Hey, it turns out Team Liquid can win games in at least one Group Stage. After their win over Fnatic today on the second day of Rift Rivals, they’re now the only undefeated NA team in groups.
Since this is just a single round robin, the worst they can do at the end of groups is a 2-1 record, which means an NA team is going to close out a Group Stage with a positive record. What a time to be alive.
Now if only they could do it at an event that actually matters.
The game started off about as high-octane as it could. Liquid racked up two kills within the first two minutes of the game, Fnatic answered, and the blows were traded until the mid game was well underway. Despite Fnatic putting up a decent fight and pulling off some good plays in the face of Liquid’s aggression, they couldn’t quite match the rewards in gold and experience that Liquid were gaining.
So when mid game rolled around and the bigger teamfights began, Liquid’s power came out. That, and obviously Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng’s Kai’Sa. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it a million times again if we have to. If you want to beat Doublelift right now, you have to ban Kai’Sa.
There’s some irony buried in that, too. Fnatic is playing with one of their most iconic players, Martin “Rekkles” Larsson, benched. He’s their bot lane carry, and because they felt using Rekkles wasn’t possible in the current non-marksman meta, they subbed him out for the time being. Meanwhile, Liquid is proving that their iconic bot lane carry can still do the job just as easily on a marksman, as long as he has the right one. Fnatic could learn a lesson or two from that.
With Liquid’s win, NA is up on EU with three wins to two, but Liquid is the only NA team that hasn’t dropped a game, so it isn’t all in NA’s favor yet.
