Play-In Round 1 - October 1st - 4th -Twelve teams are divided into four groups where they play a Double Round Robin format. -All matches are played in a Bo1. -Top two teams in each group advance to Play-In: Round 2. -Bottom team in each group is eliminated. Play-In Round 2 - October 6th - 7th -First-place teams from each group are randomly paired with second-place teams from another group for a Bo5. -The winner of each match advances to the Group Stage. Group Stage - October 10th - 21st -Four teams from Play-In Stage 2 join twelve teams with direct entry from Korea, China, Europe, Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau, North America and Vietnam. -All sixteen teams are divided into four groups where they play a Double Round Robin format. -All matches are played in a Bo1. -Top two teams in each group advance to Knockout Stage. Bottom two teams in each group are eliminated. Knockout Stage - October 20th - 21st in Busan, October 27th - 28th in Gwangju and November 3rd in Incheon -Eight teams play in a single elimination bracket over five matchdays. -All matches are Bo5.
Hot take: This Fnatic roster is the best roster the west has sent to worlds since the Huni/RO Fnatic, and unless they get royally dicked on by a group of death drawing should put on a banger of a performance.
Speaking of group draw, what's the most group of death group you guys think exists? My choices are KT/iG/TL/G2, or RNG/TL/GenG(or Afreeca)/G2, or Fnatic/GenG(or Afreeca for that matter)/iG/C9
EDIT: Easiest group would definitely be FW/100T/PhongVu/WildCard or a Fnatic/PhongVu/MAD/WildCard
On September 23 2018 12:38 chipmonklord17 wrote: Hot take: This Fnatic roster is the best roster the west has sent to worlds since the Huni/RO Fnatic, and unless they get royally dicked on by a group of death drawing should put on a banger of a performance.
Speaking of group draw, what's the most group of death group you guys think exists? My choices are KT/iG/TL/G2, or RNG/TL/GenG(or Afreeca)/G2, or Fnatic/GenG(or Afreeca for that matter)/iG/C9
EDIT: Easiest group would definitely be FW/100T/PhongVu/WildCard or a Fnatic/PhongVu/MAD/WildCard
KT and TL can't be in the same group. Probably something like KT/iG/G2/C9
On September 23 2018 12:38 chipmonklord17 wrote: Hot take: This Fnatic roster is the best roster the west has sent to worlds since the Huni/RO Fnatic, and unless they get royally dicked on by a group of death drawing should put on a banger of a performance.
Speaking of group draw, what's the most group of death group you guys think exists? My choices are KT/iG/TL/G2, or RNG/TL/GenG(or Afreeca)/G2, or Fnatic/GenG(or Afreeca for that matter)/iG/C9
EDIT: Easiest group would definitely be FW/100T/PhongVu/WildCard or a Fnatic/PhongVu/MAD/WildCard
KT and TL can't be in the same group. Probably something like KT/iG/G2/C9
On September 23 2018 12:38 chipmonklord17 wrote: Hot take: This Fnatic roster is the best roster the west has sent to worlds since the Huni/RO Fnatic, and unless they get royally dicked on by a group of death drawing should put on a banger of a performance.
Speaking of group draw, what's the most group of death group you guys think exists? My choices are KT/iG/TL/G2, or RNG/TL/GenG(or Afreeca)/G2, or Fnatic/GenG(or Afreeca for that matter)/iG/C9
EDIT: Easiest group would definitely be FW/100T/PhongVu/WildCard or a Fnatic/PhongVu/MAD/WildCard
KT and TL can't be in the same group. Probably something like KT/iG/G2/C9
Why can't they? Aren't KT tier 1 and TL tier 2, and from separate regions, also G2 and C9 can't be in the same group.
Wait it IS One tier 1, Two tier 2, and one Tier 3 per group with no team playing a team from their own region right?
On September 23 2018 12:38 chipmonklord17 wrote: Hot take: This Fnatic roster is the best roster the west has sent to worlds since the Huni/RO Fnatic, and unless they get royally dicked on by a group of death drawing should put on a banger of a performance.
Speaking of group draw, what's the most group of death group you guys think exists? My choices are KT/iG/TL/G2, or RNG/TL/GenG(or Afreeca)/G2, or Fnatic/GenG(or Afreeca for that matter)/iG/C9
EDIT: Easiest group would definitely be FW/100T/PhongVu/WildCard or a Fnatic/PhongVu/MAD/WildCard
KT and TL can't be in the same group. Probably something like KT/iG/G2/C9
Why can't they? Aren't KT tier 1 and TL tier 2, and from separate regions, also G2 and C9 can't be in the same group.
Wait it IS One tier 1, Two tier 2, and one Tier 3 per group with no team playing a team from their own region right?
Oh right, forgot NA Seed 1 is tier 2 now. So yeah I guess that'd be the worst.
On September 23 2018 12:38 chipmonklord17 wrote: Hot take: This Fnatic roster is the best roster the west has sent to worlds since the Huni/RO Fnatic, and unless they get royally dicked on by a group of death drawing should put on a banger of a performance.
Speaking of group draw, what's the most group of death group you guys think exists? My choices are KT/iG/TL/G2, or RNG/TL/GenG(or Afreeca)/G2, or Fnatic/GenG(or Afreeca for that matter)/iG/C9
EDIT: Easiest group would definitely be FW/100T/PhongVu/WildCard or a Fnatic/PhongVu/MAD/WildCard
KT and TL can't be in the same group. Probably something like KT/iG/G2/C9
Why can't they? Aren't KT tier 1 and TL tier 2, and from separate regions, also G2 and C9 can't be in the same group.
Wait it IS One tier 1, Two tier 2, and one Tier 3 per group with no team playing a team from their own region right?
Oh right, forgot NA Seed 1 is tier 2 now. So yeah I guess that'd be the worst.
I probably don't recognise a third of these logos, or close to half including the play-ins... Fnatic got a free group. FW could have gotten worse. RIP VItality.
On September 23 2018 22:49 Alaric wrote: I probably don't recognise a third of these logos, or close to half including the play-ins... Fnatic got a free group. FW could have gotten worse. RIP VItality.
Updated it to not use Riot's trash visuals that wash out the entirety of the logos and make you have to squint to see them.
Oh I didn't meant it against you, it's partly that I've followed LoL a lot less in the last year and a half so aside from Gen G. and Hanwha there aren't many of the new teams (and none of the Chinese ones aside from RNG and iG) whose logos I simply know to begin with.
On September 24 2018 00:36 Alaric wrote: Oh I didn't meant it against you, it's partly that I've followed LoL a lot less in the last year and a half so aside from Gen G. and Hanwha there aren't many of the new teams (and none of the Chinese ones aside from RNG and iG) whose logos I simply know to begin with.
A lot of them are hard for even me to make out because of the way riot washes out the details and all the colours of the logos haha. This is just an easier image for everyone.
On September 24 2018 00:36 Alaric wrote: Oh I didn't meant it against you, it's partly that I've followed LoL a lot less in the last year and a half so aside from Gen G. and Hanwha there aren't many of the new teams (and none of the Chinese ones aside from RNG and iG) whose logos I simply know to begin with.
Thanks! <3 So MAD is the SEA winner team.
No, MAD is the LMS second seed. Asension is the SEA winner if I remember correctly.
Vitality is super fucked. TL probably is too if EDG gets dropped in their group after play ins. Group D is going to be by far the easiest group as G2, C9, and EDG can't go into it from play ins, should be a really easy Fnatic/iG group.
Also I get that world's is in Korea, but who's bright idea was it to make groups start at 4AM EST?
I'd love to ban bet anti-china against darkcore again, but I'm not too confident in the other regions this time. The only way I see a Chinese team drop out in groups is EDG getting into group A and AFS and Flash Wolves playing really really well against them.
This is the first worlds I'm not convinced a Korean team will win.
I'm not even convinced the Korean teams are all going to be first in their groups. Gen.G probably won't be, Afreeca could get Flash Wolves'ed on too. KT SHOULD but I can see a world (assuming EDG gets in their group) where EDG goes 5-1, KT goes 4-2 , TL goes 3-3, and MAD goes 0-6, and EDG goes out first just as easily as KT going 5-1 and EDG 4-2
To be fair EDG didn’t send the same roster to worlds that they played with during the season. They started Scout every game in the season and were completely undefeated, then played Pawn at Worlds. Also their top laner had his dad get sick couldn’t go to worlds and they had to get a last minute sub. So they went to worlds without either of their solo lanes.
I'm a fan of EDG, but my bet on KT. Both teams rely heavily on laning well, but KT are more than just that these days. I'm very interested to see the likes of iBoy vs Deft and Ucal vs Scout, hoping we see some serious blood baths, because that's the only way EDG will win.
This is the first worlds I'm not convinced a Korean team will win.
I think the big thing this worlds is that LPL has two seriously good teams coming in, feels way more stacked than the other years. iG is one of the most talented teams to ever be assembled, and RNG is made of the best vets still around.
If Gen.G wins Worlds somehow, I want to be banned for a month. I want Score and Deft to sweep, this is the year of KT.
I've admittedly seen very little Chinese lol, and can't say anything about RNG and IG as I haven't watched anything of them. The lack of confidence comes from the lack of 'superteams' from Korea, where in 2015 these were present, mainly ginyu force aka ge tigers and skt (in summer).
I was trying to make a reasonable case for EDG being bad, but I saw only one game, so that's pretty hard. (antifan here). Maybe I'll make a banbet proposal for Darkcore to accept once I've seen IG play
Okay, it's a little hard to vote on which group is the group of life/which is group of death since each group is missing a team, so let's do a little discussion on which 3rd seed from EU/CN/LMS/NA will NOT make it out of play-ins...
My vote: EDG. Meiko carried this team kicking and screaming to worlds. If he has a bad day, I could see them faltering.
On September 25 2018 11:02 AdsMoFro wrote: Okay, it's a little hard to vote on which group is the group of life/which is group of death since each group is missing a team, so let's do a little discussion on which 3rd seed from EU/CN/LMS/NA will NOT make it out of play-ins...
My vote: EDG. Meiko carried this team kicking and screaming to worlds. If he has a bad day, I could see them faltering.
i think edg's players are just a cut above their opponents and will just advance based off of that
On September 25 2018 11:02 AdsMoFro wrote: Okay, it's a little hard to vote on which group is the group of life/which is group of death since each group is missing a team, so let's do a little discussion on which 3rd seed from EU/CN/LMS/NA will NOT make it out of play-ins...
My vote: EDG. Meiko carried this team kicking and screaming to worlds. If he has a bad day, I could see them faltering.
i think edg's players are just a cut above their opponents and will just advance based off of that
I think it's extremely likely that's the case, but out of the 3rd seeds they give me the least hope (or the most hope, depending on your perspective, I guess). I mean this would be way different if Vitality and 100T the actual 3rd seeds of EU/NA were there but yeah...
On September 25 2018 11:02 AdsMoFro wrote: Okay, it's a little hard to vote on which group is the group of life/which is group of death since each group is missing a team, so let's do a little discussion on which 3rd seed from EU/CN/LMS/NA will NOT make it out of play-ins...
My vote: EDG. Meiko carried this team kicking and screaming to worlds. If he has a bad day, I could see them faltering.
i think edg's players are just a cut above their opponents and will just advance based off of that
I think it's extremely likely that's the case, but out of the 3rd seeds they give me the least hope (or the most hope, depending on your perspective, I guess). I mean this would be way different if Vitality and 100T the actual 3rd seeds of EU/NA were there but yeah...
i also don't think C9 is very good and almost assuredly worse than edg
Wait, did we all just accept that G-Rex is so bad its not worth talking about them when talking about bad 3rd seeds? EDG/C9/G2 are going to dumpster their groups, I'm not even confident G-Rex will make it out of play-in groups
EDG will either end up first in their group or go down in a fiery blaze. I do agree, their team talent is above average, and they absolutely dumpster teams who can't keep up with their mechanics and aggressive plays. Scout is probably going to solo kill lane opponents a few times, even top talent. But that's not always enough, especially if iBoy feeds in lane because he overreaches trying to win lane way too hard.
I don't know anything about G-Rex, I probably won't bother watching any of their games unless it's major upsets.
On September 25 2018 00:31 Sent. wrote: All this Chinese hype makes it feel like we're in 2015 again. EDG won MSI and "everyone" expected Chyna to be on the same level as Korea. And then this happened: https://liquipedia.net/leagueoflegends/World_Championship/2015.
Loss I would say is on blaber. Dying at bad times just cost turrets too early, and then a very squishy comp that falls behind doesn't have many ways to catch up.
Edit: nvm c9 can still win fights if they spend everything on licorice who has 3 invulnerable skills.
On October 01 2018 21:52 Ansibled wrote: I don't know what to think.
C9 has good lategame but their early/midgame is kinda weak.
C9 didn't really do well late game either.
I think that's a byproduct of their early/midgame being so bad(was mediocre even against kabum). Coming back from multiple barons and 2 inhibs down isn't easy.
Really it was a couple great fights and greed from DFM that got them the win.
Actually thinking about it, definitely more questionable moments even later on like elder. Really just won it off the sick teamfight liss engage at the very end.
On October 02 2018 21:14 General_Winter wrote: Any games I should watch this morning? Or should I just keep chilling till the main event?
EDG vs Infinity was a good example of what a top tier team looks against a minor region. I suppose you could also watch the G2 games if you want to feel sad.
I don't recommend G2 vs Supermassive. Almost no action early, Turks didn't want to contest anything because they thought they had a superior comp and they were right, G2 looked like they have no idea how to win teamfights later in the game.
On October 03 2018 05:01 Sent. wrote: I don't recommend G2 vs Supermassive. Almost no action early, Turks didn't want to contest anything because they thought they had a superior comp and they were right, G2 looked like they have no idea how to win teamfights later in the game.
On October 03 2018 23:59 Sent. wrote: After Gambit's first game I thought Kira had a really bad game, now I think Gambit has a really bad mid laner.
Kira's champion pool issues just aren't abused enough in LCL because teams have to target other players. He doesn't get away with that shit when his teammates aren't head and shoulders above other teams. Team weak links don't get abused as easily in wildcard regions because of this, but when they get on the world stage it does tend to happen.
That minute 15 fight between EDG and INF was insanely well played by EDG, don't think they can get away with it vs good teams but this is the kind of play I love seeing from LPL.
EDG is such a confusing team. If they make it to the main event, I expect them to take a game off the finalists, but not out of groups because they lost to a minor region.
On October 04 2018 20:46 DarkCore wrote: EDG is such a confusing team. If they make it to the main event, I expect them to take a game off the finalists, but not out of groups because they lost to a minor region.
On October 05 2018 00:47 DarkCore wrote: EDG played exactly how I expected them to in the last game. G2 was a pleasant surprise, I guess EU really will be bringing 3 good teams this year.
4 becuz Supermassive will advance too!!! Jk dinosaurs will eat them.
Admittedly I'm biased having watched most of SUP games and very few of G-Rex's matches, but I think SUP played G2 extremely close, where as G-Rex hasn't played a team nearly to SUP caliber yet at worlds. In LMS G-Rex could barely stand up to the top of the pack during the regular season, and that doesn't instill confidence outside of best of 1s. I think SUP international experience across the team will carry them over G-Rex.
Also I don't believe in anyone not named FW from LMS
G-Rex probably cruises through Supermassive honestly. They might fare much worse come actual Group Stages, but I don't imagine G-Rex to lose here in Play-Ins.
Though Supermassive may take 1 game just from Zeitnot going off.
On October 06 2018 04:14 Apex wrote: G-Rex probably cruises through Supermassive honestly. They might fare much worse come actual Group Stages, but I don't imagine G-Rex to lose here in Play-Ins.
Though Supermassive may take 1 game just from Zeitnot going off.
Based on what exactly? I just looked and HKA and G-Rex both placed 5th in their respective summer splits before world's, HKA even doing slightly better, yet HKA lost in play in play offs. What has you so confident in G-Rex?
G-Rex played arguably the worst team in play in in KLG and Gambit isn't exactly a stunning example of quality
On October 06 2018 13:06 Gahlo wrote: That is quite the limb to go out on.
yeah i guess i just don't think C9 is very good, and so far taking one game for Gambit aint half bad. I don't think Gambit is a good team but then neither is C9 imo
GMB looked decent at times, but C9 should've been able to straight up outplay them with macro. Bringing scrappy fights and reckless all-ins to the likes of Edward and Diamond, who have been playing like that since before half the players in this match even played the game, is straight up stupid.
C9 looks weaker than the recent G2 performance imo, we'll see if it holds tomorrow.
On October 06 2018 14:11 chipmonklord17 wrote: Can someone explain to me why Urgot ult is stopped by Sion ult AND Tryn ult, but not Kindred ult?
same reason why gragas and ali are picked into kindred, champions can be pulled/knocked out of the ult area
Speaking of which, how does the Urgot / Olaf interaction work? Does Olaf just break through Urgot's suppression with Ragnarok?
Yes. Olaf, Alistar and Gangplank can all cleanse it away.
Wait GP and Alistar can cleanse it away too? Olaf seems like another case of Trynd and Sion but Ali and GP just seems silly
It's effectively just a suppresion, you can use QSS against it too for instance. I wonder how it works if he try to use it on a champ trapped inside a Camille ultimate.
Weird, either way, also congratulations to C9 and Gambit for the last series they'll both play at Worlds (assuming C9 is in group B).
