This weekend’s best of five match-up between Team Impulse and Team Dignitas has ended in dismay for Team Dignitas. Team Impulse took the series in three games, leading in every way possible: kills, gold earned, minions killed, and average KDA. TIP will proceed onto the semifinals next weekend, while Team Dignitas will not.
Although I don’t have a whole lot of say in the matter because I’m (clearly) not a pro League player, I feel like a lot of their problem came from the bans. With the recent buffs, I’m really wondering why Team Dignitas failed to ban Elise at all. In many Challenger and Diamond level games I watch, Elise is an immediate ban. The spider lady has been making a comeback lately and Team Impulse’s Jungler, Rush, took advantage of the sheer amount of deeps she’s throwing out, playing her in each game. Although he only had one kill in the first game (6 assists), he finished the series off extremely strong with 7 kills and 8 assists.
Team Impulse had the better games. TIP’s ADC, Apollo, played Kog’Maw for a 13/3/12 KDA in Games 1 and 2, finishing off at 2/3/8 with Tristana in Game 3. Dignitas’ CoreJJ’s Game 1 Tristana and Game 2 Lucian just weren’t strong enough to win.
On the other hand, Team SoloMid won their best of five series against Gravity in four games today. TSM is my personal favorite, so I was excited to see the games, and I was not disappointed.
Gravity, it seems, had their bans down (but if they don’t ban for Bjerg, they’re making problems for themselves anyway). They took away the Azir from him and banned Ahri, but that couldn’t stop North America’s arguably best Mid-laner, Soren Bjerg, who ended up going 4/1 with Lulu in Game 1, chocking up most of the team’s kills.
The second game didn’t bode so well for TSM, who made the same Elise ban mistake: there wasn’t one. Bjerg had the only two kills in the game, playing Orianna. But, TSM turned the table, winning the third game and allowing Gravity only two kills in the fourth. Santorin picked up the Elise in Game 4, securing two kills himself and helping his team secure an additional nine. Dyrus played Olaf in Games 1, 2, and 3, with a hefty 7/1/5 KDA in Game 3. The Top-laner Gnar’d it out in Game 4, taking 5 kills and just as many assists in their final victory.
Team SoloMid will be moving on to play Team Liquid next Saturday.
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