Splyce 1, Unicorns of Love 0
Splyce dominated Unicorns of Love to kick off Week 7, Day 1 of the European League of Legends Championship Series Summer Split in Berlin.
The entire early game between Unicorns of Love and Splyce was uneventful to say the least. Breaking the record for the slowest first blood in the split, the team's seemed content farming for the majority of the game. Splyce (7-6) made the first move, finally picking up several kills, including first blood, 16-minutes into the game. In the meantime, Unicorns of Love (4-9) continued to play extremely passively, letting the gold gap constantly grow.
Although the handful of kills did not bring Splyce a huge gold advantage, the team found success off the back of impressive jungling from Andrei "Xerxe" Dragomir on Kindred. Gaining several early stacks, he was able to find a decent buff for himself. Simultaneously, he focused on objectives, gaining crucial control that ultimately brought his team full control of the map. Despite the game continuing to be played out slowly, Xerxe found his team three quick dragons to begin buffing the team for the late game.
Unicorns of Love seemed completely lost as the game progressed, with all members of the team struggling to get anything done. Notably, mid laner Fabian "Exileh" Schubert seemed completely unsure of what to do on Ryze. Constantly getting caught out, he allowed Splyce to further the team's lead.
Splyce used it's composition expertly as it entered the late game, turning fights on their heels and constantly catching out members of the enemy team. The game was fully blown open at the 39-minute mark as Splyce found an uncontested Elder Dragon that resulted in the team picking up four kills immediately following the objective. With the long enemy death timers, Splyce quickly pushed into the enemy base, finishing the game with a 40-minute victory. The loss was Unicorns of Love's worst loss of the split so far, with the team failing to find a single kill during the defeat.
With the defeat, Unicorns of Love's playoff hopes are almost shattered. The team will look to make a miracle playoff run as it takes on Vitality Saturday at 1 p.m. ET. Splyce will look to continue the team's win streak as it faces the currently winless team, H2k, earlier Saturday at 12 p.m. ET.
Schalke 04 1, ROCCAT 0
Schalke 04 claimed victory over ROCCAT in a back-and-forth game during Week 7 of the European Championship Series Summer Split in Berlin.
Moving into the game, both teams had substantially different compositions. With a large amount of junglers banned out, ROCCAT (6-7) opted to put Gragas in the jungle and finish things out with a late-game focused composition. On the other side, Schalke 04 (8-5) was focused on the mid game, building a composition that excelled in skirmishes early on.
With the different compositions, the playstyle of each team was apparent. Schalke 04 was extremely proactive in the early game, looking to build up a sizeable lead and close things out before the enemy composition had time to ramp up. Throughout the game, Schalke 04's jungler Maurice "Amazing" Stückenschneider lived up to his name, having an amazing start on Sejuani that brought his team a convincing early game lead and allowed the team's composition to realize its strengths. On the side of ROCCAT, the team seemed lost, and was not playing safely enough to allow the team time to scale.
As a result of the team's different playstyles, Schalke 04 found an extremely sizeable lead early on, allowing it to begin choking ROCCAT out of the game. Despite his team being substantially far behind, Jin "Blanc" Seong-min found an opening to bring his team back into things near Baron. Landing a five-man Orianna ultimate, he turned things around to bring his team the buff and put ROCCAT into the driver's seat of the game.
Just as things seemed to be going ROCCAT's way, player-of-the-game-candidate Amazing made a hero play. Seeing an opening, he jumped into the enemy team to steal Elder Dragon at the 36-minute mark while his mid laner back-doored the top inhibitor. With the ensuing chaos, Schalke 04 immediately turned to focus down Baron, claiming the objective while ROCCAT was split between defending its base and trying to contest the objectives. With the newfound buffs, Schalke 04 wasted no time and pushed into the enemy base, securing a final teamfight and earning a 40-minute victory.
ROCCAT will look to bounce back from the heartbreaking defeat as it takes on Giants at 11 a.m. ET on Saturday while Schalke 04 will play Misfits later in the day at 3 p.m. ET.
G2 Esports 1, H2K 0
G2 Esports survived a late scare from H2k Gaming to claim victory during Week 7 of the European League of Legends Championship Series Summer Split in Berlin.
Starting the game off, it seemed rather clear which team would be able to claim victory. With H2k (0-13) still winless, and playing with yet another roster change, G2 Esports (9-4) had a distinct synergy advantage to start things off.
The early game went as expected, with G2 Esports showing its skill as it made short work of the enemy team. Although it was unable to find a monstrous lead early on, its calm and collected play constantly paid off. Buying space for the team's carries to roam, mid laner Luka "Perkz" Perković was able to use Leblanc to find picks left and right, bringing his team firmly into the driver's seat.