EDIT: After watching the entire series, Licorice, Sneaky, and Zeyzal look really really good while Jensen has looked surprisingly weak compared to his usual self.
On October 07 2018 14:46 chipmonklord17 wrote: Honestly that draft was hot garbage from Infinity anyway, but Wunder proved why he's EU's best for sure
where is everyone tonight? lol, no passion
idk, and this is the far more interesting night on paper too. EDG was always going to blow DFM out of the water, and C9 should have also spanked gambit. G2 and GRex are totally beatable by comparison
I've said it all year but if G2 had kept Zven/Mithy the probably would have been the best team in the west by far. Wunder/Jankos/Perkz/Zven/Mithy would be so fucking sick. Instead we got Hjarnan
This game hurts for INF, they really had it after baron but took a "possible 5 man with baron" over "guarantee your carries have it" and came up short.
On October 07 2018 15:45 starkiller123 wrote: G2's botlane also played pretty well this game
I think Wadid has, where as Kai'sa has just been broken enough that Hjarnan looks alright, he hasn't really done anything
I love love love love this Taric pick, you know Hjarnan and Wadid are incapable of massively punishing you early game and Taric will just let their team fight be insane
On October 07 2018 15:45 starkiller123 wrote: G2's botlane also played pretty well this game
I think Wadid has, where as Kai'sa has just been broken enough that Hjarnan looks alright, he hasn't really done anything
I love love love love this Taric pick
honestly i can't believe how often Kai'sa is left up, it just seems so incredibly good. Yeah idk about this draft, anyone know how the Ryze Urgot matchup? I don't hate G2's draft as it dosent seem they can out teamfight Infinity so might as well go hard early game and try to 1-3-1, kinda disagree with Vedius shitting on G2's draft
Honestly that Heimer ban should have been Kai'sa after game 1, and INF should have taken Urgot instead of Aatrox in the draft as well. If INF lose here, or a game 5 they should be kicking themselves for giving away a series they should have had
On October 07 2018 15:58 chipmonklord17 wrote: Honestly that Heimer ban should have been Kai'sa after game 1, and INF should have taken Urgot instead of Aatrox in the draft as well. If INF lose here, or a game 5 they should be kicking themselves for giving away a series they should have had
god Kai'sa is such a dumb champion right now, they really should've nerfed it into the ground
Man, and I seriously thought that these 3rd seeds for NA and EU were better than their 2nd seed counterparts. How are the 2nd seeds going to go then...
On October 07 2018 18:30 Jek wrote: Kai'sa is so broken in lategame... She's like Juggermaw except she dont need the double supports to do it.
Yeah, I think the lategame scaling on her is just nuts. Juggermaw without the immobility or abusable lane phase.
I'd expect kaisa to get close to permaban, because as teams get better and rely more and more on mid-lategame fights, she is just the strongest carry.
I also don't understand the teams decision not to ban her. Before today's games she's been the most pickd ADC in the play in and she won a lot. I also suspect (I don't have the stats to confirm) that she's been picked quite early in drafts but that it didn't matter much in the end. We don't know the scrim results with Kaisa. Maybe the strongest teams have found a way to address her and she's similar to Darius three years ago. If that's the case I wonder what the plan is.
Think its teams once again stubbornly buying into their carefully prepared ban strategies. Like you don't want Xayah-Rakan together, so teams may ban one of them if they see the other, instead of considering the fact that Kai'Sa is still open and synergy isn't as important as just being straight busted. That or as you mentioned, teams think they have a solution to her, and we just haven't seen the current teams demonstrate it.
On a side note, I think Urgot top is way more broken than Kai'Sa, feels like a ranged Darius in that he will win lane if left alone, and his supposed weak team fighting does not offset the advantage he gets in lane enough.
On October 07 2018 20:53 DarkCore wrote: On a side note, I think Urgot top is way more broken than Kai'Sa, feels like a ranged Darius in that he will win lane if left alone, and his supposed weak team fighting does not offset the advantage he gets in lane enough.
I don't play top so this is harder for me to judge. At the very least it's a different issue than Kaisa. Kaisa's late is way too strong but her early is fine. Her early may be too good for how strong her late is, but she's definitely not a lane bully. Urgot on the other hand is super strong in lane but scales ok later. If some of the top teams are confident sending ornn or sion against him without losing too much in lane then you're fine. Right now the only answer to kaisa I can think of is to pick twitch and fight scaling with scaling. Looking at twitch's stats during summer split, he got picked only three times, against kaisa all three (so it seems pros had the same idea) but he lost all games.
On October 08 2018 03:10 Zess wrote: Not sure if heartbreaker or mind breaker
Its a heartbreaker when you realize they should have won 3-1, or at worst gotten a game 5. Their choice to take Aatrox over Urgot on blue side game 2 will probably also haunt them.
On October 08 2018 06:26 loSleb wrote: How should they have won 3-1 when they didnt even win 2.
Game 3 They grab baron then make the miscall to take a fight when Cotopaco and the bot lane have escape routes out of the pit at the cost of SolidSnake and Relic. From there they lose the fight, losing baron on everyone, but still can siege for mid tier 2 without baron. G2 could barely stop the baronless siege let alone a siege where they have 3 baron. Mind you this is a team who was 15-0 with first baron up to that point this entire year (13-0 in LLN, 14-0 EDG, 15-0 Game 1 vs G2).
Game 4 speaks for itself. Trolling in draft game 2 aside game 3 and 4 were very very winnable games.
Watching EDG in play in knockouts now. Just saw game one. I think this might be a very good meta for EDG, Meiko is really good and supports are particularly strong right now.
Had 100T last at first but G-Rax looked really shaky until they figured Supermassive out so I changed my mind.
No idea what to expect from Phong Vu. Maybe something like last years performance of Gigabyte Marines - close games but still finishing with 2-4 score. Alphabetically G2 comes before Phong Vu and pick'ems don't allow me to have ties so I think putting G2 as third is a safer bet because rito's system has to somehow assign places to tied teams which won't get to play tiebreakers
Kai Sai and Urgot not only seem very strong, they seem to require very little skill or team coordination. Overall I would call this play in stages the "derp meta" wherein playing derpy champions is mostly advantageous (even aatrox and Irelia are champs for dummies), great map play isn't worth much, and true derps are being smashed by the high AOE damage.
Like I said, Urgot is like a ranged Darius, he wins lane too hard, and needs to be completely useless in fights to make up for it, but that's not the case. Kai'Sa is head and shoulders over every other ADC atm, Riot really has no idea how to balance the role.
On October 09 2018 18:10 DarkCore wrote: Kai'Sa is head and shoulders over every other ADC atm, Riot really has no idea how to balance the role.
Yeah. Kai Sa is nuts. I’ve been saying it for a long time and it’s still true. I’d be willing to take a ban bet that for the entire event starting now no Korean or Chinese team will lose a best of 3 or best of 5 where they get KaiSa more often then their opponents.
Corollary to the above, in all bo3 and bo5s between Korean and Chinese teams the team that gets Kai Sa more will win.
Thing is, just because Kai'Sa technically has counters, that does not imply she is balanced. It's been a problem with many strong meta picks, if they have weaknesses that sandwich the opponent into an awkward pick, then it can even be considered another bonus. Counter draft balance is only balanced when the counterpick is itself a viable choice. An example would be old Darius used to dumpster old Irelia, you just had to build Sunfire and laugh to the bank. But Darius was an awful champion in pretty much every way, no pro was picking him.
But if Kai'Sa meta brings back Uzi Vayne, I won't complain that much.
Don’t know if this is even real news. There’s a lot I’m not in agreement with. Main thing that jumped out to me was including a bunch of supports without Meiko at all.
Didn't understand how TL lasted so long in that game, I blame the dumb death from Deft at the start, although TL did play it quite well (well, it was mainly Xmithie with his great map movement throughout the first half of the game). KT were rolling them over with macro alone, how times have changed.
Commentators trying so hard to hype G2 when they just gave Kai'Sa to a superior team. What are they hoping for, 1-3-1 with Camille and Heimerdinger comp?
Almost get bootied out of the tournament by LATAM a week ago, nbd just gonna beat the Freecs. Here I was expecting Afreeca and FW to be strong enough to not need the Heimer ban
TL made some obvious macro errors. Also, if the midlaner tp's bot, and the enemy midlaner is shoving a cannon wave, while your toplaner has just shoved his wave decently, why doesn't he tp mid?
Don’t know if this is even real news. There’s a lot I’m not in agreement with. Main thing that jumped out to me was including a bunch of supports without Meiko at all.
I don't like both Caps being rated so high and Caps being the only European in the top 20. He's good but Wunder, Perkz and Soaz aren't much worse.
On October 11 2018 00:10 DarkCore wrote: Man, I thought the G2 game was fun to watch, but Vitality is something else. What a great start for EU.
Meanwhile C9 had the worst game of the day.
against the favorites of the tournament though
TL did not show any form of ingenuity or attempt to get back in the game, it was Xmithie running around trying to mitigate damage. I'm not expecting them to win, but if they play like that they won't be making it out of groups. EDG will force mistakes and do exactly what they always do, and they'll have a tough time vs MAD.
On October 11 2018 00:10 DarkCore wrote: Man, I thought the G2 game was fun to watch, but Vitality is something else. What a great start for EU.
Meanwhile C9 had the worst game of the day.
against the favorites of the tournament though
TL did not show any form of ingenuity or attempt to get back in the game, it was Xmithie running around trying to mitigate damage. I'm not expecting them to win, but if they play like that they won't be making it out of groups. EDG will force mistakes and do exactly what they always do, and they'll have a tough time vs MAD.
Seriously think you're overrating EDG and MAD lol. All 3 of those teams (TL/EDG/MAD) are roughly at the same level.
It's like Fnatic sucked all the power out of VIT and G2, now they're right back in having to fight out of their groups. Ffs, if VIT had won they would have had a real chance of making it out second in the group of death, so mad right now after getting my hope up. Only consolation is that Gen.G must be feeling so incredibly down right now.
Korea with the Galaxy Brain drafts so far. Protect the feather girl comp? The only team that could ever have run that against a decent team is 2015-16 SKT.
Every team in the group with TL knows that they're gonna first pick a ADC (or straight up first pick Kai'sa) and just counters the hard out of TL's literal one win condition.
It doesn't help that TL decided to give EDG exactly what they wanted in the early game and didn't play to their outs.
Just woke up and started catching up on the mornings games. I’m five minutes into the IG game and so much for Caps hype. Rookie up 15 cs five minutes in and has already forced out flash. I don’t think a lot of western analysts who don’t watch LPL have really reckoned with the mechanical skill gap between LCS carrys and LPL carrys.
Edit: finished game now. Was a really good game lots of action and very exciting. Fnatic put up a fight and didn’t roll over, but IG was setting the tempo all game long.
Just watched TL vs EDG. I actually really liked TL’s early lane phase and their vision game in the lane phase. The fights they picked were not ideal, but I think they probably would have gotten away with it and been fine against most of the teams in this tournament, even the strong teams like RNG. Scout just picked this game to go monster mode and play like Faker. A lot of plays stop working against an Azir who makes plays like that. I’m sure next game Scout will feed in lane and facecheck bushes and TL will be cursing their luck to get Scout on one of the good days.
Just woke up and started catching up on the mornings games. I’m five minutes into the IG game and so much for Caps hype. Rookie up 15 cs five minutes in and has already forced out flash. I don’t think a lot of western analysts who don’t watch LPL have really reckoned with the mechanical skill gap between LCS carrys and LPL carrys.
Idk man, I thought Syndra dumps on Swain hard and Caps played it fine, he played conservatively because Rookie is uhh, pretty damn good. He almost killed him a few times as well, with the help of the team but still his good playmaking. Sadly, Hyli fed like a boosted animal, some of his playmaking was good, but not the kind of stuff FNC needed.
Honestly that game could have gone either way, FNC pulled back the deficit in the bot lane incredibly well. But those games highlight the power of iG, everyone on the team is a fucking mechanical god to the point it literally makes them good at team fighting, something that looks like an evenly matched team fight can easily end in a 4-0 for them. FNC made an amazing comeback when they got those kills in the jungle, but then promptly got demolished the next fight and that was the end of the game. Hopefully they can still make it through the rest of the group, because I think FNC looks pretty strong, they seemed to be flustered knowing they were playing such a scary team.
I’m sure next game Scout will feed in lane and facecheck bushes and TL will be cursing their luck to get Scout on one of the good days.
Just so people know, I put EDG first in the group because I believe that Scout is going to beat Ucal to a pulp at least once in this tournament, and carry the game like the second coming of Jesus. Tomorrow is that day.
So it's pretty clear iG, RNG, and KT are the only real competition for the cup this year.
Clear favourites, I cannot dream how epic an iG vs KT series might be.
On October 12 2018 21:50 General_Winter wrote: Just watched TL vs EDG. I actually really liked TL’s early lane phase and their vision game in the lane phase. The fights they picked were not ideal, but I think they probably would have gotten away with it and been fine against most of the teams in this tournament, even the strong teams like RNG. Scout just picked this game to go monster mode and play like Faker. A lot of plays stop working against an Azir who makes plays like that. I’m sure next game Scout will feed in lane and facecheck bushes and TL will be cursing their luck to get Scout on one of the good days.
TL's early lane phase outside of the forced teamfights was fine. They were taking some hits but not falling too far behind in gold, and the one time EDG did go for a dive in bot TL was able to read it and had Xmithe there - alongside a late-ish roam from Poebelter - to turn it around.
After that semi-successful dive, EDG was focusing more on winning the lanes via farm advantage and vision control than straight up beating them with ganks or skirmishes, which would have been exactly what TL wanted. But TL forced objectives when they shouldn't have, and the three fights were during a time when EDG was stronger than TL due to levels and items.
For example, the first dragon fight will look a lot different if TL has 2 or 3 items and are only down by 1-2k gold compared to EDG who have 2.5 or 3 itmes as well, and are similar in levels. Kai'sa isn't really a threat until post-12 and has two items at the very least.
Yes, Scout picked a good time to play well. But when the mid laner you're fighting is Poebelter (probably the weakest mid in Worlds Groups stage) that's not a hard thing to do.
On October 13 2018 04:04 Jek wrote: I just want iBoy to pop off in all games and win it all.
Do you think there is a chance is a actual cyborg, designed by the Chinese government in an attempt to dominate esports?
Yes. I believe they integrated an advanced version of OpenAI in him, it's only a matter of time before he has played enough games with slumping EDG to throw everyone on his back and win the game 1v9 consistently.
On October 13 2018 13:59 cLutZ wrote: I am really starting to feel bad for casters having to pretend Urgot plays aren't boring AF.
BUT HE PRESSED R AND FLASHED OUT OF A CIRCLE WHAT A GENIUS!
Oh look the Jungler is coming to gank the 90% HP Urgot for a Tank. LOOK AT THE RIGHT CLICKS! OMG HE'S ATTACKING THE JUNGLER! OMG LOOK AT THAT SHIELD AND SPEED BOOST! GAHH INTO THE GRINDER!
I don't think FW could've done anything to stop that once Wunder got that big. It's either free baron for G2, or else Wunder just tower dives anybody who's not sion and takes the base anyways.
I gotta commend FW on trying for that baron play, since they were basically fucked anyways.
On October 13 2018 18:33 Sent. wrote: I'm very surprised by G2 pulling this strategy off. Thought there's no way FW will lose the game after G2 first picked Akali.
I think G2 could've won the game with a number of mid picks that don't die easily to galio. The one kill and one assist that he got could've been gotten with something like Liss or Leblanc as well. The game basically came down to Wunder getting super far ahead of Hanabi, and FW didn't make a lot of plays to try to keep Hanabi strong enough to hold against the Camille (Sion won't win that fight later almost anyways, but he can make it very difficult to take turrets at least.
Whole G2 team played well, they knew exactly how to play their comp while not letting FW get the fights they wanted.
That forced baron by FW was a pretty big mistake though, smelt so desperate. Props to G2 playing that perfectly, Wunder not TPing takes some balls. But I'm pretty sure I've seen a backdoor Camille win situations like this at least half a dozen times in pro play.
I don't really get the EDG pick ban, first pick Akali while Urgot is open to be counterpicked seems really bad. Also picking two scaling carries with no tank seems dangerous, you're relying really heavily on being able to out-execute in teamfights.
Yeah. Watching KT vs EDG now. I feel like Meiko and iboy held their own pretty well until score ganked. But KT was able to build a team company and a play style that didn’t let the Akali or the Nocturne do anything particularly useful. And it’s hard to get much done when two out of five team members are not useful. Score is really impressive.
Finally got time to watch Fnatic vs iG. Holy fuck Caps looked horrible on Swain, he lost a billion cs under no pressure simply from not last hitting properly and use his stopwatch/hourglass completely wrong. The fight at first mid tower where he goes into ult then stopwatch (at full health?!) 11 kilometers away from the fight, wtf?
On October 13 2018 19:00 DarkCore wrote: Whole G2 team played well, they knew exactly how to play their comp while not letting FW get the fights they wanted.
That forced baron by FW was a pretty big mistake though, smelt so desperate. Props to G2 playing that perfectly, Wunder not TPing takes some balls. But I'm pretty sure I've seen a backdoor Camille win situations like this at least half a dozen times in pro play.
