TSM had one of the hardest schedules in Week 5 of the 2017 NA LCS Spring Split with their two opponents being the first place Cloud 9 and second place FlyQuest. Cloud 9 were the only non-defeated team in the league at 8-0 while FlyQuest was tied with TSM in second with a 6-2 scoreline.
TSM vs Cloud 9
Photo Credit: Youtube
The biggest thing to take away from this match is that when the meta requires the top laner to play a tank champion, play a tank champion. The first game started off strongly in Cloud 9’s favor with them going up 3 kills to 1 and 2 turrets to 1 along with a Cloud Drake to boot. From there on, things went downhill for Cloud 9 as TSM proceeded to completely shut them down from 12 minutes onward. The only objective Cloud 9 managed to capture after this point was a single turret and the TSM steamrolled ahead to a very comfortable victory at 32 minutes.
Game 2 demonstrated exactly why tanks were needed in the current meta. TSM started and held onto a significant gold lead throughout the majority of the game until approximately the 28 minute mark when they lost a crucial team fight that resulted in a lost Baron. From there on, it was the Cloud 9 show as they tore back the gold lead and proceeded to take all of TSM’s objectives. A desperate last minute team fight resulted in more kills for the Cloud 9 side and ultimately the game. A point of interest was that Cloud 9’s tank was able to stay alive for much longer during team fights, whereas TSM’s Rumble had a very poor showing.
The culmination of the series was the third game between the two teams, but this time, it was Cloud 9 who took the Rumble while TSM chose a tank. The start of the game began very poorly for TSM when Contractz killed Svenskeren twice. From there on it was a relatively quiet game as both teams traded several kills and objectives back and forth, but nobody gained a significant lead. The deciding point came at 21 minutes when a huge triple kill by Bjergsen’s Zed allowed TSM to ace the Cloud 9 team at the cost of only one of their players. However, Cloud 9 managed to answer back at the Baron pit with a team fight and Baron steal that allowed them to tie up the game once more. However, once again it was Bjergesen’s Zed that allowed TSM to kill two of Cloud 9’s players which gave them the next Baron and ultimately resulted in TSM breaking open the Cloud 9 base and winning the game.
TSM vs FlyQuest
Photo Credit: Youtube
TSM’s second match of the week was another nail-biter as they struggled to beat another one of the best teams in the league. The first game was pretty straightforward for the TSM team as they slowly and methodically used picks and objective control to choke FlyQuest out of the game. The game was quickly concluded at just over 30 minutes. Interestingly, FlyQuest’s jungler chose Shaco, but it did not find much success in the game.
Game 2 was a bit of a roller coaster ride for both teams and the gold lead reflected as much. Nothing really eventful happened in the early game, except that TSM exhibited superior objective control that allowed them to eke out a 4k gold lead. Several big triple kills by Hai and Moon allowed Cloud 9 back into the game, but TSM quickly quashed those hopes by winning another team fight and taking a Baron as well as several inhibitors. However, Hai demonstrated his world class shotcalling by calling TSM’s bluff on a base race. Despite being down in kills and gold, FlyQuest managed to backdoor the TSM nexus and win the game.
Game 3 was simply all TSM. The deciding factors in the game was two 4-0 team fights that TSM got the better of which allowed them to slowly snowball their lead. FlyQuest did show some life with the 5 turrets that they took, but ultimately it was not close to enough to stop TSM from tying themselves in first place with Cloud 9 by the end of the week.