Spring Promotion Qualifier day one recap

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

The 2014 Spring Promotion tournament looks to find the top three Challenger teams to battle it out against the bottom three LCS teams in order to clinch a spot in next season’s League Championship Series. Six teams enter through various tournaments throughout the year like PAX 2013 and MLG Anaheim, and only half of these move on.

These teams have been playing against each other in the North American Challenger League, with the exception of Quantic, for the past 8 weeks. Since then, compLexity Gaming and Team Coast have rose to the top of their respective conferences.

What Meta?

The first day of this tournament definitely featured the sporadicness of Patch 3.14. In Korea, we’ve seen a longer laning phase, 2v2 lanes and later turret destruction. This seems to have accomplished some of what some Riot set out to do in the latest patch. To everyone’s surprise, NA played their own way. The first 3 matches involved 2v1 lanes, and multiple turrets falling pre 10 minutes. From there, teams would dance around objectives, using whatever lead they had to make picks and win teamfights. This tournament just proves that patch 3.14 still isn’t figured out, and won’t be for awhile.

Quantic Gaming: Breaking Hearts and Crushing Dreams

It’s difficult to determine Quantic’s strength versus top tier teams due to the fact that they did not qualify for the North American Challenger League when they moved from Korea to America. In fact, in their first few months in America, some people wrote them off when the team struggled to put up good results and a roster change in the top lane. Since then, the team has embraced the Korean Hype Train and have been completely dominant in their first day of the tournament.

In their first match versus COGnitive Gaming, Quantic was able to use a lead from an early dragon in order to play smart and coordinated teamfights. Even after COGnitive secured first blood from SuNo, Quantic’s Mid lane, the rest of the team picked up 4 kills across the map just a few seconds later. At the 21 minute mark, Quantic was ahead 12 thousand gold, 8 kills and 2 towers. 7 minutes later, Quantic destroyed the Nexus while ahead 23-7 in kills and 15 thousand gold.

Utilizing their momentum from last game, Quantic wrote the same ending for vVv. In fact, the game was almost even near the 15 minute mark but vVv’s attempt to make a play near dragon backfired horribly. vVv tried to catch Quantic by surprise by using Sivir’s “On The Hunt” and flashing forward, but Quantic were calm and collected. They quickly picked up 4 kills and dragon, not losing a single member of their team. From this point on, Quantic slowly grew their advantage until they put vVv out of their misery 26-7 in kills and 17 thousand gold ahead.

MVP Locodoco - AD Carry: His off the charts KDA in Quantic’s first two matches speaks for itself, Locodoco is on fire.

compLexity Gaming: It’s Complicated

For quite awhile, compLexity were on top of the North American Challenger scene. With first place in their conference of the North American Challenger League and a stable roster, it looked like compLexity was a strong contender for the next LCS season. That all changed when the team lost their shotcaller and jungler, Lautemortis, and the team benched their midlaner, Pr0lly, just a few weeks later. Since then, the team hasn’t looked the same and have struggled to dominate games like they did previously.

To Be Determined outplayed and shutdown key members of compLexity’s roster in their first game. Despite holding the title of “Best Riven NA”, Megazero floundered in the top lane with a 2-7-1 KDA. It seemed like the team failed to mesh with their new jungler and mid lane, Ninjaken and Jintae. TBD finished out the game 22-8 in kills and with a 16 thousand gold lead.

Their second game was a heartbreaking end to their first day in the promotion tournament. compLexity had the game in the bag, they were ahead 7 turrets ahead at the 40 minute mark! COGnitive Gaming had different plans, when they secured Baron Nashor and began to contest the outer middle turret. Captain Ziploc made a desperate move by sacrificing himself in order to get Jintae on Ziggs low enough to be cleaned up by Jinx’s “Super Mega Death Rocket”. This took away a major source for damage and crowd control for compLexity, and allowed COGnitive to push through the mid lane and end the game.

compLexity’s fate is uncertain in the next few days of the tournament. With only 3 games left, they can’t afford to drop a single one if they want to place in the all important top 3.

Day 2 Match Previews:

compLexity vs Quantic Gaming

compLexity is looking for redemption, and who better to face than the top dogs of the tournament. If compLexity doesn't win this match their odds for qualifying for the next season of the LCS look grim. An interesting matchup will be Locodoco versus Chuuper, in the bot lane. Chuuper has been known for his “Chuuper’s Bloopers” in the past, but has recently come into form as a strong AD carry in the challenger scene. Locodoco has been one of the top players in this tournament so far and is looking to move forward as the conductor of the Korean Hype train.

Quantic Gaming versus The Walking Zed

The Walking Zed, Gold Gaming Los Angeles’s former roster, may have what it takes to derail Quantic. In their prime, TWZ was a formidable team in the NACL and looked stronger each week. Since moving away from ggLA, their strength is unknown. This game will set the tone for both of these teams moving forward throughout the tournament. The lane to watch will be the top plane, where Yazuki and Apple will test their strengths. Apple seems to have the upperhand in this matchup, but if anyone could take him down, it would be Yazuki.

Day 2 of the Spring Promotion Tournament kicks off at 5PM PST/ 8PM EST. Tune in and catch all the challenger on Wellplayed's Twitch.tv channel.

Photo Credit: Na.lolesports.com