Team Dignitas vs 100 Thieves

What a phenomenal way to start off the day — Dignitas vs. 100 Thieves has all the hallmarks of a barnburner, and if both teams bring their "A game" they'll no doubt entertain us beyond measure.

Predicting the outcome, however, is pretty much a fool's errand -- it's nigh impossible. You can really make a case for both teams precisely because they're stacked with talent and have all the right tools to emerge victorious; still, they're either inherently flawed or are far too volatile to be deemed as true top-tier contenders. 100 Thieves have more firepower but that doesn't have to result in much if they keep drafting in such an inadequate way.

Dignitas, on the other hand, have done more than enough to warrant our benefit of the doubt but they've also found themselves in huge deficits and were forced to claw back from the jaws of defeat. Now, on the one hand, it's wholly commendable that they've been able to pull off such reversals, but on the other, the fact that they found themselves on the backfoot so frequently doesn't bode well for their long-term chances. If they could somehow magically improve their laning, they'd no doubt become a bona fide threat to the upper echelon of the LCS. Their team-fighting is amongst the best in North America, but that by itself simply isn't enough against the cream of the crop.

All in all, we'll side with 100 Thieves on this one but it could really go either way. Their one-sided shellacking of Cloud9 definitely made them look good, but beating a struggling Cloud9 isn't worth all that much these days — the defending champions had very little time to acclimate to the current patch and you can see it in their play, too. Still, a win is a win, and if 100 Thieves give Abbedagge a bit of agency and get FBI on a comfort pick, they'll no doubt be able to get the "W."

Finally, a short disclaimer: if you're after a game that's "easy" to predict, you'd best look elsewhere — there's very little certainty in the LCS right now, and that's bound to remain to case for the next couple of weeks until teams get on the same page and figure out what's the best and most optimal way of playing the game.