Devon H. April 2, 2019
Preceeding the LCS quarterfinals, Riot released footage of a showmatch displaying Team Cat’s ultimate victory over Team Dog as part of the developer's Cats vs. Dogs event.
Leading the Cat team were Apromeow on support and Sneaky Cat on ADC. Aphromeow appeared to be of the Chartreux breed, while Sneaky Cat was a large Bambino. Their types harbored lower power in the early game, but provided needed scaling to Team Cat.
On the side of the Dogs were WildTerrier and the LCS Pigeon along with the rest of the canine squad. Although not an actual dog, the LCS pigeon substituted for the absent Dachsund.
The LCS Pigeon made his debut at the previous year’s showmatch, playing for Team USA in the USA vs. Canada North American Civil War. Although team synergy was called into question, the LCS Pigeon’s mid lane prowess was not to be doubted, and neither was WildTerrier’s skill in the bottom lane.
The match started with Team Dog taking an early lead. WildTerrier and his support, Biofetch, secured early kills in the bot lane. This early gold allowed Team Dog to apply valuable pressure during the laning phase.
Entering the mid-game, Team Dog snowballed its early advantage to take Team Cat’s towers and boasted a 6,000 gold lead. But it was at this time that Team Cat’s assassins began to accrue enough gold to hit their power spikes. These threats allowed Team Cat to come back against Team Dog’s staggering gold difference and turtle until the late-game stage.
Despite having the early edge, Team Dog’s weaknesses began to show through as the game dragged on. Instead of going for objectives, players like Maltese Eos were caught out sniffing around the jungle. Team Cat capitalized on these missteps and coordinated several game-changing picks.
It was at 38 minutes, with a 48-42 kill score in favor of Team Dog, that Team Cat’s Feral Froggen scratched the last point of health off of Team Dog’s nexus to cement Team Cat as the 2019 April showmatch champions.