Things have been fairly slow this split, especially in the kills department. TSM’s average games currently sit at over an hour long, and it is now common to expect zero kills by 10-15 minutes. This makes for some pretty boring League of Legends games. But FlyQuest and 100 Thieves changed that up this week, and it was exactly the kind of game that fans have been looking for.

To be fair, most of those kills started to roll in around the 10 minute mark, but starting off with a first blood at 3 minutes from a Meteos gank at lvl 3 certainly got things off on the right foot. After that, the entire game was a serious of catches, kills, and escapes so that even when the death toll wasn’t racking up, it always felt like it was about to

A lot of this was due to Aphromoo’s pick onto Blitzcrank. Earlier in the weekend, Aphromoo played Thresh against Cloud9 and decimated them with his hooks; the story against FlyQuest would be no different. Since FlyQuest had chosen a full engage comp with no tankline to speak of, Aphromoo could grab anyone from the lineup to deal devastating damage. It was a genius pick into the team, and one FlyQuest simply did not think of against their draft. It helped that Aphromoo was able to grab WildTurtle in particular several times, because there is nothing more satisfying than hooking and melting the enemy ADC.

The biggest difference between this match and so much of what we’ve seen this split is in decision making. Both teams decided to go full aggro, but it wasn’t as if they were playing poorly. Aphromoo’s hooks were on point, Fly hit with quite a few devastating Zoe shots, and Ssumday – who has been mostly unnoticed this split – was playing remarkably well too.

Ultimately, the tempo was in 100T’s favor though. After first blood and after outplaying a failed gank against Ryu, the fights just started to swing one way. It also became increasingly obvious that Blitzcrank – who was immediately locked in after FlyQuest finished their draft – was the ultimate counter to their team. No proper team fight could happen while Blitz threatened the entirety of their lineup, and the Gnar pick for Ssumday cemented a level of protection for 100 Thieves that couldn’t be countered.

Despite being outdrafted, FlyQuest still tried a lineup that mainstays like TSM probably woudnt have. They might have lost the match, but they certainly gained some fans.