Worlds 2016 Recap #2: Korea’s First Taste of Defeat as TSM Dominates SSG

With several one-sided matches and a very stunning reversal, here’s how Day 2 of the Group Stage of the 2016 League of Legends World Championship went down.

Group Stage – Day 2 Results

Group Stage – Day 2 SKT vs C9

Game 1 – Old Alliances

The main story for this game was the meeting of old teammates, Impact being a former member of SKT. Faker was quoted saying he wanted to get a kill from Impact and he did try. Though they were in different lanes, Faker being a mid laner and Impact up top, they still had a skirmish when Faker roams to his lane. Sadly or luckily depending on your allegiance, Meteos was there to back up Impact and together, they gave “The Unkillable Demon King” his only death in the game.

Overall, the game was a very one-sided match in favor of SKT. In fact, just looking at turret count almost sums up the game: 11-1. While Bengi was all over the map and finishing the game with a score of 3/1/4, Meteos was stuck in mid to slow down the snowballing Faker. It didn’t help that he missed a lot of his Q’s, wasting a lot of his early game potential.

Group Stage – Day 2 FW vs IM

Game 2 – Power of Babylon

I May members speak three different languages resulting in several problems in communications. It was apparent on the early stages when Flash Wolves was able to steal away the blue buff from I May. Avoidless reacted by trying to invade the enemy blue buff but he went there on his own, a very dangerous move that cost his team first blood. AmazingJ’s teleport was also wasted when he tried to save Avoidless but cancelled it at the last moment. From then on, Avoidless was constantly punished in his own jungle and FW was poised to win the game.

Fast forward 40 minutes into the game, both teams are dancing around Baron for the third time. The first two resulted in stalemates but this last dance resulted in a 3-0 trade in favor of I May which then enabled them to get an uncontested Baron buff.

IM Avoidless steals the Elder Dragon.

Despite his early game mishap, Avoidless redeemed himself by doing an unbelievable drive-by Elder Dragon steal that ultimately cracked the game open for I May. With the Elder Dragon buff, I May gets another 3 kills and finishes off the game decisively.

Group Stage – Day 2 TSM vs SSG

Game 3 – Vision Game

The Bjergsen / Svenskeren powerhouse of TSM continues their great run in the Worlds. With Svenskeren not stopping for breath and Bjergsen showing just how much power his, or rather Syndra’s, balls have, TSM gets the greatest gold lead after 10 minute so far in the tournament: 4k. At the 20-minute mark, they more than doubled their lead to almost 8.6k and, with no other objective to take, TSM had to bait Samsung Galaxy into the Baron pit for an all-out fight.

SSG, to their credit, placed several smart wards that gave away TSM’s plans. Without these wards providing crucial vision, the game could have easily ended 5-10 minutes earlier. When the inevitable happened and the wards expired, SSG had to go in blind and that’s when TSM had their chance to finish the game.

Group Stage – Day 2 RNG vs SPY

Game 4 – Support or Carry?

Just like in Day 1, Mata carried his team as a support with a ton of help from their jungler Mlxg. Mata’s early aggression using Nami gave Uzi’s Ezreal the chance to get so far ahead that, by the end of the game, Uzi’s score is a clean 10/0/4. Xiaohu in mid wasn’t a slouch either, constantly dodging Sencux’ Cassiopeia’s ultimate.

Can Mata, Mlxg, Uzi and the whole squad of RNG maintain this very dominant and near-perfect run?

Group Stage – Day 2 H2K vs ITZ

Game 5 – Pick and Score

H2K is known to be a strong team early game but is also known to stumble in the latter parts of the game. Yesterday, against AHQ, they maintained a sizable gold lead for the first 20 minutes of the game only to slip and lose the game.

This time, they played to their strength and went into the mid game in a more calculating manner. The lane phase extended to almost 18 minutes and with no first blood, just one turret and one dragon, H2K was in the lead with close to 3k gold advantage. H2K waited for the right time when they could instantly eliminate whoever Jankos’ Skarner catches but when they got started, they never stopped and repeatedly picked out one member from ITZ for easy 4v5 team fights.

Group Stage – Day 2 EDG vs AHQ

Game 6 – Redemption

After losing to ITZ in their first match, EDG was under great pressure to show that they deserve their #1 spot in the LPL. AHQ, after winning over H2K yesterday, wanted to preserve their momentum in the tournament. With both teams eager to win this match, early aggression almost resulted to an early first blood before the first minion wave even spawns.

Luckily, both teams were able to recover and, relatively, stay even throughout the fight. PawN and Deft were able to claim early kills but AHQ 5-manned the top turret to even out the gold. And, until the 22-minute mark, both teams were still in the game.

The end started when AHQ failed to trade Baron for the Elder Dragon. EDG just finished Elder Dragon and was literally on fire when they caught AHQ near the Baron pit. EDG picks off Albis and proceeds to take Baron but AHQ refuses to back down and contests it 4v5. Even after a good Equalizer from Ziv, AHQ still gets Ace’d and, with both the Baron and Elder Dragon buff, EDG quickly finishes the game.

Group Stage – Day 2 Standings

Personally, I was excited to see Flash Wolves but I’m a bit disappointed on their late game performance. How about you, which of today’s matches were you excited for? Is the team you’re rooting for performing well?

We’re just Day 2 of the Group Stage of the 2016 League of Legends World Championship! Tune in as we cover the tournament here in eSports INQ.

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