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Unicorns of Love closed out Week 9 of the European League of Legends Championship Series with a dominant 2-0 sweep of Splyce on Saturday in Berlin.
While Unicorns (8-3, 19-11 match record) has been playing out of its mind as of late, the possibility of a backslide against other top teams has alway been prominent. On Saturday, however, Unicorns played as clean as we've seen them all split long against Splyce (7-5, 14-13 match record). With a first-round bye still in play, Unicorns absolutely had to win this series to keep its destiny squarely in its own hands. The entire analyst desk predicted a Splyce win, but Unicorns showed up in a big way to squelch its doubters.
Perhaps the biggest confidence booster for Unicorns was how it picked up wins in two vastly different ways. The first game of the series saw Unicorns adhere to its normal heavy-teamfighting style in order to secure victory. While Splyce had a lead in the early gave, Unicorns, led by top laner Tamás "Vizicsacsi" Kiss' Cho'Gath, simply pushed down the mid lane over and over to slowly chip away at Splyce's resolve and pick up the win. In stark contrast, Game 2 saw Unicorns take a more macro approach to the game, methodically picking up objectives across the map to bleed Splyce of resources. Unicorns, whose final ace to end the game accounted for over 50 percent of the entire game's kill total, played the game beautifully to only give up two kills and no other objectives to speak of in the 33-minute Unicorns win.
For as good as Unicorns looked in this series, Splyce looked just as poor. It seemed as though the draft strategies were just a step off in both games. Without enough weapons to contend with the teamfighting prowess of Unicorns in the first game, Splyce simply had nothing to stop the Unicorn snowball. Splyce then overcorrected in Game 2 by drafting too much late game, which left it vulnerable to efficient early game macro that Unicorns used to pick up the win. Splyce will need to shore up these deficiencies or it will be steamrolled in the postseason.
Unicorns will next face Team Vitality at 2 p.m. ET on Friday, while Splyce will close its Summer Split against Vitality at 11 a.m. ET on Sunday.