Power Rank: #4 - 1



IV) Evil Geniuses



Friday

The Rout Is On

Looking Forward

III) SK Gaming



Taking Care of Business

Read Like A Book

Holding it together

II) Fnatic



Smart Fnatic

Lost Fnatic

I) Gambit Gaming



There is no sugarcoating the collapse of Evil Geniuses during the Super Week – they faced the same schedule as SK Gaming with matches against then 3rd place Gambit Gaming and matches with the bottom half of the league. Unlike SK, the Geniuses came away with the opposite result, a dismal 1-4 performance which became painful to watch at the end. Now sitting at .500, the team atop the standings just two weeks prior must deal with speculation of an EG “curse,” weak points in team chemistry, the blame game and everything else that comes with media and reddit vultures circling a wounded team.The weekend kicked off at the highest point for EG with a win against. Wolves kept the game close early, with gold essentially even for the first fifteen minutes of the match. This changes when Evil Geniuses trade their top turret to pick up both the inner and outer mid turrets of Wolves. Wolves try and catch them as they retreat, but a beautiful teamfight results in Bjergsen's Kassadin dead and Svenskeren forced to run away from mid. EG used this leverage to take the mid inhibitor turret before they retreat. This gaping hole in map control coupled with a midgame Oracle's Elixir gave EG the ability to continue to snowball the game despite gold being relatively even immediately after taking the 3 mid towers. EG never looked back, eventually forcing two inhibitors down 27 minutes into the game, despite only getting 5 kills the entire match up to that point. EG managed to take the third inhibitor before losing a fight at the Nexus turrets, but it was too little, too late for Wolves. EG took Baron after they respawned ( despite Svenskeren's best efforts ), and the pressure from the downed inhibitors ensured a quick cleanup for EG.The fight againstbegan poorly for EG as Wickd gave up first blood to EDward by facechecking on an invade into Gambit's jungle. Shortly thereafter Diamondprox catches Snoopeh's Vi coming to protect against a 3:30 dive on the 2v1 toplane. The top lane mayhem continues with Wickd dying again as the victim of excellent EDward Hook, and Snoopeh dies trying to protect him against a dive when he comes back to toplane. Wickd is repeatedly killed throughout the match, never able to crawl out of the early hole he found himself in which leads to massive pressure top from Darien's splitpushing. These advantages for Gambit come to a head when Darien flanks EG setting up a fight where Alex Ich's Kha'zix gets multiple resets leading to a 4-0 teamfight and a free Baron for Gambit, culminating in an easy finish in the next few minutes.Saturday and Sunday did not go well after the loss to Gambit. Against, Evil Geniuses suffered both from poor micro decision making giving First Blood to fredy122 in a failed gank, and from poor macro decision making exemplified by attempting to take aAa's top tower when aAa gets dragon, and unwittingly giving up their mid inhibitor turret to aAa's push. against All Authority moves onto the bottom inner turret where they dive and catch EG netting 4 kills and an inhibitor. Despite aAa making a couple big mistakes aAa never fully relinquishes their lead during the match, and a poorly executed dive onto Ezreal results in EG getting aced and aAa taking their Nexus.debuted one of the most interesting compositions of the LCS thus far with no AD Carry,instead playing AP Nidalee paired with a Soraka in the bottom lane. Despite getting first blood on HosaN, EG's slight early lead is eradicated when they attempt to take dragon and are fought off by DB , conceding 3 kills and the Dragon. EG lacks waveclear when Froggen isn't present, giving DB opportunities to push and limiting Froggen's global mobility. When Froggen uses Destiny to force a 1v1 against Hosan and dies, it lets DB take a mid turret and illustrates how much EG rely on TF's presence to stall DB's AD Carryless tower pushing. The poor initiation foreshadows the rest of the match as EG engages in desperation teamfights that cost them objectives and ultimately the game.At the start of their final game with, things appear to be looking up for EG in the first few minutes. Snoopeh starts at Red buff and parlays it into an early level 2 gank on Samux, getting first blood and a big lead for Wickd. Seconds later, Kassadin dies to Froggen's offensive Flash/Ignite/AA combo. However, GIANTS respond with amazing counterganks from Morden and Exterminare, scoring a double kill top lane and three kills for none in bottom lane . With communication failures and a lack of warding, EG's dream start is now a nightmare with 4 early kills on Exterminare's Kassadin. From here, GIANTS gets a succession of kills, establishing a massive 10K gold lead by the 22nd minute, and the ultimate result is sadly predictable.While clearly on tilt as the Super Week came to a close, the Geniuses seemed relatively sanguine in the aftermath. Korean BBQ and team bonding were on the menu in the break before the