“See Hero Kill Hero" Aggression Award: OMG LoveLin

This hallowed award dates back to when Gambit Gaming, then known as Moscow 5, first stormed the scene with their completely new aggressive style that disregarded all old rules about counterjungling and teamfighting and got right in the other team's face from minute 1. Though it was coined by Genja, who is a player in this tournament, there is nobody else it could have gone to for these group stages than OMG's star jungler LoveLin.



LoveLin has taken everything you think you know about aggressive carnivore junglers, pumped it full of steroids and strapped it to an exploding rocket headed for the sun - and that's before he gets snowballing. So far in OMG's 7-1 group stage domination he's shown a clear preference for extremely deadly duelists and dive heavy junglers like Aatrox and Lee Sin, along with one incredible highlight performance on Volibear against TSM. Let's take a look at his actions that game:

1. Start Dblade on Volibear because he is LoveLin.
2. Clear both buffs, gank top and kill Dyrus.
3. Ignore small camps (leaves all 3 up) to gank top again - getting another kill on Dyrus. (Buys Mobi boots)
4. Counter ganks mid, executes Reginald.
5.Rushes bot for a gank, makes an insane flash bite execute on Xpecial - gets down to almost 0 hp but survies, baiting WildTurtle to his death.
6. Ganks mid, blows Reginald's ult.
7. Ganks bot, doesn't get a kill but.....
8. Ganks bot AGAIN and executes Wildturtle.

This is all before 10 minutes in game and he's picked up multiple kills/plays for his team in every single lane.

With the quarterfinal opponent for OMG being Royal Club, who come from the same Chinese meta and have a lot of experience against LoveLin's play, it remains to be seen whether he can keep up his unrelenting pace going into the bracket stage, but he definitely put on a show for us so far.

Runner Up: SKT1 Faker



If one single play, not just for this tournament but pretty much for all time, could define the "see hero kill hero" award, its probably Faker's hilarious lvl 1 death vs LemonDogs. While there have been a ton of outstanding mid lane performances so far in the group stages (Cool, Alex Ich, Mancloud, xPeke, etc. have all had some great games), Faker has stood above the rest with his willingness to duel his opposing midlaner to the death. As the level of play rises, it becomes more and more difficult to solo kill someone 1v1 in the mid lane, but Faker has been able to consistently make that his mission.

Also, since killing everything in sight during World's group stages games wasn't enough - it turns out that he is also the infamous Barcode Killer and has been terrorizing the upper echelon's of NA solo queue for the past few weeks.

With their upcoming match against the Taiwanese Gama Bears being a bit of a question mark due to how little information about that team is available, we wont know until Tuesday whether Faker will be able to keep up his aggression against the safer style they showed in their regional qualifier. If he does, however, we can guarantee we will be seeing some kills.

P.S. Did I say that first play embodied the "see hero, kill hero" mentality? I was wrong. This one does.

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“I got the Reset (yes!)” Big Plays Award: Fnatic Wombocombo

Our biggest play from the Group Stage comes from Fnatic's second game against Vulcun. Looking to take revenge on the only team to beat them in group play, Fnatic came out of the gate hard and fast. Vulcun managed to grab first blood, but the team seemed to forget about xPeke's teleport and was punished for their over extension going one for three in the trade. From there, Vulcun just fell apart as Fnatic picked up kills and every lane and further extended their lead. The play itself came as Fnatic sieged Vulcun's tier 2 tower, and Vulcun blew all their cooldowns trying to kill xPeke.



Although xPeke went down, the rest of Fnatic was enough to clean up the fight. With a combination of Elastic Slingshot, Let's Bounce, and Stranglethorns, the members of Vulcun were juggled into the air three times (2.75 seconds of unmitigated CC), completely immobilizing them for most of the fight. The entire combo landed on four members of Vulcun and would have hit all five had Sycho Sid not used Sanguine Pool to escape. Vulcun set themselves up for failure by grouping up trying to kill xPeke, but Fnatic played the fight extremely well, including a nice wall Flash from YellOwStaR to set up a near perfect Stranglethorns. Fnatic's group stay play was truly impressive, and this single fight really embodies how strong they currently look.

Runner-up: SKT's 12 minute inhib + Faker Charms

Sometimes an impressive play can't be summed up in a single GIF, but is rather the culmination of several minutes of crisp execution. This happen in the final group stage match when SKT managed to take a 12 minute inhibitor off the undefeated OMG. Starting at the tier 1 mid tower and ending with the inhibitor, SKT simply outplayed OMG for a little over a minute straight. After catching Cool out of position, PoohManDu chose to burn Crescendo on the single target and deleted him with the help of Faker and Piglet. This set the entire series of events into motion. From there Faker just went off, hitting several max range Charms on members of OMG who thought they were safe. One key Charm was on the freshly respawned Cool who didn't contribute much of anything before dying a second time. In the entire engagement Faker was four for four on his Charms. The entire team reacted quickly to each Charm and blew up the members of OMG before they could even react. There was certainly some mispositioning on the part of OMG, but SKT fully capitalized on this, taking one of the earliest inhibitors in competitive League of Legends.

