Summer is still in full swing, but the members of the Oklahoma LCS are working as hard as ever. The OKLCS, hosted by OU Esports partner GetRect, is nearing its final week as players look toward clashing at playoffs. Over the last nine weeks, 26 teams from across the Midwest competed in three separate divisions, each hoping to win it all and take home the prize pool. Now, heading into the final day of the competition, only four teams from each of the three divisions remain. Each of these teams has a story to tell and something to prove, but only one of them gets to take home the gold.
In Gold-capped division, new blood ‘Double Agents’ (DOA) are on the scene, and they’re taking on the old competition with a new name: ‘Eyes Low’ (ELOW). DOA has had a strong showing all split, but ELOW is sporting three members of last split’s first-place team ‘Nompton Gaming’, including All-OKLCS captain and division MVP Jimmy “Jambaclout” Tyler. It’s going to be a hard-fought battle for ‘Double Agents’, but I’m rooting for them. On the other side of the bracket, perennial third-place team ‘Tastes Like Purple’ (TLP) takes on newcomers ‘Ghost’, but there’s another twist. Former TLP player Danielle “DaniPhantøm” Payne is now the captain of Ghost, and she’s looking for blood. Will TLP finally break the 3rd place curse or will Dani get what’s hers?
Platinum-capped division was a bit of a slugfest this split. With two of the six teams pulling out of the competition, all of the remaining teams were guaranteed a spot in the semifinals. But that doesn’t mean they fought any less to earn it. Three-time finalists and first place seed ‘Oklahoma Gplatinum Rush’ (OGR) takes on ‘United’ as [ONE] in their semifinals match, while ‘Gecko Slammer Armageddon Platinum’ dukes it out with ‘OU Platinum’. OGR went undefeated this split, but [ONE] has put up a fight in every match they’ve played. OGR will really have to want it to take it from [ONE]’s cold dead hands. Meanwhile, ‘OU Platinum’ is coming off of some hard roster changes, with two of their members role-swapping this split, but they’ve still proved themselves as the third seed going into playoffs. Their competition is fierce, however, in GSM, who went undefeated in their last three weeks and holds a 4-0 record over OU in the regular season. This semifinal match will probably be the closest in all of Platinum-capped playoffs.
Diamond’s final regular season week was a nail-biter. While ‘In Your Girl’s DMs’ was all but locked into first place, third through sixth seeds were a toss-up. In the final week of the OKLCS, ‘Apache Esports’ beat ‘Land Snek’ to secure a third-place berth and sent their opponents home in fifth seed. Now set against old guard team ‘Sky | Zero’, ‘Apache’ has to put on their war paint and take their fight to them. ‘GIRLS’s’ opponent is ‘Gecko Slammer Armageddon’, a team who barely eked into playoffs from a fortunate win by ‘SKY’ over their final week opponents ‘Oklahoma Gdiamond Rush’. Now, led by captain Ariel “Aripanda” West, GSM looks to regroup and take down their opponents and knock them off their pedestal.
OKLCS Summer 2018 playoffs will be hosted live at the OU Innovation Hub and streamed at twitch.tv/getrecttv. Diamond will be casted and streamed live, and the other divisions will be streamed over the following week.
Disclaimer: OU Platinum is not sponsored or endorsed by the University of Oklahoma
