?stanbul Wildcats will look to continue their Cinderella story this Tuesday when they meet Dark Passage in the Turkish Championship League (TCL) 2020 Winter Season semi-finals.
After they finished TCL 2019 Summer in seventh place with a 7-11 record, not a lot of people expected Wildcats to make much noise this split. While Soner “StarScreen” Kaya and his crew struggled a bit in the opening five weeks, they gained some serious traction in Week 6, when they began their impressive 6-1 run en route to the playoffs.
Wildcats ended their TCL 2020 Winter run with consecutive wins over Papara SuperMassive, Galakticos, Be?ikta? Esports and 1907 Fenerbah?e to enter the knockout rounds as the fourth seed with a 9-7 record and 56% win rate. They carried that momentum into the playoffs, disposing of Galakticos 3-0 to reach the TCL semi-finals for the first time since rebranding from HWA Gaming.
StarScreen and co. met with Dark Passage twice throughout the regular season. Their first meeting came on the opening day of the split, where DP came away with a closely fought win. Wildcats got their revenge in Week 5, when they completely outclassed their adversaries with superior Drake control and overall stronger macro play.
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That was but one of many iffy displays Dark Passage showed throughout the season, yet they ended the split with an 11-5 record and a direct bye into the semi-finals. Dark Passage looked solid overall despite their losses against Wildcats, Papara SuperMassive (twice), Be?ikta? Esports and 1907 Fenerbah?e, although losing to Fenerbah?e is not really something to consider as a massive negative.
The standout performer for Dark Passage this season was their top laner Bar?? “Juuzou” Karatop, who ended the split with the league’s best KDA rating (4.55) and the fifth-best CSPM (8.00). The rest of team did nothing special, however, and there are big questions surrounding DP’s in-game communication since the arrival of Danish ADC Nicolaj “Achuu” Ellesgaard in March.
In three games played with Dark Passage, Achuu has recorded a 4.3 KDA with an average of six kills and 3.33 deaths. That is the third-highest average death count in the league, which indicates there are some communication issues with his support.
Additionally, Danish jungler Magnus “Maxi” Kristensen, who had played only five games with Dark Passage, saw his contract expire last week. Since the team have failed to update his status in the Global Contract Database, it seems like they will field Umut “Kituruken” Ceylan in the jungle for this match.
Dark Passage looked solid this season, but their final record does not show the whole picture. Most of their wins were extremely close, including their victory over ?stanbul Wildcats on the opening day of TCL 2020 Winter.
That is not to say Juuzou and co. don’t deserve to be where they are this season, but it’s hard to understand why they’re priced as such heavy favourites here. The biggest problem we have here is that they recently signed a new ADC and will most likely pick Kituruken, who was benched at the start of March.
There is simply no reason to have Dark Passage priced at $1.31 here. ?stanbul Wildcats are on a five-game winning streak and beat DP during the season, so this match will be much closer than the odds suggest.