The LCS schedule showed no mercy to Team Marn, immediately pitting their rearranged lineup against Dignitas. The early game slightly favored Marn: after keeping up in the turret score and preventing early deaths in lane, MRN took Dragon at 7:00 and secured a gold lead. However, the game quickly spiraled out of MRN's control. Dignitas first procured two additional turrets, giving them a massive map control advantage. When Dragon respawned, both teams contested the objective, but eventually Dignitas managed to surround MRN and attacked from all sides. While Nien scored two mid-fight kills with impressive maneuvering, Dignitas aced MRN, including getting first blood for scarra. Though MRN returned to take that same Dragon, it was clear that Dignitas was firmly in the driver's seat, winning kills, objectives, and teamfights around the map. Marn remained patient in the face of Dignitas' large lead and manufactured a small comeback in the early stages of the late game, relying on positioning and their heavily-scaling champions to take a Baron and win a few teamfights. Unfortunately, none of these advantages gave Marn enough of a lead to trounce Dignitas, and when they got the Baron around 36:00, Marn's comeback ended. Now thoroughly ahead, it took Dignitas only another five minutes of battle to bring down MRN's Nexus. While Nien showed quite a bit of promise in his first game as a starter, it was clear that MRN (particularly Heartbeattt) hadn't yet adjusted to the "new" team, making them easy prey for the mighty Dignitas.


With TSM sporting a new member in their lineup and compLexity showing new life in the previous week, both teams had something to prove in their first Week 6 match. Unfortunately for compLexity, tidings were dire from the get-go when a TSM invade easily caught M eye A for first blood on Reginald. Although Nickwu's impressive Zed play put a few kills on the coL's side of the scoreboard, TSM maintained their lead in the early game by evening the kill score in other lanes and taking objectives. However, compLexity started a comeback as the mid game began, beginning with an advantageous teamfight which led to a coL Dragon and peaking with an ace at the Baron pit. For a while, coL looked poised to take another upset victory, but their next Baron decision was not a wise one, as getting the buff lost them two inhibitors to the push trade of TSM. Furthermore, coL's counterattack resulted in a three member loss in spite of their Baron buff. Though TSM couldn't force a perfect teamfight again until 45:05, they did so in style with a WildTurtle pentakill. This got TSM their first win of the weekend, beating down a leading compLexity for the second time in the LCS.


After thrashing MRN, Dignitas faced a larger challenge in their second Week 6 matchup: CLG. The game began with a now-rare 1-1-2 laning setup and remained rather laid back for the first few minutes. At 6:00, the tepid match heated up considerably with a massive 3v4 teamfight for Dignitas that got them a 3–1 trade and a huge lead. The troubles didn't end there for CLG, as Dignitas killed Doublelift and LinK again to pick up two turrets, the first Dragon, and an overall 5K lead before 10:00. Dignitas continued to snowball as the game progressed, cementing their lead with devastating strength which CLG could not contest. CLG's slow march to the grave dragged out for the next 14 minutes as kills, turrets, and Baron easily went to Dignitas. CLG found no answer to Dignitas' incredible play all game, so Dignitas' 31:00 Nexus kill was anything but surprising. In the end, Dignitas took yet another win over one of their closer competitors while CLG began their poor weekend with a poor game.



The final game of the night was the second of the day for both teams. The action began early in the game when MRN caught Dyrus in the mid lane, allowing MegaZero to get first blood on Dyrus. However, TSM's revenge came quickly when a late invade caught ecco at MRN's Ancient Golem camp, giving a kill and Blue to WildTurtle. WildTurtle pulled TSM ahead again and again through the early game, including a half-map Whirling Death to skewer Heartbeat and some awesome kiting and fighting to get a 3–0 TSM teamfight. TSM furthered their lead with an uncontested Baron into free kill on ClakeyD and a pick on Nientonsoh that turned into the destruction of the mid inhibitor. At that point, TSM was too big to fail and proved that again and again over the next seven minutes with splitpushing and easy executions of MRN's members. TSM was invulnerable in MRN's base at 32:00 when they finally killed off MRN's defenders to bring down the Nexus. With this victory, TSM climbed to 2–0 for the week, while MRN slumped to 0–2.



