The quarter finals of the G-League have been played out, leaving LGD.int against TongFu and invictus Gaming against LGD.cn as match-ups in the semi-finals.
The semi-finals will start tomorrow, with games 1 and 2 between LGD.int and TongFu being played. The rest of the series will be played on Saturday.
For.Love vs TongFU - match recap
VODs available here!
Game 1:
Top lane
For.Love - Windrunner, Earthshaker, Keeper of the Light
TongFu - Faceless Void, Lion, Chen
Mid lane
For.Love - Brewmaster
TongFu - Nightstalker
Bot lane
For.Love - Lone Druid
TongFu - Dark Seer
For.Love opted to put up an aggressive trilane against TongFu to contest Void's farm. It didn't quite work out as he still was able to freeform and the trilane could - even though they had a lot of nuke potential - not get any kills, without giving one away. However, TongFu's Nightstalker also had troubles finding kills in the first nighttime, only getting 2 assists.
When FL started rotating supports to both the mid and bot lane, Void managed to get a few solo kills off on KotL and ES. It was an engagement in the middle that put TongFu even bigger ahead, when Void caught three heroes in a Chronosphere on top of a Dark Seer wall. It resulted in four deaths for For.Love and TongFu got an Aegis on top.
FL looked like they could make a comeback, trading more efficiently in terms of kills, but the Mek and Pipe on DarkSeer as well as the Aghanim's Scepter on Chen made it much harder for FL to prevent the Dire from pushing and negated a lot of nuke potential from FL. Even though TF got further and further ahead, they gave away a few kills, dragging the game out until Hao eventually was farmed enough to get a Rampage and end the game, forcing out the gg.
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Game 2:
Top lane
For.Love - Anti-Mage, Shadow Demon, Leshrac
TongFu - Nature's Prophet
Mid lane
For.Love - Puck
TongFu - Batrider
Bot lane
For.Love - Magnus
TongFu - Void, Rubick, Chen
Game 2 looked to be a lot more even, seeing as FL's trilane this time around was able to get a few early kills on Veronica's Prophet, securing their AM freefarm as well as assistgold. TF's Void however also had freefarm and TongFu was more efficient in controlling the map, pushing three towers down early on, giving Batrider an early Blink Dagger and keeping everyone on the Dire aside from TuTu's AM from farming, who opted for a Vlad's to be able to split push.
To prevent that from happening, TF pressured FL even more and forced out several teamfights, where they picked off AM first and hunted down the rest of the team, eventually breaching high ground of the Dire base.
Another big teamfight at the Roshan pit, where Void caught four heroes in a Chrono and killed two of them, TongFu picked up an Aegis and pushed through, forcing the second gg and advancing into the semi-finals.
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Final thoughts:
TongFu prevailed in a match-up where they were the favorites. They managed to beat them convincingly, even if there have been slight hick-ups. They have to step it up a notch however, seeing as Veronica was basically feeding throughout game 2.
For.Love gave away too much and took too little. Their trilane in game 1 was basically useless and Lone Druid didn't farm efficiently. If they had put up a performance similar to that from the group stage, they might've been able to take this series.
ViCi Gaming vs LGD.cn - match recap
VODs available here!
Game 1:
Top lane
LGD - Magnus
VG - Luna
Mid lane
LGD - Templar Assasin
VG - Brewmaster
Bot lane
LGD - Faceless Void, Lina, Rubick
VG - Dark Seer, Leshrac, Shadow Demon
Contested trilane by VG gave LGD a hard time, they got the better farm and controlled the lane, Sylar's farm was struggling somewhat. But Xiao8 did good mid and started to move around, creating an opening for Sylar to farm and gave back momentum to the bot lane. The control regain caused VG to play passive and doing inefficient map movements, not getting any kills or experience. VG tried to team fight without the Panda ulti ready and lost the fight 0-4 without LGD even using Reverse Polarity. The experience and gold lead was too far at this point, VG couldn't recover. They tried one last fight after LGD took down Roshan, where Brewmaster initiated but VG got countered by a Reverse Polarity and Chronosphere and couldn't do much. On top of that, DDC's Rubick even stole the Eclipse during that fight. LGD 1-0.
