On Saturday, March 30, the Golden Guardians (5th Place) and FlyQuest (4th Place) will play in the first quarterfinal matchup of the LCS Playoffs. This will also incorporate the new League of Legends patch, so recent changes will have an effect on the teams and how they adapt throughout the series. In this situation, it’s pretty interesting to look at their match record because the first game was in Week 1, and the second game (and a tiebreaker follow-up) was in Week 9. We’ll take a look at all three games these teams played against each other and what might be seen in the upcoming series.
First game: Week 1, Day 1
This game was a FlyQuest victory in just over 32 minutes. FlyQuest had some amazing pick potential with the Camille-Galio ultimate combo, and GGS was playing off of its massive amounts of area-of-effect damage and backline access. Juan “JayJ” Guibert played his pocket pick Ornn and played with his team’s mobility to catch members of GGS throughout the game.
FlyQuest picked up First Blood and another early kill in the bottom lane with all five members showing up to participate. While Golden Guardians tried to get picks and make a comeback, the long-range assistance from FlyQuest’s composition helped to turn around fights. Notably, many of these champions have received nerfs through item changes (looking at you, double-Tear build). Going from this game to the next one shows a few things that GGS struggled with early this split. Firstly, GGS has found good synergy throughout the split. Only Juan “Contractz” Garcia and Matthew “Deftly” Chen stayed from 2018, but the additions have played well. FlyQuest has three returning members and arguably upgraded their mid and top laners.
Second game: Week 9, Day 2
There were some noticeable changes from the first game to the second one. First, both teams seriously lowered their support bans. There were five bans directed to the support players in the Week 1 match, but only one in the second game. Also, Golden Guardians drafted a few new champions that could get flexed into the quarterfinal match.
Both teams, again, looked to do similar things with their draft. The teams provided good damage, but GGS had the added bonus of extra mobility from Tahm Kench. The Tahm Kench really helped GGS play around the map, and the top lane Cho’Gath helped add some security to neutral objectives. This was a six-Dragon, two-Baron game that was really close in gold for most of the game. The just-under-40-minute victory for Golden Guardians gave life to a really exciting series to see who would advance. This brought on the tiebreaker match at the end of that day.
Tiebreaker match: Week 9, Day 2
The last and most recent match had a few new things added to the mix. First, due to illness, FlyQuest played its substitute jungler, Magnus “Maxi” Kristensen. FlyQuest did adapt from the game earlier in the day and banned out Tahm Kench against GGS.
The funny thing that happened in the game was the solo lane drafts and the nonstop lane swaps between them. FlyQuest had Lissandra top and Irelia mid, and GGS drafted Poppy to counter the Irelia and Ryze to lane against the Lissandra. What ended up happening was that Fly would clear minions, then switch lanes to get the best lane matchup. Contractz did have a poor tower dive against Irelia and gave over a kill early, but much like the second game, this one was really close. The teams went back and forth, until FlyQuest took Baron, two good fights, and then finished out the game in under 36 minutes.
Final thoughts
This is going to be an amazing series by the last two games. These teams are going to prioritize marksmen like Lucian, who was in all three games and lost all three games. Another interesting fact is that FlyQuest was blue side all three games, even though Golden Guardians has a worse win record on red side. The flexibility of both teams will play an important part in the draft. Seeing flex picks like Urgot, who can now be played in the jungle to great success, Aatrox, and Hecarim. The only NA games that will have been played on patch 9.6 before this match are the Academy semifinals. So far, Sona bot lane with Taric support and Urgot jungle have been played for victories.
Let us know who you want to win this LCS Playoffs match!
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