CLG focused their bans entirely on Dyrus, while TSM banned out the dangerous Doublelift Vayne and some generic things. When picks rolled around, each side had a bit of a ‘secret weapon’ they pulled out. TSM drafted a deadly Thresh-Draven Bot lane, while Hotshotgg surprised with a Karthus. TSM immediately adapted to the Karthus pick, sending Rumble against him instead of making it a 2v1 lane. Zed’s ability to shove the wave early allowed Reginald to roam top for a 3v1 dive, killing Hotshot while he was still level 1. Simultaneously down at bot lane, Xpecial and WildTurtle demonstrated their 2-vs-2 power, netting a kill despite the laning safety of Ezreal. One minute later, Reginald roamed top again to dive Hotshot again, followed by Aphromoo and Doublelift losing another 2-vs-2 due to WildTurtle’s barrier. Without any Jungler intevention, CLG’s Bot lane was 1–4 against a 4–1 opposing lane — something almost never seen in competitive play. CLG responded by full-team camping Doublelift and secured 4 kills for him by the 11 minute mark. However, this came at the cost of serious map control, and TSM capitalized, gaining their Top, Mid, and Jungle a 1k gold advantage over their CLG counterparts. Only eighteen minutes in, TSM capably dove the Middle Inhibitor turret in a four-for-nothing exchange. CLG attempted two desperation Barons, even securing Baron the second time, but TSM aced them in response, forcing CLG to surrender.


This game kicked off with some champion trading shenanigans – a last-minute Shen/Udyr trade (off camera) put Megazero on one of the first Lane Udyrs seen in a long time. Clakey and Ecco started off by doing a slightly late invade on coL’s blue, which incited 4 members of coL to chase Clakey away and contest, but Lautemortis Smited way too early and Clakey used his own Smite to secure Red buff. Meanwhile, Megazero was left alone Top against Brunch Ü’s Caitlyn and he pulled off a classic Tiger Udyr level 1 play, enhanced by a red elixir, he forced Brunch Ü to burn his Flash and recall at level 1 which secured a safe early game for his 1v2 lane. No kills happened until 9 minutes into the game when Lautemortis attempted to gank Nien and Heartbeat with Nickwu alongside. Heartbeat’s Lulu shut down Volibear’s aggression however, and Nientonsoh didn’t hesitate to turn the aggression around, securing first blood for MRN. Immediately after, Chuuper dropped Ecco very low and went in for a kill, but Shen was there with Stand United and a Flash-Shadow Dash and Chuuper went down instead. Licking their wounds, coL moved into position to secure a Dragon but MRN pressured them away for a while. They waited patiently out of vision, quickly darting in to secure the Dragon once MRN turned back, closing the gold gap to only 1K. As MRN collapsed into Mid lane, Ecco Gated directly into 3 compLexity members while Shen and Lulu both ulted him to follow up. The combo was too much for coL to deal with and this amazing initiation netted MRN two kills for free. coL tried to fight back when Thresh hooked Lulu, but they lost Lautemortis for no kills, and while they took the Middle outer turret, Nien had been splitpushing Bot lane the whole time picking up a turret in response. MRN pressed their advantage when Dragon respawned next. Immediately after picking up Dragon, Clakey caught Lautemortis with a Flash-Shadow Dash, and the rest of coL fled. Megazero intercepted the retreating group enabling Nien to pick up a triple kill with zero deaths on their own side. Using the same Ultimate combo of Destiny/Gate, Stand United, and Wild Growth to catch coL out again, MRN was rewarded with an ace for their troubles with only one casualty. They proceeded to clean up the remainder of the game with an easy Baron pickup and no additional deaths.


compLexity came into this game looking to recreate their stunned upset over Dignitas in Week 5. Dignitas wanted to show that they learned from their Week 5 mistakes: outplaying themselves hard, falling for barrier baits, and otherwise overextending for kills. Dignitas played a much smarter game this time around and absolutely destroyed coL almost in Week 4 fashion. Even though they would miss out on first blood, the game really turned into Dignitas’ favor when a nice Headbutt-Pulverize combo from Patoy to set up an easy gank for Crumbz allowing Dignitas to pick up two kills. The rest of the game was a little sloppy with each team giving up numerous kills, but Dignitas always came out on top — finishing the game with 12 more kills and 10K more gold than coL

