One of the most surprising results so far in week 2 of the VCS Summer 2020 is undoubtedly GAM Esports’ humiliating 0-2 loss against the “newly formed” Percent Esports. With a superior roster and established names, everyone expected GAM to win easily. However, on a day when their biggest star – the black and gold squad – underperformed, they had to accept this poor result.
The first sign of Levi’s “choke” – the number one star of GAM – appeared right in the first match against Percent Esports. He moved well, calculated team coordination excellently, but in the final blow to finish off the opponent, he was woefully inadequate. Levi’s Sylas stole Malphite’s ultimate and seemed like a guaranteed gank, but somehow he missed the skill and let Ty escape.
If game 1 could be considered an accident, then game 2 was truly a disaster for GAM in general and Levi in particular, as their decisions were heavily questioned. First, there was Levi’s champion pick; Kayn has never been a strong choice in the tournament due to his heavy reliance on ganking. If he wanted early damage, wouldn’t Lee Sin or Rek’Sai be stronger? If he wanted to farm and carry the team, Graves was still an option!
Moreover, Levi’s choice of items and runes further raised questions. He opted for the Dark Harvest rune, which is only strong in fights and when continuously picking off opponents. Yet, when entering the match, Levi chose Tiamat as his first item, which only serves to farm the jungle faster, and indeed most of his time was spent farming jungle monsters. Thus, that Dark Harvest point was completely wasted with too few stacks.
These weaknesses were somewhat masked by the fact that GAM Esports is an extremely strong laning team, and Dia1’s intervention with Twisted Fate in the early game was notable and helped them gain an advantage at the end of the laning phase. However, when the big fights broke out, GAM was truly clumsy in organizing and executing combat, while Percent, with Bard’s Cosmic Binding, could take out GAM’s key players from unexpected distances.
And what Levi could do at that moment was just to wait in some hidden corner, leap over walls, and try to deal damage and be annoying. However, he chose the Shadow Assassin form instead of Darkin, so he couldn’t do anything; all Levi had was damage, but when you can’t reach the opponent, what’s the point of damage?
This situation continued until the 35th minute, when the Elder Dragon appeared and became the perfect excuse for Percent to draw GAM into an all-out fight, where they had the advantage. Levi still maintained his lurking playstyle, inadvertently separating himself from his teammates, resulting in his failure to kill Zoe from the opponent, being taken down too quickly by Bigkoro due to a lack of tankiness, a careless death that led to GAM’s complete defeat.
This loss has exposed some weaknesses of GAM Esports, namely that they are no longer outstanding in the banning and picking phase. When deprived of strong choices or facing opponents playing slightly different champions than usual, GAM struggles to counter effectively. They may dominate the lane against that opponent, but their ability to convert that advantage into a win in this match was problematic and needs immediate improvement.