Last week, the LCS Summer Split 2023 playoffs intensified with the Lower Bracket fighting for their chance to make the Summer Split finals but also chart their course to the League of Legends World Championship in South Korea. In the Lower  Bracket, Team Dignitas looked to upset the number 2 seed Golden Guardians after Golden Guardians lost shockingly 3 to 1 to NRG. After a shocking Game 5 win, against TSM the week prior, Team Dignitas looked to keep their playoff run alive against Golden Guardians.

On the other side of the lower bracket, Team Liquid looked to keep their playoff dreams alive fighting against the cleanly swept Evil Geniuses; in the prior week, EG lost to Cloud 9 within three games. Meanwhile, Team Liquid had a strong series of matches against 100 Thieves to advance to the Lower Bracket 2nd round. If TL or EG won, they would go on to face the Winner of Golden Guardians Vs Dignitas. No matter what, each of the winning teams in the Lower Brack would have to play two games throughout the weekend in order to make it to the LCS Summer Finals.

Team Liquid vs Golden Guardians

Rather than recapping the series in its six-game entirety, we will be going over the basics of what happened. Game 1 Team Liquid had a lead but threw the lead to Golden Guardians. Then in a mid-fight, Golden Guardians took a bad team fight, and Team Liquid was able to push down mid and end the game. In game 2,  the kill count was low early in the game, but once Baron spawned, Team Liquid started picking up kills on Golden Guardians. Team Liquid was able to bait Golden Guardians to pick off their carries and then just march down mid-lane yet again.

In game 3, Golden Guardians were able to regain their composure and pick up some easy kills by using tanks and burst champions; throughout most points in the game, Golden Guardians had doubled or more the kills of Team Liquid. With momentum starting to swing towards Golden Guardians a reverse sweep was looking possible. With a catch in the bot lane, Golden Guardians was able to blow up Team Liquid’s most fed member APA. This allowed GG to get triple inhibitors and then move to Baron. Team Liquid looked to stop it, but GG was able to ace them and end the game.

This brings us to game 5 and this is where things get complicated. Now, many will argue that you should be able to play no matter what happens, but a bug in game 5 caused GG to pause the game and report the bug. Rather than returning the game to an earlier state, Riot chose to have the game remade because they could not fix the bug. The problem here is that the Game 5 remake killed all the momentum that Golden Guardians had and gave Team Liquid the chance to adapt and adjust.

In the end, Team Liquid would win but not without controversy. When we spoke with Team Liquids’ Marksman Yeon he stated that he believed that each team thought a remake was fair and that it would have not changed the game’s results.

After the series, we sat down with Golden Guardian’s Jungler River to discuss the games.

Golden Guardians River Interview

After the series and it comes down to a game 5 loss, it must be a heartbreaking experience. After winning Games 3 and 4, do you feel that if the game (Game 5) had not been paused and remade that the results would have been different?

GG River – We thought that we are in a better situation before they remade the game. So, it’s not really different but after we lost, it’s like an excuse. So, I am not sure.

Since he did decide to keep Unsealed Spellbook, were there any issues that he basically had to play through, or was it not noticed?

GG River – Not sure but when Braum used TP to the top tower, we went to exchange it with Flash but it didn’t change and it didn’t allow him to switch to Flash.

With this loss, it does eliminate you from the North American finals but there is still the possibility for Worlds. How do you feel going forward and the possibility of playing at Worlds?

GG River – We have to play against the EU 4th Seed right? We have to be the EU in Korea. So if we lose the game to the EU, it will really suck. We have never lost to the EU.

What from the series do you think would have made a more drastic difference? What could have been more beneficial?

GG River – After we won games 3 and 4, game 5 was going well but after the remake, our focus wasn’t there. We made many mistakes so we lost to them. They played better.

If you want to learn more about Golden Guardians’ Jungler River, you can watch the full interview down below. In the rest of the interview, we discuss how GG River got into League of Legends, time with the game, his favorite things, inspirations, and much more.