Just like how Smeb was known for his TP plays Wunder will be known for his no-TP-TP plays.
When iBoy plays more reserved, aka respects his opponents, he plays very well. It's just there are times when he feels like going HAM, and either carries the game or feeds like a boss.I bet wrong on EDG today, but I still expect them to get out of the group, MAD isn't that good and Liquid just plain sucks, 0 proactive play just the way EDG likes it.
In the past teams with good reads on the meta have done worse in week 2. The one team I'd guess benefits most from a shorter timeline is G2 because their understanding of splitpush seems really good. But maybe teams just ban more Wunder champs.
I feel like RNG played a bunch of teamfights really poorly. Not flashing telegraphed hooks, greedy ability usage (Xiaohu didn't even ult himself in the big fight at mid in earlygame, Ming held his bodyslam and until thresh was in place to flash flay). Letme went abyssal mask first item instead of armor which probably got him killed in an early top dive when he would've survived.
Just watching Group B get turned upside down is really making me love this year's Worlds. That combined with the fact that there is Urgot and AAtrox being meta when these champs were laughing stocks not too long ago is so exciting.
And if Licorice didn't get too ham he'd probably have beat CuVee even harder in top lane too.
Now I'm genuinely curious what the Hecarim-Aatrox matchup looks like without jungle interference. Is this an actual lane counterpick? Is ignite what tips the scales there or could you take flash/tp and still win the lane, just not as hard?
And if Licorice didn't get too ham he'd probably have beat CuVee even harder in top lane too.
Now I'm genuinely curious what the Hecarim-Aatrox matchup looks like without jungle interference. Is this an actual lane counterpick? Is ignite what tips the scales there or could you take flash/tp and still win the lane, just not as hard?
From what was shown, it looked like with the right rune choice you can dip outside of the Aatrox chain with just brown boots and Hecarim can counter-push just as fast as Aatrox can push. And as the analyst desk pointed out, it seems like if you don't get bodied hard by the enemy jungler you probably end up being just as good in both lane phase/split pushing and in team fights as the demi-god.
At this point, Gen G at best can hope for tiebreakers with wins against vitality and RNG.
Options for this group are pretty wide open at this point. Everybody has their destiny in their own hands, and even RNG isn't safe at this point. The option for a 4 way tie even is still open, unlikely as it is.
This has got to be the worst KR team since that legendary SSW run. Crown fed so incredibly hard, and Gen.G still managed to recover, but they botched so much stuff that game.
Weren't Gen G. pretty promising during the standard Korean season? They look like they're getting dumpstered by Vitality of all teams... did they crumble?
Crown really let his team down in the last few games, but it was a team problem and they drafted poorly. Malz is a sitting duck when he ults, especially for lategame Trist and everyone owning a QSS.
Can't believe VIT might actually make it out of this group, they have two chances again C9 now, right? Unless C9 beat RNG...
C9 does NOT need to beat RNG to make it out of the group, but if they do they open some real spicy options, such as RNG having to play tiebreakers to make it out.
Idk why, but I have this dark feeling RNG are going to throw this game so that VIT doesn't end up in playoffs. Because it's either that or RNG are incredibly flustered right now
C9 confirmed best performing NA team at Worlds Doesn't matter what seed they come into worlds as, THEY FUKING SHOW UP IN GROUP STAGE. Edit: Now it's NA vs EU lol let's go (Let's go NA)
On October 14 2018 20:42 AdsMoFro wrote: Soo...I just woke up to this? What the fuck. What do I watch after the games are over? Missed every game so far.
I dunno, the commentators were sucking hard on his dick in that last fight, but it was the whole of RNG just playing it well, when C9 split up and burnt both Poppy's ult and Thresh's hook. That let RNG walk in without fear, and with C9 split up they just littered them with AoE damage and didn't have to bother chasing after someone in particular: Poppy's away, they chunked whoever was in front to force a reaction, then as soon as dashes/flashes/etc. were burnt by C9 RNG moved as a team toward whoever now looked defenseless.
They put 3 people low on health and then just popped them one after the other because Zilean can't help with that.
I wonder if this means RNG is shaky or C9 is just way more solid than expected. I think it's a little bit of both, RNG seems to have much more trouble in pick bans than they should, maybe due to champion pools. That or Karsa is a tiltlord.
I suppose this gives some support to the idea that the problem with NA teams is that they play on NA solo queue. Now after being in Korea playing on Korean solo queue for a few weeks they can actually win games. Either that of genG just sucks and RNG had an off day.
Lmao, this is one of the most entertaining groups I've ever watched. Can't believe VIT didn't make it out, but C9 somehow turned up big time. Jensen probably won't get Zilean more than once for the rest of the tournament, that champ messes with standard comps so hard.
Lets see if AF can bring glory to KR tomorrow, although from their current performance so far I'd say their worse than Gen.G, they just have a much easier group.
Plz no, I want a weak AF because it increases the chance of G2 making it through, EU ftw. Would also mark the end of KR dominance, even if KT win they wouldn't be the undisputed overlords anymore.
C9 remains the best performing NA team on the international stage. TSM watched from home. This is the dankest.timeline. I really look forward to Liquid choking and people continuing to excuse Pobelter.
On October 15 2018 07:32 Sleight wrote: C9 remains the best performing NA team on the international stage. TSM watched from home. This is the dankest.timeline. I really look forward to Liquid choking and people continuing to excuse Pobelter.
I mean its the pretty normal timeline. C9 performing on the international stage is the real NA legacy.
I feel like Kaisa is almost a trap pick at this point. You give up so much pressure botlane with it and it strangles your solo laners as well since they have to try and support it.
On October 15 2018 07:32 Sleight wrote: C9 remains the best performing NA team on the international stage. TSM watched from home. This is the dankest.timeline. I really look forward to Liquid choking and people continuing to excuse Pobelter.
Do people excuse POB? Pretty sure it's well known that Pobelter is the worst player on TL. He got flamed for MSI even with Olleh mental booming.
People walking away with under 50 health, zhonya lucky timing with under 10 health again, etc. And then one team has Aatrox and Kai'Sa so it doesn't matter because they're such great designs.
Nash dead in about 8s to Kai'Sa + Aatrox + (jungle) Kamille alone.
One of the worst pick/bans of all time. Holy shit. My eyes were bleeding in that pb,
First off, if you were planning to pick Morde into Heim, then WHY THE FUCK DID YOU PICK TAHM?! Like Alistar first pick IS AVAILABLE. You shouldn't fp Urgot when Aatrox is open. It's not needed. So if, and this is a big if, they thought Morde was the answer to heim and left it open, they trolled and picked Tahm Kench to go with Morde. What the fuck.
Had to leave in the first few minutes of FW vs PVB, thought the game was in the bag. Only got back to watching for the G2 vs AF game, saw G2 lose and thought they were out, see the break screen and couldn't believe what I was seeing. Then the tie breaker and G2 win to clinch the second seed playing Heimer yet again.
If flash wolves win I get this group 100% in pick ems.
Instead I got the full group . I'm shocked someone guessed the other group correctly though.
Just watched the first two vods of today's games and gotta say it feels bad to know two of those teams will play in the quarters while Vitality has to go home
Tbh, I think VIT got their Worlds buff because they saw how stacked their group was, and tried their very hardest, while being not worrying about backlash if they didn't make it out. The very opposite could be said of Gen.G and to a degree RNG, who had nothing to win and everything to lose, not making it out of groups was never an option. That pressure will get to veterans too, and we've all seen how emotional Crown can be, he must be going through hell right now.
I'm still sad to see VIT lose yesterday. I don't think it was a "fluke" or that they "should" play better, but I think they could play better and they simply lost their nerves against C9 (on top of getting outsmarted in draft and gameplan).
On October 16 2018 00:11 AzAlexZ wrote: So the year that G2 wins nothing, they make it to the round of 8 in worlds (When they won everything, they never made it out of groups, lol wtf)
It's the C9 expectations strat. Never have any major hype going into it so no pressure. Nobody cares if they fail because they weren't expected to do otherwise.
On October 16 2018 07:06 AlterKot wrote: I'm still sad to see VIT lose yesterday. I don't think it was a "fluke" or that they "should" play better, but I think they could play better and they simply lost their nerves against C9 (on top of getting outsmarted in draft and gameplan).
C9 drafted better in almost every single game in their group. Impressed with Reaper's p/b. He's got a really strong grasp on the meta.
On October 16 2018 07:06 AlterKot wrote: I'm still sad to see VIT lose yesterday. I don't think it was a "fluke" or that they "should" play better, but I think they could play better and they simply lost their nerves against C9 (on top of getting outsmarted in draft and gameplan).
C9 drafted better in almost every single game in their group. Impressed with Reaper's p/b. He's got a really strong grasp on the meta.
Reapared has widened the gap between him and the other coaches so ridiculously far.
I think the best thing C9 LoL team has done since its inception was getting Reapered and allowing him to take control of the team the way he has right now. It is the only team I can think of right now in NA where the coach has more power than any player(s) and he is using that power well.
Is there a reason why people don't build an early Bramble Vest in lane vs Urgot? Gives a decent amount of armor and his W is 3.0AS with weak attacks to reflect damage from + cut his refill sustain.
On October 16 2018 20:45 nineninja9 wrote: I really like the runaan's buy by Iboy. Kaisa is low ranged and you can generally expect to be hitting multiple targets with the hurricane bolt procs.
Yeah with the nerfs, it becomes more viable. Before, AP was just too good. Man, this game must be depressing for TL. Hyping yourself up for a tournament-defining game only to be deflated.
I'm hoping deep down that Fnatic somehow clinch first spot, because then we might see them in the final 4. Unless they get AF, because they look absolutely beatable.
From what I've seen so far, top 4 for me this tournament:
1. iG 2. KT 3. RNG 4. VIT (when you average their performance out, they had incredible highs but too many lows) 5. FNC (4th since still in tournament, also not enough games to truly assess)
KT and iG are the juggernauts, I don't mind KT stumbling because that's what they do best, but now they only play series. RNG has also shown weakness, but VIT playstyle is unique and the Zilean comp caught them off guard. VIT is out, FNC has yet to show how good they really are, I honestly think they can beat iG in the next game, just not in a series. In that regard, ending up in the group with iG is actually a good thing.
Not expecting much from C9, because Zilean is going to be banned every game, and their bot lane just isn't going to cut it against iG and KT, FNC would probably dump on them too. Jensen and Licorice are going to have back problems after the tournament, their drafting is good though.
Yeah I think bo1s made Vitality look better than they really are. It's sad to see them go because their games were fun to watch, not because they're as good as IG, RNG or (hopefully) FNC.
If KT gets G2 I might just skip the match, watching G2 get 3:0d in uneventful games would be a waste of time.
I think VIT could have beaten C9 in a series, not the other top teams though. The reason being that while Reapered is obviously a great drafter, they won because Zilean completely dumps on VIT playstyle and comps, and they weren't prepared for it (neither was RNG, they almost lost to it in the tiebreaker). I also think RNG was tilted so hard after the loss to VIT, they played poorly for the rest of the day until the tiebreaker. Maybe I'm just being harsh on C9.
I think T1 would be iG and KT, RNG doesn't quite fit there because they had some poor games (again, feel it was mostly tilt because they didn't expect their group to be so hard).
If KT gets G2 I might just skip the match, watching G2 get 3:0d in uneventful games would be a waste of time.
Pretty sure KT/iG are going to destroy the second seeded team they get, the real question is if they meet semi finals or finals.
Just because you know it's coming doesn't mean you have an answer for it. You think FW didn't know Heimerdinger was going to be picked by G2? They drafted Morde as a counterpick and still lost to it. The real solution was to ban it, but hindsight is always 20/20.
On October 17 2018 01:42 DarkCore wrote: I think VIT could have beaten C9 in a series, not the other top teams though. The reason being that while Reapered is obviously a great drafter, they won because Zilean completely dumps on VIT playstyle and comps, and they weren't prepared for it (neither was RNG, they almost lost to it in the tiebreaker). I also think RNG was tilted so hard after the loss to VIT, they played poorly for the rest of the day until the tiebreaker. Maybe I'm just being harsh on C9.
I think T1 would be iG and KT, RNG doesn't quite fit there because they had some poor games (again, feel it was mostly tilt because they didn't expect their group to be so hard).
If C9 were to play a bo5 against Vitality I'd bet on C9. I know it was just a one game but I think the fact that Zilean shut them down so hard signals they're either only good at one strat which happens to be hard countered by Zilean or bad at preparation. NA Zilean shouldn't be a surprise to them and yet they seemed completely clueless on how to beat C9 in that game. I think it would only get worse for Vitality if C9 had more time to find and exploit their weaknesses in a series. Weaknesses like Kikis, who tends to get overagressive early, which Sven should be able to punish with the support of his team.
If KT gets G2 I might just skip the match, watching G2 get 3:0d in uneventful games would be a waste of time.
Pretty sure KT/iG are going to destroy the second seeded team they get, the real question is if they meet semi finals or finals.
Yeah that goes without saying. I meant that the match is going to be as boring as G2 vs Afreeca and TL vs KT games where the Korean teams were clearly winning the macro game while their opponents showed little initiative to get back into the game.
On October 17 2018 01:42 DarkCore wrote: I think VIT could have beaten C9 in a series, not the other top teams though. The reason being that while Reapered is obviously a great drafter, they won because Zilean completely dumps on VIT playstyle and comps, and they weren't prepared for it (neither was RNG, they almost lost to it in the tiebreaker). I also think RNG was tilted so hard after the loss to VIT, they played poorly for the rest of the day until the tiebreaker. Maybe I'm just being harsh on C9.
I think T1 would be iG and KT, RNG doesn't quite fit there because they had some poor games (again, feel it was mostly tilt because they didn't expect their group to be so hard).
If KT gets G2 I might just skip the match, watching G2 get 3:0d in uneventful games would be a waste of time.
Pretty sure KT/iG are going to destroy the second seeded team they get, the real question is if they meet semi finals or finals.
Anybody that comes into a group with C9 in it and doesn't understand that Zilean is a core champ in a few lineups C9 likes to run deserves getting booted from groups and wouldn't do shit against them in a series. It's the same thing with FW leaving Heimer up against G2.
EDG vs. KT on a second look is so odd. It just feels like a total outcomp. EDG's flanks weren't that good, it was just that there was only 1 tank on KT and thus with Urgot being about you lose even if you protect your carries as well as practicable because they get below the threshold. Seems like Urgot is about as hard of a counter to Kindred as there is in this game (aside lane matchups).
On October 17 2018 14:09 cLutZ wrote: EDG vs. KT on a second look is so odd. It just feels like a total outcomp. EDG's flanks weren't that good, it was just that there was only 1 tank on KT and thus with Urgot being about you lose even if you protect your carries as well as practicable because they get below the threshold. Seems like Urgot is about as hard of a counter to Kindred as there is in this game (aside lane matchups).
Yeah, picking Kindred vs Urgot is kinda troll but for the first time, KT lacked urgency with their draft and they couldn't keep up their vision advantages that they had in the other games.
On October 17 2018 17:38 nineninja9 wrote: Is it just me or is FNC way less decisive with this lead than they should be? I feel like IG would've ended this by 25 if they were up by this much.
Yeah they probably took it a bit slower than they needed to considering the lead they had.
I think it's fine given that the comp 100T had was built for teamfights that they couldn't win.
You know that 3vs5 they lost bot lane? Aphro missed a stun on an Irelia knocked into a wall, they could've won the fight if he had hit it. Ryu was god awful, but no one on 100T performed particularly well.
FNC waited out until Rekkles had QSS, Caps had Witts and Soaz had TP. Then they straight up ended the game, you saw the engage on Sivir at the inhibitor and QSS completely nullified it, game ending item. They knew 100T couldn't come back, because they were too far behind and they suck.
IG looks like they have some leaks in their early game, just going for awkward dives at random times. They stomp midgame so hard though it doesn't seem to matter as much, though admittedly they aren't playing against great competition.
On October 17 2018 18:56 nineninja9 wrote: IG looks like they have some leaks in their early game, just going for awkward dives at random times. They stomp midgame so hard though it doesn't seem to matter as much, though admittedly they aren't playing against great competition.
They've had this issue pretty often in LPL. Look at their semifinals games. They sometimes lose their brains and then have to rely on outplaying their opponents. Idk what happened to them, but over time they've become more and more reliant on that.
Honestly I think the big thing this game was FNC picking Aatrox and Urgot in one rotation. There's no way IG was expecting that, and then they just ended up winging the draft. Relying on winning both solo lanes hard enough to avoid Trist pushing down all of your turrets is incredibly risky, especially considering both of the best toplaners were already taken. Aatrox/Urgot are both good solo laners and also teamfight much better than the Fiora TheShy got stuck with.
I feel like playing a non tank toplane is just a super arrogant move in general. You're basically saying we'll win earlygame and win it by enough to win by 30 minutes, otherwise the game is basically impossible unless you pull an RNG.
On October 17 2018 22:52 nineninja9 wrote: I feel like playing a non tank toplane is just a super arrogant move in general. You're basically saying we'll win earlygame and win it by enough to win by 30 minutes, otherwise the game is basically impossible unless you pull an RNG.
It's fine as long as you have a lead and an Alistar. Leo Too squishy to frontline.
I mean, the real problem is they had a huge mid advantage and a good ADC matchup, but bot inted and Ning got outpathed super hard. Unlucky.
