Immortals had a slow start to its opening series Friday during Week 1, Day 1 of the 2017 North American League of Legends Championship Series Summer Split, but still managed to take an impressive 2-1 series win over Phoenix1 in Los Angeles.
Phoenix1 (0-1, 1-2 match record) struck first in Game 1 as support Jordan "Shady" Robison's Karma picked up first blood alongside Spring Split MVP AD carry Noh "Arrow" Dong-hyeon's Varus in a 2-v-2 outplay around 10 minutes in. Immortals quickly took control, however, using its siege composition to take towers for a modest gold lead. P1 stayed in the game with its pick composition by repeatedly harassing IMT AD carry Cody "Cody Sun" Sun's Caitlyn, killing him repeatedly to extend the sloppy series opener.
IMT looked to put the game away with a 32-minute Baron attempt, but P1 jungler Rami "Inori" Charagh stole the Baron kill, putting P1 ahead. From there, P1 secured a charged up Elder Dragon, a second Baron, and a plethora of kills thanks to Arrow, who took player of the game honors with a 5/0/7 KDA (kills/deaths/assists) for 92 percent kill participation as P1 took Game 1 in 44 minutes.
Immortals (1-0, 2-1 match record) came storming back in Game 2, picking up first blood for top laner Lee "Flame" Ho-jong's Renekton in an early jungle invade. P1 then attempted to get its teamfighting comp rolling with a five-man bot lane dive, but disaster struck as IMT turned it around for a 5-for-2 ace before 10 minutes. On the back of its 2,500-gold lead, Immortals had complete control of the map in the mid game, taking towers and kills with strong macro plays. Newly acquired jungler Jake "Xmithie" Puchero made an immediate impact as Elise, making his presence felt across the map by setting up kills for his team. It took a while for Immortals to close out the game after a mid-late game lull, but neutral objective domination gave it three Infernal Drakes, a Cloud Drake and a 33-minute Baron.
Increasing its gold lead to 11,000 gold at 39 minutes, IMT finally put the game away with a 5-for-0 ace at 41 minutes to take Game 2. In the pivotal Game 3, Immortals seemed to completely shrug off its shaky start to the series by setting a blistering pace in the mid game, taking towers, teamfights and anything else it set its sights on. A 4-for-0 teamfight win at 19 minutes put Immortals up with a 7,000-gold lead, which increased to a 10,000-gold lead at 22 minutes as Immortals exposed P1's top lane inhibitor. Eugene "Pobelter" Park was unstoppable on Orianna, linking up with Xmithie to take P1 out before it could scale into the late game. One final 3-for-0 teamfight later gave Immortals a 17,000-gold lead and a Game 3 win in just shy of 30 minutes to close out the day. Immortals hope to take this momentum into its matchup against reigning NA LCS champions Team SoloMid on Sunday at 3 p.m ET, while Phoenix1 look to bounce back against Team EnVyUs on Sunday at 3 p.m ET.