3 questions for Immortals and TSM ahead of their League of Legends semifinal showdown

Immortals and Team SoloMid already know they’ll play in Las Vegas next week. But which team will play for the NA LCS Spring Split title and which will play in the third-place game? We’ll find out Sunday when the two teams square off in the semifinal round.

A new team this split, Immortals rocketed off to an incredible start with an all-star roster led by former Fnatic stars Huni and Reignover. The team started 12-0 before a loss to eventual second-place finisher Counter Logic Gaming, and finished the split 17-1 as arguably the most dominant North American team. Immortals would be the first debut team to win the NA LCS since Cloud9 in the 2013 Summer Split, the second split ever.

TSM also entered this split with a new roster, with only mid laner Bjergsen returning from last split’s runner-up squad. After bringing in former Fnatic support Yellowstar and former CLG marskman DoubleLift, it looked like TSM could have an all-star roster of its own. Instead TSM had the worst split in its existence, finishing in sixth place. The team has still made every single finals in NA LCS history, and upset third-seeded Cloud9 to get this far.

There’s also one big subplot here: Immortals marksman WildTurtle (formerly of TSM) and Yellowstar are battling to become the last active player to make the finals in every single LCS split. Former TSM top laner Dyrus also made every previous LCS finals, but he retired before the start of this split.

These two teams met twice this split, in Week 2 and Week 9, and Immortals won both matchups.

The best-of-five series will take place Sunday, April 10, beginning at 3 p.m. ET. All games will be streamed live at lolesports.com.

Look, TSM is TSM. It’s been the most successful North American League of Legends team since the start of the LCS, and there’s a reason the organization has been a mainstay in the NA finals. But TSM also finished in sixth place this split for a reason, and neither of the previous matchups between these two teams were particularly close. Immortals’ toughest competition on the path to the title is probably going to be the winner of the CLG-Liquid series, but that can’t cloud the team’s focus for this series. A sleepy Immortals could certainly drop a few games to a hungry TSM squad.

I know, it sounds ridiculous for a team that finished the split 17-1. But second-half Immortals wasn’t quite up to the standard of first-half Immortals, be it due to the shifting meta, locking up the No. 1 seed weeks in advance, teams adjusting to their style or something else entirely. Immortals may not quite have to recover to full form in the semifinals, but it’ll certainly have to for the finals.

He’s played almost exclusively carries this split, but the meta continues to shift towards tanks in the top lane. One of the most popular currently is tank Ekko, a champion Huni has played often as a carry. If he picks Ekko, will he build with damage or with the new tanky build? And will we see any other tanky champions like Maokai or Poppy from him?

Yes, Yellowstar has been a relative disappointment since coming over to TSM, not quite reaching his level of play in Europe, but the weakest link on the roster has clearly been in the jungle. Svenskeren has the lowest KDA on the team, is the only TSM player losing the farm battle at 10 minutes, has died the most of any player on the team and has dealt the lowest damage of any non-support player on TSM.

And now he has to face off against Spring Split MVP Reignover. Not fun.

Adrian’s approached the support position different from almost every other North American player this split. He’s eschewed some of the popular tanky picks like Alistar and Braum entirely in favor of enchanter/protectors like Soraka, Janna and Karma. If Adrian doesn’t play tanks and Huni also doesn’t play tanks, that leaves some room for TSM to strategize team compositions in a best-of-five, taking advantage of what could be an undermanned frontline for Immortals.

Ultimately, this is what it often comes down to for TSM. Despite the disappointing split, Bjergsen’s been playing as well as ever, especially when it comes to farming. In the previous two matches between these two squads, Pobelter has been able to keep pace.

Bjergsen led all North American mid-laners in CS difference at 10 minutes (8.6), but Pobelter was right behind him in second place (5.6). And Pobelter has a significant kill advantage (76 to 55), as he’s been better able to turn those early advantages into bigger swings for his team. But a lot of that has to do with the overall team play of Immortals and specifically the amount of jungle pressure Reignover is able to produce. If TSM can appropriately answer the first two questions, maybe Bjergsen can answer the third with a resounding yes.