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Why did Immortals lose to TSM? Breaking down a botched team fight to get answers

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Discover how every split-second decision adds up in a pro League of Legends game

After an incredibly strong spring split with only a single loss, Immortals were the clear favorite going into the North American LCS spring playoffs. So what went wrong?

There are probably a lot of answers to that, but you can find one just by looking close to one of the most brutal, game-ending team fights of the whole series — when TSM aced Immortals 33 minutes into the third game. In the video above, League of Legends analyst Jatt takes a fight that was around 30 seconds long and spends six minutes breaking down every action.

What do we learn from this? The main takeaway is that TSM simply played better. They're always one step ahead, dodging skillshots from the Immortals side, timing their summoner spells perfectly and picking the exact right moments to use crowd control skills.

But it's not just that TSM made strong choices; it's that Immortals made sloppy ones. Look at 2:30 in the video. WildTurtle, playing as Jhin, makes a huge, painful mistake. Every fourth auto-attack from Jhin is a critical hit, so it's absolutely essential that WildTurtle hit is fourth auto on a member of TSM to help build advantage for Immortals in this four-on-five situation. Instead, he accidentally wastes that crit on the gromp, which had been pulled into the fight by TSM's Bjergsen just a few seconds earlier.

Many split-second decisions like this add up quickly over the course of a brief team fight. As an amateur player, it's hard to imagine taking all of this into account, but seeing it played back, move by move, it becomes clear why Immortals weren't able to pull ahead of TSM for this semifinals match-up. Better luck next time.