With the opening week behind us, all eight teams in the LCO look to improve on their opening results as they fight to prove that they are the best line-up Oceania has to offer.
In tonight’s opening contest: Peace, wanting to make two World’s appearances in a row, will look to extend their undefeated streak as they take on Mammoth, who are still looking for their opening win.
After a mixed week on the rift last week, the Dire Wolves will be looking to build their win rate above .500 as they take on Kanga, who looks to start anew after last week with the signing of new jungler Jeremy “foreigner” Lim.
In the night’s last contest Gravitas will be looking to get their first win of the split, but couldn’t come up against a harder opponent as they take on the hi-flying chiefs.
Game of the week, however, belongs to tonight’s second contest, as 2021 MSI heroes Pentanet.GG take on 2022 MSI representatives Order.
Taylor’s Game of the Week — Pentanet (2-0) v Order (1-1)
Pentanet and Order both have international aspirations for this split, that’s for certain. Both teams have made no secret of it and have set themselves on the right path toward regaining the international spotlight after the first week.
Pentanet hit the ground running last week. Making the smallest change out of all 8 teams in the league during the midseason, with their only change coming in Ryan “Chippys” Short move from strategic to head coach.
The lack of needing to adapt to roster changes, coupled with a seemingly successful bootcamp has seen the Perth org come out swinging in a dominant fashion.
They did get it easy though in their first week, taking on a Kanga team that was lacking a true jungler on Monday, and taking on a Mammoth line-up on Tuesday which featured a top laner and bot laner playing off-lane from their normal competitive roles.
This game will be their first true test against a fully on-role line-up, and a more competitive team in general.
Order will come into this week still looking to adapt to life after Kevy.
Star jungler and 2021 Split 2 MVP Shane “Kevy” Allen left the team post their trip to the Midseason invitational, joining CLG academy in North America. In came Min Jae “Goodo” Jeong from the Dire Wolves to fill up the opening, who has put in a pair of solid performances so far.
The Melbourne-based team are finding themselves not the dominant powerhouse they were in the Split 1 playoffs so far. They did get to open the split with a victory, albeit against Gravitas — although Tuesday was a different story, with the team getting absolutely rolled by The Chiefs in a 23-minute belting.
Wanting to bounce back this week, Order will take the fight to Pentanet and make it a hard-to-win the contest, but I don’t think it will be enough.
Pentanet seems to be a well-oiled machine this split and will be a tough ask for anyone to take them down. Order is fully capable to pull off a win in this match, however, so if this game went the other way I wouldn’t be all that surprised, but I also expect them to take a couple of weeks to get fully back up to speed after their changes.
Taylor’s Week 2 Day 1 Predictions
Peace def. Mammoth
Pentanet def. Order
Dire Wolves def. Kanga
The Chiefs def. Gravitas
The LCO Split 2 resumes tonight at 6pm AEST, with game of the day Pentanet vs. Order set to kick off at 7pm AEST. Catch up on all the split details in our ultimate coverage hub.
Follow our prediction team @CDMLoL and @ImHarryTaylor on Twitter.
