On October 18 2018 00:43 DarkCore wrote: Well yeah, they did fuck up pretty badly, and I don't think they will make it out. But if there is one team that can beat KT at their best, it's iG. iG didn't end up 18-1 in summer season and 2nd place in the playoffs by chance.
I never said iG were better than KT, which is basically what your whole paragraph is about. I expect them to get dumped on, but there isn't another team in the world besides KT that can do it (in a series). RNG have been playing these guys for a whole year, and they can barely manage it. FNC might be able to, we saw it today, but they didn't look vastly superior. I don't know what to expect from AF this year.
A contender for me is someone who can make it to the finals: iG could absolutely make it to the finals, if they didn't end up against KT. SSG got bopped in their group last year and had to go through a hellish bracket too, then destroyed a flimsy SKT. If iG manage to beat KT, they could do exactly the same thing.
I mean, I don't think they're terrible, i just think they're overhyped a lot. I rated them at like 5th at worlds this year, which I guess is pretty good? Of course, that was before Gen.G boom, and Fnatic and G2 honestly have impressed me a lot. I don't think they have a chance against KT though. Afreeca...eh. They might've been the best matchup for IG. I feel as though RNG has just got a mental edge over IG and obviously they can't play Fnatic. Today, IG showed the faults that they've had since the start of the year and Fnatic gave teams the roadmap to beating IG. That roadmap also is like a perfect match for the way KT play.
I'm looking forward to Fnatic - EDG, reminding me a little of their match in 2015 (because Fnatic was hyped a lot as well back then).
AFS - C9 should be in the favor of AFS, but with AFS (and Korea in general for that matter) not performing consistently, this might become interesting.
RNG - G2 should be easily won by RNG.
IG - KT is hard to call. I had only seen one game of IG before worlds (a loss), so kind of went with Darkcore's hype. They've dissappointed somewhat, but I can definitely see their top being very high. From what I've seen the botlane and jungle will probably be the largest differences in favour of KT. Plus I'm Mata fanboy. KT will win if they don't give up Urgot, Akali and Kaisa in the same game.
Ok. Finally got to watch IG vs FNC at lunch (games were too late to watch before work this morning). Wow Jackylove really was feeding it looked like a solo queue game. Mid and top beat their opponents, bot lane feeds the support and jungle and then a fed support and jungle wander into your lane and make your lead irrelevant.
IG needs to bring back AP bot lane and just put Jackylove on Malzahar duty. Make him watch some old Crown VODs. Or less outside of the box / more seriously, put him on siver or some other waveclear champ and just tell him he’d Not Allowed to walk out of tower range.
Edit: tiebreaker will need to wait for later tonight. But I think the duke sub doesn’t really address why they lost the prior game.
FNC/EDG will be decided by jungle. Mechanically the lanes are pretty well matched, maybe toplane will lose but you can generally get around that through pick/ban. Broxah is a better jungler than either Haro or Clearlove, so unless EDG overperforms I'd say FNC are favored.
Afreeca over C9 just because I don't expect C9 to win champ select every time, and even if they outpick Afreeca every game I still don't know if that's enough to overcome the talent disparity in multiple lanes.
RNG should beat G2, the only scenario where they lose is if they get horrific pick/bans every game AND Karsa tilts AND MLXG then feeds when subbed in for Karsa. Which is probably more likely than you'd think considering they dropped 2 straight games in groups to essentially inferior teams and then barely won the tiebreaker after getting outpicked.
KT stomps IG unless Score misses every smite and Deft starts TPing to wards in teamfights.
IG needs to bring back AP bot lane and just put Jackylove on Malzahar duty.
This will never happen, it's the equivalent of trying to make Uzi play like a support. CN ADC have too much pride, the role is highly prized. I hope they sit down with him and go through his mistakes that game, but this is something he's known for. The thing about Jacky is that when he gets ahead, he's a monster carry because he's not afraid to go deep, kind of like iBoy but a different playstyle, but he also plays that way when he really shouldn't, and gets called brainless.
AF == C9: Games may be close, unless AF suddenly shows up and plays like a real KR team again.
FNC > EDG: I expect FNC to win, but the EDG roulette is always dangerous, and I can see Scout getting big leads in lane while iBoy does his best to not feed.
RNG >> G2: No real discussion, if G2 win there will be riots in China. Besides, the next series is arguably even harder.
KT > iG: I expect KT to win smoothly if iG plays like today, but I still stand to my opinion that when they play solid, they will scare KT pretty badly. Agree with above, it's all about whether Jacky can keep himself together, and Ning can keep Score contained somewhat. Rookie and Duke/TheShy can handily match their lane opponents, could even beat them.
2 days before we watch probably the most important games of the quarter finals, most likely a champion is lurking somewhere in there and those will be the games to show it.
I was certain Caps secured the Dade award by getting outfarmed so hard by Rookie in mulitple games in a row but then he got some kills on Akali and no longer looked like a total disappointment. Who should get the award? Ruler or Cuvee?
My predictions. Didn't think them through but I think the match ups other than Afreeca vs C9 are quite easy to call.
Got all of the round of 8 match ups I was hoping for. Really upset Fnatic and C9 are on the same side of the bracket though, I don't feel like listening to people bitch about how Fnatic got to the finals "the easy way".
Overall I just think that group stage is completely different than bracket play. The group stage is bo1s where anything can happen and its hard to do your best as a team in those conditions.
Afreeca > C9, this one isn't hard in my opinion because C9 were bad in NA and their individual skills are not very impressive. Group stage is a completely different beast than a bo5.
RNG > G2, shouldn't require any explanation.
KT > IG but could be 3 - 2 if KT loo past their opponents.. I think KT, IG, and RNG are the best teams in the tournament still. I say don't overreact to IG losing to Fnatic - in both games IG outplayed Fnatic for half or more of the game.
