League Of Legends Worlds Groups Day 3: Results, Recaps, And Recommendations
The League of Legends World Championship kicked off with the Play-in stage of the tournament on Friday, September 25, and after a thrilling play-ins stage, the Groups began on October 3.
The best League teams from all around the world will be facing off against each other for the prestigious World Championship, immortalising themselves in League of Legends history.
With a scaling prize pool depending on the number of championship skins being bought (of which 25% go directly towards the teams), the overall amount will likely surpass $5,000,000 (~£4,000,000). In total 22 teams from eleven regions will be competing at the World Championship.
The main event began on October 3, putting the remaining 16 teams in four separate groups. The first three competitors in each group have already been determined, with the play-in tournament victors slotting in as the fourth seed in each respective group.
Check out the everything you need from Groups Day 3 below, including all the info on schedules, teams, game recaps, and more!
Groups Day 3 (Monday October 5) - Schedule
Click the links to jump to the recaps and results for that game!
9am BST/ 4am EST - Machi Esports VS G2 Esports
10am BST / 5am EST - Team Liquid VS Suning
11am BST / 6am EST - DAMWON Gaming VS PSG Talon
12pm BST / 7am EST - JD Gaming VS Rogue
1pm BST / 8am EST - FlyQuest VS Unicorns of Love
2pm BST / 9am EST - Top Esports VS DRX
Machi Esports vs G2 Esports (Rewatch recommendation: 3 / 5, a close game turning into lions playing with their food)
The early game turned out to be very aggressive with a pre-minion spawn kill by a wrap onto Hsieh "PK" Yu-Ting giving G2 first blood. Before five minutes even passed, multiple players had to burn their Flashes. While this might mean a following slow couple of minutes in other games, that wasn’t the case for this one and we witness 13 kills before ten minutes with G2 getting ahead slightly.
In mid-game it was G2 all the way with sidelane pressure and neutral control all going in their favour. 7000 gold ahead after having aced the last team fight, G2 gave Machi hope by taking an overambitious fight around mid-turret and later in Machi’s base.
G2 stopped playing with their food and get a good engage on PK, which saw the Mordekaiser evaporate and the Europeans were finally able to close out the game after nearly 40 minutes and a big gold advantage.
An eventful early game turned into a relatively close mid-game through which G2 eventually turned it on, with Martin "Wunder" Nordahl Hansen and Rasmus "Caps" Borregaard Winther pushing their advantages and putting the crank on the income funnels of Machi.
Post-match interview with Mihael "Mikyx" Mehle:
"we threw that so many times"
"I wouldn't really say it was clean"
"Our draft was not as risky"
Team Liquid vs Sunin (Rewatch recommendation: 2 / 5, completely outclassed)
Team Liquid choosing Volibear, Lee Sin, Syndra, Twitch, and Rakkan against Suning’s Jax, Nidalee, Galio, Draven, and Leona put major emphasis on getting the Twitch going in some way and exactly that is completely shut out in the early game.
Suning dominated the early game, grabbing a 3k gold advantage before 10 minutes, with Edward "Tactical" Ra falling 30 CS behind Tang "huanfeng" Huan-Feng and giving up a kill. Sunning kept pushing their advantages in Neutral control and side lane pressure.
Suning didn’t allow themselves to make many mistakes but one that has to be mentioned is Nicolaj "Jensen" Jensen Baron steel out of nowhere on his Syndra, giving just a slight whiff of hope. Otherwise, Suning remained clinical without giving Team Liquid and inch. Outclassed in draft and in-game, Suning flexed their muscles not faltering in the heat of pressure.
Post-match interview with Hu "SwordArt" Shuo-Chieh:
"I think Team Liquid was the strongest team in Play-Ins"
DAMWON Gaming vs PSG Talon (Rewatch recommendation: 3 / 5, Nuguri shows his team fight muscles)
A lot of the early game revolved around the top lane with PSG trying to keep Jang "Nuguri" Ha-gwon on his Kennen as small as possible. It is also for that top lane focus that the first Dragon is only taken at 10 minutes going the way of DAMWON. While fights generally go fairly even, DAMWON know how to take rotational control to allow them to get to a four to zero tower lead at 20 minutes, giving them a 4k gold lead.
Riding on that high, DAMWON continues taking small advantages that compound in huge advantages that lead to a fateful team fight around the third dragon. With PSG Talon having to contest to deny Soul point, they posture up about Dragon and Nuguri keeps his cool, wrapping around the action and waiting out cooldowns. Jumping in late, he catches the entire PSG squad and they get aced.
