North America LCS | Weekend Overview

In the eSports scene we all love summoners who put time into the community, streamers like Dyrus, VoyBoy, and Imaqtpie. Then there is the famous TSM ADC, Doublelift LoL, who came back to TSM from Team Liquid to show that he still has what it takes to be in the competitive LCS scene. But this weekend’s matches did not start well for him and his team. In their first match against Team Dignitas, he gave up first blood to their jungle sub, Shrimp. But the struggle of Doublelift did not end with this, at six minutes into the match Doublelift gives another kill to the enemy jungler after being cut off on his way back to base by Bard’s Magical Journey, with Varus and Lee Sin in tow.

As laning phase ended and players started grouping, TSM’s ADC realized that he did not have the levels to make plays on the enemy team. This made it hard for him and his comrades to win teamfights, and unfortunately it ended up in a loss for TSM. In the second game of the match things started looking up, this time first blood was given to Biofrost, the support for TSM, giving his lane partner the assist. By twenty minutes into the game Doublelift’s KDA was sitting at one kill, zero deaths, and two assists with 200 CS, putting him leagues ahead (pun intended) of LOD, the ADC for Dignitas. To add insult to injury, TSM’s ADC ended the game at 400 CS with a 10/0/5 KDA and, to no surprise, TSM swept the game against their enemy. At this point there was one last game to decide who the winner of the match will be.

At the beginning of the third match, unlike the first two games, Doublelift was not apart of first blood, but instead he shows his prowess through creep score, making sure he is a over 20 CS above LOD for the entirety game. But he was lacking in kills, having to give them up to his lane partner and to his other teammates, leaving him with only one kill, but despite that he had eight assists, which proves that his assistance in team fights was a major contribution to the team. However, in the end Dignitas won the third match, giving them the collective win for this weekends game against TSM. Even though TSM ended eight kills shy of Dignitas, they only had three turrets compared to the 10 claimed by Dig. Unfortunately, there just was not enough lane pressure coming from anyone on Team SoloMid in laning phase that would have otherwise let them have teamfight advantages. But because Dignitas was the team to claim more towers, they had the edge in group fights, allowing for them to close laning phase on their terms.

This just goes to show that , even for a veteran like Doublelift, there are always new threats that need to be accounted for. Being unfamiliar with new players (such as Dig’s fairly new jungler, Shrimp) does not mean that they can simply be ruled out as a threat, but instead should be taken more seriously than someone you have previously played against. But knowing North America’s favorite ADC, he won’t be discouraged by this loss and will instead be motivated to further improve his skills and learn more tricks to help him win his next match.