EDG > FNC, I think that the bot lane difference is too big in this match. I also don't think that Caps is better than Scout. Maybe they are even or maybe Scout is better. Could be 3-2 though. The problem is that iBoy/Meiko are old school Korean levels of good (even though they are CN). Those kind of elite ungodly players are rare these days after so many fell off. Rookie, Mata, Deft, Score, Uzi, Smeb, Meiko, iBoy... I don't think I'm even missing anybody from this list that's at this tournament. I mean Mata is off and on but when he's on he's a god.
Now that I look at it; it's really unfortunate for fnatic that they didn't draw a western team - bad luck. On the other side, if they are good enough to beat EDG then they are probably good enough to beat Afreeca. Other two westerns obviously have no hope.
Outside of the early part of the season when they were doing a lot of plug and play with their 7 man roster they were tearing the league up outside of their playoff series against TSM and even that went to 5 games, also quickly avenged in the gauntlet.
at least 1 korean team will make the finals and RNG will be the one at the finals if they knock out KT on the way. korean teams seem to get better the longer a tournament goes. I think they are much better when meta stabilizes
On October 18 2018 08:23 Gahlo wrote: C9 was bad in NA?
Outside of the early part of the season when they were doing a lot of plug and play with their 7 man roster they were tearing the league up outside of their playoff series against TSM and even that went to 5 games, also quickly avenged in the gauntlet.
Also C9 is the only NA team consistently getting out of groups. What is it 5 out of 6 yrs? You also have to figure Group B was supposed to be monstrous. I get that Gen G. shat the bed, but still they are a championship caliber team, RNG are beasts and Vit even stepped up. I can't see them as bad save for the beginning like Gahlo said.
On October 18 2018 08:23 Gahlo wrote: C9 was bad in NA?
Outside of the early part of the season when they were doing a lot of plug and play with their 7 man roster they were tearing the league up outside of their playoff series against TSM and even that went to 5 games, also quickly avenged in the gauntlet.
Also C9 is the only NA team consistently getting out of groups. What is it 5 out of 6 yrs? You also have to figure Group B was supposed to be monstrous. I get that Gen G. shat the bed, but still they are a championship caliber team, RNG are beasts and Vit even stepped up. I can't see them as bad save for the beginning like Gahlo said.
This may be unscientific and not based in a precise metrics. But watching the games, it felt like EDG was winning by just being better than their opponents, but sometimes they made boneheaded plays. Watching C9 games, it didnt feel like they were better, but it felt like they were going for a lot of smart creative plays that could potentially pay off, and enough of them did that C9 got the win. Ie they won by making good plays rather than by being good. I’m not 100% sure that’s a real distinction, that’s how it looked to me.
These quarters look pretty dope, I can see a lot of them being close games. My conservative predictions would be
C9 >= Afreeca The Reapered factor is huge and I dont think Afreeca's players are that much better.
RNG > G2 Ban Heimerdinger and it's going to be a 3-0, the class difference in botlane is simply too big. Outside a massive Wunder and/or Perkz pop off I cant see G2 take a game.
KT >= iG KT are favorites but never count iG out. Never.
FNC >= EDG It's going to be 3-2 either way EDG is going to throw a huge lead at least once due to iBoy going too crazy, mark my words. Caps.dad.son will hard carry another one of the games.
at least 1 korean team will make the finals and RNG will be the one at the finals if they knock out KT on the way.
I expect KT to make it out of the tough half bracket, while AF falls to someone.
EDG was winning by just being better than their opponents
That is the thing about EDG: they have a talented roster and they have good coaching. In any other region, they could be the top team, besides KR. They actually have a similar vibe to VIT, in that they play reckless but are good enough to make it work (most of the time). But CN is a bottomless pool of talent, if Uzi is one in a million then we're talking about like 1500 people in China that could be as good as him, if 1% of those become pros that's three teams worth of Uzis. RNG and iG happen to be more talented overall. A lot of people don't take EDG serious atm, despite a history of performing pretty well. They were able to take a game off KT, and even if KT played poorly, most teams aren't able to do that.
On October 18 2018 20:25 General_Winter wrote: This may be unscientific and not based in a precise metrics. But watching the games, it felt like EDG was winning by just being better than their opponents, but sometimes they made boneheaded plays. Watching C9 games, it didnt feel like they were better, but it felt like they were going for a lot of smart creative plays that could potentially pay off, and enough of them did that C9 got the win. Ie they won by making good plays rather than by being good. I’m not 100% sure that’s a real distinction, that’s how it looked to me.
I get the same impression basically. When I watch EDG or IG compared to a team like FNC or C9 it's pretty clear to me that all of the LPL laners are better mechanically (outside of maybe Ray), and if they played isolated 1v1 or 2v2 lanes they would win outright. The problem is it's no longer season 3 where a Chinese team could straight up destroy western teams so hard in lane that nothing else matters (i.e. OMG literally trollpicking against Lemondogs in worlds groups and still winning easily). So then the bulk of the game comes down to how the jungler can cover for their autopushing lanes, and since jungle is the role where raw mechanics matters the least you can end up losing the game off of ganks. It doesn't matter if you're up 15 cs at 8 minutes botlane if you then get double killed in a jungle gank and lose first tower, and then all your other lanes get roamed on and destroyed as well.
Then on top of that a jungler like Broxah is clearly better than Clearlove/Haro and Ning, so you end up in super coinflippy games where either LPL lanes win and the jungler can cover with a decent countergank or two and they just snowball, or the Western team gets a couple good ganks and first tower and then the LPL teams just slowly lose since they drafted without consideration for waveclear or teamfighting.
EPT