From a standings perspective this was probably the most important game of the week. After having a better record than CLG in Week 5, Vulcun was closing in on the 4th place position. A win here would give Vulcun a nice swing in their efforts to catch CLG. Fortune would smile on Vulcun again as CLG went 0–2 in their prior games for the week. This was the best case scenario for Vulcun as they could pick up a win for their only game of the week and seal CLG to a 0–3 fate. With a lot on the line for both teams the game promised to be intense, and it delivered on all fronts.
The game got off to an interesting start right from the picks and bans phase. Everything seemed pretty standard aside from HotshotGG picking up Karthus. This was the second time during the week HotshotGG played the Deathsinger, but the first time was far from a rousing success. When CLG tried this tactic against TSM, HotshotGG was rewarded by being dove multiple times under tower and allowing TSM to establish an early game lead that they really never lost. Apparently they thought it was a flaw in their execution, not the plan itself and decided to give it a second shot.
Vulcun started the game off with standard lane assignments while CLG was a little more bold in their organization. Only Chauster in the Jungle was in his usual location as LiNk found himself Top lane, Doublelift and Aphromoo were Mid, and HotshotGG was Bot lane. This lane swap initially seemed to favor Vulcun as they were able to push down Bot lane tower at the 4:30 mark while CLG couldn't reciprocate Mid due to Xmithe coming out of the Jungle to help repel the wave. Vulcun also picked up First blood on Aphromoo a couple minutes later as Xmithe assisted Zuna and Muffinqt who had transition to the Mid lane. Getting a little over zealous, Zuna Rocket Jumped under tower to try and finish off a low health Doublelift, but unfortunately for him HotshotGG had hit six and was able to pick up a kill with Requiem. At the exact same time Chauster had snuck his way into the Top lane brushes and executed a gank on Sycho Sid. During this gank Sycho Sid was still able kill LiNk but the same Requiem that killed Zuna also finished off Sycho Sid netting HotshotGG a double kill. Despite keeping a gold advantage, feeding a Karthus was the last thing Vulcun wanted to do.
Despite Vulcun's early advantage, CLG was able to even up the gold count through superior farm and Dragon control. The game would turn sharply in CLG's favor after Vulcun tried to force an engage in the Top lane. They thought it was an even 3 v 3 fight but with two quick teleports from LiNk and HotshotGG Vulcun quickly found themselves in a 3 v 5 scenario. Crescendo and Cataclysm locked down Muffinqt and Xmithe allowing LiNk to grab a double kill and Zuna's hopes of escaping were quickly dashed as Requiem claimed his life yet again. With this lead CLG was able to apply pressure all around the map pushing out their lanes which left Vulcun in no position to contest a surprise Baron that CLG rushed at 21:30. Things were looking dire for Vulcun until they were able to turn around an ill advised tower dive by CLG. After Muffinqt landed a hook onto LiNk, CLG decided it best to engage off of this. Every member of Vulcun had Flash up to escape Cataclysm, and it even ironically left LiNk trapped under tower where he died to turret aggro. And one questionable aggressive Flash from HotshotGG later Vulcun ended the fight 2 for 0. Still, CLG got a tower out of the fight and retained a 6K gold lead.
CLG were the kings of Baron control for most of the game. When the second Baron spawned they were able to pick it up again with no contention. Their third Baron attempt wouldn't quite as well though. While CLG was focusing Baron Xmithe just walked in a won the Smite war. Caught off guard CLG actually lost the ensuing fight going 1 for 2 in kills overall . The final confrontation would actually occur at Baron the next time it spawned. This time it was Vulcun that started up on Baron. When CLG came to contest HoshotGG was caught with a spear that brought him to a sliver of health. Quick to follow up an Equalizer from Sycho Sid sealed the kill on HotshotGG and put Vulcun into a 4v5 fight with virtually full health. The remaining members of CLG just melted to the combined strength of late game Tristana and Nidalee spears. Doublelift was the only surviving member, but with death timers over the minute mark it didn't even matter as Vulcun just pushed into CLG's base to end the game.
It was a hard fought victory for Vulcun. Even though they were behind in gold for most of the game, they were able to hold on till the late game where the difference in gold wasn't as big of a factor. CLG just couldn't press their advantage as Vulcun could clear waves incredibly quickly. This wasn't a case of an obvious throw deciding the game, Vulcun simply out played CLG and deserved the win.

