This split, the Danes have taken control for TSM © Riot esports

Team SoloMid started out the year by making a big splash, signing some of the best free agents the West had to offer. Among their free agent signings was star Danish jungler, Svenskeren. Now, this obviously isn’t SoloMid’s first player acquired from Denmark - Bjergsen was brought on to TSM in the Spring of 2014, after his stint on the Copenhagen Wolves, and has since been the best and most popular player in North America. Considering that Svenskeren had historically been one of the best junglers in Europe, he seemed to be one of the best options to complement Bjergsen’s domination in the mid lane.

Unfortunately, the regular season had the two struggling to find exceedingly meaningful synergy as the team narrowly made it into playoffs at sixth place. However, come playoffs time, the duo (along with the rest of Team Solomid) stunned 3rd place Cloud9 and the nearly unbeaten, 1st place Immortals - Denmark came into playoffs swinging as Bjergsen and Svenskeren consistently outplayed their adversaries in pursuit of their seventh straight finals berth. The great Danes stood up and played their hearts out - the duos of Jensen/Rush and Pobelter/Reignover could not compete.

Bjergsen has become the true playmaker of TSM © Marv Watson/Red Bull Content Pool

Bjergsen, by many accounts, is considered the best player in North America. At the very least, he was still very dominant in lane, averaging a Creep Score Differential of 8.6 at 10 minutes, good for the best in North America. This stat dropped a tad in playoffs to 7.0, but the drop was merely part of Team SoloMid’s development in playoffs - Svenskeren received more resources in the early game, as he played a larger role in counterjungling and controlling the early-mid game for TSM. Bjergsen’s dominance shone through regardless, as he dominated his lane opponents all the same on the likes of Azir and Zed. He even pulled out the Vel’Koz as a counterpick to Jensen’s Azir in the final game of their series against C9.

While the regular season for TSM was mostly about Doublelift being the main carry, Bjergsen has shown up as the true carry of TSM once more. The Danish import undoubtedly deals with insane pressure, being the apparent shotcaller and face of the organization. But once again, he was all business this playoff round - Bjergsen was by far TSM’s largest damage dealer, dealing 32% of his team’s damage and averaging an extremely high DPM (Damage per Minute) of 678. To give context, Svenskeren has the second highest DPM at 516 - which is still an impressive number. On top of that, Bjergsen has died just 7 times in 7 games, boasting a 13.1 KDA on his way to Vegas.

Svenskeren's jungling dismantled Immortals © Riot esports

Svenskeren came into playoffs with something to prove - While he did have a number of good games in the regular season, he mostly failed to meet expectations and be that aggressive jungler he was in the EU LCS. Svenskeren has been a totally different beast in the playoffs, seemingly dismantling Rush and Reignover, stealing a plethora of camps and maintaining river control for his team. Seeing that TSM generally picked themselves into winning matchups, Sven’s main role was to ensure the continued lane pressure, allowing them to often take the first mid tower and secure dragon control. His consistent ventures into the enemy jungle made it so that the enemy team never had a real chance to come back.

It’s also worth noting that Svenskeren has recently grabbed the jungle meta by the horns and taken control. He has been TSM’s secondary carry, swiping down enemies with the highly contested jungle Nidalee and gunning down the opposition with the similarly contested Graves. He sports 25% of TSM’s damage for the playoffs, while also managing a DPM of 516, leading all playoff junglers in both stats. Solomid’s strong lanes has allowed for Svenskeren to truly unlock himself in this jungle-carry focused meta, as he seeks to do the same versus Counter Logic Gaming’s Xmithie later this week.

Svenskeren has a lot to be smiling about © Riot esports

Bjergsen and Svenskeren’s strong individual performances have been key in this playoff run and when it comes to the LCS final, TSM seeks to choke out CLG, the same way they did versus C9 and IMT. Standard lanes will be key in allowing both players to shine, with TSM’s recent priority on choosing winning matchups, and Bjerg and Sven’s perceived individual advantage over Huhi and Xmithie, being at the forefront. It’s just one more series for Denmark’s finest and we’ll just have to see if they can retake NA’s crown from their longest standing rival in CLG.