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When the LCS moved to a new best-of series format in the regular season, one major change came along with it: two streams, allowing viewers to choose which series they wanted to watch.
But on Friday nights, with just two NA LCS matchups on for the night back-to-back on the same stream, that second stream had gone unused for the first half of the split.
Enter last week's genius idea: use one stream as the regular "watch the game here" channel, and one to focus in on a specific matchup. For TSM vs. Cloud9, it was a no-brainer: the star-studded mid lane matchup of Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg vs. Nicolaj "Jensen" Jensen. You can watch the first game here:
And Game 2 here:
The stream was popularly received by fans
@lolesports The mid lane stream on Friday NALCS was amazing.
— Jackson (@JaxonPants) July 10, 2016
Please do more like that when possible.
NALCS2 stream is cool, but since it's so mid lane focused and the camera doesn't move much, I'd love to have a bigger minimap
— Shakarez (@Shakarez) July 9, 2016
I love this Mid Lane Matchup stream for NA LCS. This is the best thing I didn't know I wanted. pic.twitter.com/kYlq6pZABE
— Brandt Willems (@WonderGingerVGC) July 9, 2016
omg? a mid lane focused stream... that is so cool
— Emily (@brknage) July 9, 2016
Well, good news League fans: this idea is not going away, and it's expanding to other positions. For Friday's matchup between 11-1 Immortals and 6-6 Counter Logic Gaming, there will be an additional jungle-only stream featuring the matchup between Yeu-jin "Reignover" Kim and Jake "Xmithie" Puchero (h/t Reddit). Reignover is widely considered one of the best players in the region, while Xmithie recently had a very strong international performance at the Mid-Season Invitational, where CLG finished second.
A jungle-focused stream is arguably even more useful to amateur players than one focusing on mid laners. While seeing mid laners adapt to situations can be helpful, the jungle pathing is something that often goes underdiscussed at the competitive level and can often be the difference between being good and great at the position.
Tune in to NALCS2 this Friday at 6 p.m. ET/3 p.m. PT to watch the Reignover vs. Xmithie stream.