The LCS Championship is back this week with a monstrous match up in the second round of the upper bracket. LCS titans Team Liquid and TSM will go head-to-head. With the winner qualifying for the 2021 LoL World Championship, who will win?
It is a battle between two giants of the LCS with TL taking on TSM. This is the first time fans get to see TSM in the postseason after securing the first seed in the regular season. Team Liquid returns for their second series after dismantling Cloud9 in round one.
Game one: Team Liquid strikes first
As expected in game one of a series, the pace of the game is extremely slow. Fifteen minutes in and only two kills had gone over for Team Liquid. TSM made the interesting decision to start this series on the red side. Huni was given a strong pick in Irelia to give TSM multiple carry threats. While Team Liquid was able to race out to an early kill advantage, TSM thus far was doing a much better job with the neutral objectives.
Come to the 20-minute mark, TSM had gained two towers and also two dragons over Team Liquid as the mid-game continues. The first team fight of the game was an explosive one. Huni was able to get a quick kill onto CoreJJ, but it was TL turning around the fight. Santorin and Jensen did a lot of work as TL was able to pick up a 3-2 win in this fight.
As the game approached the late game, TL had reached just under a 3k gold lead. The problem for them is that TSM is on soul point. Team Liquid exploded into life in the 34th minute of the game. As Huni was pushing in the top lane, TL engaged the remaining TSM members. At the end of the fight, TSM had been aced with TL posturing for the Baron. The game
Game two: Team Liquid in control the entire time
The game started out as rough as it could be for Huni. In what was an already losing match-up, TL four-man dived the TSM top laner to put Huni out of this matchup. At one point Alphari had 40cs to Huni's 8. That being said TSM was doing a great job securing kills onto other members of TL. This game was going to be solely on Lost's shoulders as the TSM adc had the highest gold of any member in the early game.
Team Liquid found the perfect team fight at the 16th-minute mark. The fight started out with TL chunking Huni out while he was in the TL blue quadrant. Meanwhile, PowerOfEvil was caught out on the other side of the river, allowing TL to secure four kills.
The game suddenly flipped into a weird state, TSM opted into a trade of two inhibitors in their top lane and mid lane for TL's bottom lane inhib. With TL on soul point, the emphasis is now on TL to likely swap the soul dragon for a Baron instead. The problem for TSM is that TL has great minion-killing champions in Jhin and Syndra. TL utilized both champions as they were also able to shove in the bottom lane.
The nail in the coffin for TSM came in the 25th minute. Team Liquid was able to secure a huge team fight win, securing both the Mountain soul and Baron. While game one went for 40 minutes, it has been Team Liquid who has been in control of this series the entire time. Team Liquid was able to cleanly end the game and go up 2-0 in this series.
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Game three: TSM stops the TL sweep
The third game followed suit from the first game with a slow start from both teams. Despite TSM picking lane dominant champions, once again they were able to create advantages they should be getting. TSM were able to pick up an early Dragon but TL followed it up with the first tower at 11 minutes.
TSM showed signs of life for the first time this series with a huge team fight victory in the 17th minute. An engage onto Alphari ended up in a fight which saw TSM three crucial kills. With a gold lead as well as two Dragons in their pocket, TSM is in a great position to get their first win on the board.
From that moment onwards, the game was completely flipped on its head. TSM come the 25th minute had over a 5k gold lead as well as securing the Ocean soul. It would be extremely difficult for TSM to throw away this game. PowerOfEvil has been a monster this game on Syndra, TL could not walk up to him with the constant fear of being deleted off the map. As expected TSM was able to close out the game and take this series to a game four.
Game four: TL secures date with 100 Thieves
From start to finish Team Liquid was dominant in this game. The four-time LCS champions put game three behind them and closed out the game. Santorin was a monster in this game with a master class performance on Xin Zhao. The Danish jungler set the pace early, earning a KDA of 3/0/1 come to the fifteen-minute mark. TSM often into a peculiar Jarvan pick, which ultimately could synergise with the TL composition.
With the early advantages, Santorin was able to create, TL was just able to run over the map. There was nowhere for TSM to hide, TL had Kalista+Galio covering half of the map as well as Camille and Xin roaming in the other half. Around the 20 minute mark, TL had accumulated a 4k gold lead as well as two dragons to their name. Within the next 10 minutes, TL was able to earn themselves the Baron. As the game struck 30 minutes TL was taking down the TSM base, thus ending the series 3-1.
With this victory Team Liquid will take on 100 Thieves for a spot in the LCS Championship final. TSM will find its way to the lower bracket for the second consecutive season where they will face Immortals.
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