Team Liquid vs. NRG will pit former world champion teammates against each other

The second quarterfinal match of the North American League of Legends Championship Series will pit two teams with tumultuous seasons up against each other. Longtime North American presence Team Liquid had a rough start to the split, but finished looking like one of the stronger squads in the LCS. Meanwhile, first-year squad NRG got off to a hot start with a loaded roster, but faded a bit down the stretch.

Liquid finished in fourth place with a 10-8 record after a wild final week saw the team shoot up the standings, while NRG beat out TSM for the fifth spot at 9-9. These two teams split the season series at 1-1, but Liquid’s probably the favorite.

This series will also see two former world champion teammates square off against each other: NRG top laner Impact and Liquid marksman Piglet. Both were on the Season 3 SK Telecom T1 team that took home the trophy, and have since been successful imports -- but both are still looking for their first North American trophy.

The winner of this series will either face Immortals or CLG in the semifinal round, dependent on the result of TSM-C9. A C9 win would put the Liquid/NRG winner against Immortals, while a TSM win would have the Liquid/NRG winner face CLG.

The top lane meta veering into TANKS ONLY territory works out just fine for Lourlo and Impact, who have shown either a preference (Impact) or at least a better ability of handling those champions on the professional level (Lourlo). And while these two top laners have different backgrounds, they’re both finishing up their first split with a new team.

Impact joined NRG with high expectations after performing very well with Team Impulse since coming over from Korea, but he’s had a pretty rough split by his standards. He has the lowest gold lead at 10 minutes out of all North American top laners, and he has the second-lowest CS difference at 10 minutes (luckily for him, Lourlo has the lowest).

Lourlo replaced the retired Quas this offseason, coming over to Team Liquid from CLG Black, CLG’s Challenger team. He struggled at the beginning of this split playing champions like Gnar, but has been quite successful on tank champions like Poppy (4-2) and Nautilus (4-0). While he’s last among North American top laners in CS difference at 10 minutes, he’s first in assists.

Lourlo’s not the only one who will want to play Poppy this series: Impact is also 3-1 on the champion. And if you look at both top laners’ performances by champion this split, the top three by EGPM (earned gold per minute) are all Impact’s: his Fiora, his Malphite and his Gangplank.

The biggest success of Liquid’s new roster has unquestionably been Dardoch, a call-up from the Team Liquid Academy after just one game. A confident young player who called himself the cleanest non-import Lee Sin in North America, he helped lead Liquid’s new roster to the playoffs and was named the North American Rookie of the Split.

Dardoch led all North American junglers in kills and kill participation, and was particularly effective on high-damage champions. He is 3-1 on Lee Sin and 2-0 with Graves, but a little less successful with the more conventional junglers in the meta: he’s 2-2 on Elise, 2-2 on Rek’Sai and 0-1 on Gragas.

On the other side is another former Challenger Series jungler, Moon, who has had mixed success in his first split with NRG. He ranks low among North American junglers in damage and kill stats, but wards at a significantly higher rate than Dardoch (NRG as a team wards very well).

Moon is 3-2 on Elise and 3-1 on Rek’Sai, and his highest EGPM is on Nidalee (214). But Dardoch has six different champions with higher EGPMs than Moon’s Nidalee, led by his own Nidalee (358).

Image by James Dator

The only battle of imports in the series could go a long way towards determining the winner, especially considering their opposing play styles this split.

At 9.7 CS per minute, Fenix ranks higher than any other mid laner in North America, Europe, Korea or Taiwan. But while he’s been very effective at farming, he’s been less so in kill participation (eighth among North American mid laners).

GBM’s pretty much been the opposite. He’s on the lower end of CS per minute (8.0), but has higher portions of his team’s kills and damage dealt to champions.

One thing they both have in common: wide champion pools. Each has played 12 unique champions in the mid lane this split.

Liquid’s bottom lane is one of the team’s strengths, while NRG’s has struggled at times this split. Marksman Piglet really picked up his play in the second half of the split as his synergy with new support Matt improved. Piglet’s played Lucian the most (3-4 record, 297 EGPM this split), but he’s had success on champions like Corki (1-0, 340 EGPM), Vayne (1-0, 313 EGPM) and Caitlyn (3-1, 272 EGPM), as well.

Meanwhile, Matt’s performed significantly better on enchanter protection supports than tank protection ones. Liquid is a combined 2-6 when he’s on Alistar or Braum, compared to 6-1 with him on Janna or Bard. Liquid’s most successful bottom lane combination has been Caitlyn/Bard, with a 2-0 record.

Altec has not yet found a champion that he’s consistently successful on with NRG, but he was a good Sivir player with Gravity last split, so that may be a priority in this series. Otherwise, he’s 2-2 on Lucian, 2-2 on Kalista, 1-2 on Ezreal and 1-1 on Corki. When comparing the two marksmen head-to-head by EGPM on specific champions, Piglet has the top four: his Corki, Vayne, Kog’Maw and Lucian.

NRG support KonKwon is another former Challenger player, like Matt, and he’s arguably had an even better split than his Liquid counterpart. He leads all North American supports in wards per minute and wards killed per minute while also being the team’s in-game Korean/English translator. His top champions this split have been Trundle, Janna and Bard. NRG’s most successful bottom lane combinations have been Lucian/Bard (2-1) and Kalista/Trundle (2-0).