Headlines Of Legends: Splyce Off To Worlds, Dardoch Off To Echo Fox, And More
Published: Sep 11, 2016 - Last Updated: Sep 23, 2019
Splyce qualifies for Worlds
Splyce is moving on to the 2016 League of Legends World Championship!
The final EU LCS spot at Worlds has just recently been revealed. It was an epic, five-game series between Unicorns of Love and Splyce that finally determined the winner in the Regional Final on Monday.
For Splyce, this just shows you the highs and lows one team can experience in a given season. Splyce was literally on the cusp of losing in the relegations tournament after a rough go in their inaugural Spring Split.
They’ve gone from that all-time low to now achieving the lifelong aspirations of playing on the championship stage.
Splyce will be joining G2 eSports (winner of the EU Summer Finals) and H2K (most Championship Points following G2) as representatives of Europe at the 2016 World Championship. Here’s a quick recap of how the EU Regional Finals played out.
Game One
Splyce came out on fire for Game One, with UoL’s Vizicsacsi strangely picking Renekton in the top lane. Renekton has a strong early game, but fell off hard (the reason we don’t see him played in competitive games currently).
Splyce was able to strangle him early game and then ignore his low damage late game (he did 14k damage, lowest among carries).
Game One started falling in Splyce’s favor after picking up three kills in the mid game (two going to Kobbe on Lucian). Kobbe ended up being huge for Splyce, going 12-0-7. (His 33k damage was the most in the game.)
Game Two
Game Two was about as conservative a game of League of Legends as you can get. There were only eight kills shared between the two teams. (Seven went to UoL.)
Just like in Game One, this was ultimately decided in the mid game. UoL found the proper picks, then immediately turned and secured objectives as followup. At this point, the series was tied up 1-1.
Game Three
After watching League of Resource Starvation in the second outing, Game Three was a breath of fresh air – if you like your air smelling faintly of fear and desperation, that is.
Game Three was a barn burner, with UoL building up a lead through the first 40 minutes of the game. Normally when a team has a 10k gold lead at 50 minutes in the game, it’s essentially over. Statistically, Splyce had less than a one percent chance of winning.
Did we mention how big Kobbe was this series? Splyce would go on to win Game Three in dramatic fashion.
Game Four
If UoL came out tilted from that disparaging game three loss, we wouldn’t blame them. But they didn’t.
UoL’s Veritas, perhaps irritated that he was largely being outshined by Kobbe, was a man on a mission. He made sure there would be a decisive Game Five, carrying UoL to victory.
[show-table name=cta-alphadraft region=US] [show-table name=cta-betway region=ROW]Game Five
And that brings us to this game, with everything on the line.
Both teams sparred through the first 20 minutes, with neither team really finding any separation. Then Splyce found two huge team fight wins, and all of sudden they went from up 1.5k gold to 10k in six minutes.
UoL would make a slight comeback, finding an ace 34 minutes in the game. However, Splyce was able to do what UoL could not — hold on to their 10k lead. Congratulations to Splyce, and good luck at Worlds!
Dardoch traded to Echo Fox
Say hello to your new jungler, Echo Fox fans!
It doesn’t come as a complete shock that Dardoch and Team Liquid are parting ways.
TL has a tumultuous history of cycling through players, especially when personal problems arose. Dardoch was suspended at the beginning of the split for personal reasons. (We saw the same thing happen to Quas and Piglet.)
Still, this decision by TL is quite suspect. Dardoch was one of the true success stories, having made his way to the pros through TL’s Challenger series team. He’s widely considered as one of the top three junglers in the NA LCS, and his playstyle was central to TL’s success.
Dardoch is a unique jungler in that he plays a damage-oriented style. This is akin to what we typically see from Korean-styled junglers, and not the vision control, team-fighting style we often see in the NA LCS.
As a team, TL then tried to focus on rebuilding for the future. Lyonel “Arcsecond” Pfaender replaced Dardoch in their regional matchup against Team Envy. The team was also without former starting ADC Jovani “fabbbyyy” Guillen, who was replaced by JPhil “Jynthe” Vu. TL was swept in three games by Team Envy.
Meanwhile, Echo Fox is finally getting a dependable player to pair with Froggen. This may be the first-ever LCS split that we see a jungler literally pitch a tent in the mid lane brush.
Team Huma banned from events by Riot
Team Huma has officially been banned from participating in any Riot-sanctioned events. The team had previously been warned about properly compensating their players.
In an official statement released by Riot, the company stated its reasoning:
HUMA’s management has repeatedly failed to pay their players on time, which is a violation of their contracts with players, CS Rules and the Team Participation Agreement. Despite multiple clarifications on payment requirements by League Officials including an official warning in March 2016, HUMA remains unable to meet their contractual obligations with both former and current players.
We conclude that HUMA does not meet League standards for a professional organization and as such, they will not be permitted to continue participating in Riot-sanctioned leagues.
Current and former Team Huma players have come forward stating they were not properly paid based on the wording in the contracts they signed. Huma’s current owner, Behdad Jaafarian, has been banned from holding any position in Riot events for one year.
In a statement released on Twitter, Team Huma has stated they will be ceasing their esports operations in League of Legends and selling their Challenger Series spot.
