Holy Bjerg!

A review of week Nine of the NA LCS summer split

By: John Jaskot

Game of the Week

Team SoloMid returned to prime form in this week's game of the week. With Optic Gaming winning their match earlier in the day this game became a must win for TSM. This was a large task going up against Team Liquid, who had already locked in first place and a bye going into the playoffs. The excitement started from the first pick in the game. TSM blind picked Akali, a champion that just received a re-work from Riot Games and has rarely been used in pro play. In addition teams do not normally pick their solo lane champions first because they want to wait and see what the other team picks so they can try and counter them for an advantage. TSM had no fear of putting all their cards on the table for this last game, as Zven played Swain bottom lane and Mithy played Pyke support, both rarely playing these champions on the pro stage. With all the unknowns on TSM's side and Team Liquid having a very good late game composition it made for a worrisome start to the game.

Team Liquid got off to a great start by getting first blood and then turning around to get a double kill in the bot lane after a fight over the first dragon. With Team Liquid up 4-0 in kills, they sent 4 people to the bot lane to try and turret dive TSM. This was the turning point in the game, with TSM countering the dive with a 3 kill to 0 outcome. From this point on TSM never stopped the offensive and continued to find team fights in their favor and eventually pushed Team Liquid back to their nexus, winning the game.

VOD of TSM vs. Team Liquid NA LCS Summer Split Week 9 2018 #NALCS TSM Lineup: Hauntzer - Top Gangplank Grig - Jungle Trundle Bjergsen - Mid Akali Zven - Bot Swain Mithy - Support Pyke Team Liquid Lineup: Impact - Top Rumble Xmithie - Jungle Kindred Pobelter - Mid Galio Doublelift - Bot Tristana Olleh - Support Alistar Watch all matches of the split here from all of our leagues: NA LCS, EU LCS, LCK Champions Korea, LPL.

Most Valuable Player of the Week

This week's player of the week is someone who is all to familiar with the spotlight. Soren Bjerg of Team SoloMid. Going into this year Bjergsen was the winner of 4 MVP split titles for the North American LCS, holding the record for the most decorated player in NA. Watching him this split though, you might have asked yourself if his glory days were numbered, as Bjergsen struggled all season long. That was until last week.

Game 1: Defeated Optic Gaming. Played Ryze. Score line 3/0/1 with a CS score of 375
Game 2: Defeated Team Liquid. Played Akali. Score line: 14/1/5 with a CS score of 346

This week Bjerg returned to his MVP form. In the first game against Optic, all he did was split push. Optic tried to team up on Bjerg multiple times during this game and he still ended the game with zero deaths. Ultimately, it was his shot calling that was the game changer. He lead his team to the right decision every time one needed to be made. The final game however, was very different from the Optic game the day before. The more fights Team Liquid initiated the more kills Bjergsen racked up, resulting in a total of 14 kills and only 1 death. He accomplished this on, Akali, a champion that just recently was reworked, not giving players a significant amount of time to master her. He made it look easy and single-handedly won the game for his team and locked them into a summer split playoff spot.

W12 L-6

W-10 L-10

W-9 L-9

W-12 L-8

W-5 L-13

W-6 L-12

W-11 L-9

W-11 L-7

W-7 L-11