LCS Summer Split wraps Week 4, Evil Geniuses dominates while TSM rebounds
The 2022 League of Legends Championship Series, or LCS, recently concluded Week 4 of the Summer Split. As the tournament is gearing up for Week 5, the current standings position offers an interesting look for fans.
The Summer Split still features the Seattle-based Evil Geniuses (EG) dominating the standings, sitting comfortably in first place, leading in front of 100 Thieves and Team Liquid. EG concluded Week 4 with four consecutive wins. Meanwhile, Team SoloMid (TSM) is showing signs of rebounding after defeating FlyQuest. Although thanks to TSM’s previous defeat to Cloud9, the result only got them as little as eighth place.
EG extends win streak to four
EG has been going strong this far, hitting eight wins and only a single defeat the team sustained in Week 2 from Counter Logic Gaming. Leading strong in the standings, EG kicked off Week 4 with a thrilling win over Dignitas on July 16, followed by another win the following day over Liquid.
Both EG and Dignitas had late-game compositions. However, the Seattle-based powerhouse team bested their rival with a stellar power spike play from Gangplank, which was used by top-laner Jeong “Impact” Eon-young. Impact ended up with six kills. Teammate Joseph “jojopyun” Joon Pyun posed a huge threat to Dignitas as the team tried to recover via bot-laner Toàn “Neo” Trần and support Vincent “Biofrost” Wang.
A showdown took place between jojopyun’s LeBlanc and Neo’s Zeri. Biofrost tried to rescue the marksman with Lulu but to no avail when jungler Kacper “Inspired” Słoma joined with Poppy. Eventually, EG was led to victory by Inspired and Impact ahead of playing Liquid the next day.
The matchup against Liquid was one of the most awaited games in the Summer Split. Liquid went with a very peculiar approach in the pick-ban screen. Top-laner Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau picked Aatrox, while mid-laner Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg chose Zilean.
Liquid’s early plan was to pair Aatrox with Zilean for synergy build, allowing the team to place a powerful early game deterrent using Chronoshift to counter the enemy’s team carries. There is a huge catch here: they must avoid early placement as the enemy can switch targets too soon, thus making the move ineffective. Aside from this, Bwipo and Bjergsen may also resort to using two Time Bombs for surprise stun attacks and Time Warp to either escape or finish off enemies.
The plan turned out to be a massive disaster for Liquid since Bwipo and jungler Lucas “Santorin” Tao Kilmer Larsen was unable to find any advantageous resource spots on the top part of the map — and in the process, the duo neglected the enemy jungler.
Instead, EG dominated the early game, thanks to Inspired and mid-laner Kyle “Danny” Sakamaki for securing early game resources. Liquid’s defeat was only a matter of time, and indeed, EG won the game within 35 minutes. Danny racked up a whopping 35 kills, and Inspired made four kills.
TSM show signs of rebounding
While EG is enjoying its winning streak, TSM appears to have shown signs of making a possible comeback. After defeating FlyQuest, the team currently has a 3-6 record.
The team came short last season following their failed entry to the playoffs, and 2022 could be a redemption year. Only eight teams will be qualified for the playoffs, and TSM will only need to defend the eighth position from Dignitas and Immortals.
If TSM wants to be safe, they must defeat Golden Guardians and C9, as both teams have the same win-loss record of 4-5.