Each team will play in the upcoming week – potential for large shakeup in the standings. The bottom four teams are desperate for wins as we are already past the first half of the spring season and the deadline for relegation is fast approaching. All eyes will be on CLG and Vulcun as the former tries to stop the bleeding and the latter will try to continue their string of positive weeks. As for teams that are already in the top half of the standings, TSM hopes keeping WildTurtle as a permanent member of the roster will be enough to give them another undefeated week while Curse comes out of their bye week looking to further cement themselves at the top of the standings. Curse and Dignitas meet head-to-head and thus cannot both finish 3–0; expect a close match as both teams fight to retain first place.



The first match of the Big Week 7 is itself a big one: another clash between the third and fourth place Season 2 powerhouses. Last week TSM proved (both on and off the Rift) the staying power of their new lineup with a 3-0 sweep week that included a win over CLG. CLG will be out for revenge, but TSM should be able to continue to take advantage of CLG's predictable strategies. WildTurtle and Xpecial demonstrated their proficiency with aggressive or harass-heavy duo lanes in the previous week, and implementing this strategy again may provide opportunities to halt Doublelift's carrying. Similarly, the more experienced Reginald is unlikely to lose against LinK and Dyrus is just as capable (if not more) of executing an effective bruiser-splitpush as HotshotGG. With the correct sets of bans, like Nidalee and Vayne, TSM are heavily favored in this rematch. Although defeating TSM will be an uphill climb for CLG, it is hardly impossible for a team of their caliber. As usual, CLG needs to get Doublelift farmed, but with more and more teams catching on to this crutch of CLG, this gets progressively more difficult. Ideally, CLG will give Aphromoo a safe, protective support to let Doublelift scale towards his amazing lategame. The duo lane will probably require constant attention from Chauster so no one interferes with the "feed Doublelift" plan. Finally, unless it has been practiced incredibly in the last week, HotshotGG may want to stray from the solo lane Karthus, as it isn't yet solid enough for tournament play. If Hotshot is back on one of his staples, it should give CLG an extra boost towards victory.


Big Week 7 continues to live up to its name with a massive showdown between LCS frontrunners Curse and Dignitas. Curse's bye week return brings them face-to-face with their greatest competition, who picked themselves up in Week 6 after their comparably weak results at MLG Dallas. Though it's impossible to completely outban or outpick Dignitas, Curse may want to consider keeping Alistar away from patoy once again, since his cow was a serious playmaker during Week 6. Once in game, Curse must solve the problem of how to keep all of Dignitas' laning strength at bay. One method may be to send Voyboy against scarra, who recently occupies side lanes, and use Voyboy's 1v1 skills to keep the dignitas AP Carry at bay. Another would be to out-aggress imaqtpie and patoy with Cop and Elementz, fighting fire with fire to attempt to come out on top. Strong ganking potential would also be a good consideration against Dignitas, so Curse might want to consider choosing Twisted Fate, Shen, and/or Nocturne to put huge pressure on dig's dangerous lanes. On the other hand, Dignitas needs to ready themselves for a well-rested and well-practiced Curse who will be looking for payback from the team that ended their win streak. Ensuring that their classic aggression won't be countered will be essential for Dignitas, as Saintvicious' counterganks and reactive assaults often gain Curse their early game leads. Above all, Dignitas will want to secure as large a lead as possible as early as possible, since Curse makes a habit of falling behind, only to return and dominate their competition.


