After problems earlier in the day , IEM Katowice has managed to fix its technical errors. Team Solo Mid, after an embarrassing loss to Ever, managed to pull out a 2-1 victory against Origen in the first round of the losers bracket. At the end of the series interview Bjergsen admitted: “we made a lot of wrong decisions this game and this series.”
This series was sloppy, with both teams having players getting caught, either overextending or being somewhere they shouldn’t have. There was a team fight during game one that matched the level of absurdity only seen in Renegades vs, Dignitas . Poppy uses her ultimate to fling away Nautlius as he was being focused, and Ezreal flings his True Shot Barrage into the wrong direction. Even Montecristo was in shock: “I don’t even know what to say about that fight.”
Origen had so many problems in this game. Amazing threw game three, when he got caught at the raptor camp, getting his team aced and giving Baron to TSM. Another big problem was PowerofEvil, Origen’s mid laner. At one point in his career, POE was my favorite player. During the 2015 EU Summer and Spring splits, he played for Unicorns of Love. They always brought out unique picks - like Udyr, before it was cool - and managed to play at Worlds.
This year, Powerofevil is a shell of his former self. There was a major screw-up on his part in every game played today. The worst one, by far, happened in game one. POE on Lissandra wasn’t able to engage properly once. His ultimate is point-and-click suppression, which should be easy to engage. But in every fight he had to use it on himself, negating its engage capabilities. Whenever Glacial Tomb went on cooldown, TSM took the opportunity to strike.
The team that won Group A, Royal Never Give Up, showed a much cleaner performance. Jungler MXLG, with his John Lennon glasses, played beautifully on Gragas and Nidalee. His flash Body Slams on Gragas connected in every fight, and his Nidalee Pounces shredded the enemy teams’ health bars when it mattered.
TSM has a chance at redemption: they are playing Ever next. I believe these games will be even sloppier since Ever is now a challenger team, not even in the LCK. I’m a TSM fan first, but it’s hard to believe in a team that has shown no consistent performance. Maybe next time you should hire a head coach that actually plays the game , Reginald.
