SERIES 1: royal never give up vs 1907 Fenerbahçe

Although Fenerbahçe managed to shake things up, it ultimately wasn’t enough to beat Royal Never Give Up. However, there were some concerning factors for the favored winners. RNG is known for first blood – with jungler MLXG having a higher first blood percentage than any other jungler in worlds – but they gave up first blood rather easily to a level one engage from FB. Even after this, FB’s Padden managed to hold his own against Uzi, an ADC that is among the most feared in all of Worlds.

Ultimately, it was RNG midlaner Xiaohu that was the deciding factor. A player known for his mobility, his Ryze set up RNG to make a comeback in a game that wasn’t going their way. His use of Realm Warp led to pick after pick, and FB fell apart around these deaths, slowly giving up more and more until the momentum was too much to take. It was a good effort from the inexperience team, but FB will need to handle pressure better if they hope to progress. Meanwhile, RNG have realized that even the weakest of the teams at Worlds aren’t so weak.

SERIES 2: g2 vs samsung galaxy

G2 and Samsung Galaxy both favor late game teams; in fact, G2’s largest successes have been fully with late game teams, so the challenge of fighting off one of the hardest teams in the league comes down to playing a style G2 isn’t familiar with and playing far more aggressively. Unfortunately, that translates into a loss for G2 and missed opportunities up and down the lane.

The most confusing aspect of this game were the slip ups by SSG – who nearly everyone expected to be far more dominant – but also the passivity of G2. If G2 is going to choose a Shen into Cho’Gath, really the only way to succeed is by being aggressive and seeking kills and plays. But that never happened. G2 failed to see through the draft they chose, which is a shame. If they had, they very well could have taken a game that was much closer than anyone predicted.

SERIES 3: longzhu gaming vs immortals

Against the number one team in Korea, Immortals failed. That’s the short of it. The long of it is IMT had a great game. They chose an aggressive not-quite meta pick with Ezreal in the jungle and Morgana as their support. They then utilized it amazingly by ganking bot lane again, and again, and again. This pushed Longzhu to the limit, and with LZ’s nearly non-existent frontline, IMT was slowly brutalizing them into submission.

But LZ didn’t take SKT in a 3-0 by not making aggressive calls. All it took was a call by IMT to take Infernal Drake, and LZ leapt at the chance to take Baron. After that, the game entirely slipped between IMT’s fingers. An aggressive call on Baron translated into two turrets, an inhibitor, and a fist full of kills, skyrocketing LZ to 10k ahead. There was little IMT could do at that point, and it was little more than everyone waiting for the inevitable end.

SERIES 4: fnatic vs gigabyte marines

Some teams focus on objectives, some on lanes, some on control. The GIGABYTE Marines focus on chaos. To an outsider, GAM’s strategy seems like a blitzkrieg of abilities and dog-piles onto lanes. It was hard to see the strategy through the madness, but their coach and the team are confident that this is more than just hyper-aggression, and that behind the madness is a solid concept to win.

Fnatic kept up with the insanity of the game for a long time, trading even in kills as GAM took turrets, rotated, and translated kills immediately into pushing objectives. By twelve minutes into the game there were thirteen kills – more than one kill every minute of play – and that tempo hardly decreased. But at a certain point, the chaos was too much for Fnatic. GAM’s ADC Noway became an unstoppable force going 11-0-3 and showing the World stage that what they had to offer was something you couldn’t strategize very well against.

SERIES 5: SK Telecom vs cloud9

It’s difficult to say what exactly went wrong for Cloud9. They made lots of mistakes, but the biggest issue was that they seemed to constantly be trying to prove that they belonged there. Instead of a natural, controlled play like we saw in the play-in, C9 was constantly trying to force ganks. Their choice for Rek’Sai jungle double-downed on this idea that they had to be hyper aggressive, but against SKT, a team that has no problem under pressure and will gladly wait for the late game, the attempt by C9 looked juvenile.

Contractz first gank on mid resulted in Faker dodging him with laughable ease and getting an easy first blood. Contractz would try again and again to get ganks, focusing especially on Maokai – a confusing strategy if there ever was one. While the other lanes were pressured or falling behind, Contractz was killing a tank that would be largely if not entirely unaffected by the kills.

All in all, SKT played with controlled ease, simply reacting to poor plays by C9 and taking advantages as they appeared. C9 floundered in the face of such collected gameplay, and it bodes poorly for C9 making it through.

SERIES 6: edward gaming vs ahq e-sports

The first upset of the tournament, and we only had to wait a few hours for it to happen. This game was as much about AHQ’s ability to preserver and push to late game as it was about EDG’s inability to push an advantage. Considering EDG was the expected victor and that the teams had near identical drafts – two tanks, two ADCs and a support – the clear advantage was to EDG, a team that has beat AHQ 8 of 10 matches in the past. But it was Rift Rivals all over again as AHQ stalled out the game and took a surprising victory.

EDG made two large mistakes – not capitalizing on advantages and not playing to their strengths. EDG’s Scout was up over 40 CS and a kill on  AHQ’s Chawy in the mid lane, but somehow this advantage never translated into the aggressive pushing EDG needed. Also, like G2 before them, they chose a Shen top lane and failed to make any real use of his kit. There was virtually no split pushing or aggressive engaging to make use of his stand united. Instead, EDG treated Shen as little more than a shield for their ADCs. It was this passivity that led to AHQ closing the gap and eventually out-playing them in team fights.