Team Liquid
2018-05-15 14:00:00
Royal Never Give Up

Team Liquid vs Royal Never Give Up

2018-05-15 01:01:32Posted by Petar

After four chaotic and extremely engaging days of League of Legends, we've finally come to the last day of the Group Stage. As for the standings not a lot it is set in stone which means that every single game matters. Unless you're EVOS eSports - they cannot reach the Top 4 regardless of how well they play today.

This time around we're looking at a very important game between Royal Never Give Up and Team Liquid. While RNGU has a much easier schedule this time around they still want to dominate and win both matches against Liquid and EVOS eSports. With two more wins they would end the Group Stage with a very respectable 7W-3L record and they could contest for the number one spot and the ability to pick their opponent in the semifinals.

After yesterday's matches it's safe to say that they're at worst a Top 2 team at the tournament right now, even though we still don't know how well they will perform in a Best of 5 setting. Kingzone is a spectacular team but they've perhaps been exploited a bit - not by a lot but it's enough. These are the absolute best teams in the world and they have the right tools to compete at the highest level, and if you give them an inch they can by all means take a mile.

After they took down Kingzone in the first game of the day all eyes were set on their clash with the Flash Wolves. It was a somewhat even game for a couple of minutes until a heavy 5v5 skirmish broke out near the dragon pit which ultimately resulted in Uzi getting a quadra and RNG acing the Flash Wolves. Definitely not the way you want to start off the game if you're the LMS champions. The hectic pace continued with each passing minute and soon enough RNG was up almost nine thousand gold at the twenty minute mark. Their superior macro was on full display and they did everything by the book, as cleanly as possible. With another repeat Quadra for Uzi it was a shellacking that took less than thirty minutes to end.

As for Team Liquid, they improved big time. Almost everyone at the tournament was saying how they weren't competing at their fullest potential, how there are multiple roadblocks (psychological above all) that are preventing them from playing as well as they could.

Against EVOS they were the better team from the very get go. Clean dives on the bottom lane for first blood and better objective control, and EVOS couldn't really find a solution even though they tried their best to keep up. Liquid played cautiously, after all they've already lost to EVOS just a couple of days prior and it paid off, they were slow and calculated and eventually they completely took the reigns after a fantastic Xmithie baron steal. Eventually the gold lead that they accrued was too big for EVOS to handle and afterwards it was just a matter of time before they closed out the game. They all improved individually, they were in-sync and they echoed the Team Liquid from the NA LCS playoffs.

Their game against Fnatic was a beacon of light for all Northa American fans however as they simply played better than their European counterpart. They had the better macro and it showed in their Dragon control and the amount of time which they needed to take down all outer turrets, and they were far quicker to rotate and set up plays whereas Fnatic always had to react. They put all of their eggs in the Rekkles basket and it backfired - as could've been predicted. He simply isn't performing up to expectations right now and even though he doesn't make mistakes he isn't doing anything of value either. He cannot be the sole carry on Fnatic right now and putting him on a scaling hypercarry is a mind-boggling error that was made in the pick and ban phase. Fnatic did manage to respond back around the thirty minute mark which made the game very competitive for a short period of time but it was in vain as Team Liquid did what they had to do in order to keep their semifinal hopes alive.

Not a lot of people trusted Royal Never Give Up to come back and contest for the number one spot - and with good reason. After a couple of shaky performances they showed little to win fans over - until today. You couldn't really give them a harder set of opponents than the one they had yesterday - and yet they managed to win both games in relatively dominant fashion. With wins over Kingzone DragonX and the Flash Wolves, RNGU creeped up and is tied for the number two spot.

Now sure, Team Liquid stepped up. Big time, but they're still near the bottom of the standings for a reason and while their wins over EVOS eSports and Fnatic yesterday bring a dose of uncertainty with the standings it was still a far cry from the dominant performance many people expected. You could even argue that they should've lost against Fnatic the second time around as well had Fnatic not drafted the most illogical draft we've seen so far at the Mid-Season Invitational. (putting the best performing midlaner at the tournament on Karma duty is a decision that baffles even the biggest fans)

Because of that we're going with Royal Never Give Up on this one. A lot of it is on the line for the LPL champions and they know that the road to the finals goes through Team Liquid today so they're surely going to prepare and dominate.

GamePickBookmakerOddsStakeResult
Royal Never Give Up 1xBet 1.35 5 Win

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