NA LCS Summer Split 2018 Week 4: Preview & Schedule

Jul 15, 2018

The hard defeat inflicted by Europe to North America at last week’s Rift Rivals revealed a harsh, but yet undeniable truth: the region is considerably behind in the metagame, failed to adapt to the drastic changes from Patch 8.11, and failed to recognize the potential of several champions – especially Heimerdinger. Instead, Heimerdinger was extensively used by the Europeans to take away a comfortable win in Los Angeles.

However, there is a silver lining to this: with Rift Rivals being only a minor tournament, the NA sides will be looking to learn from their mistakes and potentially change their understanding of the current meta in hopes of finally enjoying a good run at the World Championship. To the skeptical readers who don't think this is possible -- remember that this exact same thing happened to Europe after the region got smashed on its own backyard by NA at last year’s Rift Rivals!

Shifting strategies

Change is definitely in the air and therefore, many different picks and strategies are expected to debut this week. 100 Thieves – who managed to take a single game against Europe – will go further, debuting a new jungler, Andy “AnDa” Hoang, who arrived to replace William “Meteos” Hartman against a TSM who surely used the time off to test their skills against the visiting European teams. The 5-time NA Champions will technically enter the match-up as favorites after a strong showing two weeks ago (via their convincing wins over Cloud9 and Golden Warriors) but 100 Thieves will be a more formidable opponent and a great test for TSM’s aspirations for the remaining of the year.

Moving further, Team Liquid actually had a satisfactory performance against Europe, but will it be shown this week in the NA LCS? With matches against OpTic Gaming and FlyQuest, it is expected that the current Champions will go 2-0 – but both sides have a few tricks in the sleeves, especially after taking an extra week to practice.

Redemption matches

Finally, Sunday reserves for us a well-known match-up between two former Champions who are having a sub-par 2018. Coming to the Summer Split with roster changes that definitely didn’t work out, Cloud9 is bringing back Zachary "Sneaky" Scuderi to the starting line-up. Counter Logic Gaming meanwhile will try to show more consistency (something that has been lacking throughout the entire year) with the team alternating strong showing with truly atrocious performances. Which CLG will enter the Rift against their perennial rivals?

Don’t want to miss any of the action? You can watch all 10 matches from week 4 of the 2018 NA LCS Summer Split on Riot Games’ official Twitch and YouTube channels. However, in case you don’t have time for every single moment, don’t worry as well! I have highlighted below the three most important matches of the week – the ones you should not miss at any cost!

Week 4 kicks-off Saturday, July 14 at 11pm CEST/2pm PDT with the classic between Cloud9 and TSM.

2018 NA LCS Summer Split Week 4 complete schedule:

Saturday – July 14

- Counter Logic Gaming v Echo Fox – 11pm CEST / 2pm PDT

- 100 Thieves vs TSM – 12am CEST / 3pm PDT -> Don’t miss it!

- Clutch Gaming vs Golden Guardians – 1am CEST / 4pm PDT

- Team Liquid vs OpTic Gaming – 2am CEST / 5pm PDT -> Don’t miss it!

- Cloud9 vs FlyQuest – 3am CEST / 6pm PDT

Sunday – July 15

- Golden Guardians v 100 Thieves – 9pm CEST / 12pm PDT

- FlyQuest vs Team Liquid – 10pm CEST / 1pm PDT

- TSM vs Echo Fox – 11pm CEST / 2pm PDT