Another game, another North American League Championship Series team putting together a huge comeback as Team SoloMid overcame a big deficit to defeat Splyce in a 45-minute contest at the League of Legends World Championship.
European underdogs Splyce earned a surprising lead initially with 1,000 gold up on TSM at the 15-minute mark. They followed up with a few kills around the map as Chres "Sencux" Laursen reached four kills after 24 minutes had elapsed.
The Splyce mid laner picked up another kill by catching out TSM ADC Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng and then outplayed a 2 vs. 1 collapse, taking down TSM jungler Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen. Combined with a Baron Nashor kill, at 32 minutes, Splyce held a 6,500 gold lead and a lead in towers, 5-2.
However, that's when it would fall apart for Splyce, who would then get caught out several times as they played too passively and didn't keep their mid laner Sencux in the fight to press his advantage.
At the 37-minute mark, TSM took a three-for-two team fight and then a somewhat risky Baron buff, and suddenly had a gold lead. An Elder Dragon takedown came shortly thereafter, and those two objectives powered a siege on the Splyce base.
One last fight for the European challengers came up short, as Martin "Wunder" Hansen caught three members of TSM rotating to the top lane but didn't have sufficient damage to capitalize on his initiation. A valiant effort at the exposed nexus fell flat, and the NA League Championship Series champions took down the main objective and earned the victory.
The victory for TSM and the defeat for Splyce are the two team's final matches of the first week of the group stage, with the North American squad at 2-1 and the Europeans at 0-3. Both teams will take to the rift again on Saturday, Oct. 8 for an evening of all-important matches as these squads pursue a spot in the quarterfinals.