Three wins for the EU kings under the sky. Three for the Korean lords in their halls of stone. Two for the LPL, aiming to fly. And none for NA on their dark throne in the land of America where the dreams all die. No win to rule them all. No win to find them. No win to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. It’s an open field as the final eight teams prepare to charge into the last battle for the Summoner’s Cup. Here’s 10 thoughts going in to the Quarterfinals!
1. NA N/A
One, two, three strikes, they’re out. It wasn’t a super unexpected result when you consider NA’s history at Worlds combined with the way the draw played out, but it still sucks for fans of the LCS. A lot. After watching TL make a run to the MSI Finals (and C9 making Semifinals last year), part of me kind of felt like this could be NA’s year to finally shut all of the doubters up. Part of me felt like NA could regularly contest the other major regions at international events, even if they wouldn’t be the favorite to take it all. And yet part of me also expected this blowout — perhaps it was a defense mechanism instilled into me from years of watching them fail. Perhaps fatalism is core to NA fandom. In the grand scheme of things, this was a 5-13 Group Stage record that, while agreeably bad, is still just one patch at one single tournament. It’s easy to point at NA’s history and say this is a pattern, but it’s not surefire correlation — NA could (they won’t, but they could) sweep next year and the year after, we might then look at this Worlds as an aberration. That is the optimistic take. The pessimistic take is that NA is a relatively small region (when you look at player base) that just happens to have a massive spotlight on it. Perhaps we are asking for David to pull off a miracle that won’t happen in a world with more than one Goliath. Perhaps, though, it is okay to keep asking for it. What makes competition fun is you are allowed to imagine a new future every time the game resets.
2. Return of Korea
A new upstart region named [checks notes] Korea took the Worlds Group Stage by storm this year by having all three of their representatives finish 1st in their respective groups. If you are a bit of a hardcore hipster fan, you’ve probably heard of them before. Before the tournament began, I suggested that if the LCK could come out swinging this year, we’d look at last year’s Worlds as a single blemish on an otherwise perfect record. SKT looks like one of the favorites to take home the Summoner’s Cup this year, and GRF and DWG also showed flashes of brilliance in their play. GRF in particular destroyed G2 to end their Group Stage and finally lived up to their hype for maybe the first time ever. It is, however, still a little early to anoint any of these teams as the clear favorite to win the whole thing. Korea’s recent struggles have oddly been in Bo5s, where as a region they’ve now lost four straight Best-of-5 sets (excluding this year’s Play-in) from MSI 2018 to now. It’s a really weird stat for a region that has otherwise been so historically dominant when it comes to the Knockout Stage. Look for that streak to end here, though. I don’t think they’re the overwhelming favorite in the matchups like they have been in the past (except for SKT, sorry Splyce), but it’d absolutely be a shocker for all of them to flame out here. If they do, though, let us recycle our “WHY NA SUCKS” threads on KR, too.
3. Euphoria
Here is a question: would all three EU teams being exited at this stage in the tournament be more disappointing than having all three NA teams be exited in the Group Stage? In my opinion, absolutely. Especially when you look at the bracket and the tournament results so far, I think you could make a good case that EU is favored in two of these matchups despite having all three of their teams finish as the #2 seed. Beyond that, EU is playing in front of a home crowd and they’ve had massive expectations all year long. Falling short now would be a major letdown. All this said, I’d be shocked if they all bowed out here. G2 ended the Group Stage on a bit of a downswing as GRF laid into them, but I feel like we still haven’t seen the full extent of what G2 is capable of doing. It felt a little like they were coasting through Groups. FNC on the other hand swept Week 2 (and are now somehow 14-1 all time in Week 2 at Worlds) with dominant wins over SKT and RNG and look to be one of the major contenders for this final stretch of Worlds. As for Splyce? Well, a teacher of mine once said there are two kinds of people in this world: those who are afraid of spiders and those who are afraid of snakes. If SKT happens to be afraid of snakes, then Splyce is about to make a major upset. This is actually a great chance for them to prove their worth on the Worlds stage — they can shut every single person up who has memed them or called them lucky for getting this far if they can put up a strong showing (or even win). EU fans have every right to be excited for this tournament — the path ahead calls their name.