On October 17 2018 22:54 AdsMoFro wrote: It's fine as long as you have a lead and an Alistar. Leo Too squishy to frontline.
I mean, the real problem is they had a huge mid advantage and a good ADC matchup, but bot inted and Ning got outpathed super hard. Unlucky.
Yeah I really dislike Leona as a pick in general. You're basically saying we wanted Alistar but it was banned, so we'll take the vastly inferior Leona because we can't adapt in pick/bans at all.
Also IG botlane inting is pretty predictable, they play up 100% of the time essentially, it's up to Ning to keep them safe and he was outjungled twice. Both games were basically jungle difference to an extreme degree.
On October 17 2018 22:58 JimmiC wrote: The one thing we have to keep in mind is Grex and 100T were the easiest bottom 2 of any group. So that alone will make IG and Fnatic look better. I think they are good but having the 4 easy games for each team helped them look amazing.
IG was also SUPER overrated coming into Worlds. They're not that good.
LOLOL, iG vs KT have to duke it out in the quarter finals, this is the best timeline. My 3 top teams are on one side of the bracket, the other 4 must be crying rivers of joy right now.
IG was also SUPER overrated coming into Worlds. They're not that good.
I don't agree with this at all, iG played very well, hence they dumpstered GREX and 100T. Were they the weakest seeds in any group? Pretty close, only MAD looked equally as bad, and PVB/FW/TL were clearly not contenders either. But I think they could have taken games off teams that weren't as strong as FNC and iG.
iG's laners are all beasts in the lane, that spells the end for most low level teams. They also have pretty good team fighting, simply because they are all mechanically talented and don't hesitate when they pull the trigger. Their weaknesses stem from the fact that Jackey doesn't have consistently insane reflexes like iBoy (he got caught with flash loads of time by FNC in both games) so his ballsy play ends up costing him, and sometimes they think they can just bruteforce games open with their ability, instead of playing like a team. But when those things don't happen, they are a contender for Worlds, 100%.
On October 18 2018 00:09 DarkCore wrote: LOLOL, iG vs KT have to duke it out in the quarter finals, this is the best timeline. My 3 top teams are on one side of the bracket, the other 4 must be crying rivers of joy right now.
IG was also SUPER overrated coming into Worlds. They're not that good.
I don't agree with this at all, iG played very well, hence they dumpstered GREX and 100T. Were they the weakest seeds in any group? Pretty close, only MAD looked equally as bad, and PVB/FW/TL were clearly not contenders either. But I think they could have taken games off teams that weren't as strong as FNC and iG.
iG's laners are all beasts in the lane, that spells the end for most low level teams. They also have pretty good team fighting, simply because they are all mechanically talented and don't hesitate when they pull the trigger. Their weaknesses stem from the fact that Jackey doesn't have consistently insane reflexes like iBoy (he got caught with flash loads of time by FNC in both games) so his ballsy play ends up costing him, and sometimes they think they can just bruteforce games open with their ability, instead of playing like a team. But when those things don't happen, they are a contender for Worlds, 100%.
So wait, you're saying something that happens pretty consistently in the LPL (Jackeylove inting), won't happen and then they can magically win Worlds. Yeah sure, hasn't happened yet. Of course, IG are gonna win cause they have better laners vs shit teams? What kind of logic is that? Guess what? The knockout stage doesn't have any shit teams. They just fucked themselves into a super bad bracket because of the inconsistencies that have plagued them for an entire season. Rookie smashed lane and should have easily been able to bring that advantage to the side lanes but Ning got outpathed and Jackeylove inted. Jackeylove's going up against Deft and Mata (a bot lane that IMO is one of the best laning duo in the world) and Ning's playing against the best jungler in the world. Don't see it being magically fixed in 2 days. KT are easily the worst stylistic matchup for IG of the teams they could have faced. Unlucky, easy win for KT.
Wow. IG got catastrophicly unlucky in their knockout draw. I’d say they were 45-55 against RNG, 80% or better against everyone else and maybe 15% chance to beat KT. Literally one bad draw in the groups and they hit it.
KT is to a large extent just a better version of IG, a bunch of individual all stars and mechanical beasts. Yeah IG has better mid, but KT has better bot lane, and bot lane is OP now and has been most of the year.
Yeah we just saw how you beat IG easily in the two FNC IG games today. All IG lanes win in CS but it doesn't matter when a jungler exists and ganks the pushed up lanes for free gold and towers.
The only way IG beats KT is if Score and Deft both megachoke, and even then it would still probably require both Ning and Jackeylove to play better than average.
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.
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.
Wow! That game really turned around. I’ve been very pro IG for a long time, but I was seriously doubting at the start of game one. I was amazed at the turnaround. Some great fights.
That said, if KT plays tight I’m not sure IG can keep up with KT’s vision game. So I still think KT is the favorite even with game one.
Ning got outjungled hard but it didn't matter due to KT taking dumb fights midgame even with a lead. Let's see if KT will pull off a legendary choke this series.
Its really hilarious that everyone on the analyst desk/casters don't mention that KT has choked for literal years, and just because they beat a group of fucking rookies 3-2 doesn't mean they're magically no longer tilt lords.
Isn't red side statistically better than blue side in the LPL? Why give a team the same side you can't out draft them on that they're also favored on?
I mean drafting Fiora at all gives you a garbage comp with your only win condition being toplaner gets 3 solo kills and takes nexus. I guess they could've drafted more waveclear mid/jungle but Liss/Xin are decent picks in a vacuum.
The Fiora was the icing on the cake of this dumpster fire draft. They gave away having Xayah/Rakan for literally no gain. They CHOSE to not have Xayah/Rakan, to.....do what? All they had to do was first rotation Xin/Rakan and they maintain the best bot lane duo AND their jungler of choice. Hell doing that AND taking Fiora is still better than what they did
That draft super tilted me, it was like iG was fucking with KT more than they were trying to make a good draft
EDIT: And now KT have wised up 4 games in and realized giving them Xayah/Rakan isn't smart
Kaisa/Rakan is a notoriously weak 2v2 lane, literally game losing in some situations. IG getting Xayah/Alistar is fine to trade off for that. That wasn't even remotely the problem with IG pick/ban.
I get that Kaisa/Rakan isn't a great bot lane. But Xayah/Rakan is literally THE bot lane. Its not like they gave it up to get Urgot in the Urgot/Aatrox match up. They got it for nothing because they were always going to be able to get Alistar/Xayah if they wanted it. That and Baolan looked like an absolute monster on Rakan, even into a Leona counter. Makes no sense to avoid a match up you already won, especially for nothing in return. And that doesn't even get me started on how much I hate that Fiora pick
I respect IG for picking Leblanc but man that's such a dangerous pick. Not picking a waveclear AP mid is just asking to get dunked on when their botlane inevitably feeds.
Shit. That game was going perfectly fine for G2 until Wunder and the rest of G2 decided to engage on RNG at the worst time possible completely contradicting their win condition.
RNG must be hiding picks right? These super defensive 2 tank solo lanes funneling gold to adc is super boring, even more so when the adc is someone that scales awfully. At some point your solo lanes are going to get pushed in enough that you lose games off it, it happened twice in groups even.
I know Xiaohu can play actual champions like Ryze or Syndra so watching him on Sion/Lissandra type stuff is super boring.
Has MLXG played Nocturne before? I feel like he just doesn't understand him as a champion.
He's so reliant on his ult to make shit happen, against an Olaf you straight need 6 and you need your first ult to be a kill or you're kinda just dead. You're late to 6 (MLXG hit it at 8:25 this game), and you dont get a kill on your first ult? An Olaf / Xin / Taliyah / Camille will run you over because you just can't make or respond to plays.
The dankest timeline. C9>AFS and Fntic>EDG with G2>IG and an all Western finals, potentially all EU finals. Only NA as a region needs to step up to say the gap is closed. C9 can at least claim they have closed the gap with a semifinal berth.
Ok. Had to leave after game one last night so catching other games this morning. Game two I didn’t completely trust the draft since I wasn’t sure Sion gave TheShy enough tools to go monster with, but he ended up being able to do a lot of work. Let’s see what they can go in game three.
Edit: wow! Just watched game three. What a game! Super close. I think IG should have won that and being even just the slightest bit tighter would have been enough. The split push basicly got all the way to the nexus and was within an auto of ending.
Double check edit: WTF!! Why is duke in game 4? TheShy won the first three games why would you possibly sub him out when he is winning lane so hard and team fighting so well when he gets something like Sion.
Damn, I wish I'd seen these games live, must've been some of the most epic series ever.
Can't believe iG dismantled KT two games in a row, they did the one thing you shouldn't do, which is force early iG fights where mechanics decide the outcome. They won the next two games with smart play and macro, but iG deserved the 5th game. Watching the games without the breaks in between was insane, so much high level gameplay, KT didn't even look bad, just lost because they've never played against someone who could gain a legit gold lead against them. Also Jacky looking like a boosted animal, while carrying games at the same time, 10/10.
No comment on G2 vs RNG yet, can't find an upload of G5 anywhere, but Uzi must be crying in the corner somewhere with Deft. This is the EU timeline, VIT died for this
On October 21 2018 00:48 DarkCore wrote: No comment on G2 vs RNG yet, can't find an upload of G5 anywhere, but Uzi must be crying in the corner somewhere with Deft. This is the EU timeline, VIT died for this
On October 21 2018 01:40 JimmiC wrote: You mean well use and hour to further your world knowledge.
Well here's what I learned:
- Perkz is kind of good at LeBlanc - Hjarn is kind of good at Jhin - Uzi had some very poor positioning - G2 is actually legit good, FNC vs G2 in finals anyone?
Watching a Perkz interview is such a weird contrast to watching a Rekkles interview. I can't imagine G2 actually gets to the final. Perkz sounds like he's about to go mental boom at any time, where as Fnatic legit thinks they can go all the way
On October 21 2018 04:48 JimmiC wrote: Can't he's joining TL
If they do replace anyone, I think it would be Impact. He is only capable of tanks when more and more it seems the solo laners need a much wider champ pool.
On October 21 2018 04:48 JimmiC wrote: Can't he's joining TL
If they do replace anyone, I think it would be Impact. He is only capable of tanks when more and more it seems the solo laners need a much wider champ pool.
Impact is supposedly one of the highest paid if not the highest paid player in NA. TL wanted him badly. One reason being he will be a resident for next season.
Also I would be very surprised if his contract could be voided like Fenix' was, I am assuming it is more favorable to the player. And it is running til 2020.
On October 21 2018 04:48 JimmiC wrote: Can't he's joining TL
If they do replace anyone, I think it would be Impact. He is only capable of tanks when more and more it seems the solo laners need a much wider champ pool.
Impact is supposedly one of the highest paid if not the highest paid player in NA. TL wanted him badly. One reason being he will be a resident for next season.
Also I would be very surprised if his contract could be voided like Fenix' was, I am assuming it is more favorable to the player. And it is running til 2020.
Well I don't think they would be switching anyone, Impact just topped my list of what ifs just from how the game seems to play out now. Olleh would be second on the list of what ifs to me.
On October 21 2018 13:45 chipmonklord17 wrote: Have we truly gone full circle, where the East now tries to play like the west but is worse at it an loses
Well, I mean, that was certainly a clown fiesta from Afreeca...
The thing I'm noticing this Quarterfinals is every game one person steps up and goes Super Saiyan and makes the team competitive or straight-up win. This time it came from old man Sven.
On October 21 2018 14:35 Kinie wrote: The thing I'm noticing this Quarterfinals is every game one person steps up and goes Super Saiyan and makes the team competitive or straight-up win. This time it came from old man Sven.
I think Sneaky has been super impressive on the Lucian too. That’s a signature Sneaky pick, and Afreeca just can’t handle the bottom lane once Sneaky starts snowballing. I thought the 5/1 Ryze would control it, but nope.
On October 21 2018 14:35 Kinie wrote: The thing I'm noticing this Quarterfinals is every game one person steps up and goes Super Saiyan and makes the team competitive or straight-up win. This time it came from old man Sven.
I think Sneaky sounds been super impressive on the Lucian too. That’s a signature Sneaky pick, and Afreeca just can’t handle the bottom lane once Sneaky starts snowballing. I thought the 5/1 Ryze would control it, but nope.
I mean, props to the analyst desk for pointing out that once Sven got some gold, he basically grabbed Zayzel and Jensen and they almost immediately started diving the Ryze and forcing the baron play. That lead to Jensen getting a stupid good slow AoE hit with his active items and basically froze Afreeca in their tracks after C9 got the baron.
On October 21 2018 14:35 Kinie wrote: The thing I'm noticing this Quarterfinals is every game one person steps up and goes Super Saiyan and makes the team competitive or straight-up win. This time it came from old man Sven.
I think Sneaky sounds been super impressive on the Lucian too. That’s a signature Sneaky pick, and Afreeca just can’t handle the bottom lane once Sneaky starts snowballing. I thought the 5/1 Ryze would control it, but nope.
I mean, props to the analyst desk for pointing out that once Sven got some gold, he basically grabbed Zayzel and Jensen and they almost immediately started diving the Ryze and forcing the baron play. That lead to Jensen getting a stupid good slow AoE hit with his active items and basically froze Afreeca in their tracks after C9 got the baron.
It was also some stupid play from Afreeca though. That 2v3 under tower to feed Sven shouldn’t have happened in the first place. They should’ve focused vision and support top side. Instead they focused bot side after taking inner turret, basically greeding for an inhibitor
C9 deserves to lose this game for this RNG style Lucian comp. I really dislike Lissandra as a mid pick as well, just don't play it unless you're Rookie.
5v3 for baron. 2 people go in and taken. Beautiful play by Jensen and Licorice.
On October 21 2018 15:03 nineninja9 wrote: C9 deserves to lose this game for this RNG style Lucian comp. I really dislike Lissandra as a mid pick as well, just don't play it unless you're Rookie.
Sneaky isn't feeding despite one of the hardest pro camps you'll ever see, although Kramer is pretty far ahead.
I also like liss as a pick when trying to do an engage comp. Just sets up everything so well from midlane. Moderately high damage, but excellent control and good survivability.
I've gotten all three of these bracket pick'ems wrong... this is crazy :O I just need 2 more points for the 34 points mission in the LoL client and I thought I'd get it, now I'm worried I won't.
As someone who started watching League because of C9 vs Samsung so many worlds ago, and someone whos been rooting for Invictus Gaming and Fnatic for almost a decade through SC2, I absolutely love this worlds, I want them all to win.
On October 21 2018 15:03 nineninja9 wrote: C9 deserves to lose this game for this RNG style Lucian comp. I really dislike Lissandra as a mid pick as well, just don't play it unless you're Rookie.
Yep the liss engage onto 5 just ruined Afreeca.
You can argue about how you don't like the pick, but the amount of damage and control it provides at the very start of fights is undeniable.
On October 21 2018 15:03 nineninja9 wrote: C9 deserves to lose this game for this RNG style Lucian comp. I really dislike Lissandra as a mid pick as well, just don't play it unless you're Rookie.
Yep the liss engage onto 5 just ruined Afreeca.
You can argue about how you don't like the pick, but the amount of damage and control it provides at the very start of fights is undeniable.
It wasn't just the Lissandra engage, it was also the continuation of the engage and the chase after the fights occur. Zeyzal kept ulting onto Sven or Licorice on the engages, then Lissandra follows up, slows and snares the enemy and ults herself and Zhonyas and for 5s basically lets Sneaky and Sven just smash Afreeca.
On October 21 2018 15:17 Amui wrote: I also like liss as a pick when trying to do an engage comp. Just sets up everything so well from midlane. Moderately high damage, but excellent control and good survivability.
I feel like Liss is a slightly worse version of Galio? Similar teamfight impact and CC but worse roaming which basically makes her game impact lower. At least she has a better engage than flash taunt. Just generally Lissandra with Lucian ADC makes me uncomfortable since Lissandra is relatively low damage in exchange for her CC. If you fall behind it's an autoloss since you have no damage in AD or mid.
C9 made it work so good for them, but even RNG won a couple games with Lucian comps.
On October 21 2018 15:17 Amui wrote: I also like liss as a pick when trying to do an engage comp. Just sets up everything so well from midlane. Moderately high damage, but excellent control and good survivability.
I feel like Liss is a slightly worse version of Galio? Similar teamfight impact and CC but worse roaming which basically makes her game impact lower. At least she has a better engage than flash taunt. Just generally Lissandra with Lucian ADC makes me uncomfortable since Lissandra is relatively low damage in exchange for her CC. If you fall behind it's an autoloss since you have no damage in AD or mid.
C9 made it work so good for them, but even RNG won a couple games with Lucian comps.
With how Korea was playing the Galio it was reactive, where-as basically every other region is trying to be pro-active and choosing to fight on their terms vs. reacting to a play the enemy team makes.
I think more surprising than Korea being eliminated this early is the fashion they were eliminated. Two of them just got straight demolished in groups/quarters by underdogs.
On October 21 2018 15:53 chipmonklord17 wrote: Fnatic are going to destroy them worse than C9 just destroyed Afreeca
Idk we just had 3 upsets in the quarters before. And now Fnatic is expected to win...
You say upsets, I say I'm 2 for 3 in pick'ems/liquibets
On October 18 2018 04:40 chipmonklord17 wrote: 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".
