Team Liquid dropped the first game but rallied for a 3-1 win over Dignitas QNTMPAY on Friday in the first semifinal of the 2022 LCS Lock-In tournament.
Evil Geniuses and Cloud9 will square off Saturday for the right to meet Liquid in the final of the League of Legends Championship Series preseason event.
The Friday semifinal started with a barn-burner as Dignitas took Game 1 in 43 minutes on red.
Early on, Liquid held onto control of the game through the exploits of top laner Gabriel “Bwipo” Rau, who picked up a 1-vs.-2 kill to get going as Graves. Unfortunately for him, the rest of the team fell before Dignitas’ potent teamfighting composition.
Liquid went from a 5,000-gold lead at 16 minutes to trailing Dignitas at the 30-minute mark, built on the back of work done by DIG’s new jungler Kim “River” Dong-woo, who played exceptionally. Eventually, after securing an Elder Dragon buff, Dignitas started the day with a win.
From that point on, Liquid controlled the series.
In Game 2, Bwipo was once again a menace, this time as Gwen, finishing with a 9/4/4 KDA (Kills/Deaths/Assists) ratio and dominating the top side of the map for Liquid. Dignitas’ teamfighting composition found a couple of good fights early on, but the lead that Liquid built from laning phase proved to be insurmountable. With Bwipo running around and slicing through DIG’s weakened frontline, Liquid took Game 2 in 33 minutes on blue to tie the series.
Game 3 saw more of the same as Bwipo took Aatrox to the top lane and dominated with it while the rest of Liquid held on. Dignitas showed good early initiative though utilizing their poke-heavy bottom lane to get early gold, but Bwipo’s lead would eventually negate that advantage. At around 18 minutes, Dignitas lost a critical teamfight that swung the gold lead over to Liquid, marking the last time Dignitas would be ahead in the series. With Bwipo leading the way, Liquid cruised to a 35-minute win on red to go up 2-1.
Team Liquid put the series away in 33 minutes on red in Game 4. This time, rather than Bwipo dominating the game and the rest of Liquid catching up, all of Liquid enjoyed leads early on, which would eventually set up Liquid securing four Elemental Drakes, Infernal Soul and a Baron buff. With Liquid firing on all cylinders, it was only a matter of time before they took the game in 34 minutes on red to seal their spot in the Lock-In final.
The Lock-In tournament began with 10 teams divided into two groups by the Summer 2021 finalists: 100 Thieves and Team Liquid. The top four teams from each group advanced to an eight-team, single-elimination playoff bracket. The quarterfinals were best-of-three, while the semifinals and final are best-of-five.
The winning team will take the event’s entire $150,000 prize pool.
LCS Lock-In 2022 results
1. TBD
2. TBD
3. TBD
4. TBD
5-8. 100 Thieves, FlyQuest, Golden Guardians, Counter Logic Gaming
9-10. TSM, Immortals
–Noah Waltzer, Field Level Media
