The old classics of Evil Geniuses and SK Gaming find a bit of misfortune in their second day in Moscow playing the EU LCS.
Lemondogs vs. SK Gaming Drafts
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In Moscow, on the afternoon of the 22nd of June, the second week of LCS Europe competition opened with a sluggish start with SK Gaming versus Lemondogs. As neither team were particularly successful after the first weekend, they approached the game cautiously, which led to a passive, low kill scenario until the first dragon fight.
This is when Lemondogs' team fighting coordination came to tilt the scales decisively into their favor. With discipline in focus firing, the Dogs shot down one SK member after another, giving Tabzz a triple kill in the process, and walked out four kills richer. Their lock-down combination continued to be extremely efficient for the rest of the game and SK Gaming was in a position where they couldn't win a single team fight and would either lose dramatically or barely escape, giving Lemondogs the opportunity to do whatever they want.
The diligent dragon control further helped Lemondogs and another triple kill for Tabzz later and one particularly brutal ramming into SK's base, Nukeduck's team secured their third win for the tournament.
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VODFnatic vs. Evil Geniuses Drafts
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Another classic matchup would commence with some preffered champions on either side. Froggen was able to pick his terrifying Anvia and xPeke, his famous Twisted Fate play. Evil Geniuses would kick things off with immediate aggression, finding a kill early on in the river and then following it up again later to surmount quite a lead. However, plenty of things would change for Fnatic as fate would have it with xPeke's Twisted Fate hitting 6.
Suddenly, with his and Cyanide's presence all over the map, all 3 carries were soon to become absurdly fed. However, the end was not spelled out for Evil Geniuses yet. Not only does the quintuplet have extensive experience with it, but Froggen had his infamous Anivia, a character notorious for stalling games for a very long time due to her wave clear.
Evil Geniuses was a slowly sinking ship but was not going down without a fight. While they did get enough gold off of kills to contest their opponents, the kill distrubtion wasn't nearly as ideal as Fnatic's gold spread, with Krepo having more than 4 of the team's kills. Eventually, Evil Geniuses would find themselves regretting not banning the Twisted Fate away from xPeke as it was the key component in ripping Evil Geniuses apart and taking the reins from them early on in the game.
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Ninjas in Pyjamas vs. Lemondogs Drafts
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Lemondogs picked up the first kill in the battle against Ninjas in Pyjamas, making their future look dim once again as their slump appeared to continue. However, just as the LCS has been blown wide open, so has the possibilities and outcomes of the games as time goes on. Like the previous game, a lead would develop early on and slowly choke out the other team as the pressure would rise higher and higher throughout the course of the game.
As usual, Godbro on Nasus found himself behind in the top lane initially to the hyper-aggressive Kennen played by Zorozoro, but he was playing Nasus as an investment and even managed to outfarm him later on in the game. Godbro has had some success with his Nasus in the past but never managed to close out a game -- that would change now.
After what must have presumably felt like an aggravatingly frustrating experience, for Ninjas in Pyjamas were not wanting to suffer yet another loss and continue their history of awful season beginnings, the pressure was extremely high, but manageable. Lemondogs put themselves in several situations where they should have held the advantage, but failed to do so -- primarily from being prevented from doing so by the more experienced team of NiP. Ultimately, NiP would prevail and stop the potential loss streak in its tracks.
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