If, like me, your favorite part of Worlds is the Group Stage, then you have already adjusted your sleep schedule. Your grades are suffering. Your work is uninspired. You barely remembered to feed the cat. But your heart? Your heart is like a cocoon that’s ready to transform into a dream-moth. Try as you might to not imagine your team lifting the Summoner’s Cup — you’ve done it. Even if only in brief. And right now, none of those imaginations are dead yet. If KT Rolster can win the LCK, then anything can happen this year. From Uzi winning to Liquid memes to benching Rekkles — all the major storylines are still alive, and all of them kick into gear in Busan. Here’s 10 thoughts going into the Group Stage!

#1 You are a neutral fan who doesn’t know who to root for?

Here are quick one liners on why you should root for each team:

Group A:

1. AfreecaFreecs— your favorite genre of music is grunge rock and you like that they used to be called Rebels Anarchy
2. Flash Wolves — you are a Hufflepuff and like teams who’ve kept their core roster together and are great friends
3. Phong Vũ Buffalo — you love URF and love teams that fight all the time

4. G2Esports— you remember Ocelot’s scarves and want to see scarves on champions in-game

Group B:

1. Royal Never Give Up — you want the best player (Uzi) who’s never won a title to finally win a title to complete a dream year for China
2. Generation Gaming — you want to see the reigning champs defend their Crown
3. Team Vitality — you want to see an expressive midlanerand vocal head coach have as much screen time as possible
4. Cloud9– you are amemerat heart and mostly just want a PizzaSivirSneaky skin to exist

Group C:

1. KTRolster— you root for the Golden State Warriors and like super teams where everyone on the team is actually a monster
2. Edward Gaming — you’re tired of seeing a popular team constantly fail to meet expectations and just want them and their fans to be happy for once
3. Team Liquid — you’ve been following Doublelift’s career for a while and just thinking about him winning it all after the emotionally fraught year he’s had makes you cry
4. MAD Team — you like rooting for the unknown underdog with a logo that would make for a dope fashion line

Group D:

1. Invictus Gaming — you like thel aning phase the most and just want to watch a team smash their opponents in lane and also you secretly think you’d be Challenger if junglers didn’t exist
2. Fnatic– you want to root for the Western team with the best odds of taking it all and to be honest you’ve always kind of liked Fnatic

3. 100 Thieves — you want Reddit to shut up about this team not deserving their Worlds appearance
4. G-Rex — they have dinosaur logo

#2 Group C is the “Group of Death”

For some people, the Group of Death is the group that is hardest to predict because the teams seem fairly equal. Under that definition, you’d say it’s Group A. But that’s not the definition I’m invested in. To me, the Group of Death is the one that has the highest potential for heartbreak. That is, where is expectation the highest, and where are the most potentially devastating collapses? That’s Group C.

KTRolster is basically a K-Drama version of a League of Legends team with how much they’ve thwarted their fans’ hearts over the years. It’s Season 6 of their show now and old favorites have gone on to new shows — each successive season has ended on a bad cliffhanger. Yes, they are the #1 seed from Korea, which means they are one of the pre-tournament favorites, but the organization’s history is fraught with disappointment. Them losing in Groups would simultaneously be the least Korean thing ever and the most KT thing ever. But they are a massive favorite to win this group — all five players are featured on our Top 20 list. Surely they’ll win it?

After all, they are joined by Team Liquid, which features a cast of players who’ve long struggled at Worlds, including frontman Doublelift. If Team Liquid is still an anime, then this might be the arc where they see just how big the world is. But maybe that was last season. Maybe this is Karasuno circa Season 2 and beyond. Team Liquid’s formula for success this year has been simple: win through Doublelift. The burden on him is only going to heighten with the increased level of competition. As the face of not just Team Liquid, but the NA LCS as a whole, all of our hopes and dreams will be pinned on a guy who has never made it out of Groups. And opposing bot lanes in Group C are super strong — even the unknown MAD Team from the LMS features a support player in K who finished 3rd in MVP voting in the summer.

And then there’s EDG, who has never made it past Quarters despite long-term domestic dominance. Even that, though, wasn’t true this year as EDG failed to capture an LPL title in the calendar year for the first time since 2014. They’ve long been a very polarizing team in China — like TSM is for NA — and this year is no different. A slip-up against Infinity Esports in the Group Stage already has fans clamoring for their heads. Ironically, making Quarterfinals would probably be a success for this year’s team, but they’re quickly becoming known for throwing big leads, so their heartbreak potential is very high.

