The first day of the League of Legends World Championship has come and gone, giving us plenty of storylines and narratives to break down as the group stage progresses. From the North American teams showing up strong, to Fnatic absolutely looking like the team to beat going forward, the remaining group play promises to deliver plenty of excitement and drama. But first, let’s break down day one, from the best to the worst.
Fnatic is exactly who we thought they were.
Fnatic came out with a game plan, and they executed it perfectly. Despite a champ select that looked a couple of patches old, Fnatic’s gameplay was incredibly crisp, with their early weaknesses shown throughout playoffs all but vanishing. A laneswap initiated by Fnatic gave Huni the early gold lead over Zzitai’s Riven, as well as leading to two unanswered towers by the European powerhouse. Reignover scored a huge first blood with assists from Rekkles and Yellowstar, and an easily-won dragon fight a few short minutes later gave Fnatic all the advantage they needed to snowball the game out of control, and Invictus Gaming surrendered at the 30 minute mark.
North America might not be total pushovers.
Coming into the tournament, the three North American teams at the event weren’t expected to do much. Counter-Logic Gaming was perhaps the most likely to advance out of their group, and while they did exactly what was needed to continue that line of thinking, Cloud9, perhaps in one of the most difficult groups of the tournament, absolutely showed up in an incredible way. While not everyone would have put Ahq in the top two spots of their group, most people certainly had Cloud9 finishing last. But the entire conversation has changed, and Cloud9 actually look poised to potentially make it out of their group. Both Invictus Gaming and Ahq looked outclassed, but with it only being the first game, I’m not ready to crown Cloud9 just yet.
SKT and EDG are still really good.
With dominant victories over H2k and Bangkok Titans, SKT and EDG look crisp and ready to crush the knockout stages. Perhaps the best talking point for SKT was, despite Faker’s off game, Marin came ready to fight with an incredibly impressive display on Fiora. The slow start from SKT was alleviated when Marin’s Fiora completely took over a team fight near Dragon, and from there SKT’s iron grip on the game would be impossible to relinquish. EDG’s Deft, one of the best ADCs, if not players, in the entire tournament, scored an early triple kill on his Jinx against Bangkok Titans, and a 6 minute BF sword quickly snowballed into a 20 minute surrender from BKT, with the Thai wild card team looking to be in waters well above their heads.
Mountain should never play Rengar again. (And other tales of jungle woes.)
Perhaps the most worrying trend of the first day, at least within Group B, were the performances of both Mountain and KaKAO. Mountain’s Rengar was, to put it lightly, not very good, and despite his first gank post-6 securing first blood for Westdoor’s Fizz, the wheels came flying off as his next four ultimates were complete wastes, and Cloud9 capitalized on the failed pressure from Mountain’s Rengar to secure themselves a hefty lead and an easy win. Over in Invictus Gaming’s camp, KaKAO’s Skarner did a whopping 900 damage to champions in a 30 minute game, being outdamaged by YellowStar’s Shen, a champion not well-known for putting out massive damage from the support position. Perhaps it was nerves, or rust in the case of Ahq, who hadn’t played a competitive match in the last 5 patches, but IG lives and dies by the performance of KaKAO, and they, as well as Ahq, will need significantly more impressive displays from their jungle positions if either hope to make it out of groups alive. And a powerhouse in Fnatic, and a group of scrappy survivors in Cloud9, are trying to make it as hard as possible for both teams.
A KaBum!-like upset might not be in the cards this time.
With Pain Gaming being possibly the strongest IWCI team to ever make it to the international stage, their match against KOO Tigers showed off just how weak they are against the best of the best. With two early kills off a pre-minion jungle invade, Pain only managed to secure three more kills over the course of the game, and KOO Tigers absolutely ran away with the game. Combined with Bangkok Titans looking thoroughly out of their league, and it’s quite the longshot that we’ll get another IWCI victory at Worlds. Hopefully the regions can continue to grow and progress, though, as I’m sure no one would disagree that more regions producing quality talent is a good thing.
Day two begins in a few short hours, with Team Solomid hoping to continue the North American victory trend against KT Rolster. Look out for more Veigar picks, Mordekaiser bans, and shocking finals as the group stages continue. Make sure to stay updated with Gosugamers’ updates, news, and recaps all throughout worlds!
