Reigning regional champions Team SoloMid faced off against a much-hyped Team Dignitas on Friday, Day 2 of the second week of the season. While Dignitas took a tumultuous Game 1, TSM bounced back and gave its fans a chance to breathe easy with a decisive 2-1 series win in Santa Monica, California.
In a battle for jungle dominance, TSM's Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen's Kha'Zix and Dignitas' Lee "Chaser" Sang-hyun's Rek'Sai made their presences felt throughout the early game. Chaser struck first, ganking top laner Kevin "Hauntzer" Yarnell's Maokai to give first blood to Kim "Ssumday" Chan-ho's top Fiora, but Svenskeren responded minutes later by killing Ssumday and taking first tower. After a period of back-and-forth action, Dignitas destroyed most of TSM's base, allowing Ssumday to teleport into TSM's base and backdoor their Nexus while the rest of Dignitas prevented TSM from recalling to register a 49-minute win.
Svenskeren got his hands on Lee Sin for Game 2, getting TSM ahead early by giving Hauntzer's Poppy a first blood kill onto Ssumday's Jayce. Every member of TSM stepped up their performance from Game 1, particularly Svenskeren, who was the catalyst for most of TSM's plays throughout the game. TSM never lost its cool, dictating the pace throughout the game thanks to Svenskeren and support Vincent "Biofrost" Wang's Thresh finding key picks to snowball TSM's lead out of control. Securing two Baron kills and taking advantage of their superior teamfighting, TSM marched to a methodical Game 2 win in 39:50.
TSM were firing on all cylinders early in Game 3, with Hauntzer ganking for Soren "Bjergsen" Bjerg's mid lane Cassiopeia to give him first blood early on. TSM began rotating around the map, controlling side waves to take early towers and increase their gold lead. Dignitas tried to keep up with TSM's objective control but TSM broke the game wide open at 24 minutes with a great 4-for-0 teamfight that gave them a mid turret and a Baron kill. Shortly after, TSM would engage in a teamfight in Dignitas' base, acing its opposition on the back of Bjergsen's triple kill to close out the 2-1 series win in just under 30 minutes.