I also think most of us — me included — are kind of writing off MAD because the LMS is seen as a top-heavy league (in that only the Flash Wolves are good). But G-Rex looked pretty good in the Play-ins, and if that’s true for MAD as well, then they should at the very least play a key role as the spoiler. This will be the group where dreams die hard, and with no Bruce Willis in sight, there will be no happy ending.

#3 Uzi and Royal Never Give Up are the favorite to win

Uzi has won everything this year — MSI, Rift Rivals, the Asian Games, and both LPL Splits. He’s even got a cool cameo in the music video. All that eludes him now is Worlds, where he’s been a finalist two times in the past. And with Faker on the sidelines this year, Uzi is unequivocally the best player at Worlds — there is no race horse faster and no titan bigger. All of his signature champions are viable meta picks, and ADCs in general across the world have dominated the latter part of the summer until now. He stands atop all of them. There may never be a scenario more ripe for his taking, and it would be a little poetic to watch him hoist the Summoner’s Cup in Korea after failing to defend China’s home turf last year and after losing to Korean teams in the Worlds Finals twice now. The biggest obstacle may be his own mentality — if he can keep his confidence high and perform as expected, then we may actually see the Uzi Vayne skin come to life.

#4 Caps is the best Western player… ever?

So, of course, any claim for “best” is going to be mostly subjective. And in terms of actual achievements, Caps isn’t even the most accomplished player on his own team. But let me offer you some objective points about why Caps might be the best Western player ever. i. His name kind of sounds like “Claps” and he claps people all the time — he ranked first in solo kills in the EU LCS and was 1st or 2nd in every major statistical category. ii. He picked Vayne mid once and won, which is one of those “don’t try this at home” kind of things. It was just so disrespectful and was the kind of game where you spam your Mastery 4 emote after dying because you tumbled the wrong way. iii. Deficio says “he’s mechanically the best player we’ve ever had” and Deficio is definitely not biased. iv. He has never lost a game in the NA LCS. Also maybe we (Riot) just need a Western midlaner to over-hype since Bjergsen isn’t here. It’s all part of a heinous conspiracy to get you excited about your region. But seriously, if you haven’t had much time to watch the EU LCS this year, then you’ve really missed out on his sheer brilliance. Caps has excelled on a wide variety of styles, and he hasn’t been afraid to push himself to make the game-winning play. That’s the kind of moxie you expect from a championship contender — he doesn’t just wait for mistakes, he creates those openings himself, though sometimes he just ends up creating an opening for the other team.

#5 The Flash Wolves are the dark horse to win it all

After a good showing at MSI, the Flash Wolves returned home to the LMS to post one of the most dominant splits we’ve ever seen from a professional team. They went undefeated at 14-0 with a 28-3 individual game score record, meaning they swept 11 sets — 12 if you include the 3-0 Finals victory win over MAD. In a year that saw long-time regional powerhouses like SKT, TSM, G2, and EDG all slip from the top of their respective leagues, the Flash Wolves not only maintained their reign but actually tightened their grip. Hanabi and Moojin had promising international debuts at MSI and the question will be whether or not they can continue their dominance. I think people are sleeping on them because they stumbled big time the last two Worlds, but I suspect this will be the year they return to the knockout stage. Maybe we’ll get another clash between them and their former All-Star jungler, Karsa (RNG). It’s the kind of matchup that would be perfect for our K-Drama Worlds.

#6 Shoutout to the Play-ins teams

I know some people don’t tune into Worlds until the Group Stage begins, but I just want to say if that’s you, then you really missed out on some great action. Every single team that advanced ended up dropping at least one game, and outside of the EDG vs. DFM series, the Best-of-5 elimination games to determine who would advance featured a lot of back-and-forth action. Whether it was the gutsy teamfighting from Infinity Esports or the strong individual performances from the likes of SuperMassive’s Zeitnot or Gambit’s Kira, it was pretty clear to me that the level of play all around the World has elevated this year. Even a young region like Japan was able to demonstrate tremendous progress. I think that’s admirable, and I hope that if you’re a fan from those regions then you can find someone else to cheer for, and I hope you’ll keep fighting for your teams to come back and do even better.

#7 Some breakout candidates

Here are some people in line for a breakout performance in the games to come — these could be players who will come to define the international stage for years to come.