GGU also returns to the LCS after a bye in Week 6 and will face Vulcun, who only had a single game last week themselves. While GGU holds a 2–0 record over Vulcun, Vulcun is stronger than ever after recent victories over CLG and Dignitas. GGU should target at least two bans/picks against mandatorycloud, since his Nidalee and Lux have been integral in several Vulcun victories. Another prime candidate for respect bans is Sycho Sid: letting him get a hold of Singed would be a massive mistake on GGU's part. Once in game, GGU may want to attempt to lane swap in such a way to contain the aforementioned Vulcun players; an unexpected laning phase may throw the Vulcun stars for a loop. In contrast, Zuna and muffinqt are notoriously aggressive, so GGU should look for opportunities to kill them whenever possible. Since GGU has been their kryptonite through the LCS, Vulcun will be intent on coming out of this match with a win. One of Vulcun's largest weak spots against CLG in Week 6 was poor map awareness. In that game, CLG took two Barons and five Dragons without contest simply due to a dearth of wards and bad positioning. Shoring up this issue will give Vulcun a huge leg-up in their next matches. Similarly, aiming for strong late-game Champions is paying of for Vulcun, so getting those will be key to starting a true win streak in the LCS.


After the first two lower bracket teams conclude their match, the remaining two will face off on the Rift. Week 6 was another rough week for compLexity, who ate three losses to join GGU at the bottom of the LCS standings. Furthermore, one of said losses was to MRN and it was rather one-sided. While it may be tempting for coL to focus on taking down Nien, doing so gave MRN an early lead in their last encounter. Instead, brunch U and M eye A should focus on staying even with Nientonsoh and Heartbeattt in the laning phase so when Nien starts bringing the pain, brunch U can strike back. Instead, neutralizing the threat of ecco would be more effective since ecco tends to find himself in vulnerable positions with some frequency. Also critical to coL's victory is not allowing MRN to draft such a strong global team again. MRN was extremely adept at executing powerful offensive Destiny/Gate/Stand United/Whirling Death wombo combos, so coL should go out of their way to avoid such a composition. Despite their win over coL, MRN also had a tough Week 6 with two losses to go along with their one victory. Their biggest vulnerability right now is Heartbeattt: he is still adjusting to his support role and will likely be a comparatively weak link in Week 7. As such, MRN (and particularly Nien) will need to temper their play in such a way as to keep Heartbeattt out of trouble. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Nien would be wise to play cautiously as well. The other LCS players have recognized his talents and made him a high priority target already, but MRN needs him alive.


The second-to-last match of Week 7 Day 1 may be the most important of the day. TSM is looking stellar after their roster changes, but Dignitas will be their first true trial. TSM's big challenge this match will be coming out of the early game with a lead, a difficult task considering the competence of Dignitas' laning phase. However, for the first time in the LCS, TSM may have a chance at surpassing Dignitas in the early game with a standard laning strategy. It's hard to imagine a pair that could outdo imaqtpie and patoy, but WildTurtle and Xpecial were recently able to take down Doublelift and Aphromoo in the same situation. Some choice battles in a 2v2 scenario could just end with a victorious duo lane for TSM. Similarly, Reginald and scarra are comparably aggressive, making them a nearly even match, which is a boon for TSM. With KiWiKiD and Dyrus also sitting at similar skill levels and playstyles, the biggest difference will be the jungle styles of each team, so TSM will need to take special care to ensure Crumbz doesn't ruin their days. Dignitas will also be feeling some heat in this match because recent LCS weeks exposed their frailties and TSM is now hot on their tail for second place. With this in mind, Dignitas should attempt to crush TSM as quickly and as devastatingly as possible. TSM is strong in the late game, but they also are very susceptible to collapsing if the odds turn heavily against them (they remain to be one of the only teams who have surrendered in LCS matches). Lane swaps, Crumbz's impressive ganks, and the unstoppable forces in KiWiKiD and scarra could dishearten and disarm TSM early on and make the game Dignitas' to take.


For CLG, this is a chance to really pull themselves back into being solidly in the top 4. For Curse, it’s important to seal another victory to defend their #1 spot from any takers, as it will give them a first-round bye and favorable seeding in the mid-season playoffs coming up. It’s likely CLG will want to send their Duo lane to lane against Voyboy – a good way to secure Doublelift’s early development as well as cage the beast that is Voyboy. Chauster in particular needs to step up his game: he has been underfarmed in nearly every game CLG plays, and it bites him when he is significantly behind his opposing jungler in the mid and late game. He needs to make the time to clear camps or farm lanes in between ganking and lane camping. If he gets massively outfarmed and outleveled again, even Saintvicious won’t need to worry about losing a smite battle against him; he’ll either be easily killable or StV can abuse the smite damage difference.



