2016 Worlds Group A: ROX Tigers and Albus NoX Luna
2016 Worlds Group A Results
Group A has been decided: ROX Tigers and Albus NoX Luna survives the group stage! Here’s the summary of today’s matches.
Game 1 – G2 vs ROX
With G2 going 0-3 in Week 1 of the 2016 League of Legends World Championship, Europe’s #1 seed is in real danger of going of home. If they stand any chance of making it out of the groups, they have to win all 3 games and going against Korea’s #1 team in the first fight isn’t making things any easier.
Even in the first minutes of the game, things look bleak for the European squad. In every game they’ve played so far, ROX was behind in the first 10 minutes of the game but in this game, the two teams are even.
G2 were also making a lot of big mistakes: Perkz missing a lot of Petrifying Gaze, Expect’s Teleport plays not making much needed openings and Trick choosing to secure a kill instead of contesting Baron. It may be the pressure, it may be a problem in communication or just ROX being too much to handle for G2.
In the end, G2 goes 0-4 and loses all chance of going out of the group.
Game 2 ANX vs CLG
Game 2 – ANX vs CLG
Some people say that ANX’ success is mostly due to “cheesy” picks and plays. This time around, they picked a pretty standard composition and showed that their win aren’t all due to luck.
It certainly didn’t help that CLG had a very squishy composition. With no real frontline, anyone caught in Likkrit’s Cosmic Binding or Tempered Fate is a sure kill.
With this win, ANX becomes the most successful wildcard team by getting 3 wins the Worlds.
Game 3 – CLG vs G2
With G2 not having any chance of going out of the group stage, their only goal in their next games is to get a win. After all, they entered the tournament as Europe’s #1 seed. Finishing with 0-6 record will surely be a devastating thing for the team, for their fans and their region.
They execute an early gank but CLG turns it around. Later in the game, they start a 4v5 siege in mid lane, but, again, CLG turns it around. At this point, the game becomes more and more unwinnable for G2, just like how the previous CLG vs ANX game became a very steep hill to climb for CLG.
After almost Ace-ing G2, CLG secures Baron and finally finishes the game.
Game 4 ANX vs ROX
Game 4 – ANX vs ROX
Easily the highlight of Day 5 of the 2016 League of Legends World Championship, the favorite team to win the tournament goes against a wildcard that’s, well, running wild. ROX, showing a lot of respect for Likkrit, went for bans that directly targeted him: Brand, Bard and Tahm Kench.
ANX secures first blood, first turret and first dragon, the 4th time they did it during their past 5 matches. With ROX constantly being at a disadvantage in the early game, games like these were dangerously becoming a normal thing for ROX. But when the game reached 33 minutes and ANX is still ahead 5-0 in turrets, things are not looking good for the #1 Korean team. Then just several moments later, ANX breaks into the enemy base by destroying their mid lane turret and inhibitor.
Peanut does the impossible again: he steals the Baron! This enabled ROX to make a stand and try to prolong the fight.
Peanut’s Baron steal.
This happened several times and, in fact, 5 Baron and 2 Elder Dragon buffs were contested by these two teams before the game was finished. At one point, ROX had both Baron and Elder Dragon buffs but ANX was successful in defending against ROX’ power push thanks to their side lanes doing the work for them. In the end, it was also the Baron-buffed super minions that finished the game for ANX.
By winning this game, ANX accomplished a lot of things: they became the first team to secure a quarterfinals slot, they are the first wildcard team to do so and they just won over the #1 team in the world!
Game 5 – G2 vs ANX
With their last game of the tournament, G2 showed why they were the Europe’s #1. Even though ANX was outplaying them in the first few minutes of the game, once Expect got hold of some key items, he became unstoppable.
Whoever ANX faces in the quarterfinals will also thank G2 for exposing one of ANX’ weaknesses: defending against a split push. With G2 pulling ANX in different lanes, ANX can’t rely on their team fighting capability to win a game. And with Perkz on Ryze, the threat of a 3-2 push suddenly becoming a full 5-man team just paralyzed ANX in their base.
CLG and ROX is also thanking G2 because they prevented ANX from getting the first place seed in the group stage with their very dominant game. Sadly, they did it too late and Europe’s #1 team will have to go home with a 1-5 score in the 2016 League of Legends World Championship.
Game 6 ROX vs CLG
Game 6 – ROX vs CLG
In the game that will decide who goes out of the group stage, it was a very strange thing to give Peanut Elise, one of his best champions. CLG quickly saw how big that mistake was when Peanut goes bot lane and gets first blood from Stixxay.
After a messy fight at the 28-minute mark, ROX secures the only Baron of the game.
36 minutes into the game, just after demolishing CLG’s bottom inhibitor turret, Kuro gets killed but successfully baits CLG out of their base. This move gave 3 of his teammates enough time to take down the middle inhibitor and get kills after kills after kills as CLG rushes back to try and defend their base.
ROX takes the opportunity to finishes the game, tying the score with ANX and securing a place in the quarterfinals. CLG exits the tournament with a 3-3 record.
Tie Breaker Game – ROX vs ANX
With both teams having a guaranteed place in the quarterfinals with a score of 4-2, the only thing left to decide for Group A is the seeding. This will have a huge impact in the quarterfinals especially for ANX, if they want to proceed to the semifinals.
But it seems that ANX hasn’t watched the previous game where Peanut was given the chance to play Elise because they made the same mistake. Peanut easily finished the game 7/0/6 and PraY on Ezreal wasn’t so far behind, 6/0/8.
Unlike their earlier match, ROX really showed their strength and finished the game with a 20-5 score with no turret falling to ANX.
With Group A finished, the remaining 3 groups will continue theirmatches tomorrow. Which teams will take on ROX Tigers and Albus NoX Luna in the quarterfinals?
Keep it here in eSports INQ as we cover the 2016 Worlds.
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