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“Garen in the Bush Surprise Performance Award: Fnatic YellOwStaR

TL's pick for the Best Surprise Performance in the Group Stages is Fnatic’s YellOwStaR. His incredible support play, especially on his comfort picks of Zyra and Leona, has turned him into one of the pillars of Fnatic's success in the 2013 World Championship. Some carries have had trouble getting fed during the Championships, but this bloodthirsty support sure knows how to. With Zyra, YellOwStaR won four out of five matches with a KDA of 8.4, while his Leona earned Fnatic four victories with an average KDA of 7.7. We haven’t seen Leona in the professional scene for a while, but YellOwStaR put her back on the map and made her look completely overpowered to boot. He has earned the highest KDA of any support player and the fifth highest KDA in the tournament, which, in case you've forgotten, contains Champion-farmers like Faker, Uzi, xPeke, Pray, and Piglet. YellOwStaR took command of bot lane throughout the Group Stages, charging forward fearlessly and engaging on his opponents even if he had to waste Flash to do so. One particularly genius moment was his Zyra Wall-Flash to land a five-man Stranglethorns and setup an amazing Fnatic Wombo Combo. On top of all this, YellOwStaR's final Group Stage match showed that he could even play top lane on a competitive level.

Of course, this is TL, so we have to keep up a certain standard (read: Korean bias). So let's just say that YellOwStaR played more like a Korean than the entire Ozone roster during the Group Stages. And speaking of Ozone...

Runner-Up: Samsung Galaxy Ozone Dade

Who said surprises had to be positive? After Samsung picked up the MVP Ozone squad, fans' expectations of the OGN Spring 2013 winner and Summer 2013 third-place finisher increased. Ozone let them down. In every match they showed a total lack in preparation for the foreign competition and training on the current patch. It was as if Ozone was a relic of the past, frozen in time, and woken up for Worlds to find its old style was not viable anymore. Even the team's Picks and Bans were questionable at best. Of the entire underperforming squad, Dade's apparent discomfort with the current metagame and overall shoddy performance stuck out most of all. He didn’t prepare new champions, such the favored assassins Ahri and Fizz, and made quite a lot questionable decisions which led to things like dying twice in 3 minutes against Fnatic. Long story short, Dade and Ozone put on a poor performance at Worlds, so much so that they literally shamed their Korean fans.

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Olympic Javelin Track and Field Award for Biggest Throw: Vulcun TechBargains' Botched Baron in Vulcun vs. Gambit

eSports truly hits its stride when teams are in do-or-die circumstances, so Vulcun vs. Gambit was fated to be an important game of the tournament. With both teams fighting to keep their quarterfinal hopes alive (albeit one had a far greater chance), expectations were high for the match. Despite the praise that the analyst desk gave Vulcun at various points throughout the tournament, it seemed obvious to most that Gambit, who looked far stronger throughout the group stages, would take an easy win. To pull out a victory in the match, Vulcun needed a significant early game "head start" that would push them through their comparatively weaker late game play. Gambit, not being a team that falters early, was unlikely to fall prey to Vulcun's early aggression.

Except then they did. Hard.

In the first 20 minutes of the game, Gambit hardly looked like a team that could escape the group stages at Worlds. Their early plays around their jungle camps and Dragon resulted in either stolen objectives or deaths and none of their ganks did more than get Vulcun members to low health. Vulcun, on the other hand, played their aggressive style to perfection, successfully and frequently ganking lanes. Their focus was on Alex Ich's Ahri, and by the time Alex found Gambit's first kill of the game he was already 1/3 and losing in farm. In fact, so was every other Gambit lane, and when you're being outfarmed by the famously CS-lite Zuna, you know something is going wrong. Vulcun came out on top in every engagement with ease, and by 19:00, Vulcun was up 10 kills to 2 with a 6K gold lead.

Then they made the the NA Throw Play: they went for an early Baron.



Even after a 2:0 teamfight, it was still too early and too dangerous for Vulcun to take on the legendary monster, but they did it anyways. Gambit saw this fatal mistake and pounced. Within 30 seconds, Alex and his remaining teammates racked up 4 kills while giving none, then took the Baron that Vulcun began. Now with only a 4 kill and 2K lead, Vulcun's massive early advantage was nearly depleted, taking with it their greatest hope of winning the match. Gambit truly secured a gold lead when they pushed through two middle turrets and three more kills in their first minute with Baron buff. From there on out, Vulcun lacked their former confidence and Gambit capitalized on the opening Vulcun provided. Alex Ich in particular excelled on his Ahri, reaching a K/D score of 13/3 by the end of the game. In the end, Vulcun could no longer hold off the Gambit onslaught and fell to Gambit's superior post-game-donation play.

Vulcun could hardly have asked for a better start in this important match, which, historically, is all they need for a win. Yet one terrible decision cost them their last shot at the quarterfinals. Such a huge throw with so much on the line makes Vulcun's Botched Baron against Gambit our choice for the Olympic Javelin Track and Field Award for Biggest Throw.

Honorable Mention: Dade's Ryze v. Ahri in Ozone vs. Gambit

An Honorable Mention for the throw award must be handed to the significantly underperforming Dade after the last game of the first day of the group stages. For reasons unknown to fans, casters, or critics, Dade was under the impression that the recently-nerfed Ryze remained a viable mid-laner in the "League of Ahri." Failing to grasp the magnitude of the nerfs or the challenge of his opposition or something (it's really hard to tell what he was thinking), Dade's Ryze went into battle against Vulcun and promptly donated first blood to the NA team. Perhaps the team's eventual victory on the backs of Imp and Looper sent the wrong message because Dade proceeded to pick Ryze again into Ahri again when the Nine-Tailed Fox was chosen by the far more formidable Alex Ich of Gambit. This time the Korean team could not recover from Dade's first blood donation and Gambit proceeded to stomp them into the ground, surprising all save the faithful fans. Fool Dade once, shame on you, but fool him twice and that's a throw; the highly lauded Korean mid-laner should've understood the metagame well enough to realize he was walking into an unfavorable matchup. Whether it was due to misinformation or sheer hubris, Dade's Champion selection in Ozone's second game started them on the path to 3rd place in the group, making their poor choice in Ryze an impressive throw.