In a shocking turn of events, SNC is undefeated after one week of official comp games. From mere babies who won just one match in Proton League to running the table so far in 2023. Where should we put the statue? Whose faces should go on Mount Snackmore? Do we disband as soon as one team loses? Do we just FF now?! While we don’t care about the wins here at SNC--have fun is priority one--it sure is nice to be on top of the Rift for a few moments. Thanks guys!
Sunset Ravens (2-0)
After hitting an absolute nadir as a team just about a month ago, Ravens has really come together over the past few weeks, with every player working on their game and most importantly, working together!
All that togetherness culminated in an impressive 2-1 BOL IBS victory over TD Dusk—the preseason favorites in Zaun division. GM1 featured a thrilling base race that was an absolute nail biter! Media giant Bickle told the world to watch out for Xandradraeda and he was damn right as Xandra put up a 10/0 Ezreal game in GM3 of that matchup to clinch an upset victory. “The dusk has come, and night has fallen upon TD….” [ BOL WK1 Stream | WK1 Bickle | WK2 Bickle | WK2 Toxin ]
In WK2, Ravens faced off against some red Mystic Cats and wiped them 2-0 for a clean victory. In that matchup, WildStar dominated top lane behind Olaf and Jax, while OnlyMagicalGirls showcased double 8/2 games with Aurelion Sol and Lux. With LostHavok and Nebulous facilitating plays and setting up their carries for success, we’re predicting big things from Ravens this season as they passed their early season tests with aplomb and are now out to garner even more respect. Well done guys!
Special thanks to AmandaThePanda for the draft help! Also, if Xandra is gone for few days, please excuse him as he’s been requested for some media availability--or offered a princely package to jump ship?! “Vive les corbeaux!”
Ethereal Midnight (1-0)
Our newest team made their comp debuts with a game that wasn’t streamed by LBL but should have been! With both of their games running a marathon-like forty-plus minutes, viewers would have surely gotten their money’s worth.
Facing off versus Silent Assassins—the team that took out Dreaded Dawn both times in LBL last split—Ethereal was up against a big challenge. GM1 started off poorly, as the Silent Assassins went up by a huge amount, almost 10k by mid game. With almost every lane suffering—did we just see a Sylas support?!—things looked bleak for Ethereal. Ah, but when a team refuses to give up, magic can happen! By the thirty minute mark, gold was equalized and Ethereal had a huge turnaround fight at Baron. Three Elders—yes, three—and a few more Barons later, Ethereal had pulled off an insane comeback, with Imítheos scaling up to 10/2 on Seraphine to help carry the day, while the bot lane of SNC Altair and flatter came alive late game to help seal the most incredible comeback.
With that thrilling victory under their belt, Ethereal carried their momentum into GM2, with Akuma Ayuma—now SNC Antares—starting to pop off on Irelia and threatening to take over the game. Add on the wombo-combo of Jarvan IV—played with great patience and to great effectiveness by Polaris/Wombat—and Aurelion Sol, and SNC staff was prepping (alcoholic-less) champagne carts to roll out onto the Rift. This game was over right? A 10/0 A Sol is gg?!?
However, with an eye toward increasing viewership and a desire to make Coach Falcon pull out his hair, Ethereal started to let their huge lead slip… With an unkillable Urgot on the enemy team, Ethereal kept losing team fights and it was tooth and nail the rest of the way, finally resulting in another grind of a game that ended up as a win behind a 21/5 space dragon. Shout out to Hazel’s quadra and penta in her first comp game ever to seal the deal! Peeeennnnta Kill!!!
In the end, it was a thrilling debut for Ethereal Midnight! And look at their new logo—drawn by Altair—radiating a soothing calm after an intense first week.
Twempest Fwame (1-0)
The second of our teams to debut in LBL Economy, Twempest Fwame were also featured on-stream and there is no funnier bit than having casters constantly having to constantly say “w” in their name. “This Weign is making it rain…!!!”
