Team Impulse.  With the end of the Spring Split drawing ever closer, it's more important than ever that Team Impulse secure every win they can.  Currently they're just below Cloud 9 in the number 4 position, and one win above the three way tie for 5th place; Team Impulse is in a prime position to contend for 3rd, but also needs to keep in mind the three teams that are working hard to pass them up.

1:00 PM - Team Liquid (7 -7) vs Cloud 9 (9 - 5)
Last Match: Cloud 9.  4 - 11 towers, 3 - 15 kills.  Match time: 37:00.  Week 2.
Prediction: Cloud 9.  In Week 7, before roster changes, Team Liquid was looking poised to vie for a 2nd or a 3rd place spot; now, as we're drawing to the end of the Spring Split, they're looking like the team to most likely fall to 7th of the three teams tied for 5th.

2:00 PM - Team SoloMid (11 - 3) vs Gravity (7 - 7)
Last Match: Team SoloMid.  11 - 3 towers, 25 - 17 kills.  Match time: 42:14.  Week 4.
Prediction: Team SoloMid.  Team SoloMid won IEM last week; compared to their international opponents, Gravity should be a fairly straightforward game.  Now it's up to TSM not to let their recent victories go too quickly to their heads so they don't give up their tentative lead over NA.

3:00 PM - Counter Logic Gaming (10 - 4) vs Team Dignitas (5 - 9)
Last Match:  Counter Logic Gaming.  11 - 2 towers, 14 - 5 kills.  Match time: 34:45.  Week 5.
Prediction: Counter Logic Gaming.  Team Dignitas is going to work harder to win this game than they have in prior games, but Counter Logic Gaming has a lot invested in securing their #2 spot just behind TSM.  Expect to see a lot more out of Team Dignitas, but eventually a CLG win.

4:00 PM - Winterfox (5 - 9) vs Team 8 (7 -7)
Last Match:  Team 8.  2 - 11 towers, 3 - 18 kills.  Match time: 30:17.  Week 3.
Prediction: Team 8.  Winterfox will bring their A game to the table to try to take a game off of their slightly easier match up this weekend, but Team 8 is in that delicate three way tie for 5th place, and will do whatever it takes to get ahead.


Sunday:

12:00 PM - Team Dignitas (5 - 9) vs Gravity (7 - 7)
Last Match:  Gravity.  2 - 11 towers, 4 - 5 kills.  Match time: 51:31.  Week 2.
Prediction: Gravity.  Like the Winterfox vs Team 8 game on Saturday, expect Team Dignitas to bring their A game to this matchup because it is their easier of two matchups this weekend.  However, in order to at least maintain a tie with the other teams vying for 5th place, they need to win one game this weekend.  This is that game that they're likely to win.

1:00 PM - Team SoloMid (11 - 3) vs Counter Logic Gaming (10 - 4)
Last Match: Team SoloMid.  9 - 6 towers, 20 - 15 kills.  Match time: 45:02.  Week 4.
Prediction: Team SoloMid.  This is a hard match to call.  The last time these two teams met, Counter Logic Gaming honestly looked better--and if not for a few unfortunate misplays, CLG would be at the top of the ladder.  Last weekend, though, TSM came off looking stronger than they have so far in the NA LCS.  If they take what they've learned from IEM back to NA, they should be able to take down CLG for a second time.

2:00 PM - Team 8 (7 - 7) vs Cloud 9 (9 - 5)
Last Match:  Cloud 9.  3 - 9 towers, 4 - 17 kills.  Match time: 34:27.  Week 3.
Prediction: Team 8.  Cloud 9 had a very hard time at IEM.  Between their two matches this week, Cloud 9 has a pretty good chance at winning their match against Team Liquid (since they're still disjointed with the roster changes), but will have a much more formidable time against Team 8.  Team 8 beat Team Liquid soundly last week, and even though they lost to Team SoloMid, they still put up a pretty good fight.  Between the setbacks at IEM and the momentum that Team 8 has, Cloud 9 will have a rough time in this matchup.

3:00 PM - Team Impulse (8 - 6) vs Winterfox (5 - 9)
Last Match:  Winterfox.  3 - 8 towers, 12 - 30 kills.  Match time: 41:36.  Week 4.
Prediction:  Team Impulse.  This week, Team Impulse has a chance to step up to a two-way tie for second place with Cloud 9.  The odds are definitely in their favor to take this game off of Winterfox.  Of their two matchups this weekend, Winterfox is far less likely to win this one.

4:00 PM - Team Coast (1 - 13) vs Team Liquid (7 - 7)
Last Match:  Team Liquid.  11 - 2 towers, 10 - 4 kills.  Match time: 42:22.  Week 3.
Prediction: Team Liquid.  Although Team Liquid has taken quite a hit in recent matches, with Piglet they did pull off a win against Team Coast last time.  They will probably do so again, and probably perpetuate a tie for 6th place with Gravity.

Gambit vs MeetYourMakers: By the Numbers

How much does breaking a winning streak affect a team like Gambit?  Apparently, a whole lot.

