With only four places for playoffs in each region, teams across Australia fought tooth and claw in the META High School League tiebreakers to get a shot at making regional finals.
Two teams in the Victorian division, Lilydale High School and Catholic Regional College Sydenham, were both on the cusp of making playoffs, but unfortunately only one team could advance. With the do-or-die match for both teams, the game got underway with LHS on the blue side, and CRCS on the red side.
The early game was relatively uneventful, except for a level one trade down in the bot lane, with exhausts dropped by both Kekoto on Janna for LHS and Kusu on Leona for CRCS. Ren Anamiya on Jhin for CRCS chunked Geo on Vayne down to a third health, however no kills were secured.
Lirizen on Trundle for CRCS was providing pressure to all lanes, however after backing in the bottom lane after a failed gank provided VisualGlitch on Kindred with the assistance of Chord on Zoe, alongside Vayne and Janna meant the first dragon of the game just after the six minute mark, an ocean drake.
After the dragon was secured the teams played safe with no kills or objectives up till the mountain dragon spawned.
A penta kill, an epic 1v2 and more.
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Despite CRCS getting the jump on LHS around bottom river, they didn’t have the opportunity to secure the kill thanks to Kindred’s Lamb’s Respite, delaying the fight with the help of a fantastically placed Janna Monsoon.
Kindred managed to flee, and Zoe swept in and earned the first blood of the match at 12 minutes against Leona. From there, LHS won the fight four-for-three.
LHS made a move to add their second dragon of the game, but at the same time TheBestIronSmurf on Poppy with Tadakatsu213 on Ahri and Trundle were taking the Rift Herald on the top side of the map.
After the dragon was taken and a cloud rift spawned, Kindred went in to take a mark in the enemy jungle. Despite nearly falling to Leona and Jhin, the support of Kindred’s bottom lane managed to reverse the tide of the battle and take down Jhin thanks to a great Vayne Condemn.
The action picked up, with further kill trades after a Trundle invade into the top blue side jungle. LHS rotated bottom and pulled off a tower dive, but at the same time Trundle was top side with the Rift Herald and took out the top tower.
The third dragon of the match was on the cards for LHS, with a skirmish costing the Vayne their life but before being killed, managed to do a lot of damage to the other members and won the dragon for the team, putting them on soul point.
Trundle got caught out by LHS after clearing a ward in the Baron pit which led to another teamfight and LHS taking two more kills on Leona and Jhin. LHS turned their focus onto the Baron, and even with an attempt to steal by CRCS, secured the Baron.
With the baron buff active on LHS, they were deathballing minus the Kindred, and caught out the CRCS team in their own jungle, acing them at 25:30. This was unfortunate timing for CRCS, as the final dragon required for dragon soul was online for LHS, and they duly took the Cloud Soul.
With the movement speed provided by the Cloud drakes, the LHS team was quick to rotate around and pressured the base of CRCS. After cracking the tower and inhibitor in the top lane, there was nothing that CRCS could do to stop LHS from taking down their Nexus. After a 29 minute game the LHS team earned their place in the regional playoffs in the Victorian division.
Regional playoffs kick off on the 30th of June, where teams will play a single elimination format with a best of three matches to determine the top two to proceed to the regional finals. The games will be broadcast from the META HSE Twitch channel.
