NA LCS: Immortals remain undefeated once again, CLG, Liquid, and Cloud9 have strong performances.
EU LCS: G2 Esports and H2k surge to first place with other teams close behind them.
LCK: SKT T1 look better this week.
LPL: No LPL games this week.
NA LCS Recap and Standings
For week 4 of the NA LCS the Immortals stay true to their name and remain undefeated in the NA LCS. Despite losing to the Immortals, CLG and Team Liquid look strong. Cloud9 have a great week defeating NRG and joining the 4 (practically 5 with Liquid) way tie for second place. This week, the playoffs look especially exciting as all six teams (besides the dominant Immortals) look competitive.
The games to watch are CLG vs IMT on Saturday and IMT vs TL and Sunday. While both games end with a win for the Immortals, both games are fun to watch and show the growing strength of CLG and TL.
Here are the standings after four weeks of play:
1. Immortals (8W-0L)
2. Counter Logic Gaming (5W-3L)
2. NRG Esports (5W-3L)
2. Cloud9 (5W-3L)
2. TSM (5W-3L)
6. Liquid (4W-4L)
7. Team Impulse (3W-5L)
7. Team Dignitas (3W-5L)
9. Renegades (1W-7L)
9. EchoFox (1W-7L)
Week 5 Preview
Next week, the matches to watch are NRG vs CLG and C9 vs TL on Saturday, CLG vs TSM, and IMT vs C9 on Sunday. The four way tie for second place, the tie for seventh place, and the tie for ninth place will most definitely be snapped next weekend.
Riot Games has announced that this split's third place match and grand finals will take place at the Mandalay Bay Events Center from April 16-17. The winner on Sunday will receive 90 championship points and will represent NA at the 2016 Mid-Season Invitational.
EU LCS Recap and Standings
Four weeks of the EU LCS have passed and only about half of the Spring Split remains. H2k-Gaming and G2 Esports still hold the lead with their respective issues. G2 Esports has excellent warding in Trick and strong performances from Perks and Emperor but has serious communication issues. H2k suffers from visa issues as their star midlaner, Ryu, has been subbed by SELFIE who has not been able to perform as well. However, H2k is still the best marco team in the EU LCS making them likely to end in the top two by playoffs. The team to talk about, however, is the Unicorns of Love who have impressed many by their coordinated and strategic play-calling. Despite their revolving list of junglers, the Unicorns have continued their success through Vizicasacsi and Steelback's strong performances. If they can bring synergy with their newest jungler Rudy the Unicorns look poised to join G2 and H2k in the upper echelon.
UoL's Vizicasacsi
Here are results of week 4:
Day 1:
Elements vs Team Vitality (0-1)
Giants vs Fnatic (0-1)
G2 Esports vs Origen (1-0)
ROCCAT vs Unicorns of Love (0-1)
H2k vs Splyce (1-0)
Day 2:
G2 Esports vs Splyce (1-0)
Elements vs H2k (0-1)
Unicorns of Love vs Team Vitality (1-0)
Origen vs Giants (1-0)
ROCCAT vs Fnatic (0-1)
The games to watch from this week are G2 Esports vs Origen and Unicorns of Love vs Vitality. In the first game, G2 demonstrated why they are tied for first with some fantastic Braum play from Hybrid. Origen seemed like they had some significant issues to sort through with Amazing not performing at his usual level. The game between the Unicorns and Vitality was a tiebreaker for 3rd place and demonstrated a razor-thin close game and strong performances from both top laners.
Here are the standings after four weeks of play:
1. G2 Esports (7W-1L)
1. H2k (7W-1L)
3. Unicorns of Love (6W-2L)
4. Fnatic (5W-3L)
4. Team Vitality (5W-3L)
6. Origen (4W-4L)
7. Elements (3W-5L)
8. Splyce (2W-6L)
9. ROCCAT (1W-7L)
10. Giants (0W-8L)
Week 5 Preview
The games to watch in week 5 are H2k vs Unicorns of Love on Thursday, Origen vs Fnatic (El Clásico), and G2 Esports vs Unicorns of Love on Friday. This week will be Unicorns of Love's hardest test. They're playing both first place teams in one week. If the Unicorns can somehow win against both teams, they will surge to first place.
Riot Games has announced that this split's third place match and grand finals will take place at Rotterdam Ahoy in Rotterdam, Netherlands from April 16-17. The winner on Sunday will receive 90 championship points and will represent EU at the 2016 Mid-Season Invitational.
