A new season, no more best of threes and TSM 0 and 2? What is happening in North America?
I really enjoyed this week's games. Also, this commentary is sponsored by Statefarm.
I joke, but this week was really fun. While in many ways the games were messy and showed how many teams are still trying to form synergy and not be trash (@TSM), the games were a ton of fun, except for the residentsleeper 65 minute 100 Thieves game. First of all, let's look at standings.
Team Liquid, Exho Fox, Cloud9 and 100 Thieves are all at 2-0
Clutch and Flyquest are 1-1
And Optic, Golden Guardians, CLG and... Team Solo Mid are 0-2
This is the first time TSM has ever gone 0-2. So, its a week of at least one first. We saw TSM get beaten by Team Liquid, which was followed by Doublelift trash talking Regi, let's hope trash talking Doublelift is back. TSM truly got dumpstered by Liquid. And not a good showing for the "gods of the west" (Zven and Mithy). In general, they had a horrid week, they played okay in lane but in team fights, they reminded me of me (a reminder I am in gold). I cant get over the final fight in the TSM/Flyquest game in which Zven just walked in and died resulting in the game ending. While I placed Flyquest low on my power rankings, they really came out to win. Now in their game against Echo Fox...they did quite the opposite. I think Wildturtle and Flame can really keep them as contenders to be top 6, but that's on a good day and knowing Turtle I don't think this is likely.
Echo Fox though, now they came out to create pure chaos. Lucian top, Darodoch using stopwatch for no reason and then just people smashing their keyboards were all part of their play this week. They smashed Flyquest and then beat old Envy (Clutch) in a fun messy game. And as a Dardoch fan, I got to say, my dude played horribly. Like, he played well and had good positioning, but I saw so many micro missplays. The castors didn't notice, but he would miss Q's and ults and just I feel like he had no idea what he was doing sometimes with his abilities. Thank God he has Huni to help him not just feed. He play really well none the less though, just a lot of mistakes which for how much shit he talks isnt alright.
Other than that I want to talk about Cloud9 looking pretty weak, while they won both their games they didn't look that great other than Sneaky. 100 Thieves went 2 and 0 as well which is really good for their first week, but again they didn't look great with their close 65-minute game against Optic. And then, with CLG going 0-2, whats up with that. Their botlane looks really weak, they got dominated in lane more or less and just didn't show up at all. Jungle wise, Reignover did well but they just couldn't convert anything into a win. They played well in the early game against Cloud9 but they just rolled over and lost. Then Cloud9 stomped them in the last game of day two. Not a great week for them, they need to figure out how to navigate midgame and hopefully, someone can lead them in a game to a victory they really need.
It was an odd week though, but with this start, it looks like the usual top 3 could really change this season.
In terms of next week...
I am looking forward to C9 vs Echo Fox, I give the win to Echo for sure.
100 Thieves vs Team Liquid, I give the win to Liquid for sure as well.
Echo Fox vs TSM, really who knows on this one. But I give it to Echo Fox,
Lastly, I am excited about C9 vs 100 Thieves, and I could see it go either way but most likely C9.