The 2020 LCS Summer Split playoff teams have finally been decided. Dignitas took down CLG in the eighth-place tiebreaker match to lock in the final spot in playoffs.
Both League of Legends teams finished the regular Summer Split season with the same 5-13 record. While Dignitas looked better in the latter half of the split, CLG came into the tiebreaker match with an abysmal 1-9 record in their last 10 games.
The single, winner-take-all match featured a strong early game draft for Dignitas, with jungler Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett on Olaf. AD carry Johnson “Johnsun” Nguyen opted for a comfort pick in Ashe, his most-played champion of the split. CLG flex-picked Sett for their recently called-up jungler Kristopher “Fragas” Myhal, opting to give top laner Kim “Ruin” Hyeong-min the carry pick in Camille.
As soon as the match started, Dignitas’ early aggression caught CLG by surprise. Just 55 seconds into the game, a perfect Zoe Sleepy Trouble Bubble by Kim “Fenix” Jae-hun led to Dardoch claiming first blood against Fragas, and the game continued to snowball from there. Dignitas maintained a perfect game through the first 18 minutes with an 8-0 kill advantage and a 6,000 gold lead.
CLG found small opportunities to capitalize on, primarily in the form of four kills against Dignitas in a botched Baron attempt. But the light at the end of CLG’s tunnel quickly turned dark—Dignitas secured the Elder Drake and Baron at 30 minutes, then promptly destroyed both CLG’s nexus and playoff hopes.
Dardoch was unstoppable with a 7/0/6 scoreline on Olaf, while Aphromoo’s perfect Soraka play earned him his 10th win on the champion. Dignitas earned the eighth and final Summer Split playoff spot for the game win.
Dardoch was involved in a lot of drama in the offseason. Viewers of Doublelift’s stream overheard a conversation in which TSM president Leena Xu said “no one wants to pick up Dardoch,” TSM’s jungler.During the stream, Doublelift paused just as Xu said, “It’s not up to me. Like, for example, no one wants to pick up Dardoch. That’s not my fault.”
Xu admitted on Reddit it was an “unfortunate mistake” and that she has previously had work conversations in the same room as Doublelift, her boyfriend and TSM’s new bot laner, but that her comments were caught on stream this time because of different stream settings. She also said the incident was her fault, not Doublelift’s.
While Dardoch didn’t have the greatest Spring split, he was a reliable jungle so it’s surprising that TSM decided to replace him just after one split. It’s surprising TSM keeps replacing their members after just one split.
With this progress it’s unlikely we will get to see TSM participate at international tournaments since other teams keep their members and develop them instead of throwing them out after one split. It’s interesting to see how will TSM fare after all this drama Split, considering the hatred from the community
