If you’d told me after the Spring Final that 100 Thieves and Team Liquid would be tied atop the standings after six weeks in the summer, I’d have… believed you. We’re two-thirds of the way through the split and last split’s finalists are poised to break away from the pack. Thanks to the meta shifting back to something a little more stable (and increasingly so), the two teams who played around their ADC the best and most last split are finally rounding back into form. Funnel is out, and base races are in. Here’s 10 thoughts going into Week 7!

[8-4] Why doesn’t Ssumday just fly into Mordor?

Boromir (famous human who definitely existed) once said, “One does not simply walk into the enemy base.” Well, he’s dead now, so that’s no longer true as we saw last weekend in 100’s match against Clutch. Ssumday saw the two teams dancing at too many different objectives and realized this was League of Legends and not DDR and decided to just go end the game. That’s what I always tell my friends who can’t figure out how to climb in Solo Queue — the easiest way to win in League of Legends is to destroy the enemy Nexus. Which is something the 100 Thieves continues to be rather adept at, even after trading star jungler Meteos for a largely unproven AnDa. I don’t think I can emphasize just how great of a situation this is for a young player — he’s surrounded by a ton of talent that can help cover for his inexperience, and the change was done early enough in the split that they can still improve going into the Finals. Having “potential” is frequently a giant meme, but in this case I think 100 should be excited and hopeful for what’s to come.

[8-4] Congrats to Pobelter for his 1000th career kill

There was some fanfare this week about TL coach Cain being challenger elo— fans were quick to ponder if it made sense to sub him in for former MVP-candidate Olleh. Fans were crazy (and mostly joking… I hope…). Don’t get me wrong — plenty of coaches are still quite good at this game. We also see it in other sports: Luke Walton could probably suit up and run, there’s a neat video of Stan VanGundy showing off his handles, and LeBron made it to the finals four years in a row as a player-coach. But in a scene this small, subbing out a player for a coach would be the ultimate confidence killer — something Olleh absolutely cannot afford right now. Faith in him seems to have paid off, too, as Liquid secured a 2-0 week. Plus with Cain coaching, Liquid executed their “don’t put Doublelift on Vladimir lol” strategy to perfection. Without major game or roster changes on the horizon, they are once again the team to beat this summer.

[7-5] One person’s trash is another person’s luggage

Dardoch did 10 damage as Camille and FOX… won! Then he got seven kills (more than half the team’s total) as Rengar and FOX… lost! It’s simple, actually. In Solo Queue, you’ll find a bunch of people who complain about their team being too heavy to carry. All you have to do, then, is become the baggage and let someone else carry if you can’t. If you need any more tips on how to climb, just DM me. FOX made a lot of waves this week with their final hour roster swap — in formally upgrading Damonte and Lost to the starting roster while acquiring Smoothie from C9, it’s clear they didn’t think their previous roster had what it takes to make a run at Worlds. Smoothie’s shotcalling should be a great boon to this team, which has been a little too aggressive at times this year. If Damonte and Lost can prove themselves to be up-to-par, then FOX will finally have another playmaker on the map. So far, the changes have looked okay —Damonte and Lost look like solid adds, but as the pressure mounts, will they be able to step up to the plate? Will they even need to on this team?

[7-5] All your base are belong to FLY

I feel like the first word that comes out of this team’s analysts when they revisit game footage is, “What?” The second word is, “Same.” They somehow pulled off another base race last weekend, and in doing so completely stunned TSM fans. It’s kind of funny that such an aggressive call from FLY would involve WildTurtle— a player who was consistently flamed while he was on TSM for being too aggressive. And yet here we are — FLY sits near the top of the standings. I don’t think they’re in the same tier of skill as the three teams above them, but I’ve been underestimating them all season, so maybe it’s time to finally pay them due credence? It’s hard for me to identify any specific reason they are threatening to other teams, but maybe it is their reckless abandon. Their players are largely castaways with no pressure — instead of saying, “Why?” before making a play, they ask, “Why not?” And maybe that’s the difference between a winner and a loser in this league.

[6-6] Dhokla’s Summer “Split”

Is Dhokla an Olympic gymnast? Cause damn he can split. OPT is on a four game winning streak that I’m not even sure they saw coming. But they’re squarely in the playoff race now, and this momentum is coming at the perfect time in the season. I’m not really sure what changed, but it’s super strange to see this team win thanks to their top laner— after spending the bulk of this year being unable to play around or with their top laner at all, maybe they’ve finally discovered a winning formula? The Yorick pick was very clearly a PvE split push style champion, and it was refreshing to see a team lean into an unconventional pick’s playstyle instead of using it as a Walmart brand tank or bruiser or whatever is in-meta. I hope they’ll continue to refine this win condition — it’s a lot more interesting to watch than the classic ARAM-fiesta meta that a lot of middling teams devolve into. Like, maybe they can take it to extremes and make Dhokla shuttle in separately to really highlight the fact that he should absolutely never group for a team fight.