I don't understand why Chinese teams put so much priority on Kaisa. Exploitable lane phase and even in lategame it's not nearly as good as old school hypercarries like Kog/Jinx. Just because you like the champion doesn't mean it's a good pick in every situation.
Super volatile pick/ban with tons of squishies on each side. Fnatic are probably favored just based on form and the fact that they probably have better shotcalling.
On October 21 2018 18:45 nineninja9 wrote: I don't understand why Chinese teams put so much priority on Kaisa. Exploitable lane phase and even in lategame it's not nearly as good as old school hypercarries like Kog/Jinx. Just because you like the champion doesn't mean it's a good pick in every situation.
Super volatile pick/ban with tons of squishies on each side. Fnatic are probably favored just based on form and the fact that they probably have better shotcalling.
Kaisa's early game and lane phase is fine. She can push/farm/trade with Q which is basically free.
She can also itemize a number of different ways and still do a ton of damage. Lategame she's FAR, FAR more survivable than a kog or Jinx, between her E and R, and unlike the both of them, she has upfront burst damage and I don't think the DPS difference is even remotely large.
I would agree it's not worth the priority, but it's not like kaisa is bad in any way.
Woke up, saw 3-0, then I saw it was C9 who won, then tuned in to see a 2-1 lead for FNC and winning the 4th game. Which games are worth to watch, or should I just binge all for the Western self masturbatory experience?
On October 21 2018 20:00 Uldridge wrote: Woke up, saw 3-0, then I saw it was C9 who won, then tuned in to see a 2-1 lead for FNC and winning the 4th game. Which games are worth to watch, or should I just binge all for the Western self masturbatory experience?
Didn't watch C9 vs AF G1, but G2 seemed to showcase why AF was inferior, because they got huge leads on that Ryze but still got crushed.
Whole FNC vs EDG series is good, at least from an entertainment perspective.
That said, I would like someone to explain to me how in the world EDG was collecting kills the first 10 minutes, but had only a marginal gold lead. Failure to prioritize real objectives? Bad macro? FNC playing really well? LeBlanc OP (I honestly think she is again)? Bwipo godlike Swain or secret OP? I watched the game so confused as to why it felt like EDG was crushing but still looking like they couldn't possibly win.
What in the actual fuck has been going on this worlds? Only 1 Chinese team left. No Korean or LMS teams left. The “top” teams have honestly looked pretty shit throughout.
LMS isn't a good region. I really feel for Riot when it comes to the LMS, on the one hand Flash Wolves is internationally competitive (to a degree) on the other the rest of the region is terrible. How do you reward Flash Wolves without robbing better teams of slots that they gave to MAD and G-Rex, the obviously worst and second worst team of groups.
Also this iteration of Fnatic is the best since the legendary 2015 roster and they've been a top 4 team all tournament, so I wouldn't say ALL the favorites have been shit
On October 21 2018 20:00 Uldridge wrote: Woke up, saw 3-0, then I saw it was C9 who won, then tuned in to see a 2-1 lead for FNC and winning the 4th game. Which games are worth to watch, or should I just binge all for the Western self masturbatory experience?
Didn't watch C9 vs AF G1, but G2 seemed to showcase why AF was inferior, because they got huge leads on that Ryze but still got crushed.
Whole FNC vs EDG series is good, at least from an entertainment perspective.
That said, I would like someone to explain to me how in the world EDG was collecting kills the first 10 minutes, but had only a marginal gold lead. Failure to prioritize real objectives? Bad macro? FNC playing really well? LeBlanc OP (I honestly think she is again)? Bwipo godlike Swain or secret OP? I watched the game so confused as to why it felt like EDG was crushing but still looking like they couldn't possibly win.
They were investing huge amounts of gold into making the kills happen, without taking turrets from it. In one of the dives I think bwipo just TPS top to catch a wave and push tower. 4 or 5 people for a kill vs. 2 Laners farming isn't actually that mismatched in terms of gold. Add in the fact that the lanes were in fnatics favor, and yeah, they lose out on kills, but the other lanes are accruing big XP and CS advantages to make up for it.
Watching the restream there's something that's been bothering me since this morning, what the fuck was up with Afreeca's bans game 3? They banned alistar from C9, when they were the ones who played it games 1 and 2, instead of banning the Braum that C9 actually played
Also this iteration of Fnatic is the best since the legendary 2015 roster and they've been a top 4 team all tournament,
Honestly I think this Fnatic is even better. If you watch Bwipo and Broxah closely, you will see them styling on their opponents pretty hard in terms of mechanics while playing very smart. Reignover didn't have those mechanics, and Huni did not have the same level of game IQ. There is honestly no real weak player on the team, sure Caps is feeding hard sometimes but he can still carry and a lot of it comes down to enemy teams pressuring him quite hard.
They were investing huge amounts of gold into making the kills happen, without taking turrets from it.
Yeah, that was my thought as well. And my question is why EDG thought this was a valid approach to the game, it's like they decided to throw strategy out and thought they could just beat FNC by inducing a blood bath. That works vs low level teams, but not in the quarter finals ffs. Also got to see some braindead CN ADC play again, I loved that one iBoy ult into the enemy team at dragon while having a Braum stack on him. No Jacky moments for him lol.
I don't disagree with the fact that they're better than 2015, this is just the first time they've had a better lineup than the 2015 line up. This lineup could legit win worlds, while I think the 2015 lineup would have needed another year to gel and improve
They can win worlds because the rest of the competition this year is worse than SKT 2015, not necessarily because this line-up is better than the one of 2015. I hope they win Worlds but C9 are gonna be tough and G2/iG will be hungry as well.
On October 22 2018 02:53 chipmonklord17 wrote: Watching the restream there's something that's been bothering me since this morning, what the fuck was up with Afreeca's bans game 3? They banned alistar from C9, when they were the ones who played it games 1 and 2, instead of banning the Braum that C9 actually played
I think they didn't want C9 to have Alistar engage, the plan was originally to have Tusin play it, but clearly Tusin wasn't performing on it.
I do think though that Afreeca spent too much time trying to eliminate potential engage from C9, as clearly they couldn't stop it anyway due to C9's depth of champion pool.
Imo they should have just dropped some of the power picks and tried to get a few high tier picks instead of trying to tailor their bans to C9 so much. Would have liked to see them try to get Kiin a big meta carry like Irelia / Akali / Aatrox. Ah well.
On October 22 2018 02:53 chipmonklord17 wrote: Watching the restream there's something that's been bothering me since this morning, what the fuck was up with Afreeca's bans game 3? They banned alistar from C9, when they were the ones who played it games 1 and 2, instead of banning the Braum that C9 actually played
I think they didn't want C9 to have Alistar engage, the plan was originally to have Tusin play it, but clearly Tusin wasn't performing on it.
I do think though that Afreeca spent too much time trying to eliminate potential engage from C9, as clearly they couldn't stop it anyway due to C9's depth of champion pool.
Imo they should have just dropped some of the power picks and tried to get a few high tier picks instead of trying to tailor their bans to C9 so much. Would have liked to see them try to get Kiin a big meta carry like Irelia / Akali / Aatrox. Ah well.
But with the option to take alistar every time they chose Aatrox first pick and Braum. They clearly had a penchant for Braum and instead Afreeca banned the champ THEY played instead of the one their opponents did. Like they could have banned Braum last, given C9 nocturne, then taken Alistar themselves, in their first rotation
On October 22 2018 02:53 chipmonklord17 wrote: Watching the restream there's something that's been bothering me since this morning, what the fuck was up with Afreeca's bans game 3? They banned alistar from C9, when they were the ones who played it games 1 and 2, instead of banning the Braum that C9 actually played
I think they didn't want C9 to have Alistar engage, the plan was originally to have Tusin play it, but clearly Tusin wasn't performing on it.
I do think though that Afreeca spent too much time trying to eliminate potential engage from C9, as clearly they couldn't stop it anyway due to C9's depth of champion pool.
Imo they should have just dropped some of the power picks and tried to get a few high tier picks instead of trying to tailor their bans to C9 so much. Would have liked to see them try to get Kiin a big meta carry like Irelia / Akali / Aatrox. Ah well.
But with the option to take alistar every time they chose Aatrox first pick and Braum. They clearly had a penchant for Braum and instead Afreeca banned the champ THEY played instead of the one their opponents did. Like they could have banned Braum last, given C9 nocturne, then taken Alistar themselves, in their first rotation
Yeah, i think they just placed a higher priority on Ali than C9, afraid of playing against it. Because frankly Tusin kinda inted on Alistar, lol.
Maybe it was something Zeyzal popped off with in scrims, idk. And the overall world stats on Ali this worlds are in the 60% neighborhood, so thats a thing.
I do think Reapered outdrafted Afreeca though. But Reapered outdrafts everyone.
Biggest flaw for Korea was their drafting. Idk how often they were scrimming teams outside Korea (maybe even only KR+RNG), but one fault of a region becoming too insular is they aren't exposed to new ideas. Reapered and Grabzz have been dominating P/Bs all tournament. When your team is comfortable and understands win conditions, it shows in gameplay.
In previous Worlds, Western teams kept trying to play things that they weren't good at and trying to copy styles that they hadn't played all year. Idk what made them think they could learn a style and then surpass the teams that had been playing that style for years now.
It also can't be understated how amazing a coach YoungBuck is. Dude helped build an empire of victory on G2, then left to go to semis and be the favorite for the rest of the tournament. Lot of credit to Reapered, Grabz, YoungBuck and even YamatoCannon who are really evolving coaching for the western world
Outside of KT, the KR teams looked pretty lackluster. The characteristic macro was not there, and they seemed incredibly shaky in so many basic parts of the game. I don't even think they disrespected their opponents, they just looked inferior. Gen.G was awful and got placed in the worst group possible, AF recovered but still looked worse than C9, and KT lost what I think is the saddest series of the entire orgs existence.
On the other hand the CN hype this year, myself included, got absolutely stomped, way harder than ever before. When KR beat CN, people were like 'guess KR is still invincible'. Two CN teams got taken out by Western teams instead, and all 3 teams got a nice beating in groups. I'm pretty sure for the CN player base that's got to hurt so bad, because now the West has a legit chance to claim that glory instead of what they thought was rightfully theirs.
If G2 beat iG I don't think my heart will be able to take it.
Let's also keep in mind that for both EU and NA, you weren't even allowed to get hyped for your region unless they made it to semis for the past 5 years because of how dominant KR and eventually CN became.
Probably the biggest change for KR that I think they are still adjusting to is the increasing removal of vision in League. Trinket wards still don't last as long as old green ones, and the removal of the jungle ward item basically deligates all warding to the support, and they are basically spending all their gold on pinks for the first15 minutes of the game once they get their ward item.
This screwed over KR's macro gameplay very hard, which was reliant on lighting up the section of the map they were looking to invade/fight in 2-ish minutes ahead of time. Now the map is liable to have a bunch of dead zones for camping to occur at, and they've not adjusted to it. Compare this to NA and EU (and even CN) who have always lacked on their macro vision, but are used to taking those risks of wandering into dark places.
On October 24 2018 05:26 Kinie wrote: Let's also keep in mind that for both EU and NA, you weren't even allowed to get hyped for your region unless they made it to semis for the past 5 years because of how dominant KR and eventually CN became.
Probably the biggest change for KR that I think they are still adjusting to is the increasing removal of vision in League. Trinket wards still don't last as long as old green ones, and the removal of the jungle ward item basically deligates all warding to the support, and they are basically spending all their gold on pinks for the first15 minutes of the game once they get their ward item.
This screwed over KR's macro gameplay very hard, which was reliant on lighting up the section of the map they were looking to invade/fight in 2-ish minutes ahead of time. Now the map is liable to have a bunch of dead zones for camping to occur at, and they've not adjusted to it. Compare this to NA and EU (and even CN) who have always lacked on their macro vision, but are used to taking those risks of wandering into dark places.
I've read this or something similar a few times now. It's something that sounds so reasonable but I can't help think it's a bit excuse seeking.
KT and KZ are some of the most early fighting focused teams in the Korea. They may not match the the aggression of CN but they certainly never required slow vision setups to create their advantages. Instead KT had a strong early game snowball type focus with Score "battle warding". Griffin is another similar team that instead of early game required mid game teamfighting to secure their leads. They opted into mid game fights when they knew they had power spikes regardless of vision setups. All 3 of these teams still worked around solid macro. The same as how all teams at worlds still have good macro setups.
GenG and to and extend AFS are pretty slow teams risk adverse teams. That's fair to say. GenG managed to run through the gauntlet through mostly slumping teams. Their performance was always in question, especially since they showed their hand with masking Crown against Griffin on Liss. AFS really fell off towards the end of the season and are in mostly due to the rest of the LCK dipping and Griffin playing a bit of spoiler.
Overall the LCK teams weren't performing particularly well in their own region going into Worlds outside of KT. KT just happened to be the LCK team that looked the best. Losing a nailbitingly close series vs IG isn't some big alarm. They are a great team and if they played another 5 matches the results would most likely be even.
A final thought, the notion that macro plays and full vision are linked is just plain wrong. One of the key fundamentals of any(most) RTS game is dealing with incomplete information. Making reads on your opponents due to what you can see, what you can't see and some intuition. I dislike this implication that just because there is slightly less vision it means teams suddenly playing more "stupid" or "refined". When Jaedong makes a read to stop a sick 2 base all in without perfect vision he's a god. When a league team makes a read to start a fight without vision they are seen as "animal". It's as if map/game sense is just not viewed as a skill of league players anymore. Fucking Monte.
On October 23 2018 22:23 DarkCore wrote: Outside of KT, the KR teams looked pretty lackluster. The characteristic macro was not there, and they seemed incredibly shaky in so many basic parts of the game. I don't even think they disrespected their opponents, they just looked inferior. Gen.G was awful and got placed in the worst group possible, AF recovered but still looked worse than C9, and KT lost what I think is the saddest series of the entire orgs existence.
On the other hand the CN hype this year, myself included, got absolutely stomped, way harder than ever before. When KR beat CN, people were like 'guess KR is still invincible'. Two CN teams got taken out by Western teams instead, and all 3 teams got a nice beating in groups. I'm pretty sure for the CN player base that's got to hurt so bad, because now the West has a legit chance to claim that glory instead of what they thought was rightfully theirs.
If G2 beat iG I don't think my heart will be able to take it.
Even in previous worlds non-Korean teams could get leads pre-15 minutes, it was just that eventually they would lose based off of map movements. It just turns out that now stalling out is a bit harder and KR teams couldn't handle early-mid game pressure anymore.
The only real EU>CN upset was G2 beating RNG. I don't think anybody expected EDG to beat FNC reliably. Even pre-tournament people were already salty they made it to worlds over JDG/RW, nobody would have been surprised if they got knocked out.
RNG I suspect had a terrible meta read. Even as recently as MSI we saw Letme/Xiaohu play champions that aren't tank/cc bots (probably 50% of their win over KZ was due to them being able flex Vlad/Aatrox to either solo lane and dominate with it, the rest was bot difference), this worlds they believed they were the better team playing the way they did and realized too late it no longer works. Maybe it really was due to scrimming too many passive Korean teams (and also FW if the rumors are true), who really knows. Even then it's hard to tell whether it really was just bad pick ban or something deeper to do with individual player skill levels; I'm honestly not sure if I've ever seen RNG's solo laners play so terribly internationally before. Letme usually doesn't lose lane as hard on tank duty as he did this tournament and Xiaohu is usually good at staying even in skill matchups and then teamfights better, but I guess playing tanks into stuff like Akali/Irelia might just be way harder than the lanes they're used to.
Not just the quality of a team, but also the chance they would win a game.
I dont think teams had bad reads. RNG-Lucian was clearly not terrible, for instance. The issue is that the game currently being played is not normal. Maybe.
Maybe KR is just trash now because almost all players are vets.
Think CN and KR got the meta right, but bought into the OP champion hype (Kai'Sa especially) too much. 17 of Kai'Sa's 40 games were played by Jackey, Deft and iBoy, Kramer and Uzi have also played her a few times. She is currently sitting on a 45% win rate, and it's because Western teams have shown she can be beaten, either by quick games or by drafting a Sivir comp that owns her in late fights.
EDG were clearly the inferior team in their series. They would get gold leads and kills, but got outmacroed so incredibly hard. FNC even had an arguably more talented roster if you value Bwipo and Broxah higher than their counterparts. If you had told me FNC was from KR, I would've believed you, because this is basically the way KR teams primarily beat everyone every season until the previous one.
RNG vs G2 was about disrespect. I think RNG went in with the mindset that they could do everything better, and that their botlane would blow a big hole open in the game. I didn't see any specific counterdrafting to G2 or crazy surprise strats, they left Aatrox open a whopping 4 times (although only once did the champ really go off), and I was really surprised they tried out Lucian 3 times. The champ can work, but it relies on getting an early advantage and Uzi playing perfectly, neither which happened. 1 game is a pocket strat, three games suggests they legit thought G2 would crumble to the pressure, and gambled on it.
Even in previous worlds non-Korean teams could get leads pre-15 minutes, it was just that eventually they would lose based off of map movements. It just turns out that now stalling out is a bit harder and KR teams couldn't handle early-mid game pressure anymore.
While true, the real juggernauts of KR (SKT, SSW, ROX, NJBS) were able to win most laning phases or at least break even. Rarely did they ever get demolished in the first 15 minutes to the point of no return. The last two or three seasons this hasn't been the case anymore, and they have looked a lot shakier ever since.
