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Coverage
PE vs. OMG
It seems like every week advancing into the LPL, we see more wacky things pulled out and today is no exception. Todays' LPL would open up with OMG's Lin pulling out Yorick jungle against Positive Energy. Since Yorick has no form of gap closer, Lin was troubled when trying to take pressure off of Cool's Orianna who was under siege from a Vayne and Blitzcrank duo, more than enough CC to keep a defending Yorick at bay.
Eventually, Cool made the wise choice to swap to the bottom lane and duel JoJo's Zed after having acquired an armguard, allowing OMG's duo to combat the duo of Positive Energy. Sicca would show excellent mechanics on Blitzcrank, but was unable to acquire kills for his AD carry in lane.
The game was very passive until this very explosive teamfight by dragon/?15 minutes in, there was still no first blood to be had. The amount of action was very attypical for an LPL game with only dragon being taken at this point and no towers having yet fallen on the map. The very first one would fall at 15:15 followed by another shortly after, with the first major fight at the following dragon spawn.
With OMG having a slight lead after the previous battle, Positive Energy decided to group up and try to contest top tower, but even after a successful dive, OMG was able to turn the attack around and siege on their own. The small and subtle advantages would be the driving factor for OMG's victory, along with being far too beefy for Positive Energy to deal with.
VOD (click for full-screen)
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LMQ vs. RC
Action would definitely kick off faster in this game than the last one with first blood going to LMQ's AD carry after a well calculated exchange of summoner spells as well as continually chasing his prey down even after Noname had backed off. With a huge minion wave, Noname stayed for an early 2-0 lead on LMQ, also denying Royal Club's duo several minions.
After a brief moment of passivity, LMQ utilizes their upper hand by grabbing a free dragon 8 minutes in while having Dreams on Kennen hold the top lane against Royal Club's duo. Royal Club attempted to counter attack by contesting the blue buff of LMQ while allowing Godlike to splitpush bottom lane, but not much was gained out of Royal Club.
A very successful tower dive that allowed for a double kill and RC to lose several minions.?The next major fight would occur around 16 minutes where Royal Club would ace LMQ while only losing 2 of their own after catching out NoName on an unfortunate engage, allowing them to shove middle turret and even the turret lead. At this point, Royal Club was definitely confident of their capabilities and proceeded to dive the inner top turret 20 minutes in. Uzi's Vayne mechanics would definitely be apparent in this game, helping greatly in winning the fight.
However, while all of that was going on, Twitch was steadfast in assaulting the bottom inhibitor turret for Royal Club, even taking it out and threatening Royal Club. As time progressed, Royal Club would be the first to initiate the baron dance, but LMQ would be the one to take it. Even Uzi's unstoppable Vayne wouldn't be enough to prevent LMQ from trampling through, bringing in the victory.
VOD (click for full-screen)
EP vs. YG
Energy Pacemaker vs. Young Glory features one of the first games we've seen Shyvana partake in for a very long time. Both junglers started the game trying to make reads on each other and prepare for counter-ganks, which lead to a passive beginning with a very standard lane setup. An extremely greedy Yansir attempting to get some last hits would land EP with first blood on Elise.
In terms of farm, Young Glory was ahead, allowing them to stay relatively even in gold. Young Glory fell further and further behind in terms of kills due to their overaggression in the enemy jungle, but doing so did allow them to maintain an 3-1 turret lead early on. The game continued to be filled with early skirmishes, where Energy Pacemaker continued to come out on top, but the lane pressure was still heavily in favor of Young Glory.
Rather than teamfights, the game was full of scattered, small-scale skirmishes.?After a teamfight loss in the bottom lane for Energy Pacemaker and being 9 turrets behind, there was no coming back for the team. Young Glory had all three inhibitors down for EP by the 20 minute mark and were simply toying with Energy Pacemaker at this point, acquiring baron and shortly after ending the game 2 kills behind, but several objectives up.
Energy Pacemaker continued to make more decisions by going for dragon at a time when extreme waveclear was occuring for Young Glory. In a game that looked like it had an undecided victor, the situation was quickly turned around by Young Glory simply rushing down middle and taking top inhibtor, battling with with Energy Pacemaker, and then swapping around to top inhibitor, bringing two inhibitors down in just 17 minutes.
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VOD (click for full-screen) ?WE vs. IG
The most anticipated game of the weekend would close out Saturday with a rematch between the top two finalists of IEM Shanghai as well as being known as a game between the long-lived rivals and most well known and appreciated names representing China in the west. Misaya was able to lock in his ruthless TF, however, he was the forst to give first blood to Kid's Corki, showing his mortality on that champion after all.
A kill exchange would go down bottom shortly following with another fantastic bubble prison from Xiaoxiao's Nami, but with Misaya getting his revenge this time around. Though Misaya suffered two deaths, he was faring much better in his 2v1 lane than Zz1tai in his on Kassadin. Meanwhile, the duel top would be going heavily in favor of CaoMei, acquiring a very convincing 1v1 kill without even the risk of dying, and then taking the tower. This gave World Elite a much needed tower advantage.
Probably the most one-sided top lane duel we've ever seen.?CaoMei's DPS-centric Jarvan was becoming a roaming monster, assisting in taking towers and zoning any enemy from the potential threat of being instantly bursted. With the synergy between Misaya and the rest of the team, the map control was heavily in favor of World Elite, even allowing them to grab a free baron. This allowed World Elite to perform free actions across the map and develop quite the vision advantage.
For being very far behind at this point in the game, Invictus Gaming showed extreme prowess in their disengage, holding out and pleading for a desperate situation to come back from. Alas, World Elite had developed too far of a lead and would once again topple Invictus Gaming, disputing the famous rivarly once again and taking them out in a convincing fashion.
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VOD (click for full-screen) ?STANDINGS
