Lyons: Another week without Inspired and another week where the team still looks very good. I think it should be good news for Lyons that their team can function so well with an emergency sub in a key decision making role. The players on Lyons understand their objectives and win conditions even without Inspired. There isn’t much else to say about this team until Inspired comes back and we see how the team reintegrates him. They haven’t missed a step after returning to MSI and I am excited to see them continue ramping up for playoffs.

Team Liquid: This week was a slower week for them against Sentinels. Especially game two, but I also don’t think that’s a bad thing. They opted into a scaling focused team composition. They showed they understood their objectives and when they needed to fight. The team was all on the same page about how they wanted that game to play out. There’s of course smaller details they can work on but just like Lyons they seem to have taken a lot away from MSI and are growing.

Flyquest: I am putting Flyquest as third because I think they will end up as the third team going to worlds. It was clear that Flyquest took the loss to Lyons last week to heart. They came to the match against Disguised with something to prove. They have to figure out how to refine their play style to keep the razor sharp edge and aggression, but not tip over and go too far. It’s a fine balance, one that is incredibly hard to keep. But I think this team will figure it out down the stretch. 

Cloud9: After their loss to team Liquid there was a question of whether they would swap out someone from their roster. They chose not to, which again calls into question is this a 7-man roster or is it a 5-man with two subs. It’s a difficult question for the coaching staff to figure out. I’m giving leeway to Dom and the C9 staff, they lost their head coach and brought on two new players. It’s a difficult situation to be in. However, they have a lot of problems to figure out, and they are rapidly running out of time to do it. Personally I don’t know what is worse for them, they swap in Zven and APA next week and they look worse than Loki and Tactical, or they look better. Either way in my opinion the roster needs to be solidified within the next two weeks if they want to have a real shot of going to worlds.

Sentinels: The obvious thing to talk about is the voice comms moment where Huhi says he doesn’t want to fight, and Hambaak tries to fight. It was a funny moment on broadcast, and looks like a complete breakdown of their comms. But moments like that don’t bother me, miscommunications happen, Huhi may have said that as Hambaak was already pressing his Q. Those moments are easy to look at and say “won’t happen again”. The bigger issue to me is that they don’t seem to have an identity, nor do they understand their win conditions. If they are really trying to be the third team going to worlds they need to work on understanding their objectives and win conditions starting from draft. 

Shopify Rebellion: A lot of strange mechanical mistakes in their series against Lyons that make it harder to discuss bigger picture topics. Fudge choosing to fight right before his ignite comes up. Zinnie ulting too close and getting CC’d. Botlane getting repeatedly killed in the 2v2. When these kinds of mistakes happen it makes any discussion around “understanding win conditions” or “being on the same page” pointless. The response in review will be “But if we just don’t make these mistakes the game is winnable”. Which isn’t wrong, but often hides the reality that playing mechanically well doesn’t make the game easier to win, it makes the game harder to lose. Shopify still seems to be lacking a clear understanding of how they want to progress a game.

Disguised: Disguised is such a fascinating team to me. It’s hard to evaluate this team compared to the other LCS orgs because their resources and experience is so much lower than everyone else’s. I don’t just mean players and coaching staff, but the orgs overall experience is lower. That matters a lot, with experience comes the understanding of how to adjust and change the processes of the team. I have hopes that Srtty, KryRa, and Sajed can look like good NA talent that has a lot to bring to the league. But also the team has a lot of growth it needs to go through. 

Dignitas: I guess they’ve answered my concerns from the pre-season. With the announcement of Dardoch coming back it makes it pretty clear that Exyu was not working out for the team. The question on everyone’s mind is, has Dardoch gotten better or is he just as toxic as before? I hope he’s better, he’s always been a gifted player mechanically that did not mesh well with his teams. I think he could be a great boost to Dignitas if his team dynamic issues have been resolved. But that’s a big if. On the bright side, Dignitas can’t be worse than they are right now.