For complete League of Legends recaps, standings and stats, click here.
Immortals stayed in the North American League of Legends Championship Series playoff hunt by defeating second-place Cloud9 in decisive fashion on Saturday during Week 8, Day 2 of the NA LCS in Los Angeles.
Although its team composition seemed underpowered on paper, Immortals (7-8, 19-19 match record) led Cloud9 (11-4, 25-12 match record) in tempo during Game 1 and showed a better understanding of how to win teamfights. After a prolonged vision battle early in the game, Immortals eventually secured the game's only Baron kill, picked up a kill on the disengage and took a tier-two turret before backing off. Immortals mid laner Eugene "Pobelter" Park's Syndra was steady throughout Game 1 with a 7/1/2 KDA (kills/deaths/assists). After locking up those three win conditions, Immortals was simply too powerful and surged to victory in under 34 minutes.
Game 1 was a steady march toward victory by Immortals, but Game 2 was a brute-force beatdown by Cloud9, led by jungler Juan "Contractz" Arturo Garcia's Rengar. The C9 rookie got ahead early with six kills before his first death and finished with a 15/3/3 KDA in a player of the game performance. Cloud9 did a great job of playing smart around Contractz as well, not giving up a single turret, Drake, Dragon or Baron. Immortals did what they could to stay afloat in the late game, but Cloud9 eventually secured the 34-minute Game 2 win.
Immortals secured first blood for the first time in the series during Game 3, when jungler Joshua "Dardoch" Hartnett's Lee Sin ganked bottom lane to secure a kill. That maneuver set the tone for his performance the rest of the match. Dardoch showed why his Lee Sin is a force to be reckoned with, earning a 9/1/9 KDA. The game was seemingly decided 11 minutes in as Immortals held the tempo advantage with a 6-to-2 kill lead, which snowballed to a staggering 20-to-5 advantage by the time Immortals broke Cloud9's Nexus in under 25 minutes.
Immortals looks to upset another top NA LCS team Sunday at 3 p.m ET when it faces Phoenix1, while Cloud9 looks to return to its winning ways against Team EnVyUs Sunday at 6 p.m ET.