LCK Recap and Standings
This week has confirmed that the upper tier of ROX Tigers, SKT T1, and KT Rolster will be able to beat all other teams. Jin Air Green Wings and Longzhu were both exposed in their lack of synergy or other issues that they need to work on. SKT T1 looked much better than their horrid performance last week.
The series to watch is CJ ENTUS vs Longzhu Gaming. The game to watch in particular is game two where Longzhu's Crash gives the most dominating Nidalee jungle performance ever seen.
Here are the standings after four weeks of play:
1. ROX Tigers (6W-0L)
2. Jin Air Green Wings (5W-2L)
3. KT Rolster (4W-1L)
4. SKTelecom T1 (4W-2L)
5. Samsung Galaxy (4W-3L)
6. Longzhu Gaming (3W-3L)
7. CJ ENTUS (2W-3L)
8. Afreeca Freecs (1W-5L)
8. e-mFire (1W-5L)
10. SBENU SONICBOOM (0W-6L)
Week 5 Preview
In this short week for LCK League of Legends, the game to watch is the storied telecom rivalry between SKT and KT. Not only does this series have a rivalry that makes TSM vs CLG look kiddish, this series will be a true test to see if SKT is truly slumping or back in form.
LPL Recap and Standings
LPL was on break this week! Tune in next week for week 4's game results.
Here are the standings after three weeks of play:
Group A
1. Qiao Gu Reapers (5W-0L)
2. Team World Elite (3W-2L)
2. Snake Esports (3W-2L)
4. Master3 (2W-3L)
5. Energy Pace Maker (1W-4L)
5. LGD Gaming (1W-4L)
Group B
1. Royal Never Give Up (4W-1L)
2. Invictus Gaming (3W-1L)
2. Edward Gaming (3W-1L)
4. OMG (2W-3L)
4. Vici Gaming (2W-3L)
6. Hyper Youth Gaming (0W-5L)
Week 4 Preview
Next week, World Elite vs Royal Never Give Up on Day 1 is the game to watch to see if RNG is a top level team in China.
G2 vs OG - Dragon Steal
Hybrid steals the dragon with Winter's Bite.
TSM vs RNG - The Draven Escape
Freeze puts on his racing boots to make the escape.
In the early stages of the tournament, Dignitas had massive momentum sweeping FlipSid3 Tactics and EnVy 2-0 in the group stage, and Counter Logic Gaming 2-0 in the semifinals. Unforunately, in the grand finals, Dignitas lost against Team EnVyUs 3-0. The series started off with a bad loss on Cobblestone 4-16. While they played better in the second and third maps EnVyUs was still victorious winning Mirage 16-7 and Inferno 16-13. Not only did Team EnVyUs win the tournament and $80,000 USD, this win sets the trial to the ESL ESEA Pro League Season 3 and IEM Season X World Championship in Katowice.
Game Show Global eSports Cup 2016 Finals: device vs. EnVyUs
Game Show Global eSports Cup 2016 Finals: device vs. EnVyUs
Captains Draft 3.0, organized by DotaCinema, is a Major tournament featuring a $100,000 base prize pool and the Captains Draft game mode. The participants include Evil Geniuses, Team Empire, Vega Squadron, Virtus.pro, Team Liquid, Alliance, Mamas Boys, and Digital Chaos.
The Group Stage is currently underway with Group Hippo (EG, Liquid, Vega, and MB) completed and Group Horse (VP, Empire, A, and DC) having their games this upcoming week. The results of Group Hippo was the first place Evil Geniuses winning all three of their matches, the second place Vega Squadron losing only to Evil Geniuses, third place Team Liquid beating Mamas Boys, and the last place Mamas Boys that lost every game.
This upcoming week features VP vs Empire and Alliance vs DC on Feb. 8, Alliance vs Empire and VP vs DC on Feb. 9th, and Alliance vs VP and Empire vs DC on Feb. 10th. The first two seeds will meet the Evil Geniuses and Vega Squadron in the Semifinals and the bottom two seeds will meet Team Liquid and Mamas Boys in the Losers' Round 1. While not a premier tournament, these matches are an opportunity to judge these top level teams in the days approaching The Shanghai Major.
Arc Warden picked for the First Time
In Evil Geniuses vs Team Liquid, Fear picks Arc Warden for the first time in competitive history giving its 100% win rate.
My first MMOs included Ragnarok Online, Gunbound, Diablo II, and World of Warcraft. Nowadays, my wife (also a writer on MMOs) and I play League of Legends and any other MMOs we can get our hands on. I also love following eSports and attending eSports events.
