Team Liquid
2018-05-12 11:00:00
Flash Wolves

Team Liquid vs Flash Wolves

2018-05-12 02:26:00Posted by Petar

The first day of the 2018 Mid-Season Invitational went as expected. Well, sort of. As with every international tournament there are multiple constants - Kingzone mopping the floor with their opposition, Royal Never Give Up being hot and cold (as China mostly is on the international stage), Flash Wolves performing even better than most expected and the West falling flat.

This time around we're focusing on a key match-up in the second day of the Group Stage - Flash Wolves against Team Liquid. Now these two teams are at completely opposite points right now - the LMS representative started off as best as they could and are tied for first with Kingzone whereas Team Liquid failed to win even a single match. (even against Vietnam's EVOS eSports)

Now it's quite the cliche for the Flash Wolves to start off strong because they almost always begin strong but fall off a bit as the days go by. It's hard to pin point what really happens, perhaps they don't have the endurance or teams adapt to their playstyle a bit better but it's almost always a given.

That said the level of play that they've displayed yesterday was far from a fluke - they're just a really, really good team that has sound fundamentals. Sure, they're not perfect and they lack in certain areas, their execution isn't always as clean as it could be and they make individual mistakes but fortunately they're not facing Korea tomorrow but North America instead so they can afford a couple of miss-steps.

After witnessing Flash Wolves dominate over Gambit last week it became evident that they're here not to participate - they want to make their region proud. Their win against EVOS was expected but most people expected for them to stumble against Fnatic. Not even close. The Flash Wolves were much more in-sync from the very get go, they were faster on the map and more coordinated in their dives and executions. Even though Fnatic fought valiantly they simply couldn't out-teamfight the Flash Wolves when it mattered the most. The LMS champions drafted a team comp filled with comfort picks and Moojin played an incredibly disruptive Trundle that was always at the right place at the right time.

Maple and Betty did the heavy lifting when the late game came and even though no one ranked Betty amongst the likes of Pray, Uzi, Rekkles and Doublelift it became evident from day one that he came to play and prove everyone wrong.

Team Liquid in particular had a very rough game two yesterday. Losing to the tournament favorites Kingzone isn't such a big deal - it was expected but losing to Vietnam's representative wasn't. Far from it. They were smothered from the very get go and couldn't really find an answer to their aggression. It was obvious that Liquid had the better macro, they were focusing on objectives, rotated far faster on the map and they looked as the better team overall but EVOS opted to teamfight whenever possible and Liquid played their game - which was a critical error.

In just thirty minutes we had over thirty kills and as the time went on Liquid was getting collapsed upon minute after minute. Since Impact had to split push EVOS had an easy time to engage whenever they saw fit and their fantastic (albeit chaotic at times) teamfighting paid off in spades. Yijin and Warzone in particular had a fantastic showing with the later finishing 11/3/6. Even though Liquid had Olleh on Tahm Kench he wasn't able to perform up to expectations and in fact had nine deaths when all was said and done.

Things were so bad in fact that Liquid will be starting off Day 2 without Olleh - Joey will instead be subbing in. Losing such a big playmaker will be a big hit to their synergy and overall strength. Olleh's roaming and plays were always a big part of Immortals' and Team Liquid's success on home soil and the idea of putting in your pretty inexperienced substitute support against the absolute best bottom lanes in the world means Liquid loses a ton of their potential. (in a bottom lane centric meta, to make matters worse)

They know they're not performing as expected and judging from Doublelift's post game interview they don't know why - which could be a problem. They're less proactive and if they weren't able to beat EVOS - a team with far less resources and star power - they shouldn't be able to beat the Flash Wolves.

It's a crucial match for both teams in a way - the Wolves want to not only continue their dominant run but a win over Team Liquid puts them even further up the standings and essentially improves their chances of reaching the quarterfinals next week. For Liquid this could be the "do or die" point in the tournament.

Even though we're going with Flash Wolves on this one do have in mind that it's an incredibly close match on paper and that nuances will be the deciding factor.

GamePickBookmakerOddsStakeResult
Flash Wolves Pinnacle 1.89 7 Win

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