Bringing Down the Throne Week 1 Recaps

[Day 1] February 7, 2013

TSM vs CLG

Dignitas vs Curse

CLG vs GGU

TSM vs Vulcun

[Day 2] February 8, 2013

CLG vs Curse

TSM vs Dignitas

Curse vs GGU

Dignitas vs Vulcun

The first game of the LCS between old fan favorites began with new picks, strategies, and stand-out players. CLG took initiative in the early game, extensively warding TSM's jungle before the first camps spawned. While TheOddOne was occupied with his own Red buff, LiNk grabbed TSM’s Blue from over the wall with Force of Will and gave Doublelift’s Urgot a huge level 1 advantage. Blue buff allowed Urgot to extensively harass Chaox’s Ezreal and eventually netted Urgot first blood. TSM and CLG traded turrets, Dragons, and failed Teleports evenly before the 20 minute mark, but CLG began to pull ahead in turrets and obtained distinctive map control. CLG secured a lead at 26 minute with a 4–2 trade at Dragon. The rest of the game was a CLG sweep; team fight after team fight ended with favorable trades for CLG. The final straw was a desperation Baron by TSM, during which CLG aced TSM and lost no one. This forced a surrender from TSM and showed that the Season 3 power dynamic will almost certainly differ from Season 2. LiNk displayed incredible competency with Syndra and demonstrated that CLG’s decision to replace bigfatlp with LiNk as their new AP Mid was a sound one.Curse vs Dignitas was far less one-sided than the first game of the day, at least in the early stages of the game. Kills and turrets were traded back and forth between the teams, mostly scored by Saintvicious's Xin Zhao for Curse and on imaqtpie's Twitch for dig. As the game progressed, the teams stayed fairly even, Dignitas having the stronger teamfight with the power of Twitch/Nunu, but Curse used Voyboy's split pushing to even out trades. With a 2K gold advantage vacillating between the two teams, it would take a decisive play to strongly turn the tides. Curse made the move by using Elementz as a diversionary tactic. Curse took Baron while Crumbzz was in the bottom lane, then proceeded to take out 4 members of dig for only 2 of theirs. Now up in Gold and Exalted with Baron, Curse followed up on the gains of Voyboy's split pushing and took all three dig inhibitors over the next 5 minutes. Despite scarra's clutch steal of Baron with Gragas Barrel and ultimate, Curse was too far ahead to fail. They eventually forced through the Nexus turrets and all of Dignitas to take the victory.Nobody thought that it would be easy for GGU to take on CLG, but GGU put up a good fight against the already 1-0 team. GGU managed to thrive up to the 8 minute mark, securing first blood for Shiphtur, as well as the top lane turret. This gave GGU a quick gold lead. But CLG swiftly caught back up to GGU, then surpassed them, obtaining more Dragons and turrets than the newcomers. After a decent 4-2 teamfight for GGU at 16 minutes, CLG slowly carved out a large lead for themselves with picks and turret kills over the next 15 minutes. Thirty minutes into the game, CLG engaged onto GGU after taking Dragon, but after some great GGU dodging and amazing jukes by DontMashMe, CLG was aced. Unfortunately, CLG’s lead was too great. After a base race scare, back and forths near the Baron pit, and a desperate dive by GGU, CLG managed to seal the deal. Regardless of the outcome, GGU played well and will likely provide quite the challenge in other matches. But not against the now 2-0 CLG.After TSM's early loss, it was questionable whether or not they'd be able to even take down the upstarts in Vulcan Command. Yet, the TSM that showed up to the final match of the day was completely different from the one that came to the first. An early gank secured first blood for TSM and in six minutes they had already taken two turrets. By 10:00, all three Outer turrets were down for Vulcan and TSM brought down the first Dragon, giving them a 2.7K gold lead. This continued throughout the game: TSM's confidence bolstered and their item lead procured them even more kills and objectives. Nothing the newly named team did could stop the TSM train, though Zuna and Sycho Sid made some decent plays considering their position. The shortest and most one-sided game of the night ended slightly past 30 minutes, with TSM trading four kills for one and taking down the Nexus as well. TSM found their mojo once again at the end of the night, while Vulcun's new roster was thoroughly routed.For many people, this was the game to watch during Week 1. Anyone following the scene closely knew that CLG and Curse were the two strongest NA teams in the weeks leading