NA LCS Summer Week Three Recap
The Calm Before Rift Rivals
A review of week Three of the NA LCS summer split
By: John Jaskot
This Week in League
This weekend starts Rift Rivals. 5 Rivalries. 5 tournaments. 5 champions. Rift Rivals are held every summer split during a break in the regular season and it pits LCS Regions against each other as they face off for the glory of being the stronger region. Oh.... and a cool trophy.
The region rivalries are...
North America ( NA ) vs Europe ( EU )
Korea ( LCK ) vs China ( LPL ) vs Taiwan ( LMS )
Oceania ( OPL ) vs Japan ( LJL ) vs Southeast Asia ( GPL )
Latin America North ( LNL ) vs Latin America South ( CLS ) vs Brazil ( CBLOL )
Russia ( LCL ) vs Turkey ( TCL ) vs Vietnam ( VCS )
Each team will play round robins and then a best of 5 match to determine who is the best region.
Game of the Week
This week's GotW is.... 100 Thieves vs Clutch Gaming.
- Non stop action
- One of the longest games in NA 2018 season
- Two near losses that were saved by 100 Theives
- Properly funneled Xayah
- An OP Jax
Most Valuable Player of the Week
My MVP pick of the week is Ssumday from team 100 Thieves. Ssumday, as a player, has been very back and forth for 100 Thieves this entire season. In some of his games, he looks like he is a brand new top lane player and in others, he plays like the best top lane player in the league. His seesaw performance was, thankfully, not something 100 Thieves had to worry about this past weekend as the superstar top lane player showed up!
Game one, Ssumday selected Jax to play against Aatrox. From the start, this match up does not bode well for Ssumday as he was counter picked, and it immediately gave his opponent a clear power advantage against him in one vs one battles. However, at no point during this game did it ever look like Ssumday was behind, despite this disadvantage. And, in a late game team fight, Ssumday's Jax, was able to turn the tides during a fight that did not look like it was going well for his team. Ultimately, he was able to ACE the enemy team allowing his team to push for the finish.
In game two, Ssumday played Gangplank like you have never seen anyone play this champion before. The amount of CS he was able to gather, as well as his 5/0/4 scoreline made him easily cut through team Optic. His cross map ultimates to assist his teammates were always on point. Not to mention, every time he showed up in a team fight, he almost made the fight unfair.
Based on his impressive play, Ssumday deserves my vote for this week’s MVP. The only thing that makes me sad, is that after this amazing weekend put together by Ssumday, The 100 Thieves Jungler Meteos, was traded to team Flyquest. The reason this makes me so sad is that Riot only allows 2 non domestic players to play on the team at any one time. Ryu is the leader of 100 Thieves and will take one of those spots. The only other Jungler for 100 Thieves is Levi, who will have to take this second spot. With 2 years left before Ryu and Ssumday can be considered domestic, this means that Ssumday will have to step down to the academy team until further notice.
Standings
Schedule This Weekend ( July 14th - July 15th )
Saturday Sunday
This Weekends Game to Watch
Rift Rivals is going down this weekend and my must watch game is the Powerhouse of NA, Team Liquid vs the Fan favorite of EU, Fnatic. Don’t miss it!