League of Legends: OPL split 1, week 1 recap

The Oceanic Pro League offseason was full of dramatic moves, with four players (and one coach) moving down under from North America, longtime contenders LG Dire Wolves returning from a three-week boot camp in South Korea, every team moving into a gaming house in Sydney, and another cross-league maelstrom of trades and signings to rival the few days leading up to the AFL draft.

Still, for all the hot takes, zany predictions and boisterous tweets in the leadup to the OPL's launch night, the first four matches reflected some level of continuity with last year. Chiefs are still good. Carbon is still an immortal jungle boss. Rengar is still overpowered.

Seriously, how is he still allowed to hit W and murder your entire backline?

Play of the Week

While Claire's Syndra triple kill for Legacy in Game 2 against Avant Garde sent Twitch chat into a frenzy, it was EGym's Baron steal for the Chiefs against LG Dire Wolves in a decisive Game 3 that was the biggest play of the week.

A bot lane split push by Ryan "Chippys" Short put the Chiefs on the back foot, as two members rushed to stop him from cracking open their base. Meanwhile, the Wolves enjoyed the space that Chippys created, chipping away at Baron Nashor's health and even picking up a kill on Spookz's Lee Sin — the biggest risk to their Baron attempt, right?

Wrong.

EGym's Miss Fortune managed to slip away in the action, as Richard "Phantiks" Su gave up his pursuit in favour of taking out Raes. But without anyone around to bother him, EGym was free to drop a combination of Make it Rain and Bullet Time into the pit, eliminating Lachlan "Sybol" Civil...as well as Baron. Though only Brandon "Swip3rR" Holland was alive to enjoy the Baron buff, it was all Chiefs needed to come back and crack open the game. Lesson of the week: don't sleep on a support...especially when he can churn out nearly 3000 damage over 3 seconds.

Chiefs Esports Club (1-0) v LG Dire Wolves (0-1)

Result: 2-1 Chiefs Esports Club

The 2017 OPL season opened up with an early gank train from Samuel "Spookz" Broadley and Simon "Swiffer" Papamarkos propelling Chiefs to a lead, but Dire Wolves held tight and waited for good looks around Dragon and Baron, where some clean crowd control layering prevented the reigning champs from getting into any kind of rhythm.

Game 2 was all Chiefs as Spookz brought Ivern into the jungle, setting AD carry Quin "Raes" Korebrits' Ezreal ahead early. From there on, it was a classic grit-and-grind Chiefs game — the Wolves had their hands "slapped out of the cookie jar" every time they reached for a play, as the casters put it.

In Game 3, the two teams were deadlocked for the first 34 minutes, with a particularly interesting Miss Fortune pick from Chiefs support Bryce "EGym" Paule throwing the Wolves off guard and halting their attempts at pushing their lead. EGym would end up pulling off our Play of the Week to ice the game for the Chiefs.

Exile 5 (0-1) v Tainted Minds (1-0)

Result: 2-0 Tainted Minds

A great haze surrounded Tainted Minds in the leadup to their first match of 2017 — after all, super teams don't always turn out super.

With two North American imports in Ryan "ShorterACE" Nget and Tristan "Cake" Côté-Lalumière in the fray, it was no surprise TM got off to a slow start. Exile 5 stuck to their guns and claimed an early lead, but it would all fall apart 24 minutes in as they picked an ill-advised fight in TM's jungle, allowing Cake to carve them up on Kalista.

X5 were unable to recover, and Game 2 was a complete blowout as ShorterACE's Rengar feasted on their immobile lineup. ShorterACE ended the game with a mindboggling 11/1/9 scoreline.

Sin Gaming (1-0) v Abyss Esports (0-1)

Result: 2-1 Sin Gaming

All eyes were on Sin Gaming and the long-awaited debut performance of maverick AD carry Victor "FBI" Huang, but Game 1 went to the new-look Abyss roster as Sebastian "Seb" de Cegile snowballed on (you guessed it) Rengar. Though he got off to a slow start, once a few towers fell the map was open enough for him to hunt his prey effectively — to the tune of seven kills in a row.

Sin managed to notch an important win in Game 2 off the back of Joshua "Wzrd" Russell's Ekko, who was able to get onto Abyss' backline duo of Syndra and Ashe after trailing in gold for much of the game, finishing with a game-high kill count of 8.

Abyss mid laner Leon "Frae" Lee answered Wzrd's Ekko performance with a heroic game of his own on Viktor, but it wasn't enough as Sin rode the momentum of their big win to close out the series. North American top laner Ta "Flaresz" Binh ended with a deathless score of 4/0/6 on Poppy.

Avant Garde (0-1) v Legacy Esports (1-0)

Result: 2-0 Legacy Esports

In the wake of Derek "Raydere" Trang's retirement from professional play, it isn't clear who the next great AD carry will be in Oceania. Lawrence "Lost" Hui made a case for the title in Game 1, finishing with a scoreline of 8/0/6 in a clinical Legacy win.

Avant Garde couldn't do much in Game 2 either, as Legacy's veteran jungler and captain Tim "Carbon" Wendel's Lee Sin terrorised their lanes and set up mid laner Brandon "Claire" Nguyen (fresh off his stint on a Japanese team) for a huge triple kill in top lane, placing the game firmly in Legacy's hands, where it never left.

The Oceanic Pro League continues next Saturday from 3 PM AEST as Sin Gaming take on Avant Garde. Watch live at oce.lolesports.com.