up to the LCS. Although a Bo1 isn't a definitive test of superiority, the winner would stake an early claim as the current best NA team. Many people predicted the game would be very close, which was true for the first half of the game. 18 minutes in, the kill count was in favor of Curse 2-1, but CLG was in the lead by 500 gold, after picking up Dragon. Shortly after this point, the match would start to turn in Curse's favor. Hanging around CLG's Blue buff, Curse caught them off guard and managed to win a team fight 3-0. They then transitioned to Dragon which spawned soon and it fell with ease. CLG arrived to try and prevent the Dragon attempt, but it was too late. Curse turned from the Dragon pit and rushed CLG winning another team fight, this time 4-0. From there, Curse took this lead and used it to apply pressure around the map and slowly break down CLG's defense. This was a convincing victory for Curse, the team who many now consider to the best team in North America.In contrast to CLG and Curse's improvement coming into Season 3, TSM and Dignitas have both been trending down in terms of performances. While both teams haven't looked nearly as strong as they did in Season 2, there was debate about which team had fallen further. This head-to-head match-up would be a good litmus as to how these teams stack up against the current LCS landscape. Turns out Dignitas is faring worse. Despite TSM's relatively underwhelming performances as of late, this game proved they are still an extremely competent team. This was not the way dig wanted to lose this game as it was a total stomp and exposed the fact their new roster still needs a lot of work. They kept the game close in the beginning, but once TSM got rolling there was no stopping them. TSM had a 9K gold lead and was up three turrets at 19 minutes into the game. After this point dig never looked like they had a chance to come back from this huge deficit as they just lost team fight after team fight to the stronger TSM. This loss was a huge hit to the perception of dig's skill as many people expected a closer game. As for TSM, this proved they are still a strong team despite all of the recent criticism.This match was all about giving Curse fans heart attacks. After taking out CLG and dig in convincing fashion, all that stood between Curse and being the only 3-0 team during Week 1 was Good Game University. GGU certainly put forth an amazing effort to prevent Curse from achieving this goal. Curse seemed as though they were going to get out to an early lead by forcing a gank on ZionSparten Top lane, but a brilliant counter gank by NintendudeX on Trundle put Curse on their heels. GGU continued to apply pressure on Curse and even picked up first blood. They roamed around the map picking off members of Curse and taking a huge tower advantage. While this was going on, Voyboy on Nidalee continued to split push whenever the opportunity arose. This would turn out to be a deciding factor in the game. GGU's downfall was ultimately decided by trying to force down Curse's Nexus Turrets one too many times. Curse played the defense amazingly, engaging at the perfect times and even catching out a cocky stealthed Twitch with a great vision ward. All it took was one ace for Curse and they were able to push right into GGU's base and take their Nexus. Curse's experience prevailed in the end, but GGU made a convincing argument that they could easily upset any team without warning.This game was dig's chance for redemption. Losing this game would have meant they would be the only team with three games during Week 1 to not win a single set. While in the end they picked up the win, it was far from a flawless victory. dig got off to an early lead by capitalizing on poor engagements from Vulcun with a well-timed roaming from scarra and KiWiKid. At 13 minutes, dig was up 7-1 in kills with a 5K gold lead. Then dig began to warm up their infamous throwing arm. dig attempted to invade Vulcun's jungle and steal their Blue buff, but Vulcun responded by defending and winning a team fight 3-0. Then scarra got caught for free mid lane resulting in an additional kill for Vulcun and a free Dragon, cutting the gold lead to less than 1K. Not to be outdone by dig, Vulcun then decided to see if they could throw harder. Muffinqt got caught out several times which allowed dig to regain their lead and force their way into the Vulcun base where they easily took the Nexus. dig won, but for dig fans it was far from a reassuring victory, proving they haven't outgrown their tendency to throw away leads and having to fight tooth and nail to gain it back.