The drafting phase this game started with Dignitas putting pressure on the newest member of TSM: They banned out WildTurtle with Draven and Caitlyn bans, then Dyrus’s Shen. TSM responded with bans on Elise and Kayle for Kiwi and Scarra, and an unexpected ban on the versatile support Lulu. However, they take away another of Scarra’s common champions with their first pick, Diana. However, Scarra is also comfortable on Gragas, and he picks it last, also securing some counter-initiation power which would prove crucial against a team with Diana.Both teams took a passive stance at level 1, except for Imaqtpie on Ezreal, who did a brave solo-invade and harassed Xpecial and WildTurtle as they cleared double golems. His harass was effective, and though they cleared the golems anyway, it delayed them and ensured a level 2 all-in wouldn’t be a great risk despite the level advantage. The first action happened mid-lane, as Reginald came back to lane from wraiths and Scarra pushed the wave away from his tower just as a second creep wave arrived. Most of the action happened off camera, but based on item usage, health and mana, and minimap, this is what happened: Scarra’s creep wave was very large, so Scarra was level 4 to Reginald’s level 3. Scarra hit a barrel onto Regi and immediately followed up by using his Fortitude Elixir, then he slowed and chunked Regi with his Body Slam empowered by the greatly increased AD from both Drunken Rage and Fortitude Elixir. He ignited and auto attacked a few times, blasting right through Diana’s Pale Cascade. Left with a shred of health, Regi flashed away and over his ranged creeps to block Body Slam, but Scarra flashed over as well and then slams to pick up First Blood for Dignitas.Not long after, since TheOddOne revealed himself in mid lane to cover for Reginald, Crumbz came out of the bush he was camping top to gank Dyrus’s Rumble. However, Dyrus exercised quick reflexes would Flash away during Renekton’s stun animation , retreating to the safety of his turret. KiwiKid and Crumbz tried to dive, but as Renekton took the tower aggro, Rumble slowed him with an Electro-Harpoon, Ignited him, and turned on him with his Flamethrower. Dyrus killed KiwiKid and forced Crumbz to retreat, both survivors under 100 health.All is not well for the bot lane of Dignitas either, getting totally bullied out of lane despite a Fortitude Elixir start on Imaqtpie. By 5:30 both Ezreal and Thresh are forced to recall while their lane is pushing towards their tower, and TheOddOne shows up on Volibear to help Varus and Sona take out the tower by 6 minutes, putting the gold lead over 1k into TSM’s favor - not even counting the 750 gold of Fortitude Elixirs which Dignitas purchased and has now consumed.When Crumbz hits 6 on Nasus, he moves with Scarra to attempt what has become a signature early Dragon kill. However, even though Dragon is pinked, TSM still has wards on the river entrances, they see the approach. They position to contest. threatening Dignitas into aborting the plan and OddOne narrowly escapes a Body Slam from Gragas which could have been an initiaton to a kill. Only a minute later, TSM has taken total control of river vision, they have Imaqtpie and Patoy pushed back to their inner turret, and they take a no-contest dragon, pushing them further into the lead.TSM’s duo kept pushing with their advantage, and when Crumbz shows top to gank Dyrus again, Reginald and OddOne assist in forcing Dignitas to abandon their bottom inner turret. Though Dyrus does fall, and Dignitas takes the top outer turret, they are still 1.5k gold behind. Even though Dignitas picks up some kills due to good Thresh hooks from Patoy, they can’t sieze map control, and TSM forces down the middle outer turret by the thirteen minute mark.Two minutes later, the second dragon is about to spawn, and with both teams beginning to group near mid, Reginald dove onto Scarra to initiate. Scarra’s Gragas responded by disengaging with his ultimate, knocking Diana into two of his teammates while pushing Volibear and Sona backwards. Renekton uses his ultimate too and stuns Diana, but as Diana fights on, and Rumble approaches, he is forced to back off. Shortly after, dragon spawns, and TSM moves to take it now that they have burned two crucial teamfight ultimates of Dignitas. Dignitas responded, but Diana and Rumble comboed their abilities to devastating effect; Moonfall forced three members of Dignitas to suffer the full duration of The Equalizer and