Constantly having highlight plays, Perkz was able to carry his team towards the enemy base. Finding the enemy team caught out time and again, he was able to pick up constant kills, giving G2 Esports the room needed to gain sights of a victory. The team quickly began knocking at the doors of H2k's base, eager to close out the victory and hand the enemy its 13th loss in a row.
Just when all hope seemed lost for H2k, the team picked up a massive teamfight victory at the 35-minute mark, finding four kills during what seemed to be the team's final stand. This seemed to be the turning point of the game, with an opportunity to pick up Baron. Unfortunately for them this is where Perkz showed up again, stealing the Baron and escaping with his life.
As a result of the steal, G2 Esports was able to quickly rally and push into the enemy base once again. H2k made a critical mistake defending its base, tunneling on a single member of G2 Esports while the rest of the team focused down the enemy Nexus. As a result, G2 Esports was able to close out the game uncontested, resulting in a 38-minute victory.
H2k will continue to look for its first victory as it takes on Splyce this Saturday at 12 p.m. ET while G2 Esports will look to gain revenge against Fnatic at 2 p.m. ET later that day.
Giants 1, Misfits 0
Giants claimed a convincing victory over Misfits during Week 7 of the European League of Legends Championship Series Summer Split in Berlin.
Despite being drastically further down the standings than the 1st-place Misfits (10-3), the 9th-place Giants (4-9) had a strong start to the early game. Playing with discipline, Giants continued to pick up early kills, building a 3,000-gold lead in the process. After executing laning phase extremely well, the team began working on finding cross-map advantages to bridge into the midgame, which it executed to near perfection.
On the side of Misfits, the EU LCS leaders looked completely unsure of its win conditions. Throughout the early stages of the game, Misfits simply fell behind and watched as the gold difference grew quickly. Without so much as an attempt at any proactive plays, the team struggled to get anything done as it only managed to pick up a single dragon before beginning its descent into defeat.
With the Misfits playing without any confidence, Giants continued to press its lead. After winning several midgame skirmishes, Giants took a Baron buff and all but locked up the win from there. With superior map movements and individual play, Giants crushed Misfits left and right in an admittedly less-than-exciting-fashion, playing conservatively as it converted its midgame lead into a late game stranglehold of the game.
Baiting Misfits into engaging a final teamfight just outside its base, Giants capitalized once again, picking up an ace and wrapping a 38-minute victory. It's hard to believe a game this clean came out of the Giants but it kept its playoff dream alive while securing the biggest upset of the split.
Giants hopes to continue its miracle run when it faces ROCCAT at 11 a.m. ET on Saturday, while Misfits will look to bounce back from the defeat as it takes on Schalke 04 at 3 p.m. ET later that day.
Vitality 1, Fnatic 0
Vitality earned revenge for its Week 2 loss to Fnatic as it claimed victory to close out Saturday's European League of Legends Championship Series slate in Berlin.
Moving into the game, both Fnatic (9-4) and Vitality had massively different compositions. On the side of Fnatic, the team opted for a control mage composition, picking mages in all three of its lanes. Accordingly, Fnatic put all of its eggs in the midgame basket, hoping to close out the game before the 30-minute mark. Vitality (8-5), on the other hand, played a much more standard composition, made up of a couple of frontliners, a mage, and a traditional ad carry in the bottom lane and looked to scale up and dominate late game.
The strategy has worked for Fnatic in the past but it did not work against a motivated Vitality. Vitality brought the heat early on, finding a series of kills to put it firmly in the driver's seat. As Fnatic opted to go for early skirmishes, in an effort to use the team's compositional strengths, Vitality eagerly accepted Fnatic's challenges in these fights and consistently turned them around to accrue a 4,000-gold lead just 12 minutes into the game.
After playing reactively for much of the game, Vitality had built up enough of a lead that it could begin forcing fights on its own terms. Taking back-to-back teamfight victories, Vitality quickly grew its gold lead up to 10,000 as the team began cracking open the enemy base. Fnatic began to get desperate, looking for any chance to slow down the game so that the team could go for a wombo-combo to hopefully take a fight and start clawing back into the game.
Unable to find a favorable fight, Fnatic made a desperation call and flung the entire team into Vitality was taking down Baron. Although the call worked to a certain extent, with Fnatic picking up a pair of kills, it came at a price. Vitality immediately finished off Baron and killed the remaining members of Fnatic. As a result, Vitality executed on its gameplan of scaling and claimed a convincing 32-minute victory, securing the upset victory.
Fnatic will attempt to bounce back from the loss as it takes on G2 Esports at 2 p.m. ET on Saturday, while Vitality looks to continue its three-game win streak as it takes on Unicorns of Love earlier in the day at 1 p.m. ET.