Which team will punch their ticket to finals weekend, and which team will be going home?
Team Liquid vs 100 Thieves kicks off the next round in the LCS 2024 Spring Split playoffs. 100 Thieves bounced back after a humbling defeat by Cloud9, while Team Liquid also recovered with a dominant win over Dignitas after their defeat to FlyQuest. Which team will punch their ticket to finals weekend, and which team is going home? ESTNN covers some of the biggest storylines in this week’s lower bracket matchup.
A Return To Form For Quid
After a poor showing in his series against Cloud9, Quid, to the delight of 100 Thieves fans, returned to form with a strong showing against NRG. Quid was extremely impressive in this series and went positive in all five games despite losing efforts in games one and four. Quid now goes up against APA, a player who has been doing his best to get under the skin of his opponents recently, specifically in all-chat. Quid certainly has the advantage in the mid lane and will definitely garner a lot of attention in draft. With the bottom lane receiving most of the bans in the LCS, it will be interesting to see if APA will be forced onto his signature Ziggs pick and if 100 Thieves will get to lock in Ahri, a champion that Quid has dominated the league on, specifically in their recent series against NRG.
Will 100T Suffer Another Early Game Massacre?
Although the statistics may be a little skewed due to TL and 100T playing double the amount of games of any team in the playoffs thus far, they do begin to confirm what we already knew about 100 Thieves: they are not a strong early-game team. In the regular season, 100 Thieves had statistically the worst early game in the league. According to Oracle’s Elixir, 100T had an early game rating of 43.7, which, as mentioned, is the worst of any team in the LCS 2024 Spring Split regular season. In the playoffs, their rating has gone up to 50.8, which ranks them third of the six teams. 100 Thieves has struggled to make plays early on, securing only two first-bloods in their eight games. Laning has been the biggest issue for 100T, who secure, on average, 2.3 turret plates per game, the lowest of any team in the playoffs thus far.
APA is going to have a lot of pressure on him to keep Quid at bay, TL arguably has winning lanes in both Top and Bottom, and Umti is proactive enough to match River when needed. So it will be on APA to go toe-to-toe with Quid and make sure he doesn’t have a way to get into the game as it moves into the mid-to-late-game.
Marn’s Predictions
This is a really tough series to call because I can see multiple scenarios happening. Team Liquid is a much stronger early game team than 100 Thieves, and we saw against Cloud9 how 100 Thieves were not able to recover after a poor early game. However, we have known all season that is not where their strength lies, it is in teamfighting in the mid-to-late game that often gets them back on track. Quid vs APA is a mismatch, and it will be hard to see APA coming out on top in this one. Jojopyun was able to nullify Quid, and that really hindered 100 Thieves’s chances of ever mounting a comeback. 100T also struggled to get over the line against NRG, a side that was coming off the back of a 0-4 superweek and was evidently on their knees from the get-go. That series went to full five games, and at times, it looked like NRG was going to cause an upset. I am going to go Team Liquid 3-1. I think they will be able to close out the leads they should be able to garner, I think it won’t be the cleanest of series as I believe the Cloud9 series was them at their absolute peak, a performance we may not see again in this playoffs.
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