Team Liquid and Evil Geniuses stumbled in their upper bracket run of the LCS Championship, leading to a series between them with a continued playoffs run on the line. And, the series not only determined who moves on in this competition, but who would be the final representative of the LCS at this year’s League of Legends World Championship.
After a full five games with major rewards at stake, EG kept their composure and locked their spot in both Chicago and Worlds. Despite being forced into the lower bracket by Cloud9, EG maintain the possibility to seek vengeance against them in the finals.
Following their five-series against TSM where they were almost eliminated from playoffs, EG entered the first draft phase with a focus on removing as many Liquid comfort picks as they could. EG built a lead from the early game by focusing on Bwipo, Liquid’s sole source of engage, leaving the remainder of the team defenseless and allowing them to storm Liquid’s nexus for their first win of the series.
The battle of two of the most dominant junglers in the LCS was once more the main focus of game two. For Santorin, the plan was to accumulate kills. But for Inspired, a focus on objectives proved more decisive.
These win conditions kept the two teams relatively even in gold for 30 minutes, making any late-game teamfights crucial for either team to emerge victorious.
Ultimately, these team fights went in the favor of Liquid, whose crowd control combination between nearly all of their members stuck EG in place. This handed Liquid their first win of the series, and prevented EG from running away with a sweep.
Across the map in game three, the members of EG continued to be caught out by Liquid, as if their communication had been thrown off following their loss in the previous game. Despite the lead exponentially increasing in Liquid’s favor, Danny’s Miss Fortune afforded EG time to regroup during and after large fights thanks to barrages of bullets from his ultimate. Yet, once Bjergsen’s Taliyah was in close enough range, one W caught Danny—and a number of his teammates—out of position, bringing Liquid to match point.
EG’s answer to try and prolong the series was to give Vulcan Bard and look for game-changing ultimates that could place multiple enemies in Stasis at once.
At multiple points of the game, Q stuns from Vulcan ensured that, even if they flashed, the members of Liquid could not escape. Before EG destroyed the enemy nexus, they rewarded Impact’s Gangplank with a Pentakill off even more stuns from Vulcan—and the veteran became the second top laner in LCS history to achieve the feat.
To start one final game that separated both teams from either elimination or a continued season, EG successfully turned around an extended chase from Liquid into their bot jungle to secure early map pressure.
This prompted both teams to opt for slower, safer progression in their lanes to avoid hectic fights that had defined the series up to that point.
Once the teamfights did ensue, however, both teams had opportunities to shine. But for the third game in a row for EG, Danny’s Miss Fortune had free reign to control fights as Inspired’s Poppy, Vulcan’s Rakan, and Impact’s Renekton kept the enemy team locked down. If Danny didn’t have enough damage to send the Liquid players back to their base, Jojopyun swooped in on Sylas to finish the job.
A mis-step from Danny was exactly what Liquid needed to get back into the game, earning them a Baron in the process.
While Liquid continued to focus heavily on a Flash-less Danny, the shields from the Mountain Soul proved too much for Liquid to overcome, giving them the Elder Dragon and Baron. With these oppressive buffs in tow, EG finally closed out the over-40-minute game to claim the series, 3-2.
EG are now the final team that will be representing the LCS at this year’s Worlds, alongside Cloud9 and 100 Thieves. The seeding of these three teams heading into the biggest international competition of the year will be determined at the LCS Championship finals next weekend in Chicago, Illinois.
Following the finals, the group draw show will take place to randomly place all of the League of Legends teams that have qualified for Worlds into four groups.
