With only four weeks left, the question on everybody’s lips is: can any team end their perfect season?
In ancient Persia, the Persian king had an elite army of 10,000 soldiers called the Immortals. The best of the best.
In 5th Century BC, they helped to set the western world alight in the Persian conquest of ancient Greece, as the invading army’s most formidable fighters.
Fast forward 2,500 years and another group of Immortals are setting the western world ablaze, specifically at this season’s North American LCS Split in which the League of Legends team Immortals are currently unbeaten, 10 games into the contest.
There are a number of important things to note about (the new) Immortals.
Firstly, they have a seemingly-unbeatable team dynamic, which they play on very well. They are also brutally efficient and their champion pool is so deep that bans don’t faze them.
Add in a hyper-aggressive playing style and you have the team which have gone unbeaten for the past six weeks. So, are they truly immortal?
Let’s look at last weekend’s match between Immortals and Cloud 9.
It was a big game because, at the time of the match, Cloud 9 were in second place, snapping at Immortals’ heels. But, by the time the game ended, Cloud 9 had only destroyed a single turret.
Immortals had won again, and won well. The match was a bloodbath but still by no means one-sided. We saw 11 kills by the 10th minute, 15 within 12 and 29 after 20.
Cloud 9 fought valiantly. Their team-fight coordination was tight and they played aggressively as well. But, in a way, it was the war of economics that won the game. Immortals were just too good at macro management.
And, let’s not forget, they were up against a team with a strong reputation for the same financial fluidity.
There were a number of times when, thanks to Hai ‘Hai’ Du Lam’s shot calling, it looked like Cloud 9 were pulling the game back, but in the end Immortals showed their ruthless superiority.
It’s this blend of moment-to-moment skill in individual skirmishes, map awareness and efficient resource management that has kept Immortals from succumbing to a single loss. Their rotation and coordination is mechanically efficient. They move as a team rather than individual players.
Take Adrian ‘Adrian Ma, for example. He was on track to gaining one of the highest KDA’s on record in the LCS, but sacrificed it in order to save a team-mate in an earlier match. This is what victories are made of and how eternal teams are built.
So now, with only four weeks left, the question on everybody’s lips is: can any team end Immortals’ perfect season?
Most of the teams Immortals are up against in the coming weeks don’t look up to the task, but there is still hope for anyone who wants to see them knocked down a peg or two.
Team SoloMid have also had a good season – with seven wins to three losses – and are currently in second place, leapfrogging Cloud 9 at the weekend.
They put up a ferocious fight in their earlier LCS match against Immortals, controlling the map for much of the game until a smart play by the opposition turned things around.
However, we’re interested to see how the recent news of them firing Coach KC ‘Woodbuck’ Woods will affect their game. If you want to beat the best, there’s no time to be distracted.
And, for all their strengths, Immortals aren’t perfect.
Some members have put themselves in a few questionable situations this split, Seung-hoon ‘Huni’ Heo being a good example. He has an aggressive playing style, but often dies early on in team fights.
And he’s cocky – he blind picked Quinn in the weekend’s match against Cloud 9, costing him a death – which could be exploited by sharp players. But he remains a ferocious top-laner, a key player in influencing map dominance.
Kim ‘Reignover’ Ui-jin is still the best Jungler around, garnering tons of gold and XP, and his high team fight awareness will pose problems to anyone hoping to knock the team off its perch. But he is still not invincible, as his nine deaths this season show.
These two formidable players are posing the question of whether they can achieve another perfect split of 18-0. They’ve run the gauntlet twice in Europe, once in NA – and they could do it again.
More than anything, Immortals will prove tough to beat in a battle of minds. They go hard early in the game and once the map starts to open up, we really see the mind games come into play.
One of their biggest strengths comes down to being able to pull the game back from the brink, as we saw against TSM. Jason ‘WildTurtle’ Tran and Adrian play very aggressively, so any team wanting to show their dominance would have to shift to bot focus.
Perhaps any team up against Immortals should try to contain Rainover, as he is the one enabling all of the lanes for the team, as well as carefully counter-picking Huni.
This season’s final week will see Immortals – our NA title favourites: – up against TSM once again and it will be an unmissable match. Unless Counter Logic Gaming can pull off a win in week seven, it seems likely that Immortals will go undefeated right up until the final week.
If TSM are to succeed, they’ll need to study Immortals’ strategies carefully and plan accordingly. They know that their bans aren’t likely to impact too much on Immortals’ game, which makes their own picks even more critical.
But they have shown promise in the last two weeks, so be sure to save the date when they come up against the mighty Immortals.