From there on out it’s just smooth sailing, cruising into PSG Talon’s base relatively unhindered. I chokehold of a victory with Nuguri swooping in as the undeniable undertaker.
JD Gaming vs Rogue (Rewatch recommendation: 2.5 / 5, routinely played down with some Rogue flashes)
Renekton, Lillia, Zoe, Caitlyn, Bard for JDG and Volibear, Nidalee, Ashe, Blitzkrank, and Azir for Rogue kick us off. Rogue keeps up well with the favourites, only falling slightly beyond in the tower game but looking strong in individual farm and kill pressure.
Unfortunately for Rogue, they lose the grip on the game as they are forced to take fights around objectives due to Soul point and Baron pressure. Zhang "Zoom" Xing-Ran repeatedly came up large in these team fights, finding slick and slippery initiations into Rogue and making life a living hell for the backline. With Dragon Soul secured, JDG take Baron too and after slapping Rogue around once or twice and taking the nexus.
At least in the early to mid-game, Rogue kept up but it revealed their team fight focused win conditions while JDG worked the full spectrum, finding openings on side-lane turrets and mid-lane Herald pressure.
FlyQuest vs Unicorns of Love (Rewatch recommendation: 3 / 5, tossing it back and forth)
A brawl composition for Flyquest in Renekton, Volibear, Syndra, Miss Fortune, and Rakkan into Unicorns of Love’s Play-in meta line-up of Ornn, Graves, Orianna, Senna, and Tahm Kench.
In the early to mid-game the game is kept close with a bunch of sloppy plays leading to kills on both sides. Interestingly, the game finds itself in a state of unknown parity around 23 minutes with FlyQuest at a gold advantage while Unicorns of Love have taken all three Dragons and are on Infernal Soul point. Trying to get an inhibitor, FlyQuest lost a fair bit of their gold advantage.
When a fight for Dragon Soul broke out, UoL get rolled hard putting them behind by a lot, losing Inhibitors in the process. On their second attempt to finally secure Dragon Soul, UoL look in a driving position of the fight after dwindling it down to 3v2 in their favour but Tristan "PowerOfEvil" Schrage kept his former team at bay. With respawns flushing in, FlyQuest were able to once again deny the Dragon.
Trying to deny Baron, UoL took a chance which they were promptly punished for, allowing FlyQuest to close out the match.
An overall close match with an unusual distribution of who had control of towers and neutrals led to individual plays standing out and give FlyQuest the edge.
DRX vs Top Esports (Rewatch recommendation: 4 / 5, A Topsy-Turvy Tale of Three Team Tussles)
In a clash of the two titan region, China and Korea, the game opened with some cagey encounters. Keria started strong for DRX, using the sweeper lens and combining with Deft's damage to force back an early surge from TOP.
The kill scoring was opened in the top lane, as Doran and Pyosik capitalised on the thwarted bottom lane push by TOP, finding 369 left vulnerable and used their two-stack of minions to draw attention from the turret and finish him off before reinforcements could arrive.
TOP quickly answered back though, entering the first team fight and opening the killing for themselves. Swarming into the river, TOP picked up two quick kills before catching Deft beneath his own middle tower. This set TOP up for recuperation, as DRX had used their early pressure to take eight turret plates in the first 15 minutes and began to open a gap in the gold race, despite now being down on kills.
The first key team fight came on the first dragon. As the two sides sparred over the first buff of the game, Knight was able to cause inconceivable amounts of damage as TOP nipped the Dragon's bud and advanced on a retreating DRX.
The game then slowed down in terms of pace, as both began to pick away minions and towers. JackeyLove and 369 then reignited the tempo picking off two quick kills just before the Baron spawned. Using their numbers, TOP was able to secure the main buff uncontested. But despite the Baron buff, DRX answered back in the most remarkable fashion. Starting with a kill in the top lane on Knight by the recently respawned Chovy, DRX capitalised on the man advantage and sliced through Top Esports with a range of ultimates and secured a huge ace.
With the tide turning in their favour, DRX became almost overconfident, and as TOP respawned, they came back with a vengeance and sparked straight into the third and final team fight. Chovy and Keria were swiftly stunned and sent back to the fountain awaiting their respawn, and this was the start of the end. TOP's heals and team fighting ability proved too strong in the end, and after 32 minutes they had four dead and Pyosix down to one-shot before they swivelled onto the Nexus and continued their undefeated start.
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