Facing off against Anima Academy WK1, it was over before it was over, as Xplosiv, Arvos, and Shiraori (formerly Tea) all got their comp mains in draft—Gangplank, Udyr, Nilah—resulting in a breezy GM1 win. Special shout out to ZettaiRyoiki, who was called a “man of culture” in the Twitch chat for that IGN—suspect but I guess we’ll let it go?—and also showed off a 8/2 Veigar game. That Veigar was for you Noctis! “What is dead may never die…” Or rather, “what never lived may never die?” I dunno.
Incredibly, in GM2, Anima gave the three Twempest carries those exact same champs again and the result was a 10/5 Gangplank and a 10/1 Nilah. One could call it draft diff—hi Amanda!—but it was really more of a ban diff as Anima was incredibly generous with their lack of bans. And if you watched the LBL stream, you’ll see how often SNC Weign expertly landed many Dark Bindings—Morgana's Qs were more heat-seeking than skill shot—leading the casters to shout: “Weign is sick, two games in a row perfectly nailing the execution of their champion!” [ LBL WK1 Stream | WK1 Valentine ]
Having barely broken a sweat in WK1, we’ll see how Twempest fares in their next game. For now, thanks to Twempest and Ethereal for putting SNC on top of both LBL Economy charts! I thought I’d never see the day!
And look at these player cards made by SNC Weign, incredible!
Dreaded Dawn(1-0)
With the pressure to keep the SNC win streak alive, the reconstructed Dreaded Dawn—featuring SNC EJooN and BigBoyPK—now SNC PK—coming over from Radiant Twilight to make their comp debuts after a looooong wait. It’s been almost a year since EJooN joined SNC, and he is just hitting the Rift now…
PK got some shine pre-game from the LBL content team, as they said, “SNC PK of SNC Dreaded Dawn is someone who probably should have been placed higher than sixteen [best junglers]. This would be for my money the best Kayn in the Commercial league, and there are a lot of them! But they’re not a one-trick, [as they] certainly have plenty of champs at their disposal.” SNC PK then went out and backed up the preview with two Sejuani games in Dreaded’s 2-0 debut versus Ornngasm.
The dual carries of EJooN top—7/1 on Tryndamere, 9/3 on Darius—and Cerionna ADC—19/1 Xayah and 13/2 Jinx—made this a wipe, as Dreaded Dawn got an easy win in their first gold league action, despite having just played a few games together. Maybe it was an easy matchup—Dreaded said yesterday’s Clash victory was tougher than their first Commercial league game—but we’ll find out as they face off against Panther Corps next week, one of LBL Commerical's anticipated top contenders.
Congrats to SNC Talon for officially hitting plat too, which he did this past week. And while we’re here, with three Dreaded players having been under the microscope for ELO issues—I guess Furry really does know some things, as he’s been outed as hitting high plat—it’s only a matter of time until EJooN and PK’s skill causes them to come under investigation as well, right? And how about SNC NumNums, who was getting all-chatted during the LBL game—DURING THE GAME—about how he wasn’t a bronze player. Needless to say, this opposing mid will be reported!
Special highlight: SNC Cerionna is now doing the write ups for LBL Financial, follow along here at financialleaguelblcs.blogspot.com
Lunar Academia
A shout out for the revamped academy team, now coached by Kreutz. Academy is the place to grow and learn to play as five and we’re happy to have SNC Ammo and SNC Dark—plus SNC Angel?—still on-board. SNC Silent will be taking on top duty while newcomers SNC Jozend and dropdeadgin will man jungle and support respectively.
The team got their first taste of Clash action together and while the results were not what they might have desired, there’s plenty more Clashes to go!
Team Impact (2-0)
This isn’t a SNC team but it’s filled with former SNC players so we’ll be covering them from time to time. SNC Cat put this team together for Poro League and it initially featured her, SNC Sleepy, and SNC Hades. We are big fans of Poro League here—as the organizers were once SNC tryouts—and we hope they’ll have even greater success heading into their second season.
Mere hours after daylights savings time, Team Impact gathered just after dawn at an ungodly 8AM PST and played a match versus Strawbie Cows—with SNC WildStar e-subbing top. An early morning 2-1 comeback victory was a joy to watch and now all official and unofficial SNC comp teams are undefeated! Congrats everyone!