Let’s talk about Pheonix1. The League of Legends North American LCS has finally hit the halfway point, with some teams excelling at the best-of-three format, while others can barely get a win. P1 is in the latter category and quite frankly does not look like a professional LCS team. Piglet during week three even told ESPN : “Their gameplay in general is really bad. To call themselves pros, it's like – seeing these guys in the LCS is kind of disheartening.”
Pheonix1 played Team Solomid today, who are currently undefeated and having an amazing split with rookie Biofrost, who brought that little bit of cohesion the team so desperately needed. So what happens when the first place team meets the last place team? An absolute blood bath. Both games were as one-sided as can be, with TSM having the much better macro game. Everytime P1 would try to make a play, TSM was ready and always got more out of it.
Game two is where the two different skill levels of these teams really became more apparent. Svenskeren owned Inori’s jungle, and whenever P1’s jungler would try to make a play, he would just end up failing. On Rek’sai, Inori failed to flash-Unburrow twice, each time losing his team the fight.
Mash and Gate, P1’s bot lane who used to be on Team Impulse, were slaughtered by Doublelift and Biofrost. Doublelift ended that game 7-0-0 with Biofrost having a 0-0-13 score; it seemed less like a solo queue game and more like a half-assed scrim.
My favorite moment of the match had to be Bjergsen’s insane flash kill. Pirean is waiting in a bush in the mid lane, just hoping to spring out and pull some Leblanc cheese. Bjergsen then walks next to his bush, flashes into it and then kills Pirean with Doublelift’s help.
Bjergsen didn’t actually have any vision of Pirean, he saw him distort into the bush and figured out he was there. As masterful as that play was, it shouldn’t have happened on the LCS stage. Every split needs bottom-tier teams, but even Dignitas at the height of their epic throws could beat Summer split Pheonix1. It’s make-or-break time for the team, they either have to start winning games or accept that their team is most likely done for.
