TL vs SEN, US

Sentinels’ strat is to have a neutralizing top lane, while their mid and bot lanes try to take over. Ham “HamBak” Yoo-jin can then focus on the bot half. Being an aggressive jungler, he can try to make the game go forward, and Jeong “Impact” Eon-young then rejoins to solidify the formation on a tank pick.

Now, the problem is that Team Liquid also relies on their mid and bot laners, and they happen to be in very good form. Against Cloud9, Lim “Quid” Hyeon-seung had a masterful Yone performance. Meanwhile, Sean “Yeon” Sung topped the damage charts without necessarily being put in easy situations.

The one danger for TLAW comes if SEN can force the game to go faster than what they want. Team Liquid ideally plays a more controlled style. While they generally have no problem getting down and dirty, this is also where they’re more prone to making mistakes.

In fact, the early game is also where C9 seemed to stand a chance against them during their match. Which means that SEN’s goal has to be to up the tempo from the get-go.

Ideally, they want to let Quid pick an assassin and to handshake him on it. Then, to move all the pressure to mid lane to force him on the backfoot. With that, HamBak and Isaac “DARKWINGS” Chou can take the snowball to the bot lane. If possible, playing with a roaming support would empower all of this.

When everything comes down, that’s many ifs, and it doesn’t take into account the fact that TLAW will also have answers to that. Or that they might (and likely will) simply win the handshake.