The Ninjas in Pyjamas did the impossible on Thursday to close out Week 10, Day 1 of the European League of Legends Championship Series when it not only defeated Fnatic, the top team in the League, but did so without dropping a game in a 2-0 sweep in Berlin.
Ultimately, the victory was a pointless one, and it was easy to tell that Fnatic weren't taking the series all that seriously. Both teams have been locked into place in the standings for some time now; Fnatic will enter the playoffs with the first seed, while Ninjas on a Pyjamas have already earned a ticket to the Promotion Tournament that it can only pray isn't one-way. This is perhaps why Fnatic seemed comfortable to pick some off the wall champions such as mid laner Rasmus "Caps" Winther's Azir - widely considered to be one of the worst mid lane champions -- in Game 1, and top laner Paul "sOAZ" Boyer's Rumble - a champion he has little success with - in Game 2.
Still, the fact that Fnatic wasn't playing seriously doesn't take away from how spectacular of an effort the Ninjas in Pyjamas had to make to come away with this win. The team was playing both decisive and ingenious, which are two things NiP has been anything but thus far in the split. Not only did it repeatedly outrotate Fnatic to pick up free dragons and Barons, but its teamfighting was also superb all throughout. While NiP has struggled to play its compositions in a straightforward manner, it did so with ease on Thursday. To top it all off, its willingness to engage in fight after fight in the second game led to impressive offensive advantages that were critical to the victory.
The man of the hour was NiP jungler Ilyas "Shook" Hartsema. Not only did he manage to keep pace with Fnatic's own star jungler Mads "Broxah" Brock-Pedersen all throughout the early game, he also decisively outperformed him once the games started to drag on. Much of that was due to the draft, as his Sejuani in Game 1 and Gragas in Game 2 both heavily outscaled the picks that Broxah brought to the table. However, his play was also exceptional, as his focus was always right where it needed to be: on keeping his carries safe.