With the new best of 3 series style of play in the NA LCS summer split, Immortals feature a tough challenge. Immortals, who finished 17-1 in the regular season in the spring split, had issues playing in a best of series. Immortals showed resilience today in the 3-game series, they take down Cloud 9 in their first match of the summer split. Cloud 9 did feature their new but old jungler Meteos, making his debut again in the LCS.
Game 1
Cloud 9 used an early vision advantage to snag an infernal dragon as well as mid turret. One of the main reasons this came about was Huni and Reignover pushed top lane, and instantly when that was seen, the dragon went down plus the mid turret. This gave C9 a brief early-game gold lead.
Immortals then made an incredible play. Wildturtle hit an Ashe ultimate onto Sneaky, then a double teleport from Huni and Pobelter came in and cleaned up Sneaky, while also diving the bot turret, taking down 4 total members from Cloud 9. Immortals went up 2 thousand gold off this sequence.
C9 Jenson got huge on Azir after a quadra kill from a teamfight that was near baron. In a matchup that was a combined for 36 kills, Immortals eventually took the game in a very bloody and ugly match.
Game 2
Game 2 featured another early game advantage from Cloud 9. Cloud 9 did sub in Smoothie for this second game in place of Bunny FuFuu. Meteos had a good roam going gathering 3 assists early on. Pobelter and Wildturtle both started behind 0-2, then a teamfight in the top lane gave Meteos a triple kill. Reignover and Huni both made some plays but also made some key mistakes in the early game. Cloud 9 cleaned up Immortals in mid next in a teamfight that ended with 4 Immortals players dying. C9 pushed this to a 5 thousand gold lead. Cloud 9 take care of Immortals 35 kills to 14 in game 2 forcing a game 3.
Game 3
Immortals took an early advantage over C9 in game 3, holding a 2.5 thousand gold lead for most of the beginning parts of the match. This match was much more tame than the previous two, as just 9 kills occured in the first 30 minutes. Immortals did a great job at managing dragons, and in a match that was this close, the dragon buffs are crucial.
Cloud 9 tried to force the issue but left Jenson and Impact dying, which Immortals turned into a baron directly after, pushing their gold lead to 5.5 thousand.
Immortals looked as if they were near an end situation, so they try to take down the dragon and C9 looks as if the aren't going to contest it but Meteos comes over the wall and smites the dragon away, stallingthe game a bit longer. Then, C9 tried to force another issue abut Sneaky gets caught out by Pobelter's Viktor, and Immortals gets mid inhibitor and baron off of it. Immortals uses this to strategically push down the side lanes and finished off the game.
Recap
Immortals looked solid against C9, and although they got handed in game 2, and there were a ton of mistakes, they showed they can complete a best of series. The addition of series' was very smart by Riot as it gives teams and fans more exposure to each team and let's teams get to work on their adjustments betwen matches. All in all Immortals would star the year 1-0 at the top of the standings with Team Solo Mid.