As this is a match between the two of the teams best know for upsetting the top four, this match should be quite interesting to watch. Overall, Vulcun Command plays a little bit more consistently, but Team Marn is looking hot with their adjusted lineup, and Marn on a good day is a terror to behold. Marn draws a lot of power from Megazero, however, and he still hasn’t shown himself to be totally comfortable with 1v2 situations (at least, not without a large level 1 lead.) If he gets a chance to lane against Sycho Sid, his chances of developing through the early game and be a tempo setter for Marn increase greatly. VUL draws a lot of their power from Mancloud, heavy poke champs like Lux and Nidalee.


This is the battle between the bottom two teams in the LCS. Unfortunately for both of these teams, placing in either 7th or 8th place means instant relegation for the second half of the season. More so than anything it’s pride on the line rather than actual placement in the standings. In coL’s recent victories Lautemortis has played a huge role Unfortunately his performances have been wildly inconsistent so we won’t know till game time which Lautemortis has shown up to play. Good Game University’s best bet for victory is abuse this fact. Nintendudex has a reputation for playing very aggressive Junglers, so if he can get into coL’s Jungle and abuse Lautemortis they can gain a lead and try to push their advantages from there.



During their streak of upsets, Dignitas was one of the top teams that MRN simply couldn’t overthrow. Now with a new roster it will be interesting to see if MRN can accomplish what they couldn’t before. The addition of Nientonsoh will be crucial to their success as he has a lot of potential to carry games. If he can win a couple skirmishes against imaqtpie in the Bot lane they should be able to snowball this and create pressure all around the map. For Dignitas a big factor in their win against MRN last time was KiWiKiD completely shutting down MegaZero. MegaZero played a pivotal role in their victories against TSM and CLG and against Dignitas KiWiKiD just never let him become an issue. If he can shut him down this hard again a victory for Dignitas shouldn’t be too hard.


There’s probably never been a better time for coL to face CLG. After their 0–3 week it’s clear CLG is having some team issues. While they are certainly working out these problems, they probably won’t have it full figured out in just one week. Like most teams coL should focus their efforts on shutting down Doublelift. Make sure they ban Vayne and overgank his lane and they might stand a chance. Recently CLG has been experimenting with HotshotGG playing Karthus in an off lane, and against a less experience team like coL this could work to their advantage. If they try and punish HotshotGG for picking a squishy champ he can bait the team to focus him letting Doublelift farm with ease. On the other hand if coL focuses Doublelift like normal this could allow HotshotGG to reach late game status and actually be able to carry his team by doing damage instead of just tanking it up.


This match will be Good Game University and TSM's third meeting in the LCS with TSM holding a 2-0 advantage overall. After a bye last week, GGU is going to be scrambling for any win they can pick up. With the end of the season fast approaching they are doing everything in their power to avoid guaranteed relegation by fighting their way up to sixth place A win against TSM would go a long way in trying to obtain this goal. Their best bet to accomplish this is to try and abuse TSM's newest member WildTurtle. Despite an excellent debut performance in Week 6 his overall coordination with the team is still developing and could lead to some mistake. TSM doesn't have do anything fancy to secure the win for themselves. Even after playing with Jintea for so long, GGU never reached the potential they displayed with Shiphtur during Week 1. If TSM plays smart they should be able to pick up an easy win by simply outplaying GGU.


Depending on how their prior matches go, this could be a key match for Vulcun. If CLG continues to underperform Vulcun are in prime position to sneak into fourth place. Even though the only competitive difference between fourth and fifth place is seeding during the first half playoffs, there would be great symbolic meaning if one of the “bottom four teams” was able to cast off this stigma and break into the top half of the standings. That said, this will be a hard fought battle as Curse is still one of the top teams in the LCS. Curse has been known to lose early game and still win late game with more game experience, so Vulcun will need to establish an early lead and grind out a quick victory before Curse has a chance to get back into the game. As for Curse, their key to a smooth victory lies in the Bot lane. Cop and Elementz have been playing solid all LCS long, but haven't carried quite as hard as the rest of their team. Against a team with Zuna, getting Cop fed not only puts them at a strategic advantage, but it is also a huge blow to Vulcun's morale.