On the final day of group play and with both top seeds up for grabs, Evil Geniuses and 100 Thieves picked up the day’s biggest wins on Friday, Day 4 of the preseason League of Legends Championship Series Lock-In 2022 tournament.
Sitting at 2-1 and facing 3-0 Cloud9, 100 Thieves held strong to force a tie atop Group A standings and take the top seed in the group.
C9 held firm in the early game, but the cohesion of the Thieves proved to be too much. 100 Thieves roamed with impunity across the map, led by jungler Can “Closer” Çelik, who had a stellar game as Jarvan IV. Closer ran rampant over Cloud9 to the tune of a 5/0/8 kill-death-assist ratio and an 87 percent kill participation. Cloud9 never had a chance to come back late as 100 Thieves took the match in 30 minutes.
100 Thieves open the playoffs against Dignitas, who lost twice on Friday to finish 1-3 and take the fourth and final playoff spot in Group B.
Cloud9 will take on Counter Logic Gaming (2-2), who were one of the two teams to beat Dignitas, winning in 36 minutes. Elsewhere, Team Liquid (3-1) made quick work of Immortals (0-4) in a 30-minute win and will take on FlyQuest (2-2) in the first round of the playoffs.
Evil Geniuses (4-0) secured the first seed in Group B with a 26-minute rout of Dignitas.
Opting out of the poke-heavy meta that has dominated the preseason, EG ran an aggressive brawl composition, steamrolling over Dignitas’ weak frontline. Jungler Kacper “Inspired” Sloma took over the game as Diana, pushing the tempo for Evil Geniuses and building strong leads en route to a 4/0/7 KDA. Dig could do little more than watch as EG rolled through their base to take a lightning-fast 26-minute win and move into a first round matchup against Golden Guardians (1-3). GG beat TSM (1-3) on Friday.
The Lock-In tournament had teams divided into two groups by the Summer 2021 finalists: 100 Thieves and Team Liquid. The top four teams from each made the playoffs, which is an eight-team, single-elimination bracket. The quarterfinals will be best-of-three, while the semifinals and Grand Finals will be best-of-five.
LCS Lock-In tournament quarterfinal schedule
Saturday
100 Thieves vs. Dignitas
Team Liquid vs. FlyQuest
Evil Geniuses vs. Golden Guardians
Cloud9 vs. Counter Logic Gaming
LCS Lock-In tournament final group standings:
Group A
100 Thieves, 3-1
Cloud9, 3-1
FlyQuest, 2-2
Golden Guardians, 1-3
z-TSM, 1-3
Group B
Evil Geniuses, 4-0
Team Liquid, 3-1
Counter Logic Gaming, 2-2
Dignitas, 1-3
z-Immortals, 0-4
z-Eliminated from playoffs
–Field Level Media
