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Week 1 of the LoL India Champions Cup was an exciting start to the tournament, as the top seeds in each Group swept through with 3-0 victories. The race for second place, however, was something completely out in the open and up for grabs. Here's a quick recap on how things went down in each group for Week 2:
Group A: Meme Team meme their way into second place
Group A became an interesting group to watch not because of Ruthless's continued domination, but because of how close the other 3 teams were in contention to each other.
Meme Masters (Sri Lanka), Meme Team (India) and Epic Gamers (Bangladesh), started off Week 2 with a 1-2 scoreline each and in an almost scripted turn of events, ended the group stage with a score 2-4. They each won a game against and lost a game against the other two teams, finishing out the double round robin in Group A in a 3-way tie. As the rules would have it, in the case of a 3-way tie, the 2 teams that have the lowest average game time in their victories would end up playing the tiebreaker match for second place. This meant that Epic Gamers, who had an average game time of 36 minutes in their wins, were out of contention as their rivals Meme Masters and Meme Team had faster game times.
The tiebreaker match was scheduled on Monday and both teams gave it their best shot, but it was the Semi-Pro Cup winners Meme Team who edged out the victory and qualified into the knockouts stage.
Group A Results:
- Ruthless Gaming (India): 6-0
- Meme Team (India): 2-4 (won tie-breaker against Meme Masters)
- Meme Masters (Sri Lanka): 2-4
- Epic Gamers (Bangladesh): 2-4
Group B: Ignite give Eximious a run for their Money
Week 1 started off with Ignite eSports vs Eximious eSports which was a close match until it eventually stopped becoming one as Eximious closed it out. The fated rematch in Week 2 was something that everyone was looking to see and boy, did it live up to the hype.
Ignite eSports's jungler Amit 'R4geQuitter' Kummar picked up his comfort pick Kindred and through good individual plays by him and his mid-laner Dhruv 'Argus' Menon, Ignite eSports got a commanding lead over Eximious. One could smell the upset right up their noses, but due to great side lane pressure from Adnan 'Yasuga Kazama' Umer on Aatrox, Eximious were able to clinch a clutch teamfight that allowed them to simply finish the game.
Meanwhile, Rise of CJ had to bow out of their matches owing to the unavailability of some of their players.
The question that popped into the heads of most viewers post the match was "Are Eximious eSports overhyped or are Ignite actually that good?" - the quarterfinals should give us a better idea.
Group B Results:
- Eximious eSports (Pakistan): 6-0
- Ignite eSports (India): 4-2
- Rise of CJ (Bangladesh): 1-5
- Passive Aggression (India): 1-5
Group C: Red Viperz hold off the Storm
Group C going into Week 2 had two clear frontrunners qualifying out of the Group stage, Red Viperz Gaming and Stormraiders.
True to their past week's performance, both of them got comfortable wins against Infernal Gaming and Rampage Gaming. This built up to their rematch against each other and Stormraiders were looking for revenge. The match started fantastically for Stormraiders as Abhishek 'Bhishi' Sayan on Poppy was able to completely shut down Azmain 'Seeker' Abir on Riven with the help of his jungler Pankaj 'Tempest' Kumar. Stormraiders had a stronghold on their game and it seemed like we were finally going to see a Pool 1 team going down.
But Red Viperz kept themselves in the game and were able to edge out teamfights due to immaculate positioning from their AD Carry Nikhil 'Brutality' SK on Miss Fortune. Red Viperz remained calm even while behind and made use of Stormraiders' mistakes to edge out crucial picks on Stormraiders, allowing them to end the game by pushing the bottom lane.
Group C Results:
- Red Viperz Gaming (Bangladesh): 6-0
- Stormraiders (India): 4-2
- Rampage Gaming (Bangladesh): 1-5
- Infernal Gaming (Bangladesh): 1-5
Group D: Lanka Lions pull off the upset over THOT
Natkhat Launde (White Shadows) pleasantly surprised us in Week 1 by stomping through their opposition and finishing 3-0. They continued their form onto Week 2 and were able to top the group with relative ease. However, the biggest (and perhaps only) upset of the tournament so far came with Lanka Lions eliminating THOT by taking second place in Group D. THOT gaming in their rematch against Lanka Lions were not playing with their Korean mid laner Hyunwook 'Shield' Lee and his absence was seen as they got decimated by the rejuvenated Lanka Lions roster. As both the teams were tied for second place with a 1-1 record, the tiebreaker match between them was played on Monday. This time, THOT had their powerhouse mid laner with them who picked Ryze, but the bot lane of Lanka Lions got an amazing snowball going and were able to edge out a comfortable win against THOT gaming, thereby eliminating them from the Champions Cup.
Lanka Lions now play Eximious eSports in their quarterfinal matchup, which is something they're really looking forward to as it's a repeat of the Asian Games qualifiers that they played in Vietnam.
Group D Results:
- Natkhat Launde (White Shadows): 6-0
- Lanka Lions (Sri Lanka): 3-3 (won tiebreaker against THOT)
- THOT Gaming (Bangladesh): 3-3
- Frozen Matrix (Pakistan): 0-6 (forfeited)
Keep following the LoL India Community for more updates: https://facebook.com/groups/LoLIndia
