Team Liquid vs Team 8: By the Numbers

Recently, Team Liquid announced that they would be bringing Piglet back into the ADC role for Week 7.  The comments about the move were generally positive and optimistic--that although KEITH clearly had a better win record, Piglet would give them the extra push they'd need to be competitive at Worlds.  Game by game, though, the numbers tell a completely different story.

The only team fight that went the way of Team Liquid all game long.

Team 8 started off well, rotating to get their first dragon under 4 minutes.  They traded gold leads back and forth during the laning phase until 21 minutes, when Team 8 started to pull ahead.  For the rest of the game, Team Liquid wouldn't take down another tower, and would only secure baron--which turned into an Ace.

Piglet uses his rend to secure Baron.

1.  Piglet vs KEITH.  At the end of week 6, the two ADCs of Team Liquid played an equal amount of LCS games.  The difference between their effect on the team, though, was apparent--Piglet went 2 - 4 in his four games, losing to Gravity, Team Dignitas, Cloud 9, and Team SoloMid; and only securing wins over Team 8 and Team Coast.  On the other hand, KEITH has gone 5 - 1, losing to Winterfox, and securing wins against CLG twice, Team SoloMid, Team Impulse, and Gravity.  KEITH went 44/11/42 in his six games; Piglet went 14/13/24.

And that's all FeniX wrote.

2.  Porpoise8 has FeniX's number.  Of FeniX's 5 deaths, 4 were at the hands of Porpoise8.  Overall, FeniX had a rough game.  His damage potential painted a target on his forehead from the beginning--of all the carries on Team Liquid, FeniX had the most dangerous potential for unpredictable burst damage.  If he becomes the priority in team fights, though, some of that risk can be mitigated.

Slooshi8 mops up the kills at Dragon with a double Distortion.

3.  Don't underestimate Slooshi8.  Slooshi8 brought his A game to this match.  Although there were many things that didn't go Team Liquid's way, Slooshi8's mechanics were crisp throughout the whole game--it wouldn't be surprising if he gets some target bans for LeBlanc from here on out.

Quas thought being under a turret and at 3/4 of his health was a safe arrangement.  Silly Quas.

4.  Prevent Quas from carrying.  Quas likes to carry.  He can play a wide variety of top laners, but he prefers to take carry roles--and when he gets rolling, he gets dangerous. But, if you take him out of the equation (and with five deaths and the least KP on the team, his carry potential was effectively neutralized), Quas has a hard time getting back into the game.

FeniX keeps up the fight with Slooshi8, despite the fact that the rest of Team 8 is collapsing.

5.  General map awareness.  Wards were pretty even across the board, but more often than not Team Liquid gave up kills and objectives because they were a little late to react.  This is in contrast to their performance in the last few weeks, where they'd collapse quickly and move together as a unit.

Other interesting statistics:

• IWDominate did his best to help out, with 100% KP and the second most damage taken on Team Liquid, he was doing his best to make things happen for his team.

• Slooshi8 gave out 24.3k damage, about 6.8k more damage than Maplestreet8.  He also had the highest KP on his team at 80%.

• Team 8 ran their game like clockwork, securing at least one major objective every six minutes of the game.  They also took 4 virtually uncontested dragons, and a baron besides.  Dragon 5, though, proved to be the real breaking point.