LCS Championship: Evil Geniuses to face 100T after win over Dignitas

After two splits of entertaining games, everything comes down to this, the LCS Championship. Eight teams will be battling it out for the chance to represent North America at the 2021 LoL World Championship. Starting things off in round one of the upper bracket will be Evil Geniuses vs Dignitas, who will win?

The coaching staff of the split decided to shake things up in game one. Former Cloud9 jungler Contractz would be starting game one ahead of former MVP Svenskeren. Contractz has done a fantastic job whenever he has been called upon and EG should be no worse for wear with the roster change. 

Evil Geniuses are the heavy favorites to win this series and in style. The LCS side has been the best team in the early game and they are going up against a side that has primarily struggled in the early stages of the game.

The game truly kicked off in standard EG style, a minute four-team fight. Impact and Evil Geniuses were able to catch off the Dignitas bottom lane as they were overextending. This is exactly what EG needed with a composition that requires getting picks and transition the gold lead to the side lane. 

The game was all but over by the eight-minute mark, Neo and aphromoo went for an engagement onto the EG bot duo who were moving back into the lane. The fight did not go as planned as Evil Geniuses were able to pick up another kill onto the DIG bottom lane.

[esports_link url="https://esports.gg/news/league-of-legends/msi-2021-rng-and-dwg-kia-international-redemption-or-undefied-dominance/"]

The EG snowball was well and truly into effect come to the tenth-minute mark, Evil Geniuses were able to pick up four kills as they caught out DIG attempting to take the Rift Herald. A 3k gold lead by the eleventh-minute mark is an insurmountable feat as far as Dignitas is concerned, they are going up against the best early game team in the league and are already down 3000 gold.

Jumping ahead to the 22-minute mark, Evil Geniuses had broken open the base of Dignitas but opted out of taking the inhibitor. The gold lead had increased to around 6k and with the victory in their sights, Evil Geniuses made their move, securing multiple kills as well as securing the baron. The baron buff was more than enough for EG to crack open the base, eventually taking the game and a 1-0 lead in the series.

Dignitas was not going to take their game one defeat lying down. The LCS side early on was able to secure three kills to secure an early 1000 gold lead. Akaadian wrapped around the bush to get the jump onto Impact. Meanwhile, the Dignitas bottom lane was able to get two kills down in the bottom lane. The game is already in a much better state for Dignitas in comparison to game one, forcing EG to now be on the back foot. 

While Dignitas was able to gain an applaudable kill lead, Evil Geniuses were still in the game through controlling the neutral objectives. By securing the Rift Herald, EG was able to take down the tier 1 tower in the mid lane which is vital for Jiizuke on Azir who is looking to move around the map.

Akaadian has been the glue for Dignitas since their roster changes earlier into the summer split. This game is no different with an excellent display on Gragas, Akaadian and Dignitas were able to counter a long-range engagement onto Neo in the Dignitas jungle. DIG was able to secure three kills.

[esports_link url="https://esports.gg/news/league-of-legends/psg-talon-18-0/"]

In the seventeenth minute, the gold lead was blown wide open. Dignitas was able to figure out they were getting dove in the bottom lane, however, Yusui flashed forward, giving EG the perfect opportunity to turn around the fight, securing four kills in the process. 

Fast forward to the 25th minute and the first major team fight broke out in the Baron Pit. Dignitas was able to successfully stop the Evil Geniuses Baron siege. Aphromoo and Akaadian were pivotal in this fight as they were able to help Dignitas secure multiple players as well as the Baron. 

With the Baron, Dignitas was able to get the game back in their favor coming into the 30-minute mark. Dignitas was also up to three dragons to Evil Geniuses zero and were on course to secure the cloud soul. In what was an incredible fight a minute later, Evil Geniuses, or more importantly, Contractz was able to kill four Dignitas members in what was a back and forth fight. The team fight victory was able to hand EG their first Baron of the game.

Despite Evil Geniuses regaining control, Dignitas was able to secure an incredible victory in the top lane, killing four. Dignitas was able to push through for the win and put this series back to even at one win apiece.

It was evident that come the third game Contractz had been given the vote of confidence by his coaching staff. Off the bat, Dignitas was asking a lot of questions. The LCS side opted into Kindred for Yusui. Things did not get off to the best of starts for Yusui and Dignitas. The DIG mid laner was picked off near the river after a fumbled engagement from Akaadian.

Evil Geniuses were off to the races with a 2k gold lead before the game had hit the ten-minute mark. This has been a common theme in EG games. They do a tremendous job snowballing the game as they push on multiple fronts. Even when they make mistakes, EG is proving they are a proactive team.

[esports_link url="https://esports.gg/news/league-of-legends/100-closer-it-would-be-amazing-to-win-the-lcs-together-because-of-how-much-we-went-through-as-a-group-to-get-here/"]

While Dignitas were securing the neutral objectives, it was not enough. The game had not reached fifteen minutes and the gold lead was over 5k. Evil Geniuses did a great job utilizing the Rift Herald to push onto the top lane inhibitor tower.

While Dignitas tried their best to get back in the game, this was a quick and clean victory on the side of Evil Geniuses. At the 25th minute, Evil Geniuses were able to secure a clean ace that would ultimately see them go 2-1 up. This was a solid win for Evil Geniuses. After the sloppy game two, this game should encourage fans moving forward. Being able to dust yourself off in a best-of-five is crucial to being a great team.

Evil Geniuses were able to close out the series after enough solid victory in game four. The game started quickly yet again with another Evil Geniuses' first blood. While IgNar fumbled his engage onto Neo, the Dignitas AD Carry was already low enough for Contractz and Danny to pile in for the kill. As this was happening, Akaadian was able to make a reactive play on the top side as he killed Impact.

Come to the ten-minute mark, Dignitas should feel happy with themselves to only be down a couple of hundred gold. By Evil Geniuses standard the game was going at a much slower rate. Dignitas had done a great job at nullifying Impact who was 0/3/0 before ten minutes.

[esports_rr num=4]

What has made Evil Geniuses such an interesting side to watch is their improved decision-making. Many times this series alone they would sacrifice a neutral objective to earn gold elsewhere. Come 13 minutes and the game is starting to heavily swing in the favor of EG.

EG had successfully countered a promising team fight for Dignitas. From then on Evil Geniuses did not look back. The LCS side started to snowball the game with an over 3k gold lead. To DIG's credit, they did not slow down the pace of the game, they continued to look for fights. Unfortunately for Dignitas, the damage was already done. Evil Geniuses continued to assert their dominance across the map. Eventually securing the Baron, the Nexus, and a 3-1 victory.

Evil Geniuses will now have their sights firmly on 100 Thieves. A win in that series would mean they would qualify for the world championship for the first time in organization history. Evil Geniuses went they entered the league made a statement that they would one day be the best team in North America. Slowly but surely they are becoming just that. The future looks bright for the LCS and Evil Geniuses is leading the charge.

Stay tuned to esports.gg for the latest League of Legends news and updates.