die very quickly. TSM aces Dignitas while losing only three of their own, with redbuff and dragon burning damage ticking the last piece of health away from Ezreal after he thought he had escaped over the back of the Dragon pit. Though they are low, Volibear and Rumble could safely take Dragon thanks to nobody being alive to contest.Though Dignitas picked up a kill thanks to Imaqtpie baiting Reginald in bot lane, this is part of TSM’s cross-map pressure, and TSM takestop turrets while the so many Dignitas are busy in elsewhere on the map, extending their lead to 5k gold, with 5 turrets and 2 dragons, leaving Dignitas still scrambling for a way to come back into the game. They finally found a teamfight they wanted when Crumbz ghosted and chased hard into TSM’s jungle . He gets a wither onto Diana, who gives up trying to retreat and jumps onto Patoy with his whole team behind him. However, Varusand the immense slow of Thresh’s Box prevents Volibear from doing literally anything in the fight. Volibear and Rumble fall with no losses for Dignitas. Dignitas briefly tries to take mid turret before being turned back by heavy waveclear and poke from Varus and Diana, so they pick up Dragon instead, narrowing the gold gap to only 3k behind. TSM struck back when Dignitas was split up during a battle over vision control of the Baron area, and with Scarra and Imaqtpie split off in one direction, they chase Kiwi, Patoy, and Crumbz down the river. After going back to heal up, they return and start Baron with full vision control from pink wards and Xpecial’s oracle. Dignitas combats this vision by droppingwards into the Baron pit, and Crumbz and ghosts in alongside Kiwi, successfully getting a ballsy smite steal . At this point, everyone on Dignitas had managed to pass their counterpart in farm except for Imaqtpie - who isCS behind WildTurtle. The gold difference was almost entirely in turret gold at this point, and Dignitas had plenty of turrets left to kill. During the baron buff, they used Scarra’s poke and knockback to safely take two turrets, putting the gold 50k to 49k - only 1k in favor of TSM.As baron respawned, the teams resumed their standoff in the middle of the map. Reginald engaged, but WildTurtle was several screens away due to taking a strange route through the jungle . As the followup Equalizer came down, Reginald got hooked, and Scarra counter-initiated with an extremely well-placed Explosive Cask while simultaneously dodging Crescendo with Body Slam. Reginald blocked the cask with Zhonyas, but it knocked 3 other members of TSM back, and they would be too far away to help Reginald when the Hourglass ran out of sand. WildTurtle finally shows up to the fight, but it’s a 4v5 and he eats Wither before Patoy delivers him a Death Sentence, and Dignitas takes the Ace, losing only Crumbz. Dignitas blew through the remaining bottom lane structures, and Ezreal even stayed to take 1 nexus turret while his team backed off early. The next fight looked like the previous : Reginald saw an opportunity to dive onto Ezreal and popped Zhonya. When the Explosive Cask comes out, this time it knocks Reginald and other TSM members back while singling out Dyrus for death. With the fight quickly turning 4v5, Diana’s health extremely low, and Varus Withered with no cleanse, Dignitas easily cleans up the fight and aces TSM, again losing only Crumbz.While it’s easy to blame Reginald for this loss, one has to wonder when four members of TSM are consistently ready to teamfight but the new guy is too far back to participate. WildTurtle seems fine picking fights of his own, but twice he made critical errors in his team play which lost his team a fight: once by missing his Chains of Corruption into the middle of a raging teamfight, and a second time by wandering around in his jungle when the rest of his team were pouncing on Dignitas in Mid Lane. At the same time, Scarra’s Gragas was crucial to ruin the only source of hard initiation that TSM had for teamfights: Reginald’s Diana. Without this hard initiate, TSM would be forced to eat Gragas/Ezreal poke. The one time TSM got the initiate they wanted, they forced Dignitas to sit on The Equalizer, but that was when Explosive Cask was on cooldown. With that crucial ultimate off cooldown, TSM could not get a good initiation, and Dignitas was able to take fights even at a large deficit, which allowed them to turn the game around and seal a victory to defend their second place spot from TSM’s onslaught.