IEM World Championships, and EG have been one of the more stable and tight knit rosters in competitive League of Legends. As for their season, sitting 3.5 games back from the leaders nearly halfway through the LCS campaign means hopes for a 1st or 2nd place finish in the Spring Season are fading fast, but not gone entirely. For their immediate future, revenge against aAa and DragonBorns is on the menu for Week 5, as well as their second match against 2nd place Fnatic. Having lost their most recent match against all 3 teams, Evil Genisues has the potential to show that their recent bad form is an aberration by taking 2 or 3 victories out of this schedule. On the other hand, an 0-3 result would bring EG down to a place few could have even imagined a couple weeks ago. There should be no doubt that Evil Geniuses have the talent to place highly in the LCS, and despite the Super Week upsets, teams like GIANTS and against All authority will still be considered underdogs against the EG squad.delivers a solid performance in the Super Week, putting away the bottom half of the LCS table without suffering an upset, and taking their sole loss from the on-form LCS leader,. With their other rival contenders stumbling in an upset filled week, SK's consistent play took them up to 3rd place, two games behind the current leaders. The keys to the successful Super Week lay in well-rounded play, as well as solid teamfighting leading to efficient and swift closing at the end of matches.posted a noticable performance with a 3-0 record as Graves, a champion pick that has fallen out of favor with other teams in the LCS thus far. Despite the strong showing against the weaker LCS teams, SK's brutal defeat at the hands of Gambit shows that there's still much room for improvement to challenge for the championship.Friday and Saturday contained the easy end of SK's schedule with matches against the three teams at the bottom of the LCS standings. SK's first opponents were the French team, and SK managed to eke out an early lead in the first fifteen minutes against aAa's poke-heavy composition that featured Jayce, Ezreal and Nidalee. Despite the slight lead, aAa evened the match with a teamfight at dragon, winning a 4-3 exchange and securing the kill on dragon. Despite aAa seeming to hit their stride after taking both of SK's mid turrets, SK's hard-engage oriented team composition combined the AoE crowd control of Jarvan IV and Varus' ultimates with the strong single-target CC abilities of Taric, Irelia and Kayle to lock down and pick off members of aAa. SK picked off aAa's members one by one in a fight in aAa's jungle near the dragon pit, swinging the lead back to SK. SK lured aAa into an ambush near aAa's Red buff, netting them two kills and an uncontested Baron. A positioning mistake allowed SK to take the mid inhibitor without a fight, and SK followed it up with another ambush initiated with a clutch Chain of Corruption from Varus. SK cleaned up with ease, and killed aAa's nexus shortly thereafter.A strong early game started SK off well in their match againstVolibear picked up first blood in a gank against Shen in bottom lane, and SK took the first tower of the match in a battle of 2v1 lanes top and bottom. Despite the early advantage, the teams traded minor edges for the next few minutes, with neither team giving up towers, kills or objectives without some compensation elsewhere on the map. At the fifteen minute mark, SK won a major advantage taking dragon before GIANTS could engage. GIANTS elected to fight afterward, and the resulting skirmish did not end in their favor as SK traded Volibear and Orianna for four kills and the outer mid turret. GIANTS held on well during the mid game, slowly narrowing the lead over the next few minutes untilandengage in a wild fight near SK's bottom inner turret. GIANTS turn to take Baron, but SK dismantle them, scoring an Ace in a 4v5 fight despite ocelote's earlier death. SK never take their foot off the gas, turning the Baron advantage into the mid inhibitor turret, then killing 4 members of GIANTS at the inhibitor leading to the Nexus falling in the 36th minute.Flying high after both notching their first win of the LCS and then following it with an upset of 2nd ranked Fnatic,looked to continue their surprising resurgence against SK on Saturday evening. Wolves continued their hot streak early, maintaining a slight edge for the first 20 minutes of the match. However, SK's veteran savvy played out in the teamfights, starting with SK engaging against CW's siege of their inner mid turret . The next big team fight was beautifully played by SK, as CW repeatedly engaged on them thinking they had the upper hand, but SK get three kills for one. SK would continue to eke small advantages from won teamfights, unable to really widen the gap until they craftily snuck a 2 man baron. With Baron buff, SK finally are able to siege in earnest and win a decisive teamfight, catching and killing 3 members of Wolves at their top inhibitor, parlaying the teamfight into a quick destruction of the Nexus.The low point of SK's weekend came in the form of a brutal thrashing at