Worlds 2016 Recap #4: Defending Champion SKT T1 Defeated by LMS Team Flash Wolves
The closest Worlds so far! Here’s how the last day of Week 1 of the 2016 League of Legends World Championship ended.
Game – Yin Wins
Yang was out of his element in this game. Giving easy back-to-back kills in the top lane and letting Ziv become a monster, AHQ was given the chance to make plays in other parts of the map. With Westdoor on Malzahar, you’d expect micaO to build defensive items but he didn’t. Westdoor abused this mistake by deleting micaO multiple times from The Rift.
With the very few initiation tools on the side of ITZ not being utilized to their full effect due to lack of communication, ITZ was consistently forced into their base. And AHQ was relentlessly poking them down, sieging their towers and giving ITZ very little chance to come back.
Game 2 – Mighty Mouse
In his previous game as Irelia, Mouse was almost a non-factor but, in this game, he showed that he can play Irelia in the top lane. In face, this could be one of the strategies of EDG: using Mouse as a bait. Once Jankos goes top to help Odoamne, EDG will quickly take an objective on the other side of the map.
It certainly didn’t help that Vander gave up a very early kill just 2 minutes into the game. Ezreal + Karma is expected to win over Jhin + Alistar due to their higher range and poke damage but Deft and Meiko was able to keep things even in the early part of the game. With their very high kill pressure, EDG just slowly pushed H2K back and demolished turret one after the other.
Game 3 – A Real Wildcard
If RNG’s Mata carries his team by being a very reliable initiator, Likkrit carries his team by using sheer damage. In the end of the game, his signature Brand dealt so much damage, Kira in the mid lane dealt only 300 more damage than he did. In essence, ANX has not just one but two heavy magic damage dealers in their team.
The Poppy + Anivia combo also allowed Smurf to stun enemies in the most surprising areas and his ultimates are mostly on point, giving ANX the numbers advantage in team fights.
ANX also have a very peculiar strategy: lose a teamfight then rush Baron. They’ve done it two times and that Baron power play gave them the chance they need to close out games.
Game 4 – The Legendary Star
In the first day of the Worlds, Aurelion Sol got disabled because of a visual bug and today, he was re-enabled. And the Star Forger showed everyone his power.
Just level 1, Huhi roams bot and gets 2 kills. From then on, ROX was just left wishing that this particular star was never given to CLG. Together with aphromoo and Xmithie, CLG was just all over the map roaming and picking ROX members.
Will this be the first and only time we’ll see Huhi on Aurelion Sol?
Game 5 – Korean Killers
Flash Wolves, dubbed as the Korean Killers, lives up to their name. Despite being 0-2 in their group, they convincingly defeat SKT by focusing in the mid lane. At the the end of the game, Faker’s score is a very surprising 1/5/1.
23 minutes into the game, SwordArt was still 0/0/0 in the scoreboard. Thankfully, he pulls the trigger later in the game and lands crucial combos that enables FW to crack open SKT’s base.
Game 6 – Huge Impact
Olaf as a jungler is some kind of a gamble: get early kills and snowball from there or become dead weight in the later parts of the game. In this fight’s case, it was the former. Meteos had a great early game and ends the game with a clean 2/0/6 score. Not only him, Jensen finishes with a 2/0/5 score and Sneaky has a 5/0/5 record. Smoothie must also be mentioned with his 85% kill participation. Across the board, Cloud9 performed exceptionally well.
The End of Week 1
This concludes Week 1 of the Group Stages of the 2016 League of Legends World Championship. With no team having a perfect score, every group just became so much more unpredictable. Next week’s schedule only makes things more exciting! Every group will finish their placements in one day which translates to three games per day. This will require a lot more preparation and more strategies to be crafted in the days leading to Week 2.
With all predictions out the window, it is anybody’s guess who’ll come out of this Group Stage. After seeing their performance, who’s your pick for each group?
Keep it here as we cover the events of Worlds 2016 here in eSports INQ.
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