Week 3 LCS
Games of the Week
Flyquest vs. Dignitas
Honorable Mention: TSM vs Phoenix 1
The Flyquest-Dignitas series will be a huge measuring stick for both teams. Flyquest is the king of macro play and understanding pick and ban, outside of giving Echo Fox Camille, which was an absolute disaster. Dignitas however has several mechanical kings in Chaser and Ssumday. Whoever, is more passable in their weakness will likely take home the win in this matchup. This game to me is very reminiscent of the old C9-TSM rivalry.
Flyquest has looked great this year thus far despite having very little time to practice as we found out earlier week from an article released by Slingshotesports. In the article Balls talks about not having much time to practice, and how for a while Altec didn’t even have a computer. Balls has looked competent top lane so far this year, but going up against Ssumday should make things interesting. In that article Balls talked about how he feels he is a good laner, but he always struggled handling 2v1’s like the meta was for most of seasons 5 and 6. It wouldn’t surprise me if he gets absolutely bodied by Ssumday and it wouldn’t surprise me if he goes even with Ssumday. Either way this will be a good measuring stick of where both Dignitas is with macro play and where Flyquest is with their individual play.
The key to this game will be the mid lane. Hai is the shot caller for Flyquest and his success or failure in the mid lane will likely bode well for Flyquest or be a sign of their impending failure. Keane has been hit or miss thus far this season and if Flyquest wants to have a good showing in this matchup Hai is going to have to outplay Keane hard. But, we can’t forget about HaiMoon, the popular meme associated with Hai, and the jungler Moon. This is of course a play on Overwatch hero McCree’s ultimate ability called High Noon.
Ultimately I think Chaser will snowball Dignitas to win in one game, but superior macro play and team fighting will allow Flyquest to win one out right, and will allow them to stall out another game until they are able to come back and win it. I think this is a close series where a handful of plays will really decide it. In the end though, my C9 bias shows through.
Prediction: Flyquest 2-1
The Meta
I believe the pros will now be playing on patch 7.2 this weekend. Surprisingly there were no changes to Camille, Leblanc, or Rengar. There were a couple fringe, buffs that could start to really shake things up this week.
The biggest changes will be the emergence of Lulu, currently there isn’t a really good counter pick to Malzahar, and because of this it gets banned a lot. I think with the lulu changes not only is she a premier support pickup but she can also counter Malzahar and Zyra with her empowered auto attacks.
Red Side Bans: Camille, Rengar, Leblanc, or one of these and then trading picks. This has been a very popular strategy for Flyquest and I wouldn’t be surprised to see other teams utilizing it, if for no other reason than to seem less predictable.
Blue Side Bans: Fiora, Maokai, Lulu, I wouldn’t be surprised to see these champs pop up as bans, also look for target bans to really land here. Ashe bans may become popular as well.
Top: Maokai, Jayce, Kennen, Poppy, Nautilus, Rumble, Singed
Jungle: Rengar, Kha’zix, Lee Sin, Elise, Rek’sai, Olaf, Hecarim
Mid Lane: Ryze, Jayce, Syndra, Cassiopeia, Orianna, Corki, Viktor, Katarina,
ADC: Ashe, Jhin, Varus, Ziggs, Caitlyn, Kalista,
Support: Lulu, Malzahar, Zyra, Miss Fortune, Karma, Taric, Tahm Kench, Nami, Bard, Syndra (Hoepfully)
Watch out for Olaf to come back near the top of the jungle meta after people found out he can take raptors level one and gain an extra level of experience. That will definitely get changed eventually it’s just a matter of when. I think we will see 100% pick/ban of Kha’zix and then about 50% of the time we will see Rek’sai, 35% Olaf, 15% Lee Sin.
Lulu for me is the big mover, really a counter to almost all meta supports, she should find herself banned a lot or played a lot. Some people like Smoothie have been saying she’s amazing for months, this might finally let her see the dominance she used to hold on the game.
Watch for the resurgence of Jhin. Jhin always seemed to be best suited for armor penetration builds, and with the recent buff to lethality items I wouldn’t be surprised to see him rise to the very top of the adc meta, he seemed good last week with a lethality build, this should only accentuate those strengths even further.
Again here is a partial tier list.
S tier A tier:
Top: Camille, Fiora, Maokai Top: Nautilus, Poppy, Rumble,
Jg: Rengar, Kha’zix Jg: Olaf, Rek’sai, Lee Sin, Gragas
Mid: Leblanc, Ryze Mid: Orianna, Cassiepeia, Corki
ADC: Jhin. Ashe, Varus ADC: Lucian
Support: Lulu, Malzahar, Miss Fortune Support: Zyra, Taric