Group Stage Day 1: West Side’s the Best
The 2015 League of Legends World Championships opened with 6 straight matches in Le Dock Pullman in Paris. The interesting thing about these matches was that 5 out of the 6 featured a western team up against an eastern team. Despite the amount of hype about the western teams heading into this tournament, the fact remains that the west is still viewed as the underdog when pitted against Chinese or Korean teams.
It was surprising then, when the west won 3 out of 5 matches, and even in the ones they lost, there were a few surprises to be had for fans and analysts alike. It’s like these teams were listening to Aragorn on loop before their games for inspiration.
A Promising Trend
Group B was seen as a very competitive group, and though Fnatic did have an unprecedented run of form in Europe, though they could be the very best the west has ever produced, many were still split down the middle on whether they could defeat Invictus Gaming, a team who managed to defeat Edward Gaming, a tournament frontrunner, in China’s LPL playoffs.
As it turns out, Fnatic not only beat IG—they forced a surrender. The #1 team out of Europe stymied IG’s attempts at aggression, with the Chinese squad only picking up a single kill and no turrets for the entire match. Fabian “Febiven” Diepstraten was also instrumental in snowballing the game, first instantly cleansing out of an Ashe arrow to prevent IG’s dragon engage, and again at Baron where he used Azir’s Emperor’s Divide to block the Skarner steal out of Lee “KaKAO” Byung-kwon.
Still, Fnatic were the brightest western light heading into Worlds. The manner in which they won may have been surprising, but a good number of bets were on them making the top of their group. The next game, however, would be a real eye-opener.
Cloud 9, the team that finished 7th place in their region only to make a miracle run to propel them to Worlds at the last moment, beat out ahq eSports Club in convincing fashion.
All the memes about their luck running out, or their questionable Korean solo queue experience were put to rest as they out-rotated ahq to net early tower and dragon advantages, and allowed Nicolaj “Incarnati0n” Jensen to outlast the fabled Fizz pick of Liu “Westdoor” Shu-Wei—on a Veigar no less!
Team Captain Hai “Hai” Du Lam also showed an as-yet unseen level of mechanical skill as he picked Lee Sin, a champion known for early pressure and clutch plays, as opposed to his Amumu and Shyvana picks which relied more on easy engages, farming and scaling.
Faith Intensifies
Of course we have to talk about Counter Logic Gaming. CLG has been the butt of savage memes for years, but the Faith Age reached critical mass when the team swept their rivals in the North American finals. Even VISA issues preventing their jungler, Jake “Xmithie” Puchero from competing in Europe couldn’t stop the faith.
However, the yoe Flash Wolves were looking to end CLG’s run of good fortune, as they contained NA’s #1 seed for most of the match. CLG’s ace Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng wasn’t allowed to get excited on Jinx despite the massive gold lead he had accrued through sheer CS numbers.
But all it took was one quick pick onto ahq’s Tristana to turn the game around. The Flash Wolves must be questioning their subbing in of Ha “Kkramer” Jong-Hoon now that they’ve felt the power of faith. CLG’s drop of the hat pick off turned into quick tower takes and finally a Baron to blow up the Taiwanese squad’s nexus (while still being down on gold, mind you).
I think this one .gif bears repeating:
Beasts of the East Still
It wasn’t all rosy for the west however, as no amount of faith could produce an upset against the two tournament favorites in SK Telecom and Edward Gaming.
There isn’t really much to say here. SKT were a little shaken by H2k’s resilience and sound rotational play early on, but a massive turned fight at dragon pit by Jang “MaRin” Gyeong-Hwan’s masterful Fiora pick all but sealed the win for Korea’s #1 team. We didn’t see Ryu “Ryu” Sang-wook bring out the promised Zed in order to have his #Ryudemption against Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok, either.
Not to be outdone, Edward Gaming one-upped their Korean rivals by showcasing the might of China’s aggression. Yes, it was against the Bangkok Titans, a team that seems to have been unanimously written off by every caster and analyst at Riot, but forcing a 20-minute surrender, the fastest game of the day, is still pretty impressive.
Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu’s Jinx was a monster in that game, and his all time performance on the champion is one that still can’t be beat in terms of AD Carries of the world right now.
Even the KOO Tigers, who haven’t been able to fully replicate their dominating performances at the start of 2015, made an example of paiN Gaming. The Tigers ran through the Brazilian hopefuls with a 23-5 kill score. This was despite the best efforts of the South American squad to unleash some early aggression, actually winning a level 1 5 on 5 brawl, as well as executing an excellent tower dive in the bot lane.
Remember, all this action and we’re still only one day into the event! Keep your browsers tuned in for more Worlds coverage from the group stage, soon.
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