RED vs. GMB
Gambit Gaming are hard-pressed to establish their dominance as the only successful Russian team in the field. With Edward back on the squad, the team is back in their full, original glory that got them recognized in the first place when they were known as Empire, later evolving into the unstoppable European powerhouse, Moscow 5. Gambit managed to place in the top 8, dropping to the team that gave the world champions the most trouble, NaJin Black Sword.
Despite the outcome seeming obvious, we can't count the RED out as Gambit Gaming are known to underestimate their opponents, suffering frequent upsets while putting up an amazing showing when the time matters. However, The Red has been crushing the Russian scene for awhile now, almost never dropping a game in their recent tournaments. The team placed first in the Russian qualifiers, absolutely stomping the opposition. They followed it up with a swift victory in the Plantronics RuLoL League.
Realistically, however, Gambit Gaming has a significantly larger chance of taking this one home. They're much more experienced and unless they try to be too innovative rather than keeping to what they're good at, this is an easy advance to face off against Cloud 9.
CLG vs. TT Blue
If there's any team that's good at crushing top teams, but counters logic by losing against the lowest tier of teams, it's CLG. In a bright time where Counter Logic Gaming were able to surpass their foes of Cloud 9 in the LCS Summer Split, they also lost to the unthinkable, Velocity eSports. The same can happen here, especially with the refamiliarization of the new team composition, with Aphromoo joining the ranks again.
Doublelift will lose his mentor, Chauster, in the bottom lane. Meanwhile, TT_Blue are coming off fresh performances rooted in the Turkish scene, being arguably the consistently second strongest team outside of Dark Passage. Despite being relatively obscure outside of their home country, the team actually has a pretty large following, marking upwards of 17,000 followers on their Facebook page alone.
With the team relieving the tension of Worlds and LCS pressure and participating in more solo queue, Counter Logic Gaming's skills should be up to snuff and ready to take on the fiercest of challenges. With that said, they're going to have to aim to have enough respect for their opponents to fight their way into fighting Fnatic, a feat that hasn't occurred since the age old IPL 5.
?Amateur Tournament
NiP vs. TCM
While Zorozero's champion pool may not be the broadest, he's shown that he can truly shine with his focused collection of heroes. Hyrqbot has been one of the top junglers on SK Gaming ever since his debut into the team, having quoted "wanting to leave" for much longer than his contract allowed.
Many mid laners have heralded Nukeduck's amazing mid lane and his ability to play Fizz before it truly became a big shapeshifting influence in the meta. Last but not least, for someone to receive so much praise as he has by EdWard, Freeze is one of the top AD carries Europe has to offer, with Mithy complimenting him after bringing success to his bot lane with Tabzz formerly on Lemondogs.
TCM is going to have a rough time coping with this new European powerhouse as a team that has been a part of the Amateur EU scene for ages, but hasn't been able to break through. A large weakness at the hands of TCM Gaming is their constantly fluctuating roster, having rotated through many cycles of players. The team hasn't had much success recently, so they are going to be hard pressed to find a way to take down this new, incredibly powerful Ninjas in Pyjamas.
SK vs. CW
Two veterans of the European professiional scene and the LCS find themselves battling it out with completely different rosters going into this amateur tournament. SK Gaming, no longer spearheaded by Ocelote, will feature only 2 of their former LCS roster in the form of the bottom lane. With Nyph as one of the best supports and Candy Panda as one of the best AD carries in EU, they look to offer the best synergy they can with their newfound solo lanes and junglers.
Jesiz may not have much experience in the professional scene, but his solo queue showcases have been admirable. Fredy122 has also been on quite the hiatus from the professional team, with Svenskeren being arguably one of the strongest and most underrated junglers in the scene, noted by Diamondprox as the "strongest Lee Sin player EU." Svenskeren will likely be a solid replacement for hyrqbot, a player who had extremely strong influence on SK Gaming's successful games in the LCS.
Copenhagen Wolves also has a new roster that used to have a star-studded lineup with Svenskeren himself, who will now be on the opposing team, and the likes of Bjergsen, who's now playing as the mid laner replacing Reginald in Team Solomid. All 5 players on the roster have had experience in previous encounters within the European professional League of Legends scene. Furthermore, all of the players, excluding YoungBuck, have accounts in high challenger, meaning that a new "solo queue superstar" team has been founded. If their luck is anything like Team ALTERNATE's was intially, we may have a new up and coming powerhouse.
The question is, can they defeat SK Gaming? SK Gaming has more team synergy with Nyph and Candy Panda heralding their skills in the bottom lane for an incredibly long time, with a very experienced and aggressive jungler to punish their potential inconsistency. Only time will tell when these teams all face off starting at 11 PST on Saturday, November 22nd.
