The League of Legends Championship Series in North America kicked off its continuation of the spring split on June 4. With roster changes and weeks of preparation since Spring ended, unexpected teams — like Immortals — have been thriving while Cloud9 and Team Liquid showed little success.
After only a weekend of matches, we have already seen a shift in the standings for the regular season. The previous win/loss ratio was moved over from the spring split. This means that everyone was in the same spot they finished in. Cloud9 had been on top after qualifying for the Mid-Season Invitational. However, they’ve now dropped to second with multiple teams close on their heels.
TSM really did get a buff from the FTX partnership
TSM recently announced a naming partnership with cryptocurrency FTX for over 210 million dollars. This would allow FTX’s name to be put in conjuncture with TSM to form TSM FTX. However, the naming partnership was not allowed by Riot Games. The organization refused to allow TSM to use TSM FTX for any Riot sanctioned events. TSM went undefeated in the first weekend of LCS.
LOST WINS THE BASE RACE!!! 🤯 @TSM #LCS pic.twitter.com/HK8pUyOZmA
— LCS (@LCSOfficial) June 5, 2021
Evil Geniuses, Team Liquid and Golden Guardians were all on TSM’s matchup sheet for this weekend. Outside of Golden Guardians, both Team Liquid and Evil Geniuses looked promising after the spring split ended. TSM’s match against Team Liquid was close. The game surpassed the 40-minute mark before barely edging out in favor of TSM at the end. Their match against Evil Geniuses was another story, however. It mostly favored TSM before ending at the 30-minute mark.
While all of TSM’s matches went past 30-minutes, they were still able to close them out to go undefeated in the opening weekend of LCS.
Cloud9 looks shaky after benching Zven
Before the start of the LCS, Cloud9 announced that they would be bringing in Calvin “k1ng” Truong for Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen. The rookie bot-laner had to face 100 Thieves, Golden Guardians and Team Liquid all in the same weekend. That was not an easy lineup to fill the shoes of a multi-regional champion and the pressure showed in their losses.
It wasn't even close. 💥 #LCS pic.twitter.com/7O7ukOEeDF
— LCS (@LCSOfficial) June 6, 2021
After six dragons, Baron and over 35 minutes of gameplay, Golden Guardians were able to take down Cloud9 on the opening day of LCS. The two teams were complete opposites on the leaderboard; GGS was 3-15 and Cloud9 was 13-5 at the start of the weekend. Cloud9 then was stopped by 100 Thieves during Day 2. This was after they added Felix “Abbedagge” Braun in the mid lane.
While Cloud9 was able to overcome Team Liquid, they still went 1-2 opening weekend, dropping to second in the standings to TSM — who now take first.
Immortals are a team to be feared in Summer
Like TSM, Immortals went undefeated in their opening weekend of LCS. While they did not have the toughest lineup for the weekend, they were still able to take down 100 Thieves — who looked scary after Day 1. After decisively throwing 100 Thieves off their game, they took down CLG and Golden Guardians to propel themselves to 10-11 in the standings. After being in eighth at the start of the weekend, they are now tied for sixth with Evil Geniuses.
.@Immortals get it done with Elder! #LCS pic.twitter.com/DwdzaQRKaT
— LCS (@LCSOfficial) June 7, 2021
If Immortals continue to improve at the same rate next weekend — on Friday, June 11 — we may see them overtake Evil Geniuses in the standings. Immortals were one of the few teams that made no roster changes over the offseason. And, they put their noses to the grindstone on practice.
