NA LCS
Photo Credit: Riot Games
Immortals vs Cloud9
The first semifinals match was played between Immortals and Cloud9 on Saturday in what most people thought would be a lopsided victory for Immortals. Immortals finished the summer split regular season in dominating fashion, just dropping two games to the first place team, TSM, to end with a 16-2 record [1]. Cloud9 did finish in third place, but dropped a total of 6 games throughout the season including losing both of their matches against Immortals [2]. The first game looked like Immortals would be continuing their perfect record against Cloud9 as they blew open the game just after 20 minutes to take a quick victory soon afterwards. However, Cloud9 answered back with 2 wins of their own to take the lead in the series off the back of a good performance from the star mid-laner, Jensen. Game 4 was closely contested, but Immortals grabbed the victory due to a great performance from their Korean duo of Huni and Reignover. This set the stage for an exciting decider game to determine who moved on to the grand finals. Immortals held onto a thin lead for the early 18 minutes of the game, but Cloud9’s objective control proved to be too strong as they built a massive lead for themselves. A last minute backdoor attempt by Immortals proved to be unsuccessful as Cloud9 dismantled their base to take a 3-2 victory.
TSM vs CLG
The first game of the series was filled with a bit of controversy as the game had to be remade due to a bug [3]. Whether or not this would have affected the eventual outcome of the series is unknown, but the series was all TSM after the remake. Game 1 was simply TSM coming out with a slight lead and snowballing the match until they had victory in their pockets. The second game was a bit more back and forth, but a team fight at 25 minutes into the game tilted the game in favor of TSM and they took full advantage by driving the match home with a 4 for 0 trade later in the game. Game 3 was a repeat of Game 1 as TSM held the lead for the entire game and slowly ramped up the gold difference to almost a 20k difference by the end.
Finals (8/27/16 to 8/28/16 12:00 PM PST)
Several things in life are certain: taxes, death, and TSM making it to a LCS finals with either CLG or C9 as their opponents. Unfortunately for CLG this time, they will be playing in the third-place decider match on Saturday against Immortals. TSM will meet C9 in the finals to determine who wins the 2016 NA LCS Summer Split.
EU LCS
Photo Credit: Riot Games
Splyce vs H2K
The Splyce and H2K matchup was highly anticipated as most people put both teams at a very similar skill level going into the series. H2K struck first with a comfortable Game 1 to move ahead in the series. After that, the two teams traded games back and forth with Splyce winning the second game off of several team fights past 30 minutes and H2K quickly answering back by winning Game 3 in dominating fashion. Undeterred, Splyce evened the series at 2 apiece with a win a fourth game win to bring the match into a 5-game series. The first 20 minutes of the final game were hotly contested as neither team was able to break away with a significant lead. However, several unanswered objectives by Splyce gave them a firm control of the game that they never relinquished. Eventually, a team fight victory and Baron Nashor gave them enough to close out the series.
G2 vs UOL
G2 ended MSI with a disappointing performance going out 0-6 and losing Europe one of their spots at Worlds this year. From then, they’ve recovered splendidly, easily winning the summer split regular season without losing a single series [4]. UOL performed average in the regular season, but showed a spurt of excellence in the playoffs to defeat 4th place Giants and advance to the semifinals [5]. The first two games in the series was closely contested as both teams had chances to win both games. The eventual result was that G2 won the first game while UOL won the second one to tie at 1-1. Game 3 and 4 was the complete opposite of the first two games as G2 were in firm control of both with a complete wash in the fourth game to claim a spot in the grand finals.
Finals (8/27/16 to 8/28/16 8:00 AM PST)
Both the favorites, G2 and Splyce, advanced to the grand finals and will duke it out to see who the best team from Europe is. H2K and UOL have a chance to grab a very important 3rd place that could potentially decide the 2nd team from Europe going to Worlds.
References
[1] https://www.lolesports.com/en_US/na-lcs/na_2016_summer/standings/regular_season
[2] https://lol.gamepedia.com/2016_NA_LCS/Summer_Split#Results
[3] https://www.riftherald.com/2016/8/21/12576908/aurelion-sol-disabled-tsm-clg-bug-remake
[4] https://www.lolesports.com/en_US/eu-lcs/eu_2016_summer/standings/regular_season
[5] https://www.lolesports.com/en_US/eu-lcs/eu_2016_summer/matches/eu_2016_summer_playoffs/quarter-final-2
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