On October 23 2018 22:23 DarkCore wrote: Outside of KT, the KR teams looked pretty lackluster. The characteristic macro was not there, and they seemed incredibly shaky in so many basic parts of the game. I don't even think they disrespected their opponents, they just looked inferior. Gen.G was awful and got placed in the worst group possible, AF recovered but still looked worse than C9, and KT lost what I think is the saddest series of the entire orgs existence.
On the other hand the CN hype this year, myself included, got absolutely stomped, way harder than ever before. When KR beat CN, people were like 'guess KR is still invincible'. Two CN teams got taken out by Western teams instead, and all 3 teams got a nice beating in groups. I'm pretty sure for the CN player base that's got to hurt so bad, because now the West has a legit chance to claim that glory instead of what they thought was rightfully theirs.
If G2 beat iG I don't think my heart will be able to take it.
EU has been better than CN for years tho (remember fnatic 2015, poor EDG), why would that suddenly change?
RNG vs G2: I agree that their plan was to annihilate G2 botlane and have Uzi carry across multiple games. Constantly picking Lucian + having mid/top play supporty shit seems to me that they expected to smash early game hard enough for them to not care about being outscaled. I'm not sure how much RNG P/B was disrespect or straight up bad. I'm gonna guess it's a mix of both.
I think Xiaohu vs Perkz was a bad enough mismatch to cause RNG problems. Personally though, I place a lot of the blame on Uzi playing badly enough to give G2 two of their wins.
1) Early game is going RNG's way and they get Uzi nicely ahead. RNG finds and tries to collapse on Wunder.
Uzi, wandering off by himself, gets caught by Irelia + Gragas and baits his support into getting killed alongside him. The collapse on Wunder fails hard. G2 2-0 in kills from that
2) Later in the game, Wunder gets picked off. RNG, now 5v4, attempt to take out Perkz next to the Baron. G2 joins up to fight 4v5 in the jungle. With the help of a good Varus ulti, G2 gets some people low but not enough to win the fight.
Uzi, on 30 percent HP, fucking facechecks a jungle brush with no vision of Irelia + Gragas. This ends predictably, and now the fight is looking a lot better for G2. RNG starts running away. Wunder, freshly revived, does a teleport flank. RNG transitions from getting aced to losing baron, their base and the game.
1) G2 with Leblanc + early game comp actually get off to a very, very good start. Uzi on Sivir repeatedly gets blocked from picking up lanterns and goes 1/4/0. One death was from Uzi using spellshield for mana, and then not having it available for the actual gank a few seconds later. Another death was from Uzi walking straight into a Jhin snare -> Leblanc kill, then Letme using Sion ult to try and hit Leblanc and then dying for nothing.
2) Later on, G2 start getting outscaled despite still holding a 10k gold lead and RNG begins to take kills and push G2 away from objectives. G2 does get a baron and does their 1-3-1 splitpush in front of RNG's base. RNG is looking harder and harder to kill. Hjarnan Jhin, as part of the 3, walks closer to Sivir to poke her with autos. RNG decide to engage.
Uzi, in an amazing display of ADC positioning and decisionmaking, walks into melee range and trades autos with the GA'ed ADC.
Hjarnan gets his GA popped, but not before Uzi gets dropped to 20 percent HP. Before Uzi can run back far enough, Jankos Olaf flashes on top of him for the kill and the fed Leblanc comes in to destroy everyone else. RNG loses their nexus soon afterward.
On October 23 2018 22:23 DarkCore wrote: Outside of KT, the KR teams looked pretty lackluster. The characteristic macro was not there, and they seemed incredibly shaky in so many basic parts of the game. I don't even think they disrespected their opponents, they just looked inferior. Gen.G was awful and got placed in the worst group possible, AF recovered but still looked worse than C9, and KT lost what I think is the saddest series of the entire orgs existence.
On the other hand the CN hype this year, myself included, got absolutely stomped, way harder than ever before. When KR beat CN, people were like 'guess KR is still invincible'. Two CN teams got taken out by Western teams instead, and all 3 teams got a nice beating in groups. I'm pretty sure for the CN player base that's got to hurt so bad, because now the West has a legit chance to claim that glory instead of what they thought was rightfully theirs.
If G2 beat iG I don't think my heart will be able to take it.
EU has been better than CN for years tho (remember fnatic 2015, poor EDG), why would that suddenly change?
????
S2 EU performed better because M5 beat iG directly in quarters.
S3 Fnatic lost to Royal in semis.
S4 all 3 Chinese teams got out of groups and 0 EU teams did.
S5 EU was better by getting 2 teams out of groups and into Semis, with EDG falling to Fnatic in quarters.
S6 China got 2 teams out of groups and met Korea in quarters while EU had H2K which got a lucky draw with ANX so they could get to semis
S7 2 Chinese teams got to semis, one beating FNC directly in quarters.
Over this time, China has also won 2 MSI to EU's 0.
EU being better than China "for years" has never been true.
On October 25 2018 17:06 DarkCore wrote: Think CN and KR got the meta right, but bought into the OP champion hype (Kai'Sa especially) too much. 17 of Kai'Sa's 40 games were played by Jackey, Deft and iBoy, Kramer and Uzi have also played her a few times. She is currently sitting on a 45% win rate, and it's because Western teams have shown she can be beaten, either by quick games or by drafting a Sivir comp that owns her in late fights.
EDG were clearly the inferior team in their series. They would get gold leads and kills, but got outmacroed so incredibly hard. FNC even had an arguably more talented roster if you value Bwipo and Broxah higher than their counterparts. If you had told me FNC was from KR, I would've believed you, because this is basically the way KR teams primarily beat everyone every season until the previous one.
RNG vs G2 was about disrespect. I think RNG went in with the mindset that they could do everything better, and that their botlane would blow a big hole open in the game. I didn't see any specific counterdrafting to G2 or crazy surprise strats, they left Aatrox open a whopping 4 times (although only once did the champ really go off), and I was really surprised they tried out Lucian 3 times. The champ can work, but it relies on getting an early advantage and Uzi playing perfectly, neither which happened. 1 game is a pocket strat, three games suggests they legit thought G2 would crumble to the pressure, and gambled on it.
Even in previous worlds non-Korean teams could get leads pre-15 minutes, it was just that eventually they would lose based off of map movements. It just turns out that now stalling out is a bit harder and KR teams couldn't handle early-mid game pressure anymore.
While true, the real juggernauts of KR (SKT, SSW, ROX, NJBS) were able to win most laning phases or at least break even. Rarely did they ever get demolished in the first 15 minutes to the point of no return. The last two or three seasons this hasn't been the case anymore, and they have looked a lot shakier ever since.
Thorin had a more recent episode where Loco and LS argued about why Korea looked so bad this year. Loco is pretty adamant that the lose of Smitestone really hurt the Korean playstyle.
Have no clue what he was talking about either. Unless the criteria is winning Worlds, and no one cares about season 1.
I don't have time to watch Thorin, but I can imagine the smitestone argument having some merit. But I don't think there are less wards this year than previous ones, no? Someone would have to check the stats.
Have no clue what he was talking about either. Unless the criteria is winning Worlds, and no one cares about season 1.
I don't have time to watch Thorin, but I can imagine the smitestone argument having some merit. But I don't think there are less wards this year than previous ones, no? Someone would have to check the stats.
S1 wouldn't count anyway since there was no Chinese teams there.
There would have to be less wards. Junglers are offering less, trinket warding has stayed the same, and now supports have to complete a quest to have more than 1 ward from their item instead of being able to just drop 800 for sightstone.
I wonder if there are fewer wards then S1-S3 when green wards were unlimited? Weirdly enough I think there might have been fewer back then just because people weren't that great at vision control and oracle made it really hard to establish vision from behind.
While I'm sure the trackers knife removal had some impact, it feels overall like a pretty weak argument because its been gone basically the whole year. We saw none of these issue or complaints at MSI.
On October 25 2018 17:06 DarkCore wrote: While true, the real juggernauts of KR (SKT, SSW, ROX, NJBS) were able to win most laning phases or at least break even. Rarely did they ever get demolished in the first 15 minutes to the point of no return. The last two or three seasons this hasn't been the case anymore, and they have looked a lot shakier ever since.
Sure I mean if we're just talking about season 5 and earlier that might be true (even then najin black in s3 only played skt at worlds so we have no clue what they would have looked like against any other team), but even in season 5 Korean teams dropped multiple games in groups. The fact that they stomped both EU teams 3-0 in semis is a testament to their preparation and coaching, but even that's hard to quantify at times. How much of that is a team straight up being better and how much of that is magical "coaching magic" that only happens after several weeks of analysis? If the format for worlds this year had groups taking place over 2 weeks instead of 8 straight days would Korean teams have done any better?
Just generally watching KR vs non-KR teams in past years, it always felt like an early gold lead was not enough. You'd see non-KR teams pull off intricately planned early game plays and jungle ganks, and there'd be maybe a 1-2k gold lead at 10 minutes, but it wouldn't matter because eventually the KR team would catch up through objectives, then win a random midgame teamfight 3-1 and at that point you knew even though there was 15 minutes left in the game it was over and the KR team would win.
On October 26 2018 01:32 Numy wrote: I wonder if there are fewer wards then S1-S3 when green wards were unlimited? Weirdly enough I think there might have been fewer back then just because people weren't that great at vision control and oracle made it really hard to establish vision from behind.
Would have to check actual stats though.
S3 is probably peak wards/min. Oracles still in the game, supports and junglers were both wardslaves.
Honestly the way warding is implemented right now is great. Wards should be a powerful tool, but there should also be a risk to placing them in vital locations. S3 wardslaves was the absolute worst, think GP5 items were still around too to encourage it.
You'd see non-KR teams pull off intricately planned early game plays and jungle ganks, and there'd be maybe a 1-2k gold lead at 10 minutes,
Were they really intricate? I can't think of any great western teams showing crazy prep in the early seasons. Also early seasons were the place where gold leads could get massive: more first blood gold, think towers gave more as well, and dragon gold. KR macro back then was at a peak, they really managed to keep those crazy snowball factors to a low.
They were intricate as in clearly preplanned, but past the early-midgame they could no longer follow a flowchart anymore and then Korean teams' better understanding of the game as a whole would win out. How many games over the years did we see Faker get 3-4 manned at 5 minutes by Western/Chinese/Wildcard teams, just for it not to matter since all that would do is keep their midlaner even or slightly ahead in gold while every other part of the map eventually fell apart. There were plenty of games where a non Korean team could get first blood or brute force a first tower but it still didn't matter. The thing is even when snowballing was more severe (the peak was probably S3 in my opinion, not counting this year of course) Korean teams still rarely lost even when they did fall behind pre-10 minutes. Either that means the meta wasn't actually that snowbally since clearly you can win when it's against you, or Koreans were so much better they could win no matter what they played (which is probably more true if you look at something like 2014 all stars where OMG picked everything they wanted and still got dumpstered by SKT).
On October 26 2018 01:32 Numy wrote: I wonder if there are fewer wards then S1-S3 when green wards were unlimited? Weirdly enough I think there might have been fewer back then just because people weren't that great at vision control and oracle made it really hard to establish vision from behind.
Would have to check actual stats though.
Absolutely not. There was never more vision than when supports dumped all their gold into wards.
Vision numbers haven't even decreased too much. Only have stats from 2014 onwards, but at worlds, the highest warding year was 2015 at 4.09 wards per minute. In 2018 it was 3.87.
On October 23 2018 22:23 DarkCore wrote: Outside of KT, the KR teams looked pretty lackluster. The characteristic macro was not there, and they seemed incredibly shaky in so many basic parts of the game. I don't even think they disrespected their opponents, they just looked inferior. Gen.G was awful and got placed in the worst group possible, AF recovered but still looked worse than C9, and KT lost what I think is the saddest series of the entire orgs existence.
On the other hand the CN hype this year, myself included, got absolutely stomped, way harder than ever before. When KR beat CN, people were like 'guess KR is still invincible'. Two CN teams got taken out by Western teams instead, and all 3 teams got a nice beating in groups. I'm pretty sure for the CN player base that's got to hurt so bad, because now the West has a legit chance to claim that glory instead of what they thought was rightfully theirs.
If G2 beat iG I don't think my heart will be able to take it.
EU has been better than CN for years tho (remember fnatic 2015, poor EDG), why would that suddenly change?
????
S2 EU performed better because M5 beat iG directly in quarters.
S3 Fnatic lost to Royal in semis.
S4 all 3 Chinese teams got out of groups and 0 EU teams did.
S5 EU was better by getting 2 teams out of groups and into Semis, with EDG falling to Fnatic in quarters.
S6 China got 2 teams out of groups and met Korea in quarters while EU had H2K which got a lucky draw with ANX so they could get to semis
S7 2 Chinese teams got to semis, one beating FNC directly in quarters.
Over this time, China has also won 2 MSI to EU's 0.
EU being better than China "for years" has never been true.
On October 25 2018 17:06 DarkCore wrote: Think CN and KR got the meta right, but bought into the OP champion hype (Kai'Sa especially) too much. 17 of Kai'Sa's 40 games were played by Jackey, Deft and iBoy, Kramer and Uzi have also played her a few times. She is currently sitting on a 45% win rate, and it's because Western teams have shown she can be beaten, either by quick games or by drafting a Sivir comp that owns her in late fights.
EDG were clearly the inferior team in their series. They would get gold leads and kills, but got outmacroed so incredibly hard. FNC even had an arguably more talented roster if you value Bwipo and Broxah higher than their counterparts. If you had told me FNC was from KR, I would've believed you, because this is basically the way KR teams primarily beat everyone every season until the previous one.
RNG vs G2 was about disrespect. I think RNG went in with the mindset that they could do everything better, and that their botlane would blow a big hole open in the game. I didn't see any specific counterdrafting to G2 or crazy surprise strats, they left Aatrox open a whopping 4 times (although only once did the champ really go off), and I was really surprised they tried out Lucian 3 times. The champ can work, but it relies on getting an early advantage and Uzi playing perfectly, neither which happened. 1 game is a pocket strat, three games suggests they legit thought G2 would crumble to the pressure, and gambled on it.
Even in previous worlds non-Korean teams could get leads pre-15 minutes, it was just that eventually they would lose based off of map movements. It just turns out that now stalling out is a bit harder and KR teams couldn't handle early-mid game pressure anymore.
While true, the real juggernauts of KR (SKT, SSW, ROX, NJBS) were able to win most laning phases or at least break even. Rarely did they ever get demolished in the first 15 minutes to the point of no return. The last two or three seasons this hasn't been the case anymore, and they have looked a lot shakier ever since.
Thorin had a more recent episode where Loco and LS argued about why Korea looked so bad this year. Loco is pretty adamant that the lose of Smitestone really hurt the Korean playstyle.
Pretty straightforward: S1 EU automatically S2 EU>CN S3 CN>EU S4 CN>EU S5 EU>CN S6 EU>CN S7 CN>EU S8 EU>CN (except if both G2 and fnatic lose)
But yeah I thought it was more one sided than that, China is not that bad actually. Just not the juggernauts they are ought to be, they fail most of the time.
Man, your analysis is so one dimensional, idk wtf you're on about.
S1 doesn't count, LoL was a tiny game and it was Western teams with some random SEA teams. S2 I'll give to you, although keep in mind the game had just been introduced to CN, the scene wasn't developed at all. S3 OMG did very well only to get smoked by Royal. Royal still demolished FNC handily S4 SHRC again took out the other CN teams S5 iG and LGD played atrocious, absolutely their worst year. S6 is you looking at the pure rankings, what a load of bs. CN was taken out by KR, SKT and ROX were arguably the strongest teams in the tournament. H2K got ANX who hilariously made it out of a group with CLG and G2 S7 was without a doubt a CN
S6 is when people starting considering CN a juggernaut region, that is when their scene fully developed and the money started flowing (technically S5, but that is why we meme'd them for the past two years). Before that they were the same as any other region, except KR with its infrastructure and hence domination of the scene.
While I dont agree with the EU>CN premise, I do think that LPL underperformed a lot over the recent years. They are much bigger than all other LoL regions combined. They have all the resources needed (money in esports and player population). So I have been waiting for them to completely dominate the scene for some time now. I thought this would be their first big year. Maybe it still will be, but it was not that dominant. If they dont win when Korea did this badly it is surely a big disappointment. Also for Riot I guess.
TBH, the only really fun stories in LOL for the past few years have all been about trolling China. I suppose a distant second was Korea being the best as a fun 2nd option for ruining people's days. If China ever lived up to its potential it would sap al the fun out of the system, because like 50%+ is trolling China and its boosters.
iG is playing like they're bluffing: take all the towers and bully G2, then when they get engaged on they run away as fast as possible. It's really interesting to watch. Some of those fights could've easily ended in a blood bath, instead we're at a 3-1 at 24 minutes.
And I end up eating my words, inhib dives at 24:30 :/
I know this might not make entirely sense, but imo the game was won by that Akali pick. It was winning top lane drawing attention from Jankos, and caused the other lanes to lose even harder. Also that shroud diving forces really defensive play from G2 when behind, because Akali will just blow up any low health champ. It's also a ticking time bomb because eventually Akali one shots everyone, and took a possible Perkz pick away.
J4 was also a good counter to Sivir, the whole G2 comp really.
