2023 LCS Spring Split Week 5 Day 1: 100 Thieves Losing Streak Extends to Five With FlyQuest Defeat

2023 LCS Spring Split Week 5 Day 1: 100 Thieves Losing Streak Extends to Five With FlyQuest Defeat

Time Stamp: February 23, 2023 9:30 PM

FlyQuest started out their second round robin journey with another victory.

2023 LCS Spring Split kicked off its second half with multiple roster changes. Coming into Week 5, three teams announced that they were making some changes for their starting fives, DIG, FLY and C9. Finishing the first round robin 0-9, many expected some shake-up from the Dignitas side, and the most obvious candidate for change was their bot laner Spawn. With Dignitas Challengers in second place in NACL, DIG decided to give their Challengers ADC Tomo a shot in the big leagues.

The other two changes are a little less drastic. FlyQuest’s intended starting support Eyla finally arrived in the USA. He wasn’t able to join the team due to visa issues and FLY had to play with Winsome during the first four weeks. Despite going 8-1 without Eyla, FLY still decided to go with their preseason roster to give him a chance to acclimate to the team before playoffs.

The last change came from another top-three team. While they found a lot of success with Diplex this split, C9 decided to promote their Challengers mid laner EMENES to the LCS roster in anticipation of playoffs and a possible MSI ticket.

FLY vs 100T

An interesting mid lane matchup to start the week with the Annie from Bjergsen and the Swain answer from VicLa. And the action started early in that lane with the 100T mid/jungle duo finding a great gank for a fast first blood and FLY answering with a kill of their own a minute later. FLY was able to build an early lead for themselves, but their mid game seemed unorganized as they kept taking bad fights around the bottom lane and gave 100T a way back into the game with the Soul point.

But 100T decided to throw the game right back onto the FLY’s lap. They kept engaging on the VicLa’s Swain, and while they were able to kill him over and over they left Prince untouched. And we saw what an untouched Prince is able to do throughout the first half of the LCS, which was the case again as FLY closed the game out thanks to a 14/0/1 scoreline from their star bot laner.

  • Teams: FLY 1 – 0 100T
  • Time: 33:35
  • Kills: 18 – 12
  • Turrets: 10 – 1
  • Gold: 64.8k – 54k
  • Dragons: 1 – 4
  • Barons: 1 – 0

TL vs IMT

IMT came out the gates with fire with Kenvi finding a couple of ganks around the map and they established a small lead early on. But as the game settled down, Pyosik was able to answer his counterpart’s ganks and TL took back control of the game. Pyosik also dominated the mid game as he was everywhere IMT wanted to be. He got his top side so far ahead that TL secured all the objectives around the Rift. IMT tried to fight their way back into the game but the 5v5s weren’t even close. After acing IMT and taking a Baron, TL’s gold lead jumped to over 15k. With their Baron they did not struggle to end the game thanks to a jungle masterclass from Pyosik.

  • Teams: TL 1 – 0 IMT
  • Time: 28:02
  • Kills: 21 – 3
  • Turrets: 10 – 0
  • Gold: 59.5k – 42.2k
  • Dragons: 3 – 1
  • Barons: 1 – 0

C9 vs GG

Probably the game of the day saw a C9 with their new mid laner face off against the hottest team in the LCS. The early game was rough for C9 side lanes as Fudge struggled against Licorice and the C9 bot lane had to blow their flashes at level one. With GG mid/jungle also playing better together, the Guardians were able to dominate early game objectives along with a 4k gold lead. Aside from one drake fight where Berserker got a triple kill, the game was totally in GG’s control with back-to-back Barons and the Ocean Soul. All C9 could do was wait around for the Elder at this point, but they decided to challenge the enemy vision for the third Baron spawn. After a bad engage from Blaber, GG turned the fight around and aced C9 to close out the game.

  • Teams: C9 0 – 1 GG
  • Time: 35:50
  • Kills: 4 – 15
  • Turrets: 2 – 10
  • Gold: 57.8k – 72k
  • Dragons: 1 – 4
  • Barons: 0 – 2

CLG vs TSM

A very back-and-forth early game as CLG looked for a gank attempt in the bot lane and TSM tried to defend it. But Contractz was persistent and he kept visiting the bottom side, didn’t even farm his top side before Herald spawned, and eventually found a kill on the enemy ADC. TSM was doing a good job of slowing the snowballing resulting from these ganks, until the Soul point fight for CLG where they gave up too many kills and then eventually the Soul itself.

While the gold stayed close and Maple’s Kassadin hit the dreaded level 16, the game state did not get better for them as Dhokla’s Sion was unkillable with the Mountain Soul. CLG played the rest of the game slow and clean as they waited for the Baron and the Elder. They finished the game with an unofficial pentakill for Luger.

  • Teams: CLG 1 – 0 TSM
  • Time: 37:53
  • Kills: 16 – 4
  • Turrets: 11 – 3
  • Gold: 68k – 56.8k
  • Dragons: 5 – 0
  • Barons: 1 – 0

EG vs DIG

Another good early game from the Dignitas mid/jungle duo by finding multiple kills on the map and controlling early objectives. But this time around, they were able to involve their new bot laner Tomo in the action as well. And unlike the previous weeks, they were more on the same page during their objective setups and played it more coordinated. They had no trouble getting themselves the Soul and the Baron as EG couldn’t find a way into their own jungle.

The disaster almost struck when DIG overextended at the enemy base and threw the game, but Jensen came up clutch with a big Azir play and DIG managed to get their first win of the 2023 LCS Spring Split.

  • Teams: EG – DIG
  • Time: 36:43
  • Kills: 5 – 17
  • Turrets: 1 – 10
  • Gold: 66.6k – 67.9k
  • Dragons: 1 – 4
  • Barons: 1 – 1

Image credit: Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games

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