by Matt “It’s Pure Luck” Lee
This was the moment for Team SoloMid. Courtesy of Star Horn Royal Club’s win over SK Gaming earlier in the day, TSM knew that a win over the Taipei Assassins would put them through the group stage and into the quarterfinals of the 2014 World Championship. It didn't figure to be easy, as they struggled to put away a feisty TPA the previous day. A rabid fan base desperate for a good international showing would only add to the pressure to move beyond the group stage. In the end, TSM was more than up to the task. It was a dominant performance over the hometown Assassins that was finished in a mere twenty-seven minutes.
The first eight minutes were fairly passive with minimal pressure from the jungle on either side. The biggest discrepancy early on was up in the top lane where Dyrus on Lulu was giving Achie (on Maokai) fits. Applying constant pressure and harassment, Dyrus slowly began to build up a solid creep score lead and delay the ever important Rod of Ages that Achie needed. Even more important was forcing an early teleport out of Achie which seemed to set forth a chain of events in the favor of SoloMid.
Shortly after the game crossed the nine minute mark TSM began a three man attempt on dragon. TPA challenged for it and the teams ended up trading one for one as Amazing took down Bebe but Lustboy would then fall for TSM. Bjergsen was late to join the fight so a teleport from Achie could have pushed the fight to a five on three advantage for TPA, but because of the pressure from Dyrus it was not available.
The chaos settled, but only for a brief moment. Morning tried to make an aggressive play on Bjergsen when both of them returned to mid lane, but bit off more than he could chew in the process and was taken down. It allowed TSM to claim the dragon without contest this time and pushed their gold lead to just under two-thousand gold at the eleventh minute.
TPA knew the game was possibly on the verge of spiraling out of control so they looked to create a pick and found it. In what ended up being one of the last mistakes of the game for TSM, Amazing was caught going too deep in an effort to help Dyrus hold off three members of TPA. The crowd erupted as Achie picked up the kill. The gold deficit was shaved down to just over one-thousand but it was the last positive note for the Assassins in this game.
At this point TSM really began to ratchet up the pressure on the side lanes. Constant explosive shot harass from WildTurtle onto Bebe and Jay slowly but surely allowed TSM to push down the bottom turret. Top lane was no different as the constant harass from Dyrus allowed him to force the top turret down. Winds attempted to help Achie up top with a gank but Dyrus escaped. As a result the bottom lane from TSM knew they were in little danger of pushing down the outer turret and it fell shortly after Dyrus had finished off the one up top. SoloMid found themselves back in a commanding lead of almost three thousand gold at fifteen minutes and they were dictating the pace of the game.
TPA knew at this point they were going to have to make a desperation play to get back in this game and chose the next dragon fight to do it. They tried to execute a pincer move on TSM but did a poor job of it. TSM simply peeled off the dragon and picked up kills on both Jay and Achie while the rest of the TPA was forced to scatter and run. TSM picked up the dragon and expanded their gold lead to over five thousand but they weren't done yet. Multiple members of the Assassins opted to hang around their own jungle with no vision. It was a poor decision as they knew TSM could possibly be there having just killed the dragon.
Jay would pay the price with his life first as he went to ward the bush TSM was hiding in. Morning and Bebe would follow him to the gray screen shortly after that and the rout for Team SoloMid was officially on; they then had a gold lead of seven-thousand before the game was even twenty minutes old. There was nothing the former season two champions could do at this point. Another desperation engage was attempted trying to defend their top inner turret but they would once again lose two members while getting nothing in return.
TSM wasted little time in ending the game from here. After finding more picks in the jungle, they would take down the bottom inhibitor followed by the middle inhibitor and push through to the nexus while picking up more kills along the way. With the win, it would be the first team a team from North America would play beyond where they were seeded at worlds since way back in season one.
Game MVP
While his stats weren't quite as flashy as some of his teammates, this one has to be given to Dyrus. His play on Lulu was terrific and he kept Achie down the entire game and never allowed him to use Maokai to become the team fight monster he can be late game. Achie was unable to have any impactful teleports during the early stages of the game because he was constantly being shoved into his turret.
Questionable Decisions
One has to wonder why the Taipei Assassins did not attempt a lane swap this game. I thought this myself at the game start and it was brought up at the analyst desk after. The biggest problem they had was essentially they had chosen two losing side lanes and they were unable to handle it. Winds, unfortunately, cannot be everywhere at once. Even when the camera was not focused on a certain lane, a quick check of the minimap most always seemed to show the members of TPA under their own turret. When you compound that with the fact that Bjergsen picked up a solo kill on Morning, it was a disaster. Willingly picking Twitch into Tristana with the intent to lane 2v2 against it was a poor choice by the Assassin’s and it cost them. With all three lanes losing there was little Winds was going to be able to do to rectify the situation.
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