2019 NALCS Week Five Recap

S. Samek

Five weeks down, and the quest for the playoffs is moving forward. Lets see how the start of the second half went for each team.

Cloud 9, Team Liquid and CLG sit atop the league standings at 7-3.

Cloud 9 went 2-0 with victories over Liquid and Clutch. This was even with Kumo, the sub top laner in for Licorice. They looked very convincing in both of these wins. I would sit them number one in my power rankings after five weeks.

CLG and Liquid I would have alternate the two and three ranking. While Liquid did lose to Cloud 9, which isn’t a bad loss. Just they took way too long to put down 100 Thieves. it took them 43 minutes to collect the victory. Not really a good sighn to not be able to dominate a team like in the past.

CLG had a similar story. The beat a good TSM, team while struggling to put away Clutch. I still feel like this team is for real,but needs just a bit of luck to contend for the split title.

Optic and TSM sit at 6-4. Both went 1-1 during week five action. TSM took care of 100 Thieves and fell to CLG, for the first time in 1,176 days. This isn’t entirely a bad thing, but I don’t think TSM is as close to the top three ranking as they were in the spring. Just kind of a suprising loss.but not a deal breaker for missing playoffs.

Optic beat Golden Guardians and lost to Flyquest. The loss to Flyquest was a 44 minute match,which might say that Flyquest isn’t as bad as their place in the standing. Optic pummeled Golden Guardians, which is probably a coinflip between the two as to who wins.

Speaking of Golden Guardians , they sit at 5-5. They lost to Optic and beat Echo Fox. This week was kind of a oh, nothing happened to really hurt our standings,but we didn’t really move up kind of week.

At 4-6 we have Clutch Gaming. They went 0-2 this week as expected against C9 and CLG.

100 Thieves and Flyquest are both 3-7. 100 Thieves went 0-2, while Flyquest went 2-0. Both teams are works in progress that can look good or really bad. These two are maybe long shots to make the playoffs, but being only two games out of the last spot the season isn’t over, yet.

Echo Fox sits last at 2-8 after a winless week. This team just looks out of it, but may just keep experimenting to try and find something. They sent Rush packing for MikeYeung to change things up this week. This isn’t really an improvement. In fact first game back on stage he went 0/4. Its just a mess of a roster and they are pretty close to having their playoff chances reach zero.

Should be an exciting second half of the year. Stay tuned.

2019 NALCS Summer Split Week Four recap

S. Samek

Here we go with the happenings for week four.

At 2-0 this week we have Team Liquid and 100 Thieves. Liquid is staring to rise the past two weeks sitting on a four game winning streak and first place heading into Rift Rivals week.

100 Thieves owns a three game winning streak and is playing much better with Ryu and Fakegod in the lineup. Yet they still sit in eighth place. However only being a game behind the two teams tied for sixth, it looks like things could be trending up for 100 Thieves.

0-2 records went to Golden Guardians and Flyquest this past week. Flyquest is tumbling down the mountain rapidly having lost five in a row. They don’t look good, escpially have a rough loss to Echo Fox.

The Guardians didn’t fare well against TSM and Liquid. They also have a three game losing streak going and look to be faltering.

The rest of the clump continued to split games. Clutch sits at 4-4 to match Golden Guardians. Optic, Cloud 9, TSM and CLG each have 5-3 records. They just beat each other up and sit in a clump. Echo Fox went 1-1 this week also ,but they sit at 2-6 and just a game out of last place. This was after they won a head to head against last place Flyquest.

Echo Fox isn’t gong to join the clump towards the playoffs, and should be trying to stay out of the basement.

Yet ,we need to see somehing from the top teams. There has to be a contender emerging to face Liquid for the summer split title. It is ripe for the taking too. Yes, Liquid is playing better, but they are stil beatable. Just a couple weeks of 2-0 instead of 1-1 could really go far in giving C9 or TSM a push for the number one seed and a shot at worlds via a title instead of the regional tournament.

CLG and Optic are pretty much trying to play spoiler at this point. They could sneak in and steal the title if underestimated. I thing its unlikely, but they shouldn’t be slept on. They are playoff contendures for sure.

Should be interesting to see what shakes out after the off week of Rift rivals. Check out EU vs. NA if your looking for LCS action this weekend.

2019 NALCS Summer Spilt Week one recap

S. Samek

Lets see what happened during week one.

C9, Optic and Golden Guardians had 2-0, undefeated weeks. C9 beating Flyquest and Clutch. Golden Guardians beat Echo Fox and Flyquest. Optic downed 100 Thieves and Clutch. C9 did what they were saposed to so no surprise on the 2-0 week. I don’t find the Golden Guardians at 2-0 a shock either. Optic is a bit of a surprise though. 1-1 would probably be the most probable record for them, based on their opponents for the week. I don’t think Optic continues this winning streak of undefeated weeks, but getting two wins in a week is always welcome.

CLG,TSM, Team Liquid and Echo Fox went 1-1 this week. Liquid losing to Echo Fox is a small upset, but I don’t think Liquid should be fearing for the split. Same with TSM. who lost the rematch from spring finals with Liquid. CLG performed as expected, by beating 100 Thieves and losing to TSM. Echo Fox could be sitting at 0-2, but by beating Liquid they have a nice bonus wins to work with.

100 Thieves, Flyquest and Clutch are left at the bottom at 0-2. Very surprised to see 100 Thieves here. Like I throught they should beat Optic. Flyquest in this postion isn’t a surprise as they lost to C9, a better team and Golden Guardians, who are as good if not better. Clutch could have beaten potentially beaten Optic, but maybe we going to move to Clutch being the worst team in the LCS.

Interesting first week with a couple of interesting stories possibly developing. Stay tuned to see what goes down.