This Round of the LJL gave us more full sets of the BO3 format which all tell more interesting stories than last week, proving team dominance more than anything else. To top off on that, Shen is seen more this week in the top lane position almost as a farewell to the old Shen, in preparation for the rework.

Set 1: DetonatioN FM vs Unsold Stuff Gaming 2-1

In previous weeks of the LJL, DetonatioN continued to prove that they were the reigning shoguns of Japan and cleanly decimated all challengers to the throne. In Round 3 of the LJL came an interesting clash of forces. Unsold Gaming with former 7th Heaven’s CLOCKDAY and Enty, and Rascal Jester’s old toplaner apMEN along with rookies Haretti and Itsurugi, now take to the rift for their turn at challenging DFM.

Thankfully for us spectators cheering for blood, unlike the last two weeks, we got to see more than just some one-sided bloodshed. While DFM still won the set 2-1, it is their first individual loss of the season; however, it wasn’t handed over without lots of bloodshed, as DFM were nearly carried back into the game on Zerost's back. apaMEN brought out a solid Nautilus Top, which wasn’t the first of the 2016 season, but it’s still an uncommon pick nonetheless.

Even after a hardfought victory for USG, DetonatioN refused to crumble and won dominantly in game two. They'd won even harder in game three. DetonatioN FM isn’t some sort of snowball team that can’t be stopped, they’re sentinels. These three weeks so far have proven that. We’re all still looking for the crack in their armors to be fully exposed, but until then, praise should be given to former SBENU’s jungler, Catch, as he definitely had some shining moments in this series. His value as a player will be tested thus far as he had a shaky career in Korea, but is a big fish in the smaller Japanese koi pond for now.

Set 2: Rampage vs Blackeye 2-0

Once again, it’s hard to comment on the nature of Blackeye games given their general inexperience to competitive play (and in a wildcard region no less!) Rampage, against the stronger teams, always looked sort of shaky in the early game, but in the games against Blackeye, they just weren't up to speed. They haven’t learned much since the first week and Rampage just completly rolled over them in both games. Unfortunately, there's not much to write on for this set.   We can only hope that Blackeye learns macro play, which would open the doors for their promising scrapping play philosophy to shine.

Set 3: Rascal Jester vs 7th Heaven 2-1

On paper, this is the set of the week that have the two most evenly matched teams; the series doesn’t disappoint. Depending on how future matchups between the two play out, this could be a really exciting rivalry to watch in the LJL. While everyone’s looking to knock DFM down a few notches, RJ and 7h have had the closest set all split.

All three games were low kill but high resource oriented -- but it wasn’t as though both teams took no risks, they just prevented the sin of overcommitment. After a few catches or kills, they look to take objectives. They looked like major region teams in theory, even if their map movements weren’t as polished. Make no mistake -- that doesn’t mean they would go toe-to-toe with teams from major regions, but they’re on the right track.

It’s also interesting to note that from draft picks across teams, everyone’s been paying attention to all the major regions bringing together the common and the uncommon. Graves, Lucian, Poppy, Rek’sai and Corki all stay prominent within the games while picking out champs like Lux who’s seen a lot more play this year, on top of an almost game-winning Bard play from RJ’s Corn.

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