[5-7] Quinn is win?

Big weekend for the C9 organization as their Overwatch team, the London Spitfire, captured the inaugural OWL title in a pretty lopsided affair. I feel like the Philadelphia Fusion would have had a better time if they just banned Widowmaker and Orisa. Dummies. On Summoner’s Rift, though, C9 bounced back and basically doubled their win count with a 2-0 weekend, thanks to a strong Solo Queue pick in Quinn and a strong top lane pick in Licorice (can’t ban him!). FOX and TSM weren’t exactly pushover opponents, either, so C9 really delivered with their season on the line. And because the standings are so close, they’ve essentially created a bit of wiggle room for themselves that they previously did not have. They don’t necessarily have to win out, but they’re also definitely not shoe-ins for the playoffs by any stretch. They’ll need to continue to improve, and it seems leaning on Licorice will be their best bet. Star midlaner Jensen has had a quiet split so far, too, so I think they’ll need to figure out how to better enable him if they want to join the upper echelon of teams.

[5-7] Is it time for counter counter logic?

Ever since I suggested that CLG might be the most complete and consistent team in the league, they’ve gone 0-4. Which, while inconsistent in terms of gameplay, is incredibly consistent when it comes to their brand. You really gotta hand it to CLG to that end. In watching their games, I think a thing that’s missing for them is they lack someone who can just randomly generate kills — either in isolation or in a team fight. Biofrost is their biggest playmaker, but as the old saying goes you can only lead the horse to the watering hole. You can’t actually force it to drink. It just feels like they’re missing that thirsty horse — an “x-factor” kind of player who the team can just rely on to win the game for them. In the past, that’s been Darshan as a split pusher or Huhi making crazy early game plays or Stixxay carrying late. But right now, they’ve seemingly only got the early game down, and late game ADCs aren’t strong enough to enable Stixxay like before. Maybe a shifting of metas can help them, but as of now I think they’d benefit from the type of Quinn comps that C9 has been running or going all-in on split pushing like OpTic.

[5-7] Gold rush fever

This Guardians team pretty much exemplifies youth — not only are they full of young or inexperienced players, they play very recklessly. A bit more patience could do this team wonders as they are super capable of jumping out to early leads, but they keep finding themselves unable to close out games. This is actually a problem that was often true in Spring Split as well (though they didn’t secure as many early leads). I read recently that Magnus Carlsen (world chess champion) often doesn’t worry about winning — he says he’s just trying to make a lot of good plays. I think that’s something GGS could take and apply to their own game. They don’t need every move to lead to a win — not now or not even in five minutes — they just need to focus more on what the correct play is at that given moment. Odds are if you string enough of those together, you’ll win the game, right? Anyway, this team has made some incredible strides this split, and while an 0-2 week is definitely a setback, they’re not out of it just yet.

[5-7] The S does not stand for Shakespeare

Shakespeare is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of all time and is credited with having written 37 plays. He is the opposite of TSM in that he was absolutely a playmaker. The meme just continues to build with every single TSM loss — they don’t do anything, they roll over, someone brainwashed the idea of aggression from their personalities, etc. This used to be an issue that became more pronounced primarily on the international stage, but now it’s biting at them in NA, too. To me, that means NA is finally playing at an international level (quote me on this shit). It’s actually kind of interesting to see calls for Bjergsen’s benching because it’s working for SKT in Korea (who benched Faker for Pirean). It’s just insane to me that Pirean’s play can be seen as rationale for benching NA’s greatest player of all time. To me, though, this just speaks to environment — Pirean struggled in NA for a whole number of reasons, and his resurgence now should make it clear that even when a player might look bad, there could be thousands of reasons behind it. I think it’d absolutely be a mistake for TSM to bench Bjergsen, but I do think they need to change up their environment. Whether that means giving MikeYeung a shot or having the coaching staff take a drastically different approach I cannot say.

[4-8] And they’re freeeee, freee falllllin’

On the one hand, I’m glad Clutch switched it up — there was clearly something wrong with the previous roster, and there’s some real talent on their academy team, so why not give it a shot? On the other hand, it didn’t pan out, so now you’ve got freshly promoted players who failed to make much of a mark, and your old players are probably lacking in confidence because they were benched. So now what? Well, Febiven is still their best player, but they’re facing similar issues as the other mid-dominant teams. Bjergsen and Jensen (and Faker in Korea) are also struggling to find the same type of footing they’ve had in the past. To me, this means that the mid lane carry mages are decidedly not as capable of carrying as they were in past seasons. Damage is higher, champion mobility is more unique, and supports are harder to assassinate. There are no easy targets besides them. We saw Jensen play Orianna and Lulu this week to success — I am thinking midlaners need to be a lot more selfless this year and lean on providing utility and support for the other roles. That’s completely at odds with how CG has played so far, though, so it may simply be too late in the split for them.