Today is the halfway point of LCO’s Split 1. The split starts to heat up from now in the race towards the playoffs.
The league has split into 3 distinct packs — the titans Peace and The Chiefs lead the breakaway pack for the top spot, with Order and Pentanet.GG trying to keep chase whilst also fighting for the final upper bracket spot. Whilst Dire Wolves, Mammoth, Kanga and Gravitas contest the fifth and final playoff spot.
Mammoth will be looking to keep their push for a return to playoffs alive. After a hot fortnight in weeks two and three, the Super Weeks have not been kind to the unexpected contenders, having dropped all four games so far.
They will look to reverse their form today, and a game against cellar-dwellers Gravitas and their ever-fluctuating roster will be a perfect way to kick their momentum back in a positive direction.
Peace will continue to keep their dominant form alive as they come up against Order, whilst the Chiefs will close out the night with a game against a Kanga line-up still looking to rebuild back towards a playoff run.
Game of the night belongs to the opening contest, however, as Pentanet.GG looks to continue a push towards the top against the Dire Wolves who are looking to solidify their spot in the top 5.
Taylor’s Pick of the Week: Dire Wolves (4-6) v Pentanet.GG (6-4)
Pentanet is in a weird spot.
Coming off a mega-successful 2021 where the organization gained the world’s attention with their historic run at the Mid Season Invitational, coupled with a top tier social media presence garnered them a large dedicated international following rarely seen here in Oceania. With a large following comes a large expectation for the team to keep up their success in 2022 even with a mostly new roster.
Thus far in 2022, they have not been able to keep up the domestic dominance from 2021. Whilst they are still definitely in the playoffs discussion and will be a contender once the league hits the best-of-five bracket, a couple of unexpected losses have seen them fall behind in the standings.
Part of this comes from the team. When they are clicking, they become one of the league’s most powerful machines, evident with them obtaining the victory against Kanga last week in the shortest game in LCO history, but at other times they have looked like a misfiring mess struggling to get off the ground.
This was evident most recently in their week four tilt against Peace. Pentanet seems to find it hard to come back from losing the early game, which will be something they need to learn to do if they want to fight for the crown and contend overseas at all this year.
- Read More: LCO 2022 Split 1 Sliding Doors Week 5
The Dire Wolves find themselves at the halfway point in the split in a battle for the fifth and final playoff spot. The young roster has seen themselves become the top dog in this fight as they have picked up wins against Mammoth, Kanga and Gravitas so far this year.
The Wolfpack, however, have notably not picked up a single win against a fellow playoff contender so far. If this form continues and they win out their games left against the three teams below them in the standings currently they will end the split 8-13.
Whilst that might be enough to get them into the playoffs, it is no sure bet, and getting some top five wins under their belt is something they need to do soon. If the Wolves can get an early lead against Pentanet.GG, they might be able to secure that needed win today.
What the Wolves will want to avoid is a repeat of their week two meeting. Mark “Praedyth” Lewis and Choi “BalKhan” Hyun-jin came out of the gates firing for Pentanet, and were pretty easily able to dominate and clean the floor in a short but bloody affair, with the two posting 15/4/9 and 11/2/16 KDA’s, respectively.
Instead, they’ll looked to empower their own carries, such as they did for mid laner Nathan “Kyose” Bacha against his former team Gravitas last week, posting a perfect 13/0/4 on Syndra.
The key factor to who will achieve victory in this game is consistency. Consistency is king in this league and can come in multiple kinds of factors. In terms of consistency on the rift, for better or for worse Pentanet has this over the Wolves in this matchup, with a consistent early play style that they have been pivotal to their wins so far. Dire Wolves are too hot and cold in terms of their playstyle at this current time, and it’s hard to tip them to win because of that.
Another consistency factor is in the roster. Whilst PGG have posted the same starting 5 every game this season, the Dire Wolves have a key substitution to blend in to the support role as of their most recent outing. Drekani “Bulldog” Akuhata came out of the team for the Day 1 game against Order with the recently signed Brendan “Shinki” Ngo stepping in.
It is uncertain if this was just a temporary change or something more long term, but one thing is for sure is that changes like that break down how well a team plays together, as not all aspects of practice can be translated to the stage.
Taylor’s Week 5 Day 2 Predictions
Pentanet. GG def. Dire Wolves
Mammoth def. Gravitas
Peace def. ORDER
Chiefs def. Kanga
LCO 2022 Split 1’s Super Weeks continue off today with our feature match at 6pm AEDT. Catch up on all the split details in our ultimate coverage hub.