1. KTRolster Ucal — Born in 2001, he is the youngest player at the tournament. Actually, it is kind of painful to type out “born in 2001.” I am old… Ucal is definitely the weak link for this team — not because he’s weak, but because he’s so inexperienced, and I’d expect international teams to try to pressure him. There’s been a lot of hype around him, which will only contribute to any pressure he might be feeling. And with Crown’s stumbles this year, there still isn’t a true successor to Faker among LCK midlaners, so this Worlds will feature Ucal laying out the foundation of his legacy — for better or for worse.
2. AfreecaFreecs Kiin– The main reason I’m rooting for him is because I’ll get to hear the casters say my name (say my name) every time they call his. I’m sure FlyQuest’s Keane can relate. Kiin payed 17 unique champions this split, including 12 carries, so expect him to be a flashy presence for the Freecs.

3. The entire Phong Vũ Buffalos team — After GAM burst onto the scene last year, Vietnam became recognized as a major international player and was granted an automatic seed towards Worlds. Early scrim rumors suggest PVB is an extremely dangerous team, and a deep run at Worlds will truly cement Vietnam as a mainstay region and not just an errant and unpredictable force, though errant and unpredictable might come to define their style.

4.Invictus Gaming TheShy— Another carry-oriented toplaner like Kiin, TheShy is maybe best known this year for… being injured. The injury opened the door for RNG to swoop in and take the Spring Split and MSI, and surely a portion of the IG contingency is wondering if this would have been IG’s year if not for the injury. Well, here’s another chance for IG to prove their back-to-back 18-1 regular season records this year weren’t just for show. 5. In lieu of this becoming a 10 thoughts list within a 10 thoughts article, I will just list some honorable mentions: C9 Licorice, VITJiizuke, MAD K, and FNC Caps.

#8 The Western front

If we were to step back and look at trends in previous years and tournaments as a basis for this Worlds, then we would have to say that NA isn’t a favorite to get out of any group. TL is at best a toss-up with EDG for second in Group C. Group D heavily favors Fnatic(who may be the only Western team to escape Groups) and IG, and then Vitality and C9 are trapped in Group B with this year’s favorite, RNG, and the reigning champs in Gen.G. That leaves G2, who are in the most difficult group to predict in Group A, but they also haven’t looked very good at Worlds so far. The bright side of this is that because expectations are realistically low, maybe the Western teams will be underestimated. When you’ve got nothing to lose, it’s easier to play without inhibitions. I hope Western teams have looked back on and studied a classic Western-style duel between American political rivals Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton to learn their lesson — there is no honor in a gunfight. Shoot first and don’t miss on purpose.

#9 Don’t be ashamed to cheer for your region

That said, please don’t be ashamed to cheer for your region. I talked about it more in length here, but basically, being a fan of a winning team doesn’t make you a better fan. It just makes you a happier fan. Like, yes, we all know that NA has literally never made the Semifinals — that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have any fans. There are a ton of reasons for why you might root for someone, and winning is only one of those reasons. For competitors, winning may be everything, but for fans, the wins sometimes come unexpectedly. Maybe it’s something they say in an interview or something they tweet or something they do in a documentary that wins you over. And you should carry that thing with you this Worlds, too. The wins are a little more exciting when you don’t expect them, like neat little surprise parties. And, well, I think it’s also fine to have high expectations — even if most of us don’t think of it was being realistic. It’s hard for our teams to expect good performances from themselves if we as fans don’t also expect it from them.

#10 Final predictions

Actually, the order the teams are listed in for thought #1 is pretty close to the general consensus on how the groups are expected to pan out (give or take a few differences). It is, however, different from my personal predictions, which take into account perceptions of strength and historical trends, yes, but more importantly it takes into account my bias for Western teams. It also takes into account the fact that C9 is very good at randomly escaping the Group Stage, so I predict both TL and C9 will advance from NA. TL because Doublelift is good for the sport and I want to see him in a Bo5 on the Worlds stage, and C9 because they will find a way. Somehow. Overall, I think RNG will win Worlds this year in a close set over the AfreecaFreecs (because I think control-oriented teams always thrive at Worlds) to complete the year of Uzi. They’ll also go on to smash the London Spitfire to take home the Esports World Championship this year. I think Fnatic will join those two and KTRolster in the Semifinals. And, finally, I predict the end of this season of League of Legends will feature a post-credit scene of Faker collecting the Infinity Stones for next year.