Once again, it shows the difference in experience. VG decided to take poorly timed fights when they had crucial ultimates on cooldowns instead of trying to split push and farm up waiting for the skills to get ready. LGD outplayed them fair and square, they had perfect game control for the most part of the game, very solid decisions and movements.
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Game 2:
Top lane
LGD - Luna, Disruptor, Sandking
VG - Sven, Ruick, Lina
Mid lane
LGD - Templar Assasin
VG - Brewmaster
Bot lane
LGD - Lone Druid
VG - Magnus
LGD were caught on the wrong foot from the start when Rubick picked up a Double Damage rune and scored first blood on Luna. The trilane vs trilane on top kept trading blows, while TA was able to get on top of the midlane. LGD opted to gank with 4 men and successfully killed 4 VG players with only Brewmaster barely surviving. It looked as if LGD had the game, but VG made a comeback, scored a lot of kills on top of a farmed Lone Druid. With him being big and fed, Sven was able to dish out a lot of damage during teamfights, whereas Rubick stole crucial spells such as Reverse Polarity.
Good warding from the Radiant side gave them the upper hand and security they needed to keep farming. A teamfight on the bottom lane turned the tides completely as VG wiped the whole LGD line-up with a stolen Reverse Polarity and a strong Lone Druid. They took down rax and got further ahead. VG eventually breached the midlane and forced out a gg after almost getting mega creeps.
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Game 3:
Top lane
LGD - Magnus
VG - Naix, Rubick, Lina, Dark Seer(Jungle)
Mid lane
LGD - Bounty Hunter
VG - Templar Assasin
Bot lane
LGD - Necrolyte, Sven, Leshrac
VG -
Game 3 was completely different from the first two. Both teams played very safe and tried to secure their carries' farm. Within 30 minutes, only 11 kills have been scored. It was all about which team makes the biggest mistake and LGD was the first to do so. When pushing the top tier 1 tower, Dark Seer blinked in with a Naix in him. Even though Magnus still got a Reverse Polarity off, LGD could not kill Naix, seeing as they had no source of damage. On top of that, Rubick stole the RP and set up a complete teamwipe for LGD.
From this point on, VG was able to control the game and got further and further ahead. However, they overextended themselves when pushing in the bottom lane, diving to the fountain instead of focusing the tower or rax. They had to retreat with several casualties and did not get the tower.
Teamfights were almost all won by VG, as Rubick and Lina made sure to not get caught by the RP and were able to lockdown Magnus afterwards, who could not get a Refresher Combo off.
It was only later on that Yao was able to bait Rubick into getting in range to steal the RP, that he could catch him as well. VG was in the Radiant's top base and tried to push, when Yao RP'ed Naix and TA. Rubick went in to steal the RP and Yao used it again, resulting in a teamwipe for VG.
LGD got a little bit of map control back and xiao8's Bounty Hunter was farming all the lanes, turning into LGD's primary source of damage.
A stalemate in the midland occurred, where VG tried to push in with the Aegis and Cheese. Several attempts were denied and when VG got overaggressive, LGD turned the tides and wiped the whole Dire line-up. They pushed the midland and when it looked like to be another stalemate on the Dire side, LGD baited VG out of their base to kill them once again. With all buybacks on cooldown, this was gg.
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Final thoughts:
When LGD took game 1, it looked like a one-sided match-up. ViCi however proved that they have potential and were close to taking this series, but it was experience that prevailed. LGD had sloppy plays in both games 2 and 3, but managed to play it out cool in game 3, as they waited patiently for ViCi to give them an opening.
Fenrir and fy deserve to be mentioned here exclusively, seeing as they have done a lot for their team. They almost never got caught by Reverse Polarities, basically negating its effects.
Playoff bracket
Make sure to check out our overview article and our G-League Coverage Hub for VODs and further information on the tournament.