Keys to Victory Predictions for Week 8

[Day 1] April 4, 2013

coL vs CLG

GGU vs Crs

Vul vs TSM

MRN vs coL

[Day 2] April 5, 2013

TSM vs Crs

Vul vs coL

MRN vs GGU

Crs vs Vul

Time is running out before standings are locked in for the midseason playoffs. Only the top six teams will make it to the playoffs, with the top two having the privilege of skipping the first round. The middle four teams will compete in the first round, with the losers dropping to the promotion tournament where they will need to re-qualify for the LCS against the bottom two teams - and against new blood - a dangerous place to be for any team. Furthermore, after this week the gaps between the top four teams and bottom four teams have widened greatly, and while it’s technically possible for Vulcun or Marn to go on an incredible hot streak to snatch 4th place if CLG doesn’t perform well, it’s incredibly unlikely. These teams should instead look to defend their spots in the midseason playoffs from compLexity and GGU, who are now nipping at their heels. TSM is still right behind Dignitas, and definitely has their sights set on that first round bye.Several teams have recently undergone roster changes as well. At the time of this writing, we know of Chuuper being replaced by Pr0lly and Muffinqt dropped for Bloodwater. It’s not yet known who GGU will find to replace Bloodwater, but two benched LCS supports are available now: Muffinqt and AtomicN. It remains to be seen whether these roster changes will show us revitalized morale or shaky team coordination.Week 8 kicks off with a Week 7 rematch. Although CLG won the last game, the end result was probably a little too close for their comfort. NickWu on Zed gave CLG trouble all game long being able to dive in on Doublelift and blow him up early in fights. This time around don't expect CLG to let Zed fall in coL's hand as he will probably just be banned out. Another wrinkle this time around is the news that Mid player Chuuper is getting benched and replaced by PR0LLY. If CLG can get out to an early lead they should be able to hold of coL who is inexperienced in playing from behind. For coL their success will revolve on their ability to dive CLG's back line. Champions with dives or dashes give coL a better chance to blow up CLG's carries while bypassing their tank line. They already favor champions such as Kha'zix or Diana so that fits right along with this strategy.Coming into this match Curse remains the only team in the top four to not drop a game to one of the bottom four teams. Out of those four teams Good Game University came the closest to beating Curse during their Week 1 meeting in which they managed to take down both of their Nexus Turrets. Week 7 was the time GGU went positive so they are coming into this match with more momentum that usual. A big factor in their recent success has been some exceptional play from ZionSpartan, particularly on Jayce. To win against Curse ZionSpartan will have to keep playing at this level. For Curse they need to play the same way they did against Vulcun in Week 7. They didn't try anything fancy and simply outclassed Vulcun and were able to pick up an early lead and snowball that into a victory.Week 7 was the worst case scenario for Vulcun. They had the potential to gain more ground on CLG in the standings, but instead they went a disappointing 0-3. Against TSM shutting down Reginald is a good strategy to earn the win. Regi favors very aggressive champs and Vulcun can use this to their advantage. Mancloud is more than capable of punishing Regi for this, especially if he can get one of his favorite champs such as Lux or Nidalee. On the other hand, TSM has been playing very well recently winning five of their last six game. WildTurtle's offensive oriented play style has seemed to reinvigorate the team and they are going to ride this wave as long as possible. If Vulcun runs a poke comp as they are known to do, TSM's current aggressive play style is a good way to counter this.In our second rematch from the prior week MRN is looking for redemption after dropping their match against compLexity. This time around though coL is sporting their different roster. After the unfortunate popularization of the term “Chuuper's Bloopers” the team decided Mid player Chuuper needed some time on the bench and brought in PR0llY to take over the starting spot. PR0llY had been playing Mid for Velocity eSports and was formerly Lautemortis' teammate on Team Legion. coL are banking on a lot of improvement in the Mid lane and are hoping “Chuuper's Bloopers” and don't just become “PR0LLY's Follies.” Any time a new player joins a team it's easy for him to become the weak link of the team while their synergy develops. MRN can use this to their advantage and abuse PR0LLY hopefully snowballing Ecco and putting him in a good position to carry the game.With little time left in the LCS, TSM will need to truly challenge Curse if there's to be any hope of dislodging them from the top spot. Luckily, TSM's current strength is in their duo lane, where WildTurtle is running roughshod over nearly every other Ranged AD in NA. As good as Cop and Elementz are, TSM's new star could give them a run for their money he is allowed to