The Worlds Play-In Team That Could Win It All
The League of Legends World Championship decided its four teams who qualified from the play-ins to the group stage. With the World Championship beginning tomorrow, that leaves us with the question: What team from the knockout stage could win it all? If we were forced to pick one of the four, who would it be?
The four teams that moved into the remaining group slots were as follows. League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) representatives, Team Liquid, in Group A. PSG Talon from the Pacific Championship Series (PCS), in Group B. The League of Legends Pro League (LPL) representatives LGD Gaming, in Group C. And lastly, Unicorns of Love from the League of Legends Continental League (CIS) in the final group, Group D.
Both Team Liquid and PSG Talon auto qualified into the group stage after getting first in their respective groups. In contrast, LGD Gaming and Unicorns of Love had to play in the groups play-in knockout stage to qualify.
Performance in their groups
First, let’s talk about how each team could perform in their own groups, starting in order of the groups.
Team Liquid - Group A
Click to enlargeAlthough an impressive performance in the play-ins group stage nearly going undefeated — only dropping one uncharacteristic game to INTZ — Team Liquid showed decisiveness, control, and the overall patient playstyle they demonstrated all Summer Split long in the LCS. That performance led them auto qualifying after their tiebreaker win versus Legacy Esports. In this group, they’d have to face two heavy hitters in the form of LEC’s #1 seed in G2 Esports and the LPL’s #3 seed in Suning. Don’t forget Machi Esports from the PCS who could always take a game from any team when underestimated.
Realistically speaking, they’d have to somehow topple either G2 Esports, who got second at last year’s Worlds and first at the Mid-Season Invitational — sweeping this very Team Liquid, minus Yiling “Doublelift” Peng — or they’d have to get past Suning. With Suning being from China, the consensus best region only above Europe, that’d also be a difficult proposition.
Team Liquid is littered with World Championship experience, having two World Champions in Jeong “Impact” Jeong Eon-yeong and Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in. They also have Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen who’s made it to the quarterfinals and Mads” Broxah” Brock-Pedersen who made it to the finals in 2018. You also can’t forget their promising young rookie in Edward “Tactical” Ra. With that being said, we see their playstyle getting punished by both G2 Esports and Suning; it wouldn’t surprise us if they drop a match to Machi as well.
PSG Talon - Group B
Click to enlargeLike Team Liquid, PSG Talon also dominated their group only dropping one game. In their victories, they showed an unexpected dominance from their mid and jungle duo as well as some flashy and clutch plays from their support, Ling “Kaiwing “Kai Wing. The only issue is, their mid and jungle duo won’t be able to participate in the group stage. They were utilising jungler Hsiao “Kongyue” Jen-Tso and mid-laner Chen “Uniboy” Chang-chu from ahq eSports club due to visa and COVID-19 related issues. Come group stage, and they regain jungler Kim “River” Dong-woo and mid-laner Park “Tank” Dan-won.
This group is too hard for PSG Talon as they have to face Korea’s #1 seed in DAMWON Gaming who crushed their region and are one of the favourites. They have to face JD Gaming, — the #2 seed from the consensus best region — who won spring and lost a close series versus Top Esports in the summer finals. And, they have to face Rogue, although not one of the stronger teams in the group, they are still from Europe. They have a promising mid laner in Emil ‘Larssen” Larsson and experience in both Steven “Hans Sama” Liv and Oskar “Vander” Bogman.
We don’t think PSG Talon can replicate that success from the play-in stage, mainly due to them not being able to utilise their original players. Both Kongyue and Uniboy were known to be strong players — even more so compared to their current players.
LGD Gaming - Group C
Click to enlargeLGD Gaming performed poorly in the groups play-in stage to later turn it around in the knockout stage. LPL’s #3 seed rode high in both of their knockout stage matches off of the back of Lee “KaKAO” Byung-kwon’s exceptional performances — showing impressive Lilia play in multiple games. They showcased a good 1-3-1 composition with Su “xiye” Han-Wei and good team fighting with Ha “Kramer” Jong-hun
LGD Gaming have to face the LCS’ #1 seed in Team SoloMid and the LEC’s #2 seed in Fnatic. There’s also the League of Legends Champions Korea’s (LCK) #3 seed in Gen.G who are no slouches either. This group is riddled with top-performing AD Carries but this group is possibly the only group who doesn’t have clear-cut top two teams.