the hands of Gambit Gaming that only lasted 25 minutes because Gambit wanted to run up the score. Gambit team captaingave an unusual amount of insight into Gambit's pick strategy in the post-match interview. Gambit banned Graves to force CandyPanda onto a vulnerable, escapeless ADC like Varus or Kog'maw, aiming to run an assasin to counter it. Complimenting this strategy, Gambit banned Shen and Kayle because they knew it would lead to a Sona first pick, setting the table for Gambit's aggressive engagements to pick off the squishy targets.The Kassadin pick for ocelote was baited, with Alex betting that SK would be willing to first pick it to deny it to Gambit and leaving Alex open to counterpick with Kha'zix.The match started according to Gambit's plan withcoming to tower dive at 3:30 in an unexpected position – the mid lane. hyrqBot had headed up to top lane to butress Kev1n's Darius in the 2v1 lane top, but ocelote died mid giving First Blood to Alex Ich as Diamond came from behind SK's mid turret to set up the kill. Even an early bottom turret and dragon only set SK ahead by a paltry 300 gold, and the gap was made up with CS within a couple minutes. The early kill set up midlane to snowball hard, with Alex repeatedly sending ocelote back or killing him. Using his Teleport merely to avoid missing farm in his lane after retreating, Kassadin's complete lack of map presence shuts down SK completely. Gambit take towers and dragons uncontested, as SK cannot fight them outright at any point in the game. Gambit takes an extremely early Baron at 19 minutes completely uncontested as hyrqBot used his smite to steal his own blue away from an invade. The Russians siege the mid turret, poking SK down with Kha'zix's Void Spikes. Gambit seems to be able to ice the game around the 22 minute mark after diving onto Darius and killing Kog'Maw and Sona as well, a move that allows them to take an inhibitor and both Nexus turrets. However, the Russians back off and Alex Ich admits after the game that their sloth in finishing the game wasn't concern or conservatism, but rather an opportunity to repeatedly kill CandyPanda to dethrone him from the top of the Kill/Death/Assist ratio leaderboard and install EDward and Diamondprox in the number one and two positions.Despite the crushing defeat, SK held together well for their final match against the resurgent. DB was coming off a crafty victory over Evil Geniuses in which they ran an AD carry free composition, utilizing ADC playeron Nidalee to provide exceptional poke, coupled with a Kha'zix pick in mid lane for physical damage to balance the team out and avoid SK stacking magic resistance. DragonBorns opted to go with a very similar comp in the match with SK, giving SK little time to react as they picked Nidalee/Soraka last with an otherwise standard group of picks.When the game began, SK took control from very early on. hyrqBot picked up first blood helping Kevin's Irelia turn around the top 1v2 lane, and SK's bot lane of Taric/Graves racked up two quick kills diving both Spontexx' Xin Zhao and Malunoo's jungle Elise at bottom tower in succession. SK lept to a 4000+ gold lead by the 9 minute mark and never looked back. Being substantially behind is especially hard to come back from with a poke composition, and SK's well coordinated and daring dives allowed them to shut DB down before they could get going.Unlike Evil Geniuses who melted down as Sunday progressed, SK was able to bounce back solidly from their defeat at the hands of Gambit and finish strong with a win. Looking forward to next week, SK has Saturday rematches with aAa and DragonBorns capped off on Sunday with a tough matchup against Fnatic as last pick. While Fnatic's stunning comebacks have been the story of their recent matchups, SK's ability to get a lead they can throw in the first place means that they can't be considered massive underdogs. On the other hand, Gambit demonstrated exploitable holes in SK's drafting process, and expect teams to take a shot at banning CandyPanda's Graves and attempt to take advantage of SK's bottom lane champion picks.Fnatic had an interesting time in Week 4. On paper the results may look poor, but when you see the games, it hardly seems so bad. When they won, they won well. When they lost, they looked a little lost. They’ve carved out a reputation as a smart team who will go straight for the base given half the chance and that continued this week – sometimes it works and sometimes it didn’t. They deserved their wins and losses this week.Fnatic as a team have existed for a long time and is full of veteran players. This shows the most against the less experienced teams and when Fnatic pull counter plays. Against DragonBorns, Xpeke was shut out in mid lane so what do Fnatic do? They gank the other lanes and scare DragonBorns so much that they can’t push out. When DB push mid, they counter push other lanes and come out better. Simple control of map objectives and snap decision making are their keys to victory. Backdoors were on special offer this week and they were mostly effective. A genius move against Wolves after a Baron bait was barely