4. LPL’s fortune or misfortune?
Is the LPL good or bad? Yes. Uzi and RNG were knocked out in the Group Stage in what was decidedly an early exit for a championship hopeful, but I don’t think that means they were bad. They played close games against SKT and then were eliminated by a Fnatic team that they split games with in the group. I understand that expectations for them were high, and at the end of the day it’s still a disappointment, but it was to me a super unfortunate group draw for them. I said before the tournament that you could make a pretty good case that Group C had three of the top five teams at Worlds, and someone extremely good was going to go home early. It just happened to be RNG. Overall the LPL did not impress in the Group Stage, though — both IG and FPX dropped a couple games in what were considered to be weaker groups, which doesn’t bode well for a region that’s aiming to repeat as the World Champion. What has happened though is both of them have managed to avoid SKT and G2 being on the same side of the bracket as them. In fact, alongside GRF and FNC, all four contenders this side of the bracket are probably feeling like they dodged the biggest possible bullets. Luck is a thing claimed by victors, though. The LPL can guarantee a Worlds Finalist if both of their teams are able to win in the Quarterfinals, but it feels to me like they are the underdog in both matchups. A couple of wins, though, would answer whether or not the LPL is good or bad… or it will raise more questions.
5. Why Yuumi + Garen is actually good
Hahaha sike kill me. This Worlds has already featured the most unique picks in history which is awesome, but beyond that we’ve seen a lot of champions be rotated around the map as well. Yes, sometimes that means Garen and Yuumi are in bot lane, but sometimes it means we get Tristana mid or Ezreal top (?) or Syndra bot. One of the things I was most looking forward to at Worlds was whether or not we’d see marksmen or mages rise to prominence in the bot lane, and so far mages are only sporting about a 35% win rate when we see them. Marksmen like Kai’Sa and Xayah in particular have dominated so far, but I wonder how much of that is tied to the volatility of Best-of-1s. It may just be that those are safer picks and so people gravitated to them more, but with Best-of-5s I think we’ll see teams start to flex some picks more as they are forced to adapt and respond to what they see. I don’t expect Pantheon to come off the permaban list (so far he’s been banned in every single game by the red side), but it would be neat to see if any teams have a counter strategy they want to employ by leaving him up as bait. That’s at least far more likely to happen now than in Groups. In past years we’ve seen extremely late changes to the Worlds meta (Miss Fortune support debuting in the 2016 Semifinals for example), so I’m excited to see if and how this year’s meta will continue to evolve. I want to see Nasus + Yuumi for the ultimate catdog lane.
6. The most compelling Quarterfinal matchup is…
FNC vs. FPX! This is the LPL #1 seed vs the LEC #2 seed, but given a few things changing in the LEC Final, it could have easily been the #1 seeds from both regions clashing. The caliber of this matchup could easily be Worlds Finals level, and it should represent the first major test for FPX this tournament. FNC, of course, has had an extremely difficult path to get here, and you might even argue that this is easier than their climb out of Groups. I think it can be difficult to compare across groups, though, and it’s important to remember that FPX destroyed the LPL Summer Split — including thrashing their one mutual opponent, RNG, in the Finals. FNC’s “weak” point is their mid lane primarily in the sense that Nemesis doesn’t have nearly as much stage experience as his teammates, whereas Doinb has been a professional for over half a decade now. I’m curious to see how this pans out over the course of an entire set, where Doinb’s weird champion pool could present some unique pick/ban challenges for FNC. Much of that matchup may ultimately be decided by Tian and Broxah though — which jungler can better enable their mid laner to play as they please? Can Broxah help contain Doinb, or can Tian free him up to run all over the map? Either way, this is an awesome early preview for what we can possibly get in the Finals, and while I want it to go to five, I expect one style to decisively triumph over the other.
7. Four unlikely-to-be-true predictions
1. All three EU teams will lose here because they drew bad matchups. FNC will be unable to deal with Doinb’s pressure. G2 will be out-laned by Damwon. And SPY will be outmatched by SKT.
2. GRF will sweep the defending champs because they are perfectly designed to punish bad aggression. This will end IG’s short reign at the top for good.
3. Mage bots will reverse their Groups showing and win the bulk of their games as teams just start to ban Kai’Sa and Xayah.