Jankos' early jungling looked like he practiced it in scrims with chinese teams /s IG's deep ward showed him trying to gank Akali when she was lvl 2 and from that point it looked like Ning was always at least one step ahead of him.
On October 27 2018 17:50 DarkCore wrote: I know this might not make entirely sense, but imo the game was won by that Akali pick. It was winning top lane drawing attention from Jankos, and caused the other lanes to lose even harder. Also that shroud diving forces really defensive play from G2 when behind, because Akali will just blow up any low health champ. It's also a ticking time bomb because eventually Akali one shots everyone, and took a possible Perkz pick away.
J4 was also a good counter to Sivir, the whole G2 comp really.
I did not think Akali vs Swain would be a winning lane at all. G2 probably did not either.
I think it is more accurate to say G2 lost the top lane, not drafted a losing lane.
On October 27 2018 03:45 DarkCore wrote: Man, your analysis is so one dimensional, idk wtf you're on about.
S1 doesn't count, LoL was a tiny game and it was Western teams with some random SEA teams. S2 I'll give to you, although keep in mind the game had just been introduced to CN, the scene wasn't developed at all. S3 OMG did very well only to get smoked by Royal. Royal still demolished FNC handily S4 SHRC again took out the other CN teams S5 iG and LGD played atrocious, absolutely their worst year. S6 is you looking at the pure rankings, what a load of bs. CN was taken out by KR, SKT and ROX were arguably the strongest teams in the tournament. H2K got ANX who hilariously made it out of a group with CLG and G2 S7 was without a doubt a CN
S6 is when people starting considering CN a juggernaut region, that is when their scene fully developed and the money started flowing (technically S5, but that is why we meme'd them for the past two years). Before that they were the same as any other region, except KR with its infrastructure and hence domination of the scene.
For S6 that's pure logic actually. Yes H2K had an opponent that CN teams would have probably dominated. Then they lost to KR. CN lost to KR. That doesn't mean that CN teams would have been able to beat H2K, so we judge based on placement and H2K went further.
He does. But the 1v1 kill was straight up suicide. And I think Wunder misplaces the W when jayce goes all in.
Then you have Perkz dying on the allin because there is a jungler he did not expect and Jankos missing an easy bot gank by screwing up flash body slam and you should lose the game vs a good opponent.
Rookie and TheShy are also arguably the best Jayce players in competitive play, having a double pocket pick is a nightmare.
G2 first tower only fell at the 13 min mark, they're are doing better than last game, but not by much. Lets see if scaling kicks in before they crumple. Also Hjarn is winning bot lane, that's hilarious, Wadid is solo carrying two lanes.
On October 27 2018 03:45 DarkCore wrote: Man, your analysis is so one dimensional, idk wtf you're on about.
S1 doesn't count, LoL was a tiny game and it was Western teams with some random SEA teams. S2 I'll give to you, although keep in mind the game had just been introduced to CN, the scene wasn't developed at all. S3 OMG did very well only to get smoked by Royal. Royal still demolished FNC handily S4 SHRC again took out the other CN teams S5 iG and LGD played atrocious, absolutely their worst year. S6 is you looking at the pure rankings, what a load of bs. CN was taken out by KR, SKT and ROX were arguably the strongest teams in the tournament. H2K got ANX who hilariously made it out of a group with CLG and G2 S7 was without a doubt a CN
S6 is when people starting considering CN a juggernaut region, that is when their scene fully developed and the money started flowing (technically S5, but that is why we meme'd them for the past two years). Before that they were the same as any other region, except KR with its infrastructure and hence domination of the scene.
For S6 that's pure logic actually. Yes H2K had an opponent that CN teams would have probably dominated. Then they lost to KR. CN lost to KR. That doesn't mean that CN teams would have been able to beat H2K, so we judge based on placement and H2K went further.
So yes EU had more good showings than CN
So just to check your logic on this: If G2 and Fnatic both lose their semis then NA > EU this Worlds because C9 would make finals?
This series left a bitter taste in my mouth. It was just too one sided. This was the final nail in the coffin for Jankos as a player in my eyes. He's had so many chances to step up but just never seem to be able to do that on a consistent basis.
As much as TheShy and Rookie played well, I thought their complete dominance wasn't even due to them doing amazing things. It just felt like G2 never put up any real resistance. Wunder's play in all 3 games was incredibly suspect. That game 2 top lane where he just uses all his Qs on the ground so TheShy walks up and kills him. I mean come up what on earth are they doing?
Anyway thought IG were clear favourites for Worlds after quarters and they definitely showed they are here to take it all.
edit: That game 2 draft by G2 was just straight up garbage. Last picking Gragas on red side really. You can't play red side and get 2 losing solo laners. That's just terrible drafting come on.
IDK fam I think G2s pick/ban entire series was pretty atrocious. They somehow got a decent draft in Game 3 and still lost so it's likely they wouldn't have won either way and I can excuse game 1 for not knowing about the Jayce, but the 2nd was so stupidly given away.
Like I want to give props to iG for smashing so hard but feels like they just PLAYED THEIR GAME and G2 just chain inted. At least Rookie and TheChad will get some props for how good they are now.
That GIF fight was beyond sad, 4 people completely forgot how Aatrox works.
IDK fam I think G2s pick/ban entire series was pretty atrocious. They somehow got a decent draft in Game 3 and still lost so it's likely they wouldn't have won either way and I can excuse game 1 for not knowing about the Jayce, but the 2nd was so stupidly given away.
Like I want to give props to iG for smashing so hard but feels like they just PLAYED THEIR GAME and G2 just chain inted. At least Rookie and TheChad will get some props for how good they are now.
I thought G1 and G3 was OK, G2 was garbage. G1 they had a nice strategy but the Jayce pick completely swamped them, and not enough was done to slow Akali, she would've ended the game if it had reached minute 30. G3 highlighted that you can't give Rookie LeBlanc, he is Faker levels of disgusting on the champ.
iG played to their strengths, win lane win game. It also happened to be one of the big weaknesses of G2, and hence they got slaughtered. Throw in some spicy draft prep and this is the series you would get. Hjarn and Wadid looked really good and tried their best, but Jankos played a good 10 minutes in G1 and then promptly turned off. Perkz and Wunder got outplayed.
After watching the VoD, Swain did well and had a nice cs lead on Akali until he teleported in the middle of the lane, Akali set up for all her skillshots for free and preemptive smoke screen and Swain was at 50% right after his TP back and then had to play scared and give away his entire lead (cs lead went from +20 to -10 super fast after that).
Yeah I remember that moment too, it was pretty brutal and definitely shifted the lane because she hadn't even TP'd in. Champ might be a bit too strong right now, at least the numbers feel off. Also think shroud lasts way too long, at least around towers it should be shortened like Azir soldiers. Lv 5 it can last for up to 10 seconds, that's enough force the enemy team to retreat and take almost a full tower with the team.
Wunder played top lane incredibly disrespectful all series. That Swain TP game 1 was really bad. Game 2 he had moments of just chilling in lane while he knows a gank is coming and just not reacting. Or he gets a gank on jayce but stays in lane and just dies for no reason. Overall it was an awful series for Wunder, and all of G2 top side really.
It's a bit sad since it would have been a fun series if G2 actually played. Sure they could have still lost 3-0 but it would be a lot more fun. Instead IG barely even try yet destroy G2.
Well Fnatic had Azir and his ult so C9 had no business even trying. Fnatic would kill nash super fast and need to fuck up so hard to get it stolen instead of collecting free kills. Jensen wasting his ult on a dead Jayce didn't help either, he had no burst to contribute to the nash fight as a result.
I dont really understand these Lissandra picks, she just feel like she falls off so hard and does so really fast. Yeah she is super safe in lane with great gank assistance, but in all games have felt like that's all she has added to the teams picking her.
I don't get why C9 drafted Aatrox when we know that he's easily counterable at this stage of the tournament. And C9 being too sheepish to not turret dive bot when they hit 6 was why they lost this game... And probably the series. Barring a massive Fnatic throw.
Edit: I think their Lissandra reliance is because Jensen is really rusty on Azir and a couple of the other mid lane picks that have shown up this tournament and Reapered is trying to cover that up with their drafting.
On October 28 2018 18:33 Kinie wrote: I don't get why C9 drafted Aatrox when we know that he's easily counterable at this stage of the tournament. And C9 being too sheepish to not turret dive bot when they hit 6 was why they lost this game... And probably the series. Barring a massive Fnatic throw.
Isn't Urgot still fairly godly top? What happened with that?
On October 28 2018 18:33 Kinie wrote: I don't get why C9 drafted Aatrox when we know that he's easily counterable at this stage of the tournament. And C9 being too sheepish to not turret dive bot when they hit 6 was why they lost this game... And probably the series. Barring a massive Fnatic throw.
Isn't Urgot still fairly godly top? What happened with that?
The meta's shifted to solo lane dominance with a subtheme of split pushing (4-1 or 1-3-1) and Urgot can't do the latter fast enough. He also needs time and items to scale.
On October 28 2018 18:39 Jek wrote: I dont think it's worth spending bans on Caps at this point. LOL
If I'm Reapered and have counter-picks to beat either Akali or Irelia, I drop one of those bans and on red side ban out LB, Akali/Irelia, and Lee Sin. Fnatic probably grab Akali/Irelia, C9 counters with Viktor + Rakan (which Fnatic have shown proficiency and a bit of reliance upon) and force Fnatic to pick something else. You then have counter-pick and champion swap options in phase 2 (where you probably pull out the hard counter pick to the dropped ban from phase 1 that you baited Fnatic into taking).
Really interesting to watch this Viktor contest, champ doesn't give me 'strong' vibes. Also Rek'Sai pick is completely out of the blue, does FNC really think she's worth picking?
The Lissandra picks were C9's weak point and Fnatic were able to capitalize on it. I also think not recognizing that Fnatic was relying on Rakan to engage and make plays is a big oversight by Reapered.
I liked C9's grit in game 3 but they were just simply lane for lane outclassed, still really really really dont like the Lissandra picks. They can still be proud they had a great run!
Think Ekko in the Viktor match should run the Fleet Foodwork pages like Kassadin, it's sustain on AP melee champions is actually insane. Sure his burst damage will suffer, baring a huge out/miss-play but he's never going to 1v1 Viktor anyway.
Bwipo doing so well we might not get to see Soaz play again, unless TheShy outperforms Bwipo so hard that Fnatic will need to replace him with Soaz who's better at playing with less resources.
People question C9's drafts but I think Irelia, Leblanc and Akali were must bans for C9 on either side because I don't believe Jensen or Licorice would do any better on or against those champions. I guess their faith in the Ekko "counterpick" was their biggest pick/ban mistake.
On October 28 2018 22:13 AdsMoFro wrote: The fact that Broxah didn't get a single player of the game in that series means if Fnatic win, he's probs gonna be robbed of MVP
True, the lack of recognition for him is astonishing. Although I dont think he cares.
Man semis was kind of a blowout. First semis was like watching a challenger smurf in platinum. Second semis was like watching a diamond smurf in bronze. Final will be another blowout. IG 3-1 I think.
I thought C9 looked more competent than G2 in the first two games, but both were clearly inferior to their opponents. iG and FNC completely stomped their series, seriously hyping up the finals. Lets see if iG have learned from their mistakes in groups, and if FNC bring some good prep.
Broxah is definitely being overlooked by the casters, but that's not a surprise because the whole of FNC are playing very well right now and Rekkles/Caps performance is always a topic, not to mention Bwipo is probably the hottest rookie besides Broxah himself.
I honestly wonder if Bwipo could even beat TheShy in a game or two, although I hope he just manages to keep iG's toplaner down and not feed. But FNC has legit crazy talent now, I think they can hold their own.
I feel like C9's game 2 draft would have worked better as a red side draft. I think last picking Lissandra on red instead of having to pick Liss/Leona and revealing everything before Fnatic's pick really took some oomf out of the draft
On October 28 2018 18:32 Jek wrote: Oh boy. Caps is having the time of his life.
I dont really understand these Lissandra picks, she just feel like she falls off so hard and does so really fast. Yeah she is super safe in lane with great gank assistance, but in all games have felt like that's all she has added to the teams picking her.
I think the Lissandra picks performed admirably for C9. There were 2+ fights per game where the liss went in and the fight split into a 1v2 for liss + 4v3 for the rest of C9. Its just that C9 lost the 4v3s. If you can't win a teamfight when Reckless is standing around with his thumb up his ass for the first 5 seconds what you gonna do?
Yeah. I think people have been hating on C9 drafts more than is deserved (and maybe less on the players). For example a lot of folks have said the pick of Ecko into Victor didn’t work, but watching the details of how the games played out, Ecko was doing fine and building kill pressure until jungle ganked and turned around lane. That FNC just has a better jungle player is no fault of the Ecko pick.
Idk, if you draft a niche counter pick like Ekko then the onus is on you to make it work. Jungle pressure is something that should be assessed during drafting, because matchups don't happen in a vacuum. Lategame Ekko is quite difficult to deal with as well, so if C9 had managed to drag the game out they could've had a second chance.
Also game 1 C9 got destroyed, Ekko got killed multiple times before using ult. I would've ditched the champ after seeing FNC showing they couldn't just deal with the champion on a macro level, but also on a mechanical.
Liss on the other hand is more open for debate. I could understand it being picked, it appeared to do pretty well in the last two games and it's a great setup for team fights. Still sucked to see Jensen play it 3 times instead of something a bit flashier.
I assume the rational was putting Jensen in a carry vs carry with Caps was just not a dice worth rolling. Similar to Crown playing a lot of Malz games last year, just minimize the enemy mid as much as possible. You can't afford to try a tank pick to minimize top because the meta doesn't favor it, and the Fnatic botlane is just better than C9's. You (c9) just had to hope that minimizing Caps would have been enough, turns out he's just a monster.
As a fan I'm super proud of C9 getting this far, there's no shame in meeting your match in the round of 4 after the road they went on to get there. They just got outmatched
Best lineup while avoiding casters from competitors' regions imo. Best overall would be Deficio over Kobe - especially if it would be the last thing he casts.
I’m reading lots of analysis saying finals are going to be close, but I’m starting to get a twisted feeling in my gut that says it will be a blowout. I’ll stay up till 3:30am to watch, ruin my sleep cycle and there will be a 23 minute game, a 15 minute game, and a 26 minute game.
On November 03 2018 04:19 General_Winter wrote: I’m reading lots of analysis saying finals are going to be close, but I’m starting to get a twisted feeling in my gut that says it will be a blowout. I’ll stay up till 3:30am to watch, ruin my sleep cycle and there will be a 23 minute game, a 15 minute game, and a 26 minute game.
At least you wont ruin your sleep cycle quite as much then.
Thanks for reminding me to check the schedule. I was expecting the match to start at 9 or 10 am but Riot's schedule says it's going to start at 8:30 am in Europe.
It's 9pm Saturday night in my timezone; going to be at a friend's going-away party then at a Halloween gig, so please keep up the live-reportage (& picks/bans?) in this thread for those of us that are reduced to surreptitiously checking our phones
On November 03 2018 05:06 Sent. wrote: Thanks for reminding me to check the schedule. I was expecting the match to start at 9 or 10 am but Riot's schedule says it's going to start at 8:30 am in Europe.
Pretty sure that means the actual game will start at 9 am.
I think I remember pregame shows during the playoffs were starting earlier than what was given in the schedule, but I'm not sure. I'm waking up at 8:30 either way, hoping I can avoid falling back asleep in case Riot gives us an hour long pregame show. Need to set up a lot of alarms to be safe .
Rekkles hasn't been wrong yet, dude is gonna come in and fucking smash just as he said he would
Despite just saying that, I really want to see Fnatic pull a Rekkles out Bwipo bot game on one of the blue side games. Force iG into a shitty ban phase because they'd need to ban Swain/Viktor on Red Side and could give Fnatic anything they want. I think G2 really showed how great it is to NEED a ban against them.
On November 03 2018 16:33 Amui wrote: Basically the only thing that annoys me is that they couldn't make higher quality models for the KDA popstars.
Riot cutting costs proving KDA skins are selling poorly :O
The more skins sold per second of KDA line the better the quality in live :D
Imagine that. With a full bar on the side slowly filling up. FUcking riot just hire me i can save your company. I will accept payment in clothing and shoes.
On November 03 2018 16:33 Amui wrote: Basically the only thing that annoys me is that they couldn't make higher quality models for the KDA popstars.
Riot cutting costs proving KDA skins are selling poorly :O
The more skins sold per second of KDA line the better the quality in live :D
Imagine that. With a full bar on the side slowly filling up. FUcking riot just hire me i can save your company. I will accept payment in clothing and shoes.
I mean I'll probably still break out the old credit card.
They definitely have models before they cut it down for putting in the game.
It's just when you blow up the ingame models 10x what they are in game, they really, really don't look good, especially when put into a 1080p stream.
On November 03 2018 16:33 Amui wrote: Basically the only thing that annoys me is that they couldn't make higher quality models for the KDA popstars.
Riot cutting costs proving KDA skins are selling poorly :O
The more skins sold per second of KDA line the better the quality in live :D
Imagine that. With a full bar on the side slowly filling up. FUcking riot just hire me i can save your company. I will accept payment in clothing and shoes.
I mean I'll probably still break out the old credit card.
They definitely have models before they cut it down for putting in the game.
