North American League of Legends competition LCS has started with the kick-off tournament LCS Lock In 2022, and Team Liquid lifted the trophy a second time after 2021. Defeating Evil Geniuses with their eight-man Lock In roster, TL has shown great promise for LCS and hyped up their fans. Let’s have a look at their story.
The semifinals and the finals were played this weekend at LCS Lock In 2022. Team Liquid first defeated Dignitas 3-1, and then faced Evil Geniuses which had earlier bested C9 with 3-0.
The finals were more one-sided than expected. TL was considered as a championship contender, but also EG had a great run at Lock In.
Champion’s road: Team Liquid
Because CoreJJ’s Green Card situation hasn’t been resolved yet, TL couldn’t field their ideal roster at Lock In. They had to choose one of Hans sama or CoreJJ all tournament long, although they did bench Bwipo for one game to field Hans sama and CoreJJ together. Most of TL’s strongest opponents had to use substitutes because of other issues, and this problem meant that TL would join the incomplete teams of Lock In.
Starting in Group B, Team Liquid defeated CLG, Dignitas and Immortals, only to be bested by Evil Geniuses. EG’s form was very good as they finished the group in first place with 4-0. Team Liquid had the second place, and moved on to the quarterfinals.
In the first game against FlyQuest, Bwipo left his place to Bradley to allow CoreJJ and Hans sama play together. From that point on, Hans sama stopped replacing his place with Yeon, and played with Eyla in the bot lane until the finals.
Dignitas with their surprisingly good performance managed to take a game away from TL, but Liquid secured a place in the finals with 3-1. In the other match, EG defeated Cloud9 3-0, and the final was all set.
LCS Lock In 2022 finals recap
Before the series, young jojopyun facing Bjergsen was an attraction point for the fans. However, Bjergsen asserted his dominance with his great Sylas performance in the first game. Getting a quadra kill that helped his team get ahead in a close game is definitely a great way to start the series, good job Bjerg! The first game ended in 26.17 minutes, with TL leading 20-11.
Bjergsen kept his Sylas for the second game. In the end, TL was managed to capture objectives and end the game before the 35 minute mark despite the game being a close one.
Third game saw Bjergsen unleashing the legendary Zilean while jojopyun took the Sylas duty for EG. After losing the early-mid game fights, Team Liquid somehow got back in the game - thanks to Hans sama’s terrifying Jinx - to stop EG’s momentum and start infiltrating their base. In the next couple of minutes, the game went out of EG’s hands because of one fight where they left Jinx alone to kill them all.
Some stats from LCS Lock In 2022
LCS Lock In 2022 saw TL winning the tournament for the second time. The most played champion was meta queen Caitlyn, present in 39 games with a 100% pick rate. In the 9 games she was picked, Cait had 3 wins. Her evil sister Jinx didn’t have such a presence and pick/ban rate, but she is the most picked champion with 28 games. Jinx won 20 of those, having a 71.4% win rate.
The player with the best KDA at Lock In became Bjergsen, accumulating a 15.63 KDA in 13 games, an impressive feat. Bjergsen accomplished this while having 21.8% gold share, meaning he had less gold to achieve such a number. Vulcan is the player who played most champions, with 9 different champions. Bwipo, Fudge and jojopyun follow him with 8 champions.
According to Esports Charts, the peak viewers count of LCS Lock In 2022 was 223,943 viewers at TL vs EG finals. The event averaged 133,898 viewers. After the grand final, the best five games according to their peak viewers count was Cloud9 vs Evil Geniuses semifinals, Team Liquid vs Evil Geniuses group stage match, CLG vs TL group stage match and TSM vs C9 group stage match.
After Lock In’s end, LCS will start shortly. If you are interested in North American League of Legends or a fan of Team Liquid, watch the games and place your bets on Luckbox.
