I very much doubt there was any attempt to outright throw the game, but it's very possible the coach and/or team decided "y'know what, our place in the tournament is guaranteed either way, so fuck it, y'all go have fun" and they went into the game with a very blase attitude. The idea being that the ultimate outcome didn't change much at all, regardless of what the current match was, so there's no reason for the team to be stressed out over it, which in turn led to sloppy play and mistakes.

I don't watch League esports, so I wouldn't be able to tell if that was the case even if I had seen the game in question, but it's not an uncommon thing for meatspace sports. I'd be kinda shocked if that kind of attitude never cropped up in an esports competition.

 

It might in some teams (see G2), but Kkoma and SKT are famously straight-edged. SKT didn't even play poorly in the FNC game outside of the towerdive on Broxah, they just got blown out by the veigar pick and snowballed on. It's a big point for SKT to get a 6-0 start and redeem themselves. Throwing doesn't do anything unless they think FNC beat RNG anyway, but only once if they play two games in a tiebreaker. Seems a bit far fetched to me.

 

Definitely not an int, but there are still reasons to be suspicious of them not trying their 100%. I suppose you could argue they are blatant misplays, but some of their choices - Faker’s towerdive on half health when he knew Veigar had ult, for instance, are really suspicious.

There’s also a line that reddit conspiracy theorists quote a lot, where two SKT players state that “they’re not going to be facing RNG again” and another that said “yeah, there’s no way we would” after the SKT v RNG game 2 (and I checked, as a native Korean I can confirm this is what they said) but I think this one is more a misunderstanding / lacking off screen context. Plus they obviously don’t know if FNC can beat RNG or not.

I don’t know, maybe this is blatant favoritism glasses talking, because I’ll admit that I’m definitely biased, but it feels odd. Maybe it really was just SKT playing poorly or being unprepared for Veigar.

On a side note, Nemesis is actually doing amazing this Worlds. I’ve listened to comms and his shotcalling is on point, when his teammates actually listen to him.

 

Fnc played well and had some strategies that SKT were unprepared for. That should not be a difficult fact to accept. SKT is hardly an invincible force of nature.

 

So, quarters are over. Given some time constraints I only really watched FNC vs FPX and G2 vs DWG.

The first definitely didn't go as expected. FNC just shat the bed so hard in that one. Not banning out Ryze after Doinb has shown what an absolute force of nature he is on that pick was straight up disrespectful. For that alone they've rightfully earned the loss. I do like FNCs players, but the synergy was just off. And, contrary to former expectations, their game vs RNG seemed to be them overachieving instead of the norm.

G2 vs DWG delivered, though. Caps' roaming was so damn nasty. What was the stat mentioned? At 15 minutes, Caps spends on avarage about 50% of his time in the midlane, during the other 50% he's roaming. Sad to see though that Perkz rumored mage dominance in the botlane has so far turned out to be dud. It works with Syndra because she has an incredible dmg output quite early in the game, but I don't know if any other mage works similarly.

In any case, the SKT vs G2 rematch will be damn hype.

 

Yeah, FNC really failed to show up. Looks like the team fell apart. Kinda like last year... too much conflict or stress.

While I'm seriously rooting for G2, I kinda expect SKT to take the championship, beating FPX in the finals.

Guaranteed Chinese team in the finals must be crazy good for viewership. China's like 80-90% of LoL's global viewership, right?

 

There are no concrete numbers as far as I know, since all that's available in that regard is a likability index of some kind. However, given the population size and the money that China pumps into lol, it's a good bet to say China's like 80 % at least.

 

welp, they did it. G2 kicked out SKT and now it's down to G2 vs FPX. One more series towards the golden road.

 

And what a series that was. Constantly on the edge of my seat even when they weren't fighting per se. G2 for Grand Champions!

 

Perkz' quadra at the end of the last game was so damn satisfying. I've been riding that high for the last two hours lol.

 

I am cautiously optimistic, though I do think that FPX is not-so-hidden OP. They're a really good team.

It's gonna be a great series regardless. I hope.

 

That series showed maturity more than anything else. G2 were down so many times, but everytime SKT pushed an advantage G2 found something else to take to lessen the impact. They pretty much played every game on the backfoot and still won. Beautiful to watch.

 

Cautious optimism seems the way to go. I also believe that FPX is a really strong team - their domestic record speaks for itself. And last Worlds has already shown what can happen when you send a European team in against a Chinese one at finals.

What does give me some confidence, though, is that G2 didn't have nearly as easy a road as FNC had in 2018. DWG and SKT are no slouches. So I'm somewhat more assured in my optimism that G2 didn't simply overachieve and won't bomb horribly against FPX. One last appearance of Claps and Uma Jan, hopefully an abscence of Wunderwear and MikyXD, and a polish banshee to go with it as well as a non-inting draft by Grabbz, and we could have ourselves a series.

 

G2 played like shit and deserved to lose.

A damn shame, though.

 

Was not expecting to wake up to that. At least fnatic took 1 game haha.

 

I blame myself. Last year too I picked up worlds halfway through when a EU team was doing well and watched the final only to watch them get creamed. I'll never watch league esports again, for the region obviously.

 

Eh, I'm slow to learn. I made the very same promise to myself last November when FNC lost so hard to IG. I still started to love G2 as a team and ultimately ended up in the same position as before. It sucks, of course, but the cheering and hoping they'll take it all made the past months incredibly fun. Even if it's disappointing, being hyped for something is better than not being hyped at all to me; and a big attraction of worlds is to see how your region stacks up.