If the North American League Championship Series Summer Split were to end today, OpTic Gaming, one of the league's bottom feeders from the spring split, would find itself squarely in the playoffs.
Last week, OpTic managed its first-ever 2-0 weekend in its short-lived NA LCS history. This week, it followed up the performance with another 2-0 week, joining 100 Thieves as the only two teams to pull off consecutive 2-0 weekends this split.
Now in the midst of a four-game win streak, OpTic is also in the midst of its first-ever winning streak of any kind, and sits alone in fifth place with a 6-6 record.
How has OpTic gotten here?
This four-game win streak started with a victory over Team SoloMid with Tristan "PowerOfEvil" Schrage putting up a 7/0/3 (kills/deaths/assists) scoreline on Viktor. He also got to play his signature champion in the most recent game against Golden Guardians and improved his record on the champion to 3-0 this split and 4-1 overall.
PowerOfEvil also quietly leads all starting mid laners in KDA (4.3), total kills (44) and kill participation (77.3 percent), even after his most recent game in which he put up a wholly unselfish scoreline of 2/3/3.
OpTic has played two different top laners this split, with Niship "Dhokla" Doshi featuring in the current win streak. Dhokla is now 5-3 with the team this split and has improved to 7-7 overall. After his heroic base rush with Yorick on Sunday against the Golden Guardians, Dhokla has now played seven different champions in his eight games. His Yorick game was also the first time Yorick was played in the NA LCS in the past three years.
Braum also has been a big factor for OpTic and Terry "BIG" Chuong, as they are 4-0 with the champion this split. In fact, all six of OpTic's wins have come when a player chose a melee support, with Tahm Kench (2-2) getting the other two victories. Braum has been picked or banned away from OpTic in only two games, so it could be worth the team attempting to put a higher priority on the champion for BIG.
Who they've beaten and who's up next
It's certainly worth mentioning that OpTic's four-game win streak has been against teams all currently below them in the table. However, of those teams, all but Cloud9 were either ahead or tied with OpTic at the time of the game. This past weekend OpTic faced the Golden Guardians and Counter Logic Gaming, the only two teams that OpTic historically had a winning record against. It improved to 7-1 cumulatively against the two teams while holding a 4-18 record against the rest of the league.
This coming week, OpTic has games against FlyQuest and Clutch Gaming. OpTic is 1-2 in its previous meetings with FlyQuest and has never beaten Clutch. FlyQuest looks to be the tougher test of two, currently tied for third in the NA LCS, and winner of seven of its last nine. Meanwhile, Clutch Gaming is looking to snap a four-game losing streak, the longest in team history.
Other quick stats from around the league
Zachary "Sneaky" Scuderi picked Quinn in both games this weekend and both resulted in wins for Cloud9. They were the only two bot-lane Quinn picks in the past three years. Quinn played top lane 10 times in the 2016 Spring Split and amassed a 3-7 record in that time.
Sneaky and Cloud9's two wins this weekend marked the team's first 2-0 weekend of the split. This was also its first 2-0 weekend since Feb. 10-11, Week 4 of the spring split.
Gnar was picked three times this past weekend and went 0-3 in those games. Gnar now has lost nine straight games and 20 of its last 23 in the NA LCS.