The Unicorns of Love swept the Mysterious Monkeys 2-0 on Friday in Berlin, despite a surprisingly close Game 2 to close out Week 2, Day 2 of the European League Championship Series.
The draft phase for Mysterious Monkeys was a teamfighting/pick hybrid composition, underlined by top laner Park "Jisu" Jin-cheol locking Jayce and mid laner Sofyan "CozQ" Rechchad taking Orianna onto the Rift. Unicorns of Love had a similar strategy, but brought out a surprise Blitzcrank pick on support Zdravets "Hylissang" Iliev Galabov. UoL got off to a hot start by punishing an overextension from Monkeys in the top lane. An angered Jisu looked to get revenge, teleporting back to lane and instantly started fighting Unicorns top laner Kiss "Vizicsacsi" Tamás's Shen. This didn't work out very well, leading to another death for Jisu and easy top side control for the Unicorns. Finding kill after kill, UoL quickly took hold of the game from there. Monkeys did take down Rift Herald and found a pair of kills in an attempt to comeback, but the Unicorns were simply too strong to consistently overcome. Led by AD carry Samuel "Samux" Fernández Fort's Twitch, UoL wiped out Mysterious Monkeys in a mid lane teamfight to effortlessly move into the Monkey's base, earning 1-0 series lead.
Game 2 saw the Monkeys mid laner CozQ locking in his signature Katarina, while Unicorns jungler Andrei "Xerxe" Dragomir locked in Warwick as setup for a strong teamfighting combo with Vizicsacsi's Galio. Jisu looked to continue his aggressive playstyle, this time on Jarvan IV, but this time it paid off with him earning first blood. This initiated a slugfest between the two teams, as they spent the entire early and mid game trading kills and objectives. The Unicorns looked like it broke away from the stalemate after slaying Baron at the 29-minute mark, but the Monkeys were able to win a 2-for-5 teamfight, all but eliminating the Baron buff. Another five minutes of trading kills was cut short by the Monkeys rushing Baron, but a clean teamfight victory by the Unicorns allowed it take down an inhibitor and Nexus turret. The teams then moved the action to the newly-spawned Elder Dragon, but a fantastic surprise flank by UoL's Xerxe directly led to a 5-for-1 teamfight victory, allowing the Unicorns to complete the sweep.
The Mysterious Monkeys will look to find its first win against Splyce on Sunday at noon ET, while Unicorns of Love will aim to keep its undefeated streak on the same day against H2k at 3 p.m ET.