Chiefs have won the LCO Championships at DreamHack Melbourne.
In an intense battle, the Chiefs claimed victory over Pentanet.GG 3-1. Both teams gave the crowd something to cheer for. Fans from both teams were excited not only to see top level League of Legends, but also to see their heroes back on stage. Here’s how the LCO finals played out.
Road to the finals at DreamHack Melbourne
The current LCO season started in January this year and has lead all the way to the finals in Melbourne. Eight teams have competed in this Oceania competition. In August, the LCO went into finals with upper and lower brackets. Gravitas, Mammoth, and Peace were unfortunately all knocked out in the regular season. Gravitas were unlucky to walk away with no wins. Mammoth took out six wins and Peace snagged nine wins. Those nine wins were just one win short of Kanga, who snuck into the playoffs. The Direwolves took on Kanga Esports in the finals. Finishing higher on the ladder, the Direwolves had hoped to win. But Kanga had been improving throughout the season and took the win from the wolves.
Kanga went on to face Pentanet.GG, who had fallen out of the upper bracket finals after losing to Order in their first match. Chiefs defeated Order to drop Order into the lower bracket and send Chiefs straight through to the finals. After losing to Order in the first round of the finals, Pentanet.GG came out looking for the win to put them in the finals.
On Friday night at DreamHack Melbourne, Order and Pentanet.GG took the stage for the Split 2 playoffs. Many fans — and even the DreamHack team — were looking at a five-match game that would last till midnight. Pentanet.GG showed they were simply not up for that. They clean swept Order for a 3-0 win. This took them to the finals to face off against the Chiefs.
FROM 3-2 LOSS TO A 3-0 SWEEP! PGG STAGE BUFF 💪💪💪 pic.twitter.com/O42NUhQjSV
— Pentanet.GG (@PentanetGG) September 2, 2022
LCO Final brings League of Legends to Aussie fans
The LCO final was one of the pinnacle events of DreamHack Melbourne.
Taking place on the Sunday night, Pentanet.GG and Order faced off in a lively arena. It was the battle of the nations as the East-coast based Chiefs team looked for the win on their home territory over the West-Coast based Pentanet.GG. Chiefs were also the crowd favorite, with many fans predicting a 3-0 nil. Even the analysts were predicting a Chiefs win anywhere between 3-0 and 3-2. Most of the analysts voted for a 3-1 Chiefs victory.
Chiefs easily took out the first two games, dominating the resources and winning the majority of team fights. While Pentanet.GG took the first turret in the first game, Chiefs came to show everyone what they are made of. Chiefs got an Ace in the first team fight without relinquishing a kill.
Pentanet.GG tried to come back by taking out the drake, but Chiefs came in to steal the buff and take their way straight to Baron. Chiefs had all the resources, taking down turrets and players. They headed for the nexus with both the Baron and Ocean drake buffs. This sealed the game one victory for Chiefs.
Game two saw the Chiefs get first blood whilst Pentanet.GG gained the first drake buff. Pentanet.GG also stole the Herald Ruff kill from the Chiefs and summoned it to try and gain the upper hand. Chiefs won the Baron fight around the 21 minute mark, gaining the buff but losing two players in the process. The players who still had the buff turned the tables and pushed through the middle plane. They took down the turrets in their path and went straight for the nexus. It was GG to Chiefs at the 24 minute mark.
Pentanet.GG make a comeback
The Chiefs had not lost a game during the entire LCO split. If they were to win the LCO Split 2 finals at 3-0, they would head to Worlds with a 27-0 win rate. Pentanet.GG weren’t going to have any of that. In true Aussie fashion, the crowd started going for the underdogs. Chants of “PGG” could be heard around the arena. One fan even called out “I wanna be here all night,” referring to the desire to see a five match final.
Pentanet.GG rallied behind the crowd and bought some skills to the table in game three. They seemed to dominate the entire game. Jake “Rogue” Sharwood from Pentanet.GG said it was all about not going out doing “nothing.” He told us it was all a “mentality difference and the picks [which] translated really well in game three.”
