MVPs of the Week: Split 2 Week Two

MAMMOTH:  Mash

It was a little difficult to find a continuous presence throughout the entire series for MAMMOTH. Players stepped up individually in single games, but for my money Mash was the only consistent player across both games. He had a couple of clunky moments on Vladimir in game one but overall was solid and was really the only one who had any sort of relevance or hint of a real pressure point throughout game two, which was rough for the new MAMMOTH squad.

Legacy:  Only

I initially had Claire down here but when it came time to watch these games over again I was consistently impressed with Only’s performance, even in the game one loss. He was bossing Seb that game until they botched the top dive which got Sleeping back into the game and reset Legacy’s tempo. That misstep aside, Only was extremely proficient, ever-present and a huge contributor to their wins. It was a very controlling performance in my opinion – you could see a lot of the maturity that Carbon had in Only’s performances, which made me very pleased.

Bombers:  Rosey

Looch may have had a higher high, but Rosey had a stronger overall set for my money. I still want to key in on Rosey’s game one performance here: I was super-impressed with Rosey’s Pyke overall and he was instrumental in the Bombers’ first victory of the split. He broke the game open with a great passage of play around Legacy’s blue buff and from that point, whenever he was on the same screen as his direct counterpart in Decoy, really took him to school. Then he closed the game for his team by keeping Only from basing after Legacy’s botched baron. While it didn’t get the Bombers the full set of points, it’s a strong building block for his team and a reminder of just how good he had reached by the end of last split.

Tectonic:  Sybol

More than just a random two-set quirk from the end of the previous split, Sybol’s ability to crush ORDER is utterly compelling viewing. Sybol has been, and was again, the chaos that unravels ORDER with timely aggression. His positioning in the tribush when Spookz came to counter the top dive was as deliberate as one who knew where Spookz was going to cast his skills before Spookz even knew himself. He gave us a real throwback experience on his Elise, and more importantly had great presence on the somewhat more standard Skarner pick, having the highest kill participation for his team. If you look back over his last half-dozen-or-so sets dating back into split one, Sybol is starting to find some form, which is great to see for the well-respected veteran.

ORDER:  Swiffer

As this series played on, different members of ORDER raised and lowered their hands to take the series by the horns. Spookz was mere pixels from sending the snowball the other way in game one, and their young, dynamic botlane had an equally dynamic performance – indeed we saw some of the very best and some of the worst from FBI when everything was put in his hands in game two.

Through all of this, Swiffer was a dependable presence. As someone who heavily criticised him for most of split one, I have been happy with the way he has gone about his business so far this split, looking assured and dependable for the most part. His game two Vladimir in particular gave his squad a fulcrum to lean on, providing resistance in at least one part of the map as FBI’s Tristana accumulated gold. It was a “Captain’s Knock” in everything except the W, but the result does not undo the way he did his part when things threatened to boil over even faster than they ended up doing.

Dire Wolves:  k1ng

k1ng impressed me this week with strong play on what was an intriguing new bot lane option in Jayce. I can’t recall having seen Jayce ADC since the ill-fated EDG game at Worlds 2015 and I liked the way he used it even in the game two loss. He’s always top-damaging, despite BioPanther getting to chuck Cleavers into tanks for 2/3 games and his Lucian remains a treat to watch. I’ve long said this about k1ng since his losing grand final performance vs the Chiefs back when he was on Legacy: the Lucian of k1ng is a pick i’d pay money to see.

Avant Gaming:  Jayke

I feel bad because this the second week that a strong performance from Frae is going to be narrowly eclipsed by his bottom lane but I was really encouraged by Jayke’s play this week. He showed a strong Pyke and what I liked the most is that when things were bleak and AV were down 3K about 21 minutes into game 3 that Jayke put his best foot forward to get his team over the line and played what I thought was a strong end to the match. It didn’t get them the result in this particular game, but on another day if he continues to play like he did those last 8-10 minutes, I think they’ll win more than they lose.