dominate as much he has in recent matches. TSM has also demonstrated patient and pragmatic play in their last several matches, which will be a boon to them as the Spring Season ends and the relegation matches begin. For example, in the early LCS weeks TSM would have gone HAM on GGU, but this week they played a slow and deliberate game, earning them a strong victory. In contrast, Curse will want to plan their strategies in a way that either shuts down WildTurtle or allows Cop to scale into the late game regardless of TSM's actions. Picking a hypercarry like Kog'maw or Vayne would be one way to do this, but Curse could also use the same lane camping strategy that they employed against GGU. As usual, Nyjacky might be able to draw out Reginald's aggression to open TSM's AP player to counterattacks from Saintvicious or even a mobile Voyboy. In a straight 1v1 scenario, Voyboy should come out ahead of Dyrus, so that's likely the lane where Curse should be the most careful of retaliation. With TSM's current rise in power, their match against NA's top team should be incredible.The opposite ends of the lower LCS tier will collide in the second Day 2 match of Week 8 when the 7-13 Vulcun takes on the 4-14 compLexity. One of coL's few wins in the LCS was against Vulcun, so coL will be looking to even out the matchup score in their final Spring Season battle. Of course, coL will also be on the back foot due to their late season roster change, who will undoubtedly still be getting used to his place in the team. CompLexity will certainly want to keep tabs on their new mid laner throughout the match and keep his inexperience with the team from being overly exploited. It may even be necessary to keep him away from the 1v1 matchups and let him farm cautiously and slowly while the coL duo lane pushes for their own advantages. While it's unlikely that Vulcun will allow Nickwu to pick up Zed, hopefully coL's top laner can grab something similarly snowbally to carry his team as he as (nearly) been doing in recent LCS matches. Vulcun, on the other hand, will want nothing more than to put their ace mid laner in direct competition with coL's new blood. If anyone can dismantle another mid laner, it's mandatorycloud, so it'd be shocking if Vulcun didn't try to put him in direct opposition to pr0lly. Vulcun also may want to stick to traditional picks against coL, since their Kennen/Quinn composition didn't seem to be very effective.The sixth and seventh place teams in the NA LCS are extremely close in overall score as of Week 7, so this Week 8 match will be incredibly important for both teams. MRN will continue to ride on the strength of their star carries, Nientonsoh and MegaZero, and any strategy that gets them fed will be essential for the team. The team will not need to worry about Heartbeattt as much now that he's more comfortable in the support role, but it's still necessary to get him a Champion on which he appears comfortable, like Janna or Lulu. MRN should also attempt to counter GGU's poke composition in some way. While it's doubtful they can ban out enough Champions to truly castrate a full poke comp, removing key GGU Champions such as Trundle or Kha'zix will be extremely important. GGU should be wary of this on their side and plan for some unorthodox picks into their poke compositions if possible. Regardless, GGU will have their best chance of winning with a fed ZionSpartan, so they should avoid laning him against MegaZero, who always dominates other top laners in 1v1s. It'll be a tough fight for GGU (particularly considering they've already lost to MRN twice), but not impossible by far.Vulcun goes from fighting against the bottom of the standings to the top of the standings for the final Week 8 match. Though these teams have only played against each other once before, odds are heavily in Curse's favor for this match, seeing as they've not yet lost to a bottom four team. As usual for a match like this, Curse will want to be the most careful in their early game. Though their late game tends to be invulnerable, if they start to snowball in the wrong direction in the early game they might give away a victory to their opponents. Luckily for Curse, their top and mid laners are two of the strongest in the region and should be more than enough to take on their talented opposites on Vulcun. That being said, Curse should definitely still ban mancloud's Nidalee, since there are no guarantees whatsoever if he gets to use his Bestial Huntress. Though it's in Curse's best interest to play straightforward and standard, Vulcun may want to try something crazy, from odd lane swaps to strange attack timings. CLG proved that Curse could still be fooled by early and unexpected Barons, so Vulcun may want to attempt a cheese of that nature. Unfortunately, Vulcun's last unorthodox composition didn't perform well against Curse, but perhaps they can find one that will. At the very least, Vulcun should take note of what occurred this week and be certain to protect Zuna and muffinqt from the ganks that destroyed them in the Week 7 match. Vulcun will need lots of luck to come out ahead in this match, but Vulcun has pulled off upsets in the past. Perhaps they can take down Curse as well.