4. SKT will be pushed to Game 5 by SPY because Vizicsacsi will have his way with Khan.
8. The frontrunners for MVP
It’s Garen. One of the great things about the level of parity we’ve got in the remaining teams is that each team has a pretty good candidate they could present as an MVP candidate right now. Sure, superstars like Faker, Perkz, and TheShy have had some really impressive runs so far, but it’s not like they’re shining wildly above each other or anyone else right now. It’s just a really exciting feeling to be at this stage in the tournament and still have over half the field be able to lay claim to the Summoner’s Cup. There have just been a lot of years where even in the Quarterfinals, it was clear only two or maybe three teams had a real shot at winning it all. This year, though, I think you could really make a case for everybody (except maybe SPY — really sorry!!) to win it all. For me personally, though, I think Perkz has been the rock for a G2 team that has had almost all of its members flounder around at times, and when you consider the arc that led him back to this point (even if that doesn’t necessarily apply to being the MVP at Worlds), it makes him the current frontrunner for me. I still believe G2 is the overall favorite to win (if only barely) because I don’t think they’ve shown us their whole hand yet, and I think that’s only possible because of Perkz’ versatility and skill at multiple different playstyles. So, for me, he is the current frontrunner for MVP.
9. Reasons to believe for each remaining team
G2 Esports: Perkz is the ultimate weapon and can be thrown into any lane in an emergency. In fact he’s such a good weapon that he’s about to become the meta weapon in the next Fortnite update.
Damwon: Rumors say they’ve been doing well against G2 in scrims, and while they are rookies, they have the benefit of having low expectations. Also they have “won” in their name which is a good omen.
SK telecom T1: Faker.
Splyce: Xerxe shook Faker’s hand, which could be the catalyst for a power transfer. Also, if Damwon has low expectations, then Splyce has negative expectations. Even a single win would be looked at positively, so there is only gain for them here.
Griffin: Sure, they’ve only won a single Best-of-5 in team history, but the losses this year have all been to SKT. Are they bad at Best-of-5s, or are they just worse than SKT? And if it’s the latter, is that actually a bad thing?
SKT but for real: Still Faker. Actually this is a team with multiple threats around the map and finishing 1st in one of the hardest groups at Worlds ever should bolster their confidence (as if they needed that).
Invictus Gaming: They have the individual talent to match anybody in the world, and if they manage to combine all of their brain cells, they could, possibly, return to championship form.
FunPlus Phoenix: This is the biggest curveball when it comes to playstyle, and it’s one thing to say you can counter Doinb’s roaming prowess and another thing to actually do it. It’s like when people leave Aurelion Sol up against ASol mains — in theory you know what to do, but it only takes one screw up to blow up your plan.
Fnatic: They are perhaps the hottest team right now after their Week 2 run, and I’d expect Rekkles, who is normally extremely confident, to be even more confident after a dominant performance over Uzi.
10. Last thoughts
I’ve been thinking a lot about elimination this week because of how NA flamed out of groups. As I mentioned, a lot of people have been chiming in on the reasons for that and offering solutions as to how it might be fixed. All of this is fine discourse (I guess) that’s centered around expectations. I think it’s a good thing that we expected more out of TL in the general sense — the 2x LCS MVP and MSI Finalist this year should make it to Quarters. In a more specific sense, though, when we looked at the group, we hesitated because it was the LCK #3 seed and the LPL #3 seed. Is that the ceiling for NA right now? According to results, it sure seems like it. What, then, is the ceiling for the other regions? I think for the LPL, LCK, and LEC it’s winning the whole tournament. That basically means NA’s ceiling is their floor right now, and I hope that really highlights just how far it is NA still has to go. But I also hope that we can appreciate what’s in the room above. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say we’ve never had parity quite like this for a Quarterfinal draw, but if the LCK dominates this stage, too, maybe I eat those words. Narratives are laid out ahead of the games and then they are reshaped and solidified thanks to the results. All we can do is guess at the future. Sometimes those guesses are lined with blind faith, and sometimes they are our hearts disguised as analysis. That’s what makes watching all of this so enticing. It is, over and over, a way to confirm or deny our imaginations — what was possible and what actually is.