On the other side of the stage, James “Tally” Shute gave us some insights from the Chiefs. He said they realized eventually that Pentanet.GG were going to take the win.
“If they were going to get a win, we’re going to make them really work for it,” Tally said.
He added that they ultimately “messed up.” And this was clear from the fights.
Everything went Pentanet.GG’s way… Until it didn’t
From taking first blood to Winterer stealing two kills in the first team battle. Everything went the way of Pentanet.GG in this match. The team defeated four drakes, two Heralds, took down lots of turrets, and won the majority of team fights.
Yuri and Winterer were having the games of their life, racking up the resources and pushing Chiefs to a 16-4 kill ratio by the end of the round. Around the 25 minute mark, Pentanet.GG had nearly 10,000 gold over Chiefs. This was extended to nearly 20,000 gold by the end of the game. You can see from the above that Pentanet.GG had the upper hand the entire game. They showed Chiefs why they are in the finals, and why they deserved a spot a Worlds.
Only one team can win
It’s great to see teams battling it out so fiercely. And while it’s cool to see awesome talent take the stage, only one team can win. Rogue said that while they played really well in game three, they weren’t able to back it up in game four.
“I don’t think Chiefs did anything spectacular […] the game was ours to win.”
Unfortunately Pentanet.GG couldn’t convert.
Chiefs had a taste of defeat in game four and seemingly didn’t enjoy it. They put all their might into the game four to try and push Pentanet.GG out of the running. By the same token, Pentanet.GG threw everything they had into the next game to stay in the match. Around the eight minute mark, neither team had the upper hand. Resources were similar and no teams had a kill to their name.
Pentanet.GG ran through to take the first turret and took the upper hand from the first team fight, walking around 2-1. Both teams started trading blows, each trying to kill drakes and barons whilst being forced to retreat.
Claiming the Victory
Tally told us that during this game four, it was all about adapting to Pentanet.GG’s game. While it might have looked to us that nothing much had happened up until about the ten minute mark, Tally said this was all part of the Chief’s plan. The team “had a read on Pentanet.GG that they are an early game team, wanting to play for objectives.”
But instead, they “did a 180,” going into a “scaling” game and “not caring what their team comp[osition] looked like.” So the Chief’s got “rid of all the early game aggression.” Tally said they played much smarter, choosing better team fights — which you can see if you look back at the game. Not much seemed to happen in the early game. But in the later game, the Chiefs moved into position and made smarter plays.
For example, Chiefs tried to take Baron around 20 minutes but made a tactile retreated. They also looked to head into base around the 30 minute mark but this invasion didn’t stick. It all started to fall into place around 34 minutes. Pentanet.GG looked to head into the Chief’s base but didn’t see a way in.
Pentanet.GG gave up the mid lane turret in favor of killing the drake. Meanwhile, Quin “Raes” Korebrits goes solo into Pentanet.GG’s base. The Chiefs swarm on the drake to take out the Pentanet.GG players and steal the drake buff. From there it’s basically game over. The Chiefs get the Ace, head into the enemy base and destroy the nexus, sealing their LCO Victory.
Onto Worlds 2022
This is the first time since 2016 that Chiefs have won a League of Legend titles. Tally told us that “on one side [he’s] ecstatic, but on the other side, completely exhausted.” He commented on the toll it takes to play the games, but he’s still planning on “having a nice dinner and celebrating” tonight.
The Chiefs will now go onto Worlds, which will take place later this year in North America.
If you missed the games, rewatch all the action on the LCO Twitch channel.
DreamHack Melbourne esports
League of Legends wasn’t the only esport played at DreamHack Melbourne. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Halo were big headliners too.
Chiefs won League of Legends, but didn’t leave it at that. It was smiles all round for the team this weekend as they also won the Halo Championship (HCS) ANZ Regional competition. They defeated Mindfreak 4-2 in a best of seven grand final. Chiefs will now travel to HCS Orlando where they have qualified in first place. Both second and third placed teams also qualify for HCS Orlando. Mindfreak and Divine Mind will join Chiefs in Orlando September 23-25.
Published: Sep 4, 2022 11:08 am