Unicorns of Love - Group D
Click to enlargeUnicorns of Love got second in their play-ins group and only had to play one best-of-five in the knockout stage. They played an immaculate series, dominating ParaPara SuperMassive. They flaunted in their series, having diverse picks as well as flexibility in their drafts — picking mages in the bot lane. The Unicorns also have a strong mid-laner in Lev “Nomanz” Yakshin and a reliable AD Carry in Ilya “Gadget” Makavchuk who had multiple carry performances during the play-in stage as well as the knockout stage.
This team has their hands full as they have to face two strong teams in the LPL’s #1 seeded Top Esports — one of the favourites to win the tournament — and the LCK’s #2 seed in DRX. They also have to face NA’s #2 seeded FlyQuest, who are unproven, due to it being their first Worlds appearance but could still put up a fight. FlyQuest has a good amount of World Championship and international experience.
Top Esports looked immaculate during their summer split in China; this team is absurdly talented. They have Zhuo “Knight” Ding, considered the best performing mid-laner in the world right now, as well as the rest of the team with players such as top laner Bai “369” Jia-Hao who is willing to counter pick you anywhere at any time. And jungler Hung “Karsa” Hao-Hsuan who is a master facilitator for his laners.
DRX, on the other hand, have Jeong “Chovy” Ji-hoon — one of the most talented players in the tournament who could also rival Knight. DRX’s players are also largely versatile Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu and Choi “Doran” Hyeon-joon.
Our pick - Unicorns of Love
Click to enlargeAfter looking at the four teams who made it out of play-ins into the group stage, we narrowed it down to two, Unicorns of Love and LGD Gaming.
When it comes to LGD, they live and die by Han “Peanut” Wang-ho. He can lead LGD to the promised land — accompanied by xiye — but he can also keep them in groups. LGD had multiple holes exposed in the play-in stages, and their mid-game tends to fall apart as they don’t really know where to go or what to do. They have strong laning that they’ve showcased in both the play-ins and in the LPL but can’t seem to translate it past the laning phase.
They are probably in the toughest group to predict. Gen.G looked strong in the LCK, Fnatic showcased a strong playoff performance in the summer later to be swept by G2 in the finals. And Team SoloMid had one of the best playoffs runs the LCS has ever seen having played a total of six best-of-fives. This is a very volatile group that could, in any given day, have teams trade games in the double round-robin. But we think the performance they showed throughout the play-in stage wasn’t impressive.
When it comes to Unicorns of Love, their group is one of the harder groups. They suffer from their players not being as strong as their counterparts in the rest of the group — outside of Nomanz and possibly Gadget. Even then, Nomanz has the tough task of facing Knight and Chovy. DRX and TOP will both have a good time exploiting Vladislav “BOSS” Fomin’s small champion pool in the top lane since he’s only really showed off a Wukong and Renekton picks. Both Wukong and Renekton are carry-type champions that will be difficult to pull off against these good teams.
Even then, out of all the teams in the play-in stages that made it to groups that could take it all, we see Unicorns of Love doing it. The Unicorns crushed SuperMassive; it wasn’t even close. SuperMassive beat MAD Lions and Unicorns of Love swept the floor with them. They are solid fundamentally compared to past teams from these regions that come in with crazy plays in the play-ins but lack the fundamentals — those teams get leads but don’t know what to do with it. Unicorns of Love isn’t like that; they take the lead in immediately translate it into objectives.
It wouldn’t be surprising if they beat FlyQuest in both of the times they meet, and if DRX’s inconsistency puts them on the bad side, they could defeat them as well. They have a lot of flexibility in the draft; they have a lot of creativity. These are all things they can and will rely on come match time.
Images via Riot Games
