Team Liquid and Evil Geniuses lost in their upper bracket run of the LCS Championship, putting the series on the line with a long playoffs run. And, the series would determine who would represent the LCS in this years League of Legends World Championship.
EG maintained their composure throughout the five games with major rewards on the line, securing a spot in both the Chicago and the World Cup. Despite being pushed into the lower bracket by Cloud9, EG still has the chance to pursue vengeance in the finals.
Evil Geniuses are the last #LCS representative at #Worlds2022 on twitter.com/64RgJwSXzH
EG began the first draft phase with a focus on eliminating as many Liquid comfort picks as they could, leaving the remainder of the team defenseless and allowing them to take the Liquids' nexus for the first win of the series.
Game two's main focus was once again on the battle between two of the most powerful junglers in the LCS. For Santorin, the intention was to accumulate kills. However, for Inspired, a focus on objectives proved more decisive.
For 30 minutes, these win conditions kept the two teams relatively even in gold, making any late-game teamfights crucial for either team to win.
Liquid's crowd control system made almost all of their members stick in place. This gave Liquid their first win in the series and prevented EG from going away with a sweep.
In game three, EG's members continued to be caught out by Liquid, as if their communication had been shattered due to the game's loss in the previous game. Despite the massive increase in Liquid's favor, Dannys Miss Fortune afforded EG time to regroup during and after large fights due to barrages of bullets from his ultimate. Yet, once Bjergsens Taliyah was in close range, one W caught Dannyand several of his teammates out of
TEAM DIE. @Impact | #LCS pic.twitter.com/XHb8xrT53e
To try and prolong the series, EGs suggested giving Vulcan Bard and looking for game-changing endings that might bring multiple enemies to Stasis at the same time.
Q stuns from Vulcan ensured that, even if they flashed, the members of Liquid could not escape. Before EG destroyed the enemy nexus, they rewarded Impacts Gangplank with a Pentakill from Vulcan, making him the second top laner in LCS history to achieve the feat.
EG successfully resisted an extended chase from Liquid into their bot jungle to secure early map pressure in the final game.
Both teams chose to go slower and safer in their lanes in order to avoid the long-running battles that had defined the series until that point.
Both teams had opportunities to shine once the teamfights ended. For the third game in a row for EG, Dannys Miss Fortune had free reign to control fights as Inspireds Poppy, Vulcans Rakan, and Impacts Renekton kept the enemy team locked down. If Danny didnt have enough damage to send the Liquid players back to their base, Jojopyun swooped in on Sylas to finish the job.
Liquid required just a misstep from Danny to get back on track, earning a Baron in the process.
While Liquid continued to focus on a Flash-less Danny, the Mountain Soul's shields proved too much for Liquid to overcome, giving them the Elder Dragon and Baron. EG finally won the series, 3-2.
EG are the final teams to compete in the LCS at this years World Championship, alongside Cloud9 and 100 Thieves. The seeding of these three teams for the biggest international competition of the year will be determined during the LCS Championship finals next weekend in Chicago, Illinois.
Following the finals, a group draw will take place to randomly group all League of Legends teams that have qualified for Worlds into four groups.