shut down but it shows how dangerous smart play is, especially when backed by play as strong as Fnatic.So while Smart Fnatic picked apart their opponents nicely, the other side of Fnatic appeared from time to time in Super Week – Lost Fnatic. Lost Fnatic is a rare creature, but it shows up in the following circumstances –1. There’s a good play from Fnatic that they expect to work2. The other team shuts down the play with either great skill or smarter play3. Fnatic is dazed for a bit and needs to gather their bearings.This happened in a lot of Fnatic’s games this weekend, most noticeably against Wolves & Gambit. Wolves defended sublimely against Fnatic, which led to these periods of confusion. Fnatic were desperately thinking of a plan for what to do but in the meanwhile, looked scared. Eventually they would recompose and start again. Against Gambit, it was the same thing. They started off winning their lanes and were five turrets to zero at one point but Gambit had a plan – building heavily for team-fights – and overcame the Fnatic plan. Again, Fnatic were stunned and lost confidence while they formulated a plan to come back. It was a weakness in their play that these two teams exploited all the way to the bank.When it comes down to it, Fnatic did well in Week 4. The whole team is playing well and sOAZ put on a Lee Sin masterclass against aAa. When they won, they proved their strength individually and as an experienced team but when they lost, they reverted into a Fnatic we haven’t seen in a long time. They usually recovered after a few minutes, but as long as that period exists, teams can exploit it. But therein lies the comfort for Fnatic, it’s up to their opponents to win, not for Fnatic to lose. If the opponent isn’t playing their absolutely best they don’t seem to overcome Fnatic, they’re just too smart and consistent. Let’s not forget that Fnatic don’t even need to play their best to be world beaters and when they do step it up, they make some of the best teams in the world look like children. The only way to put it, is that Fnatic look safe, even in the tumultuous world of the LCS.Gambit Gaming came into the EU LCS with a slow start losing to both Evil Geniuses and GIANTS in Week 1. However, they have since gone undefeated for eight straight games to sit on top of the standings. This seems to be a common theme for Gambit as they went through the group stage at Katowice with a 1-2 record but tore through the playoffs against both Azubu (now CJ Entus) teams. They are an innovative team that brings in untested ideas into the game and somehow make them work. The prime example so far in the LCS is the introduction of Jungle Volibear or Nasus by Diamondprox. However, Gambit is more than just innovation for the sake of innovation. They can also use tried and true strategies like Protect the Kog and play it to such perfection that Kog'Maw only died once at the 10 minute mark in a 41 minute game.Gambit as a whole probably has the best team chemistry and coordination in the EU LCS. They know when they can use their advantage to split up the enemy and when to group together and take down map objectives. This is led by the pressure Alex Ich places on the enemy's Mid player and the amazing map presence Diamondprox provides with his ability to counterjungle and predict enemy ganks. They are also a team that often itemizes with the rest of the team in mind. There are many times where Gambit has a Locket or an Aegis ready while their opponents are still focusing on individual stats. This is also true when Gambit gives Edward more gold so the Support's items can be accelerated without making the rest of the team fall behind.As the top dog of the EU LCS right now, there isn't too much they need to do to continue their winning ways. That's not to say they are without fault. As mentioned earlier Gambit tends to give Edward some early gold but sometimes he takes it too far and takes all the kills for himself. This created a strange situation against aAa where Edward's Lulu had the most gold on the map until the eighteenth minute and Ashe's Infinity Edge was delayed by a significant margin. Gambit also look to have a problem underestimating their opponents, especially during the bans and picks phases of their two losses. Gambit left Anivia open for Froggen while they picked Udyr and Olaf in their game against EG and Crystallize's terrain manipulation shut down both of their effectiveness throughout the game.Gambit showed that they have returned to the top of the European scene with their dominating performance over the last three weeks. However, they will be away from the LCS for two weeks with a bye in Week 5. That's not to say they will have some time off. Gambit played at the IEM World Championships during the break week and they will travel to Dallas for the International Exhibition at the MLG Winter Championships. What kind of Gambit will we see when they return to the LCS? Will they have another slow start after all the travelling or will they continue their winning streak after practicing for the international competitions at IEM World Championships and MLG Dallas?