The 2022 LLA Summer Split Playoffs Kick Off!
After 7 weeks of intense action throughout the whole summer regular season, we are now heading into the most important part of the tournament, the playoffs! It has been a wild ride that ended with 6 out of 8 teams advancing into the next phase, while the 2 remaining teams will head to the relegation tournament that’s occurring early September.
Estral and Isurus finished at the very top of the standings, with Estral getting to pick 1 out of Team Aze and Rainbow7 as their first opponents of the winners’ bracket. Now looking at the losers’ bracket we’ll find Infinity and All Knights, the teams that finished 5th and 6th, respectively.
XTEN and Globant Emerald not only couldn’t make it into the playoffs thanks to a disastrous performance throughout the regular season, but they’ll also be fighting for their lives as their LLA spot is on the line. This is because unlike every single other Riot official league out there, the Latin American region still works around a Promotion / Relegation format.
We’ve talked about the whole LLA picture so you can have a better idea of what is coming next and which teams you should look out for. Today we’ll be going over the Infinity vs All Knights series as they’ll be opening the playoffs. Let’s start with All Knights as they come into the phase as the underdogs.
What is All Knights’ Biggest Issue?
In all of our Esports Picks involving All Knights, we’ve talked quite a lot about their most important weaknesses, but even for us, it’s still unclear what exactly happened to this team that got them to this position. How did a team that features Leza, Alive, and Baula struggle so much throughout the whole regular season? Well, this lineup is a clear example that there’s more than individual skill when it comes to building a team.
Taking a quick look at how their games unfold, it’s very obvious that the Knights biggest problem is communication. It’s hard to pinpoint if Crash is the root of the problem as he seems to be simply disconnected from the rest of his team, or if it’s a problem involving the laners and their inability to communicate what they need. But we can be sure of one thing, All Knights need to pull-off a miracle if they want to even make it past the first round of the playoffs.
Infinity had a Shaky Closing Week
It’s hard to deny that Infinity was the team that improved the most throughout the regular season. The Infinity we saw during the first two weeks of the competition was only 10% of what this team is truly capable of. They went from playing in a very reactive way, to having one of the most solid early games in the league. I would attribute this to SolidSnake, who didn’t have the best start of the split but ended up turning into exactly what Infinity needed.
Snaker and Ackerman are probably the best bot lane in the LLA when it comes to generating early leads and turning them into huge advantages for the rest of the team. When Infinity had to play against the lol odds, it was their bot lane that got them in a winning position. Sure, SolidSnake has played a huge part in this as his bot-oriented pathings in the early game gave his bot lane a lot of comfort, but Ackerman is playing out of his mind as of lately.
Infinity vs All Knights Game Information
- Date: Friday, August 5
- Time: 4:00pm ET
- Infinity vs All Knights Live Stream: LLA – Twitch
Infinity vs All Knights Predictions
Just to give you an idea on what kind of form these two teams arrive into the playoffs, let’s go over their performance throughout the last three weeks of the regular season. Infinity picked up 4 out of 6 wins, that includes giving Estral 1 of their 3 defeats. On the other hand, All Knights only won 1 out of 6, and that win was against XTEN, one of the teams that is heading straight to the relegation tournament.
It’s hard to not go for Infinity in this match as their rate of improvement throughout the summer season has been quite impressive. On the other hand, All Knights seem to be free falling and there is nothing that indicates otherwise. While their roster looked great on paper, their disappointing performance got them to this point and it’s going to be disheartening to see these players miss out on the rest of the playoffs.
