This article will analyze the 2nd game of our series against Team Envy for the NA LCS in Week 5 of the Summer Split. We will take a look into the background of the game, as well as the mistake in which we capitalized to turn the tides of the game in our favor. Without further ado, let's start.

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Background of the Game

Team Envy began confidently going into match 2 of this series. Having won the first game already, all they had to do was pressure Team Dignitas, maintain their gold at a high level, and expect a mistake by their enemies.

And so it went down, with LirA's Rek'Sai dominating Shrimp's Elise in the early state of the game and denying him most of his jungle camps. Team Envy knew how to play according to their Jungler, and they easily shut down Shrimp even from the beginning. With this advantage, LirA managed to pressure the enemy laners, and effectively counter-jungle.

However, Team Dignitas' laners didn't stay far down in gold, but instead surpassed their enemies. That is because most of the gold advantage Team Envy had was on LirA's disposal. It is always a good thing to have an advantage over your enemies, but since LirA was playing a tank champion, he would easily be able to scale up one way or another, it would be better for his team's carries to carry the gold on their shoulders.

The above was the main reason why Team Dignitas was able to bounce off in the next Bottom Lane fight and pick up an Infernal Drake buff, 3 turrets, and a kill to even up their gold deficit.

Moments before the Mistake

Despite their setback in the last fight which made them fall behind in gold, Team Envy still held the tempo of the game. They kept full vision on the Baron pit, denied enemies with their Oracle Alterations and maintained a full presence in the surrounding area.

Nevertheless, what made them lose the game from their hands, was the fact that they were all split from each other. It was easy to foresee that Team Dignitas, seeing that the enemy AD Carry was split pushing in the Top Lane, the enemy Mid Laner was clearing out waves in the Mid Lane, and Shen was in Bot Lane, would want to find a pickup onto Hakuho and LirA in the jungle. And so it happened.

The Turning Point

When it most mattered, Team Dignitas' members came together like a fist and were able to punish LirA's overextend. Big's Thresh saw the catching off opportunity on his enemy and immediately went for it.

As they say, desperate times call for desperate measures, yet it all turned out splendid. Team Dignitas did not hesitate to take the ensuing fight, managed to kill both LirA and Seraph, and with LirA dead they found no difficulty in obtaining the Baron Buff. With this buff, Team Dignitas finished the game few minutes later, with Altec also scoring a pentakill in the last fight of the game.

How You Can Benefit From It

Mistakes can happen anywhere. Whether you are playing on your PC at 3 AM in the morning and desperately trying to climb out of Gold 3 or you are on the International Stage representing your region, you will always see (and do) mistakes. What separates a newbie from an expert, however, is how they react to mistakes they come into.

The higher the elo someone is in, the fewer chances there are for them to encounter mistakes from his opponents, yet they do not lose their hope. Sometimes, they are the ones that should pressure their opponents highly enough, in order to make them prone to taking wrong decisions.

What I meant to say is, the above scenario happened because Team Dignitas was able to pressure Team Envy so much that they fell into their own trap. Team Envy was used to holding the tempo of the match since the beginning. But, for the first time in 20 minutes, all of their lanes started to get pushed towards them, and this kind of disoriented their squad.

This mainly happened as Kled and Tristana, in the current state of the game, have higher lane priority against Shen and Xayah, respectively. Which means that, while Ssumday and Altec are able to regroup with the team, Apollo and Seraph must de-push the waves first, because if they don't, the wave will eventually build up, and will not collapse unless it gets into the turret range.

This is where Team Dignitas capitalized. Thresh has a ton of CC, and Big was not afraid to use it when he saw that his team was in need of a hero play in order to tie up the series. He did not hesitate to pull the trigger, and thus he single-handedly gave his team the precious win.

So, if you are in a scenario such as the above, try to coordinate your team in order for all of you to pressure your enemies so much that they are forced into making mistakes you can punish.

Envying our Enemies

Despite Team Dignitas' best efforts to win the series, they were not able to do it. They fell short in Game 3, and Team Envy won this series, which helped them secure a better place in the standings for the up and coming playoffs.

Team Dignitas' journey in the NA LCS continues, as they face Team SoloMid and Cloud 9 on the 22nd and 23 of July, respectively.

Securing both of these victories means that they almost have a guaranteed a place in Summer Split playoffs, taking into consideration that only 2 weeks will be remaining for the regular season to end, and also given the fact that they currently are 4th place in the standings, tied up with Team Envy.