TSM Still Has a Mathematical Chance to Make the LCS 2022 Spring Split Playoffs
Cover-Credits:
The League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) 2022 Spring Split Playoffs is just around the corner with just two weeks of regular play left. While Cloud9 has already cemented its playoff spot, other teams are playing catch-up and are doing the math to understand what’s at stake to make the last stretch.
One team that has been completely written off from playoff contention is Team SoloMid (TSM). After battling a plethora of issues with its roster and being unable to overcome them, the team is staring at a 10th place finish in the LCS. This is the first time in the history of TSM that the organization is going through such a rough season. The team is currently scrambling for wins to avoid finishing at the bottom of the barrel. Though on paper it may seem that TSM is knocked out of this split for good, there is still one scenario that could potentially pan out and catapult the team into the playoffs. But this also depends on the results of some of the other teams in the league.
A Reddit thread by user i-am-grok threw light on how TSM can actually make it to the top six even without a tiebreaker game.
Doing the math for a TSM miracle run
The original poster wrote in the thread, “I love doing standings math, so I poked around at TSM's position. Turns out, they have exactly one path to make playoffs without a tiebreaker game remaining.”
At the time of writing, the league’s standings are as follows:
The first step for TSM, to push through to the playoffs, is to win all the five games it has coming up in the next couple of weeks. It still has to play the likes of Cloud9 (C9), Immortals (IMT), 100 Thieves (100T), Counter Logic Gaming (CLG), and Team Liquid (TL). Dropping even a single game will cost TSM its miracle run. Winning these five matches still seems like a big task at hand, that too towards the end of the split. Assuming TSM does manage to win every game, they still reportedly need to rely on certain outcomes to avoid a tiebreaker game.
The post read, “TSM is in 10th behind IMT (4-9), GG [Golden Guardians] (5-8), CLG (5-8), and EG [Evil Geniuses] (6-7). Each team has five games remaining. Step one is hitting 7 wins, so TSM has to win out their remaining games just to clear the field ahead of them today. Step two, TSM needs those four teams to lose every game where they don't play each other--FLY [FlyQuest], DIG [Dignitas], 100T, TL, C9. That's a total of 16 games.”
TSM needs Evil Geniuses, Golden Guardians, Immortals, and CLG to finish the regular season with less than six wins each. TSM fans need to pay close attention to the following four games that fall during the last week of the split.
IMT v CLG (25th March)
GG v EG (26th March)
GG v IMT (27th March)
EG v CLG (27th March)
Additionally, since TSM needs all the four other teams to end up with less than six victories, it needs the following teams to win in these match-ups:
IMT v CLG - IMT win
GG v EG - GG win
GG v IMT - IMT win
EG v CLG - CLG win
The post detailed, “So for TSM to make playoffs without a tiebreaker, they need EG to lose out the remaining 5 games, for IMT to beat GG and CLG, for all four of those teams [IMT, GG< CLG< EG] to lose every other game, and to win out the rest of the season. In every other circumstance, they either need to win a tiebreaker or are the first team eliminated from the playoffs.”
In this coming week of play, if EG beats DIG and if C9 claims victory over TSM, TSM will officially be knocked out from playoffs since they will be mathematically eliminated.
TSM fans would be hoping for the team to pull off this miracle run. Either way, fans just want the team to bounce back stronger in the next split.
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