LCO is back with another Super Week, meaning three matchups for each team as the second round-robin set of matches continues.
As ever, Chiefs and PEACE are sitting pretty, still tied for the top position on the ladder. Both squads touting menacing 8-1 records. The Dragons continue the LCO trend of upsets, going down Kanga Esports before returning to their winning ways against MAMMOTH and Pentanet.GG.
Behind the top two are perennial contenders: ORDER (5-4) and Pentanet.GG (5-4) who despite their shortcomings seem to be finding their footing more often than not — barring any significant upsets/changes they are the gatekeepers to the upper echelon when it comes to Oceanic League of Legends.
Picking up steam over the past week was Dire Wolves (4-5), who nabbed two wins over Gravitas and Kanga distancing themselves from the bottom of the table. The wolfpack is hoping to keep their slot in the Playoffs earmarked, seeing marked improvement since their debut.
Just outside a Playoff berth, MAMMOTH sits at 6th (3-6) and has seemingly cooled off significantly since surprising the LCO faithful with a massive upset win over Pentanet in Week 2. Still lagging are Kanga Esports (2-7), and Gravitas (1-8) to fill out the ladder.
Hoàng’s Pick of the Week: Kanga Esports (2-7) v ORDER (5-4)
Pre-season, I think a reasonable case could be made that these two rosters were aiming at similar goals for the split; both were new-look rosters looking for a top four finish, largely anchored by experienced talent, some of which certainly shone bright in the latter months of 2021.
But for Kanga that journey hasn’t quite gone to plan — in fact, some would say, it’s been a pretty disastrous start to their LCO debut season.
While ORDER has been honing its two re-signed prodigies returning from the 2021 squad: Shane “Kevy” Allen and Nathan “Puma” Puma in hopes of finally breaking up the two-horse race between PEACE and Chiefs. They have been quietly flanked by a pair of smiling playmakers: Brandon “BioPanther” Alexander and the returning Ian “Corporal” Pearse, who spent last year in the LJL — the two carries have a lot of room to soak in resources to position themselves as severe late-game threats.
Last week almost went completely to plan for the boys in purple/black, almost nabbing a trio of wins against MAMMOTH, Chiefs and Gravitas. Almost.
It was a hell of a clash between Ronald “Kisee” Vo’s new and old club, running just over 40 mins with plenty of back and forth. But despite pulling a Baron play out of hat and nabbing three consecutive Ocean Drakes — nothing ORDER could bring to the table could stop Quin “Raes” Korebrits from razing their hopes after a disastrous dragon fight, where his Tristana swung the game with a swift Triplekill.
I still have trouble processing that Kanga came out of last Super Week with a 1-2 record. Upsetting league favourites, PEACE before then sliding right back into losses to Pentanet, and then Dire Wolves the next evening.
The memer in me chalks it up to a freshly buffed Ahri (Patch 12.3) being an OTP pick for Kanga mid, Jerome “Chungy” Chung. But under the hood, he and superstar jungler, Jordan “Only” Middleton performed exceptionally well in outpacing and eventually nullifying Yao “Apii” Jian-Jing’s Sylas before corralling PEACE away from key objectives — by the 25th minute, PEACE were seeking desperate dives to try to recover the match, but before long they chalked up their first loss of the season.
Outside of this win though, the rest of Kanga has looked a bit lost. While Chungy and Only looked great in this win, I’m afraid that the rest of the team hasn’t found that carry performance to rest their laurels on just yet. Tristan “Lived” Fulcher was widely considered a decent auxiliary threat from the top position in late 2021, but we have yet to see him reach such heights.
In bot are where I think Kanga’s true trouble lies. Rookie Samil “leemas” Kip and role-swapped (from bot) Matthew Lionel “Lionel” Desa will their hands full against Puma and Corporal, barring outside interference — that’ll be a wash, in favour of ORDER.
That being said, the Chungy and Kisee match-up is something of an X-factor for this matchup — both feast or famine players, both have pocket picks up the wazoo. No doubt the junglers will be dropping by too.
If ORDER are destined to be middle of the pack once again it would be quite the omen to drop this game — but if they’re hoping to break into the Top 3 once again, I wonder how quickly they can make a kangaroo disappear?
Hoàng’s Week 5 Day 1 Predictions
ORDER def. Kanga
PEACE def. Dire Wolves
Pentanet.GG def. MAMMOTH
Chiefs def. Gravitas
Another LCO 2022 Super Week is on the horizon! Kanga Esports and ORDER clash tonight from 6 pm AEDT. Catch up on all the split details in our ultimate coverage hub.
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