After their Lock-In victory, Team Liquid had the status of favorites in the NA LCS. They maintained that status for the majority of the regular season, only being pushed around a bit by the Cloud 9 who were also making a thunderous start to the season. Yet neither of these two teams ended up in the final of the competition, both victims of the same executioners: Evil Geniuses. Indeed after losing against 100T (during the first match for C9 and the second for TL), the two teams lost against the future winners on 3-0 sec. Ironically, the EG were sent to the Loser Bracket by Team Liquid in the first game of the playoffs. Now is the time to put Hans sama’s performance under the microscope, to understand how such a severe defeat could have happened.
Scoring scale out of 10:
- 0: played Yuumi jungle (why dude, why??)
- 1: Human Ward
- 2: Poor performance, unworthy of an LCS player
- 3-4: Below expected level / made big mistakes
- 5: Average / alternated between excellent and mediocre
- 6-7: Solid on his support, the player was one of the driving forces of the collective
- 8-9: Not content with outclassing his direct opponent(s), the player has had the luxury of making crazy moves
- 9.5: 1v9 god, with moves at 200 IQ
- 10: If perfection had a name, it would have its own
- 11: 1v9 god, moves at 200 IQ while playing Yuumi jungle
Steven “Hans-sama” Liv |  | 6.5/4/ |
From dream to nightmare
This final started like a dream. The first composition of Team Liquid clearly said: “We will play around our ADC and our midlaner”. Hans was on Xayah, Bjergsen on Corki, while the rest of the team played Shen, Jarvan and Renata. Their opponents responded with a more mobile, pick-up-oriented composition. Despite a good dominance of his lane, Hans never really managed to take a decisive lead over Danny’s Jinx. This was somewhat the case for his entire team (except Bwipo whose Shen was logically dominated by Impact’s Aatrox), but overall the game was going well. Team Liquid had the advantage, the only downside being the souls of the dragons which had temporarily escaped them following a steal from Inspired, but the team had punished their opponents. All it took was one bad teamfight to put the opposing Jinx into orbit, and lose a dominated game in just 3 minutes. If it is difficult to blame Hans for this defeat, it is necessary to recognize that he had the weapons to make things happen differently.
Team Liquid radically changed their strategy for the second game, switching to a much more skirmish-oriented composition. Hans was on Ashe, and his role was to successfully initiate the actions. Even if he finishes with a presence of 10 kills out of 13, this stat is not incredible compared to his teammates, of which only Bwipo was less present (9 kills / 13). Despite a Zyra to support him on the lane, the Frenchman failed to take the lead in the bot lane. Despite this, Team Liquid managed to gain the upper hand in the match, even recovering the Dragons’ souls and a Baron Nashor. But again, the team failed to concludeand finally Hans gets caught early in a fight, dies leaving his team without ADC, while their opponents take advantage of the resurrection time to end the game.
Aphelios won’t be enough
For the final round, Hans goes on Aphelios, one of the champions he played the most during the split. If things didn’t go badly on his lane, it was elsewhere that the team cracked in this final match. The tricolor could do nothing to turn the tide, and had no choice but to watch their opponents get their ticket to the final. Hans like Team Liquid showed great things in this match, as well as during the rest of the split. All that remains is for them to take their revenge this summer, in order to be able to present themselves at the world championships with the seed 1 of the NA.
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