It's just when you blow up the ingame models 10x what they are in game, they really, really don't look good, especially when put into a 1080p stream.
Not to mention the old "these models weren't meant to be looked at from this angle" aspect warping things a lil bit.
With Jackylove playing like that it looks like IG stronger in 3 lanes not just two. Though it’s hard not to look strong on a Fed Kai Sa.
Also, taking the all AD comp seems like a bad call. Meta may mostly be carries, but tanks are still strong when they only need to buy one kind of resist.
On November 03 2018 17:36 General_Winter wrote: With Jackylove playing like that it looks like IG stronger in 3 lanes not just two. Though it’s hard not to look strong on a Fed Kai Sa.
Also, taking the all AD comp seems like a bad call. Meta may mostly be carries, but tanks are still strong when they only need to buy one kind of resist.
Especially when you dump it all into physical damage because then their items double duty against turrets too unlike heavy AP comps.
More than anything, iG did a great job controlling the river with pinks.
Irelia into Liss is horrific if you don't have confidence in where the jungler is, especially after level 6. It's just so easy to just get CC'd into death.
Fnatic's comp also had no tools at all to stall a game if they fell behind, with minimal non-melee waveclear.
Please don't be a blowout please don't be a blowout please don't be a blowout please don't be a blowout please don't be a blowout please don't be a blowout
On November 03 2018 04:19 General_Winter wrote: I’m reading lots of analysis saying finals are going to be close, but I’m starting to get a twisted feeling in my gut that says it will be a blowout. I’ll stay up till 3:30am to watch, ruin my sleep cycle and there will be a 23 minute game, a 15 minute game, and a 26 minute game.
The communication between Bwipo and Broxah seems off. You NEED to shadow your top laner of you want to push out top in this matchup, unless you've seen the enemy jungler on the map and know for a fact he's not going to gank you when pushing out.
This worlds was really shit after KT vs IG series. Maybe Riot will finally change the system so we don't have so many weak games with the true final being long before the finals.
It was a blowout but overall this still has been the best World's as a whole. Non-stop excitement from the word go.
EDIT: Rookie really deserves it. He stayed when others hauled ass when they saw the path wasn't going to just open up a red carpet for them. I can respect the grind
I mean, FNC normally doesn't make a mistake like that, right? How the fuck do they make a mistake like that now? Actually, this is a mistake that barely even happens at the bottom of the barrel pro scene.
On November 03 2018 19:18 starkiller123 wrote: looks like KT vs IG was the really finals, what a surprise
At least IG v KT was a best of 5. Real finals often happens before finals, but since it’s best of 5 starting in quarters we do get full bo5 for finals whenever it happens.
On November 03 2018 19:15 Numy wrote: This worlds was really shit after KT vs IG series. Maybe Riot will finally change the system so we don't have so many weak games with the true final being long before the finals.
Fnatic earned to avoid KT by beating IG twice in a row. You are just talking hindsight because this series was a blowout, but these can happen in any system.
Fnatic easily earned their spot in the finals by going 12-2, not because of some system.
On November 03 2018 19:25 chipmonklord17 wrote: So what are the skins?
I'm thinking Aatrox,Camille,Irelia,Kaisa,Alistar and whatever Duke chooses
Aatrox and Urgot deserve skins. They have been shit tier since their inceptions save for spots here and there, and now they have both been in the meta.
I think whichever of the two isn't chosen by TheShy/Rookie/Duke will be used as the Championship or Conqueror Skin, whichever is based on the previous season's worlds. I know one is worlds and the other is MSI
On November 03 2018 19:15 Numy wrote: This worlds was really shit after KT vs IG series. Maybe Riot will finally change the system so we don't have so many weak games with the true final being long before the finals.
Fnatic earned to avoid KT by beating IG twice in a row. You are just talking hindsight because this series was a blowout, but these can happen in any system.
Fnatic easily earned their spot in the finals by going 12-2, not because of some system.
Do you believe Fnatic could have earned that spot in a double elim setup? I just want a good top4 which we didn't get this year and more often than not we don't. The IG side of the bracket had some real good series between KT IG and RNG G2 but the Fnatic side had pretty one sided series with arguably the weaker teams. Fnatic managed to come out on top and thus earned a spot in the current system.
If the system cared more about ranking of teams below 1st spot would the outcome have been the same? Who knows. I just want to watch better league which we couldn't after the quarters. It's not just this year either, it happens almost every year.
Of course they could have in a double elim. No idea why not.
Of course the outcome could have been different in a different system. It could also be different in the same system if played again. Results are not predetermined.
I am just triggered because you seem to be taking away from earlier achievements because of a later result. That is not how it should work.
FNC got outclassed, nothing more to be said. Ning played well, kept Broxah under control, his solo lanes did the rest. Glad I got up late and can play YouTube forward, don't think I'd have gotten through this series otherwise.
Congrats IG. I'm a bit sad for fnatic but strangely I'm less sad than when SKT got bopped by SSG. SSG being so trash at worlds 2018 makes up for it tho
On November 03 2018 20:24 Poopi wrote: I was very wrong about CN, wow!
Congrats IG. I'm a bit sad for fnatic but strangely I'm less sad than when SKT got bopped by SSG. SSG being so trash at worlds 2018 makes up for it tho
On November 03 2018 20:24 Poopi wrote: I was very wrong about CN, wow!
Congrats IG. I'm a bit sad for fnatic but strangely I'm less sad than when SKT got bopped by SSG. SSG being so trash at worlds 2018 makes up for it tho
I'm still pissed off at how FNC played. Especially game 3 with their baron buff. They catch top wave after killing Aatrox. They push mid wave in and don't press mid. They all rotate top. Instead of putting wards in both sides of their jungle. They react extremely slow to the stack on bot lane. Broxah shows ultimate disrespect to a quasi late game Aatrox when he barely had 1.5k(?) hp. Caps disrespect frontline to get turned on. He flashes super awkwardly to nowhere good instead of stacking damage on Jackeylove with Soaz. 3 people of iG were busy dealing with Caps & Soaz, which should've -with decent flashing and communication- extended the fight at least so you can deal with Galio & Camille (which they almost did if they only could've had a little bit more time). This just didn't look like a FNC with their shit together. I don't believe nerves kill you in a finals at worlds.. I'm ready to go conspiracy theory mode here..
On November 04 2018 05:30 starkiller123 wrote: im so ready for 2019 to start already lol
To be fair to that sentiment, offseason free agency is one of the hypest times of the year.
The SKT rebuild is going to be fucking hyped. I'm hoping Kiin/Yondu/Faker/Bang/Wolf unless Wolf wants to retire, then they should grab a playmaker like Max or Ignar
On November 04 2018 08:29 LightningStrike wrote: Duke is the only person who won 2 worlds on 2 different organizations. Although I am happy for Duke since he was a former SKT T1 player I wanted Fnatic to win more
And not only that, two different regions. That's actually pretty sick
Duke is the only person who won 2 worlds on 2 different organizations. Although I am happy for Duke since he was a former SKT T1 player I wanted Fnatic to win more
On November 04 2018 05:30 starkiller123 wrote: im so ready for 2019 to start already lol
To be fair to that sentiment, offseason free agency is one of the hypest times of the year.
The SKT rebuild is going to be fucking hyped. I'm hoping Kiin/Yondu/Faker/Bang/Wolf unless Wolf wants to retire, then they should grab a playmaker like Max or Ignar
On November 04 2018 08:29 LightningStrike wrote: Duke is the only person who won 2 worlds on 2 different organizations. Although I am happy for Duke since he was a former SKT T1 player I wanted Fnatic to win more
And not only that, two different regions. That's actually pretty sick
Nah, I'm thinking Untara/Blank/some mid - I guess Lava after Faker takes his spot/Bang/Wolf. That roster would get my hype going.
On November 04 2018 05:30 starkiller123 wrote: im so ready for 2019 to start already lol
To be fair to that sentiment, offseason free agency is one of the hypest times of the year.
The SKT rebuild is going to be fucking hyped. I'm hoping Kiin/Yondu/Faker/Bang/Wolf unless Wolf wants to retire, then they should grab a playmaker like Max or Ignar
On November 04 2018 08:29 LightningStrike wrote: Duke is the only person who won 2 worlds on 2 different organizations. Although I am happy for Duke since he was a former SKT T1 player I wanted Fnatic to win more
And not only that, two different regions. That's actually pretty sick
yeah except I'm hoping that SKT picks up Ssumday and saves him from NA elo hell, also would be cool to finally see Teddy get on a team with a solid roster around him but idk if SKT would be willing to replace Bang, Afreeca on the other hand...
On November 03 2018 19:17 lilwisper wrote: It was a blowout but overall this still has been the best World's as a whole. Non-stop excitement from the word go.
EDIT: Rookie really deserves it. He stayed when others hauled ass when they saw the path wasn't going to just open up a red carpet for them. I can respect the grind
On November 03 2018 20:06 chipmonklord17 wrote: Outside of that opening ceremony this world's was incredible
Yall have to be drunk aside from the Rookie part. Easily the worst major tournament gamewise since before I started watching (so early 2012), bad finals, bad semis, meh champion (not that I don't enjoy iG, ive been an iG booster and fan for a while, but they really are not a great team). On top of of all that is was easily the worst meta I've seen. Its basically the equivalent of the Juggernaut meta worlds if teams hadn't figured out how to make Darius and Morde useless by quarters.
This tournament felt like it actually was the "the Europa league" and there was a real "Champions league" happening elsewhere, and iG should have been in the Champions league except they had a few midseason injuries.
On November 03 2018 19:17 lilwisper wrote: It was a blowout but overall this still has been the best World's as a whole. Non-stop excitement from the word go.
EDIT: Rookie really deserves it. He stayed when others hauled ass when they saw the path wasn't going to just open up a red carpet for them. I can respect the grind
On November 03 2018 20:06 chipmonklord17 wrote: Outside of that opening ceremony this world's was incredible
Yall have to be drunk aside from the Rookie part. Easily the worst major tournament gamewise since before I started watching (so early 2012), bad finals, bad semis, meh champion (not that I don't enjoy iG, ive been an iG booster and fan for a while, but they really are not a great team). On top of of all that is was easily the worst meta I've seen. Its basically the equivalent of the Juggernaut meta worlds if teams hadn't figured out how to make Darius and Morde useless by quarters.
This tournament felt like it actually was the "the Europa league" and there was a real "Champions league" happening elsewhere, and iG should have been in the Champions league except they had a few midseason injuries.
Heavily disagree. Season 4 was bad. Season 5 had one good bo5. Ssw was just so far ahead of every team none of the games felt fun or important. This meta was fine as well. We saw great developments in meta. Viktor top to counter Urgot then Jayce to counter Viktor top. Sure the semis and onwards were bad (because this world's format is dogshit), but before that, groups and quarters, were super entertaining for sure.
I am just going to heavily disagree with you particularly on meta. If you think the tournament narratives were better, thats opinion, but I don't think it holds unless you give ++ for EU and NA narratives (also you have to ignore caster deterioration). When it comes to meta all the most important champs are among the worst to watch in their role. Xayah, KaiSai (and Jihn) are negatives, as are Urgot, Aatrox and new Irelia (the fact that there are counters doesn't help, they are intrinsically boring even when countered). Indeed, the biggest issue I had is that the two roles with fun champion select: Jungle and Support were neutered by the vision changes so I felt they got to do so much less fun things.
Plus, lets not pretend. I got exited by AZIR picks because he was the most interesting midlane thing happening. Where is Orianna? Lulu? Anivia? Those are the champs that make midlane fun. Heck, even the tank tops ornn and sion are the worst tanks. Maokai is way better to watch same with Nautilus. The only way to plausibly make the champ pool less fun would be to add more Zoe.
Worlds is almost always bad competition. That's just how it's set up. It's more about the hype and celebration. Much the same way the Football World Cup is almost never the top level competition.
On November 04 2018 18:27 cLutZ wrote: I am just going to heavily disagree with you particularly on meta. If you think the tournament narratives were better, thats opinion, but I don't think it holds unless you give ++ for EU and NA narratives (also you have to ignore caster deterioration). When it comes to meta all the most important champs are among the worst to watch in their role. Xayah, KaiSai (and Jihn) are negatives, as are Urgot, Aatrox and new Irelia (the fact that there are counters doesn't help, they are intrinsically boring even when countered). Indeed, the biggest issue I had is that the two roles with fun champion select: Jungle and Support were neutered by the vision changes so I felt they got to do so much less fun things.
Plus, lets not pretend. I got exited by AZIR picks because he was the most interesting midlane thing happening. Where is Orianna? Lulu? Anivia? Those are the champs that make midlane fun. Heck, even the tank tops ornn and sion are the worst tanks. Maokai is way better to watch same with Nautilus. The only way to plausibly make the champ pool less fun would be to add more Zoe.
So basically you hate those champs? Yeah, then I guess you wouldn't like this worlds.
As far as tournament narratives, I enjoyed Korea not coming into a tournament without the belief that they've got the best three teams in the world. It was refreshing. And yeah. I agree with Numy, the setup of Worlds pretty much ensures that you won't see the highest quality games.
On November 03 2018 19:17 lilwisper wrote: It was a blowout but overall this still has been the best World's as a whole. Non-stop excitement from the word go.
EDIT: Rookie really deserves it. He stayed when others hauled ass when they saw the path wasn't going to just open up a red carpet for them. I can respect the grind
On November 03 2018 20:06 chipmonklord17 wrote: Outside of that opening ceremony this world's was incredible
Yall have to be drunk aside from the Rookie part. Easily the worst major tournament gamewise since before I started watching (so early 2012), bad finals, bad semis, meh champion (not that I don't enjoy iG, ive been an iG booster and fan for a while, but they really are not a great team). On top of of all that is was easily the worst meta I've seen. Its basically the equivalent of the Juggernaut meta worlds if teams hadn't figured out how to make Darius and Morde useless by quarters.
This tournament felt like it actually was the "the Europa league" and there was a real "Champions league" happening elsewhere, and iG should have been in the Champions league except they had a few midseason injuries.
Eh, agree with semis and finals sucking, probably the most one sided seeding ever, but the meta itself wasn't too bad. I think Aatrox and Urgot are pretty boring champions when you see them so much, but we did get to see a few pocket picks.
Where is Orianna? Lulu? Anivia?
I think you have some nostalgia building up there. Orianna was meta for fucking forever, sooooooo boring when Faker wasn't playing her. Lulu mid is cancer, when she's meta it means we see hypercarry comps that do nothing but farm. Anivia is a pocket pick, only mid this tournament I can think of that plays her is Rookie. Instead we saw some great Jayce, LeBlanc (probably OP in the right hands), Syndra, Swain, Galio games.
Th entire tournament was good. People are just butthurt that "the West" lost. The first half of the tournament is always better unless "your" team wins it.
On November 03 2018 19:17 lilwisper wrote: It was a blowout but overall this still has been the best World's as a whole. Non-stop excitement from the word go.
EDIT: Rookie really deserves it. He stayed when others hauled ass when they saw the path wasn't going to just open up a red carpet for them. I can respect the grind
On November 03 2018 20:06 chipmonklord17 wrote: Outside of that opening ceremony this world's was incredible
Yall have to be drunk aside from the Rookie part. Easily the worst major tournament gamewise since before I started watching (so early 2012), bad finals, bad semis, meh champion (not that I don't enjoy iG, ive been an iG booster and fan for a while, but they really are not a great team). On top of of all that is was easily the worst meta I've seen. Its basically the equivalent of the Juggernaut meta worlds if teams hadn't figured out how to make Darius and Morde useless by quarters.
This tournament felt like it actually was the "the Europa league" and there was a real "Champions league" happening elsewhere, and iG should have been in the Champions league except they had a few midseason injuries.
Eh, agree with semis and finals sucking, probably the most one sided seeding ever, but the meta itself wasn't too bad. I think Aatrox and Urgot are pretty boring champions when you see them so much, but we did get to see a few pocket picks.
I think you have some nostalgia building up there. Orianna was meta for fucking forever, sooooooo boring when Faker wasn't playing her. Lulu mid is cancer, when she's meta it means we see hypercarry comps that do nothing but farm. Anivia is a pocket pick, only mid this tournament I can think of that plays her is Rookie. Instead we saw some great Jayce, LeBlanc (probably OP in the right hands), Syndra, Swain, Galio games.
Ori isn't nostalgia, she's the best designed mage in the game. I did also enjoy some of the leblanc play we had, but you also brought up galio who is the more boring lulu replacement and swain who I didn't know anyone enjoyed in the least.
Ori is nostalgic because she was meta for ages, and you want her back. Nostalgia has nothing to do with champion design, my point was that it's nice to see some champion rotation, game has been around for almost 10 years and only now are we seeing Akali in pro play, and Aatrox hasn't been meta since his release.
Galio is fun when Rookie plays him, because it's all about map control. And I really enjoyed Ucal and Bwipo's Swain, when people don't play him like a safe champion he's pretty exciting. I hated Lulu with a passion, because while Juggermaw was fun as an ADC main, she also pushed a meta that revolved around farming and made aggressive play, like we saw this season, a risk just because her ADC would 1vs5 by the 20 minute mark.
EPT
![[image loading]](https://www.liquidlegends.net/staff/AdsMoFro/IG_Worlds_FP.jpg)
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. I'm shocked someone guessed the other group correctly though.
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/aU0xZq7.gif)
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