With Worlds being over and the preseason coming through, there has been a hole left for competitive League. Well, at least until Tyler1 came up with an idea to get a lot of challenger players together for a chance at $10,000. Of course, we all know about this and some of us were able to watch the round of 16 live from CompeteLeague. This tournament gave a great view at the talent that is available in NA for the coming drafts of new teams, but the coaching that can be out there. Sadly, even with all of this talent, only two teams were able to make it to the Tyler1 Championship Series Finals.

Stream Dream Team Dominate Group A and make their way into the Tyler1 Championship Series Finals

Starting out as the second game of the day, SDT proved to the world that they came to play despite the questions about the shake up with the roster they did from now since Delta Fox. Especially Shiphtur, has he put the heat onto Zwag with the power of his Taliyah. The game was a bit slow paced as well with Dyrus playing Shyvana, but he made sure to keep control of the map in the early game with his vision and eventually, off the back of Imaqtie and Shiphtur, they exploded this to a decisive win at merely 27 minutes. All of this from superior objective control, they made sure to have the lead in gold for the entire game and got the one fight they wanted around baron.

The next game was set to be the elimination of SDT from the TCS due to the caliber of their opponents. The highest overall rank of all the teams, a rising star coach behind them with Brickz, and proof of their skills from their first game against DreamerZ. All of these added up to what should have been the team to take the prize at the end. But SDT weren’t about that. Shiphtur on Taliyah again bullied around WOWFIXZ, QT was gifted Ezreal and Scarra was put on Tahm Kench for additional safety.

Tyler Championship Series – Stream Dream Team’s Voyboy

However, the true shining star was Voyboy. Many, including myself, had no faith in his skills anymore since his departure from the pro scene. Yet he seems to be a completely different beast in the top lane compared to what he was on Delta Fox in mid. His flanks with Vladimir facilitated the first of SDT to play aggressive and even with Dyrus playing a bit too aggressive without the team, they were never punished for it due to VoyBoy.

In the final game on the stream for SDT, it was a continuing trend from Shiphtur. But unlike the previous two games, he was forced onto a new champ when No Clue banned Taliyah right off the bat. Yet this didn’t stop the power that is CHAPANYA. Kassadin was his tool, and he hammered it into the skulls of all the viewers that he was the true midlaner of the TCS. Ending the game 10/0/4 is one thing, but when you are bullying around a Peridot, a midlaner known for his aggression in lane, when he is playing Malzahar you have to know Shiphtur is here to win.

In a Tough Group B, MLGB Come Out Top and take their place in the TCS Final

Tyler1 Championship Series Finalist MLGB LoL Team

While a few people might have tuned out after SDT ended, the games were far from over. Especially for a group that was considered to be far stronger than Group A. For Group A, there was SDT, Team Brickz, and No Clue that were considered among the top, but for Group B it was Team Fence, Beans For Dinner, Gucci Gang, MLGB, Good Luck At McDonald’s, and behavior check. All of them had their own merits on how they could take out the others, but it all came down to the synergy of a team against solo-queue mentality.

One thing that many teams said going into this group, despite all of the stacked teams, was how much MLGB had been working together as a team for the last year. Honestly, it showed with how they played in the TCS against another great team of Good Luck at McDonalds. The game was incredibly close between the two teams, but a lot of it boiled down to the strength of Blade on Ornn as well as the coordination of the players. Their team fights looked like a perfectly synchronized dance of Shout (Metaphor) starting it off into Blade’s Call of the Forge God and topped off with Sohnar cleaning up on the Rocket Jumps from Tristana.

Similar to SDT having a theme of the day, it was Blade and Shout’s initiations setting up the plays for Grae and Sohnar to clean up house while Clown kept everyone alive. Game 2 against Beans For Dinner should have been a lot closer than it ended up being. Even in a game where Shout wasn’t playing at his best, the rest of the time were outstanding. It all started with a great flag-drag-flash from Blade to answer Shout’s death to get MLGB two kills early and snowballed into Clown replacing Shout as the main initiator while Grae and Sohnar peeled for themselves on Syndra and Ezreal, respectively. By the time it was only 25 minutes into the game, MLGB were systematically dismantling the outer turrets of BFD with nothing they could do to answer.

MLGB League of Legends Team

The final showdown for MLGB was against Gucci Gang. GG was riding high after their wins over Tarzaned’s behavior check and the number two seed Team Fence. Unfortunately for them, you can tell that MLGB had done their homework for the event and knew where to apply as much pressure as possible to tear down GG. While Shout had a decent performance on Evelynn, he donned the nightmare Nocturne and embodied it beautifully against NintendudeX. Constantly in Nintendude’s jungle, Shout made sure that the opposing Kindred could never get the stacks needed so by the time fights were happening, only one jungler was of any use.

But don’t forget about the rest of the team in this final match. Sure Shout helped a lot, but the other members continued to play to the level we saw from the previous two games. Maybe a few more deaths than normal, but still a cleanly executed plan from them. Blade and Clown on Ornn and Leona for the hard initiation, Grae ascended with Syndra, and Sohnar on a safe Tristana to peel for himself while still carrying.