Week seven of the EU LCS began with the bottom teams in each group fighting to avoid relegation. Giants Gaming matched up against Team Vitality, who are both in fourth place in their groups, and each held a 1-6 match record coming into the game. The second series was a similar one, with Origen going head-to-head against Team ROCCAT, with both teams being in last place in their groups, each without a single match win before today.
Team Vitality (2-6) 2-1 Giants Gaming (1-7)
Despite a good early game start for Giants, Vitality was able to keep up in farm and keep the gold close going into the mid game. Na “NighT” Gun-woo on Ahri managed to hit some crucial charms, allowing Giants to expand their gold lead, but a few fights won by Vitality netted them some extra towers and got them ahead going into the late game. Vitality took down Baron while Giants grabbed a huge Elder Dragon, which gave them an increased buff thanks to the four dragons they got earlier in the game. After getting the mid lane inhibitor, Vitality went to siege the top lane, but this allowed Giants to find back-to-back fights, winning them the game.
Game two showed Giants grabbing a large gold lead and looking like they were in control to take the series. Unfortunately for Giants, a visual bug caused Erlend “Nukeduck” Våtevik Holm’s Orianna ball to not be visible to either team, resulting in a remake for game two. After a pretty even early game, Charly “Djoko” Guillard on Gragas was able to find the right opportunities to get Vitality a large mid-game lead. After winning a fight inside of Giants’ base, Vitality was able to close out the game before 30 minutes, bringing the series to a game three.
The beginning of game three was fairly dull until Vitality was able to catch out Jonas “Memento” Elmarghichi, with Djoko’s Gragas picking up first blood. With good vision control around Baron, Vitality was able to repeatedly pull in members of Giants one at a time, getting them up to a 5,000 gold lead. While Giants took down Baron, Vitality began to start the Elder Dragon. After finishing Baron, Giants tried to contest the dragon, losing four members, which allowed Vitality to run through their base and take the series.
Team ROCCAT (1-7) 2-1 Origen (0-8)
Throughout the early and mid game, Origen was able to repeatedly find picks onto Ambrož “Phaxi” Hren’s Jayce. Despite Origen being up six kills to none, as well as getting both dragons, ROCCAT was able to maintain the tower advantage and keep the gold even. Despite being able to pick up many Barons, Origen was unable to gain much ground as the game dragged on past the 60 minute mark. Finally, after obtaining a fifth Baron, Origen was able to find a pick in ROCCAT’s blue side jungle, and march through the base, ending the 77-minute game.
Game two showed a lot more action, as well as more parity in the early game. Both teams were able to make plays on different parts of the map. As the mid game came around, it seemed Origen was unable to find engages they wanted to take, allowing ROCCAT to take down the bottom lane inhibitor. While Origen was able to answer with some kills of their own throughout the game, they were never in a position to properly threaten ROCCAT’s base. After getting all three of the inhibitors in Origen’s base, ROCCAT was able to push through a Baron-buffed Origen to tie the series.
The final match of the series showed another very equal early game from the two teams. While ROCCAT was able to slowly build up a lead, Origen still found some kills of their own. Twenty-eight minutes into the game, Origen started a fight in ROCCAT’s jungle that was turned around on them. ROCCAT proceeded to pick up an ace along with their first Baron of the series. ROCCAT was able to close out a much quicker game than the previous two, as Origen was unable to defend their Baron siege.
What did you think of today’s matches? Let us know @GAMURScom, and follow us for more League of Legends content.
