Match of the Week: TSM vs Cloud 9

NA LCS kicked off with a hard hitter as it has in both of 2014 splits featuring TSM (1-1) up against Cloud 9 (0-2).  Always a classic and a somewhat obvious choice for game of the week, TSM prevailed for the first time in a split opener against Cloud 9 in 39 and a half minutes.

I'm excited for tomorrow. It's been so long since I've played on the stage!

And excited he was.  

Bjergsen (8/0/8) grabbed a solo kill in mid lane against Hai (1/4/5) on a level 8 tower dive saying after the game “Once I got some items, once I got blue buff, you can start poking a lot more and that’s when I really looked for the opportunity to go in.”. While it was well executed by Bjergsen, Hai didn’t do a great job of protecting himself and made a dangerous play just to pick up the cannon minion.  He then Playful/Trickster’d too quickly and burned his flash after ignite was already enough to tick him down.

My play is pathetic, I'm sorry...

It wasn’t the type of game we expect out of Cloud 9 and Hai knows it.  The realization that something was amiss may leave an uneasy feeling in fans, but it at least shows they acknowledge what went wrong and you can bet they’ll look to turn it around in week 2.

While first blood went over to Bjergson early, it wasn’t until 15 minutes into the game where TSM would get their first gold lead.  At 13:45 Balls (1/4/7) still had a commanding CS lead of about 45 over Dyrus (2/3/8).  However, shortly after that the wheels started to fall off for Cloud 9.  At about 14:40 Lustboy (0/1/15) and WildTurtle (5/0/10) begin to rotate towards the mid lane while LemonNation (0/5/7) goes back and Sneaky (6/1/3) remains in the bottom lane.

At the same time, Meteos (1/2/6) had rotated top to maybe attempt a dive or push top lane with Balls.  Unfortunately Dyrus had already went allowing them the top tower, but not a good trade for both middle towers.  Had the proper communication come through from LemonNation and Sneaky about the rotation from bottom lane, Meteos could have rotated mid instead of top from the red buff and potentially saved both towers.  He didn’t however, and TSM grabbed the gold lead which they would hold onto until the Cloud 9 nexus fell.

Executing a nice dive on LemonNation in bot lane around 16 minutes, Santorin (1/5/13) got his first assist.  By the end of that fight, Cloud 9 came out with a 2 for 1 but TSM had gotten a tower and gained more gold globally.

A mid game lull then slowed the pace of the game until the next big fight which happened just before 27 minutes.  In this fight Hai used his Playful/Trickster too early before the fight really started and missed everyone with his ultimate.  Balls struggled on this fight in two ways, he entered the fight at around half health and never got off a decent Gnar ultimate.  There was plenty of time during the fight where he easily could have ulted two or more members of Team SoloMid where he would have gotten at least one stun, but the damage alone could have been enough to turn the fight around.  Instead he was dead set on getting WildTurtle with it and flashed for the ultimate when the teamfight was already lost and he was at only 200 health.  Below are two images, the first being the best time for the Gnar ulti and the second when Balls actually used it.

While only one second apart, this split second decision could have changed the outcome of this teamfight and vastly affect the game as a whole.  Cloud 9 began this teamfight down 1,800 gold but when it was over they had a 3,900 gold deficit and exposed middle inhibitor.  After a quick couple of picks on Balls and LemonNation, it was easy for TSM to destroy that inhibitor and cement their lead despite the desperation Baron for Cloud 9.

TSM looks forward to playing Winterfox and the 2-0 Team Liquid while Cloud 9 looks for their first win of the split against Team Liquid and CLG.  Stay tuned next week for the game of the week feature with two newcomers to the LCS Team 8 and Team Coast.