Day one of the tournament seemed to be on track with most people's predictions for the event. Quantic set up shop in a LANcenter to avoid internet troubles that had plagued some of their games and made short work of the competition striding out to an impressive 2-0 on the day. Just as Quantic followed predictions, so too did compLexity who dropped both their games as most people predicted after the rather recent loss of Lautemortis and the removal of Pr0lly. Though the results ended predictably compLexity did show signs of life in their game against COGnitive, nearly taking the game before some poor calls resulted in the very definition of a throw. All in all day one is best described as predictable.
After the predictable day one there was no one prepared for what day two had in store. The dominant Quantic from day one, that had looked so much like Cloud 9's second coming, was nowhere to be found. Instead a very shaky game one would crumble under Quantic's failure to bring a front line tanky-bruiser in the face of a tank heavy, late game focused, compLexity team comp. After game one's loss Quantic's desire to play all their games back to back to save on LANcenter fees would come back to haunt them. Quantic was clearly on tilt from their abysmal first game and things only cascaded down hill from there. Quantic would end day two at a sorry 0 for 3 making their overall record 2-3 in the tournament and all but dashing any hopes of them entering the LCS this split. Meanwhile COGnitive had a much better day ending the day at 3-1 on the whole with only a single game between them and a guaranteed trip to LA.
Going into the final day there were still some people holding out hope for Quantic, a few Reddit threads popped up detailing the exact results required to force a tie that could see Quantic playing tie-breaker games. Those hopes would all be for naught though as TBD's victory over vVv in game one sealed both TBD and COGnitive their tickets to LA to face the relegated LCS teams. Game two of the day would similarly wrap things up as The Walking Zed would beat compLexity to secure the final spot.
Just like that it was over, COGnitive, TBD, and TWZ move on to face the relegated LCS teams while Quantic, compLexity, and vVv will have to decide their next move in the coming days. It's difficult to pick a clear leader out of the qualifying teams, before the tournament everyone expected Quantic to clean house and get defaulted to facing whatever team ends up filling Velocity's shoes in relegation, but now things are not so clear. The qualifying teams being so close make it difficult but if I have to make predictions I expect Curse, who have top seed, will likely chose COGnitive as their opponent for relegation primarily because Zamphira looked the least threatening mid of the tournament and Curse needs to shore up Voyboy's shortcomings in his new role. COG also looks a prime target for Curse thanks to their overall lack of standout stars, the team played well but no one on COG really stood out with a fear inducing performance. Curse likely takes the matchup 3-0 or 3-1. With COG off the table 2nd pick Coast would likely take TBD as their opponents. Coast's top and mid lanes are strong enough to hold even or possibly out right beat TBD's fearsome solo laners and Coast's jungler NintendudeX would have an easy time capitalizing on the somewhat shaky performance of Brokenshard in the jungle. Similar to the last match up I just don't think TBD has what it takes to dethrone Coast, the match will likely go to Coast 3-1. That would leave TWZ to face whatever team is stapled together to make up the new Velocity roster. TWZ's weak point is definitely their top laner Yazuki who struggled throughout the weekend during 1v1s, clearly outclassed by the likes of Apple and Westrice. Despite that TWZ's jungler KOR Kez, and mid Bischu both put in terrifying performances. Whatever beast occupies Velocity's spot will need strong solo laners to capitalize on Yazuki's weaknesses and hold off Bischu's strength, as well as an absolutely dominating jungler to avoid the map pressure KOR Kez demonstrated over the weekend. It's hard to call this one when we still don't know the exact makeup of the new Velocity lineup but if it's the rumored partial EG team suggested on Reddit I think this would go to TWZ in a very close 3-2 series.
As for the teams who didn't qualify, Quantic, vVv, and compLexity, we'll no doubt learn their fate in the coming days as they figure things out. MeyeA from compLexity has already said in his Reddit AMA that he, Chuuper, and Megazero might be in the challenger scene to some degree though MeyeA and Megazero will focus more on school for the coming months. The team most people wonder about though is Quantic, having brought their entire team over from Korea it's hard to judge what the organization will do moving forward. Prime had claimed in an interview for LoLesports.com that the team would have plenty of time to think about their next move on the flight back to Korea, though that move seems like a poor choice the Quantic organization. Having spent so much money to migrate a team from Korea, house, supply, and pay them for months the Quantic organization would almost be better off playing the long game and retaining the team if possible to participate in the amateur scene before making another run at the LCS in the summer promotion tournament. It's quite possible Quantic sends the team back to Korea but doing so would mean accept a hefty amount of money was wasted in an attempt to enter the less meaningful of the two LCS splits.
The next event is the combined Battle of the Atlantic and relegation tournament in only a few short days where we will be able to see how bad I am at predictions, the top NA&EU LCS teams face off, and which, if any, of the qualified teams can secure themselves a spot in the LCS.
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