Saigon Jokers once again won the first game of a playoff series only to lose three games in a row and grant the Azubu Taipei Snipers third place in 2014 GPL Spring.
The first match between Taipei Snipers and the Saigon Jokers started to snowball with both Optimus and Safety roaming bottom. This set both Archie and Optimus rolling. Then the combination of Sivir's On the Hunt and Orianna's Shockwave made teamfights nearly impossible for TPS to win. As a result, Saigon Jokers found the first game of the series.
In Game Two, TPS fell back on their late game scaling roots with Kog'Maw and Nidalee to create a poke composition. They then fell back on a Karma support pick for disengage. This allowed them to play a slow, defensive laning phase with only a few kills and tight objective control to even out the series.
The third game of the third place set, SAJ banned OhReal's Nidalee, but they found more late game scaling in a Ryze mid pick. Regardless, the real pressure came from GoDJJ's Draven. In a 2v1, he was allowed to farm passive stacks that he cashed in in the mid game. His mid game burst of power carried OhReal's Ryze to the late game where SAJ could not hope to fight back against TPS.
The last three games qave OhReal, GoDJJ, Awei, and Winds all opportunities to shine, but the final game of the series was all about Zonda's Renekton. His early dominance in the 1v2 lane granted him unexpected kills, and he was able to roam and prop up his teammates as well as shove lanes. Archie's late game scaling Vayne kept SAJ competitive until a late game fight over red buff where TPS took the series.