Granted, they have won a game since H2k broke their winning streak back in Week 7--against Giants.  Perhaps the results of IEM threw them off.  Or, perhaps Meet Your Makers has learned enough about other teams that they're able to capitalize off of the information they've gathered.

Either way, the game did not go as expected.

Initially, for the first 20 minutes of the game, things were pretty even.  This was no surprise for Gambit--they're a team that prefers to explode in the late game, and aren't afraid to let games go on for a while.  However, in the stall MYM picked up two dragons, and three kills.  Gambit still managed to net a tower just after 20 minutes (the first one in the game), but it would prove to be a drop in the bucket.

Pinoy almost gets kori, if it weren't for that Q shield.

At dragon #3, Meet Your Makers decided to turn on the pressure.  It was as though they'd taken a step back and realized that not only were they slightly ahead, but that Gambit was running out of options and they could call the shots.  From dragon 3 to the end of the game--18 minutes later--Meet Your Makers started to take an objective every two minutes.  By the last seven minutes, they were taking at least one objective every minute.

MYM banned out Sejuani and Rek'sai, forcing Diamond onto Hecarim.

1.  Ban out Diamond.  Diamond is a fantastic jungler who knows the ropes of all the typical jungle choices, but specializes in the junglers no one else uses.  Normally, a Sejuani ban would be almost laughable against any other team; however, along with a Rek'sai ban, it meant that Diamond would potentially fall back to another champion--maybe even one he hadn't brought to the LCS yet.  Although Hecarim was a great choice conceptually because of the mobility it would provide the team, trying to build a Trinity Force on a jungler meant it would take longer for him to be able to lay down the kind of damage they needed in fights.

Betsy could do so very little in the laning phase.

2.  Apply a lot of pressure to Betsy.  Even though Betsy and kori kept the lanes fairly even through the laning phase, Betsy's itemization was a little questionable (building a Morellonomicon before a Void Staff or a Abyssal Scepter).  In order to be really effective, Diana has to be in the middle of a fight.  In order to survive the middle of the fight (without the benefits of a Death Mark or some other way to become untargetable) one needs to have a little more survivability built up.  Whatever reason Betsy chose to rush Morellonomicon (perhaps for the Grievous Wounds passive to counteract anything Noxiak on Nami could do to save him, or for the cooldown reduction?), it made him a paper tiger in team fights.

Jwaow keeps three members of Gambit occupied.

3.  MYM's strong front line.  The glaring weakness of MYM's team composition was in their very squishy and immobile back line.  Nami would be somewhat helpful with her passive (Surging Tides, which slightly increases movement speed for 1.5 seconds), but the MYM back line was still quite vulnerable to a flank.  However, much like the Unicorns of Love game against Elements, the combination of Olaf and Maokai in the front line brought in the sort of tankiness and lock-down power MYM needed to respond to a threat at the back line.  Their effectiveness was also notably impressive, considering the fact that everyone on Gambit had the ability to get to the back line if they needed to.

MYM takes the fight before they secure dragon 3.

4.  Once you see an opening, don't give up the pressure.  The first twenty minutes of the game were notable in their lack of movement either way.  Even though MYM secured a few dragons and Gambit got a tower, the game stayed fairly even for quite a while.  What was impressive to watch, though, was what MYM did as soon as they found a crack in Gambit's game.  Dragon 3 and two kills for kori proved to be that opening.  It was hardly recognizable in terms of gold lead--the game went from even to a little under 1k in favor of MYM--but in terms of MYM's confidence and kori's ability to punish Gambit, the game swung solidly in favor of MYM.  With that edge, they were able to capitalize on every mistake from Gambit, and secure the win.

MYM gets their first tower at 26 minutes.

5.  MYM still has some kinks to iron out.  This game proved that MYM deserves to be competing at the LCS level, but it did still reveal some flaws that they'll need to work on if they want to continue to win.  It took a while for MrRalleZ to get his Trinity Force.  In general the team wasn't able to capitalize on item spikes as much as would be desired.  What's especially notable, though, was that it took MYM nearly 26 minutes to take down their first tower.  If MYM wants to pass ROCCAT and Giants, they will not only have to beat ROCCAT on Week 9 Day 2, but they will need to beat one of either H2k or SK gaming--both of which will take advantage of what MYM did not.

Other notable statistics:

• When Diamond gets into the mix, everyone goes crazy.  Diamond took 46.4k damage throughout the game--almost 3 times as much damage as his next teammate.

• Apparently, Kog'Maw needs to die once to start becoming effective.  MrRalleZ didn't die for the first 32 minutes of the game.  He also didn't get any kills until after he died for the first time--at which point he went on a godlike killing spree.

• HORO can shrug off a lot of damage on Olaf.  Olaf prefers to be damaged after all (his passive, after all, doesn't kick in until he starts feeling the heat), but HORO managed to take 34k without dying once.

• Despite contributing 1/3 of all Gambit's deaths, Diamond was involved for 100% of their 5 kills.  On the other end, Noxiak was involved in 90% of their 21 kills, and only contributed to 1/5 of MYM's deaths.