The knockout round of the LoL Worlds is underway. Who is on top? As usual, the Korean teams are dominating with their superior style of play. Three teams have progressed and the matches have been tough. An overview:
The Korean teams have prevailed in the quarter finals of the Worlds. Three of the four teams advanced to the next round, but some by narrow margins. With Rogue defeater and LPL champion JDG, a Chinese team remains in the race for the world title.
After the educational quarter-final for the European champion Rogue, three more matches were on the agenda. As suspected, the Chinese-Korean duels delivered League of Legends at the highest level.
EDG Fans Madison Square Garden Worlds 22
The reigning world champion EDG has some fans at Madison Square Garden. It didn’t help much. The team lost to the Koreans from DRX.Bruno Alvares/Riot Games
So it was the reigning world champions EDG from China who initially took a two-game lead in the match against Rogue’s group opponents DRX. However, there was nothing clear about it, in the first round the Koreans were already at the opponent’s nexus towers and had a temporary gold advantage of 10k in the second match. Accordingly, what came next seemed preordained: DRX set out for the infamous “reverse sweep”, i.e. a 3:2 victory after trailing 0:2. The third game was anything but clear, with alternating advantages on both sides. After that, the knot burst and the Koreans proved why they are still regarded as the strongest region in the world.
Koreans among themselves and ‘Faker’ team with another brilliant performance
Korea kept to themselves in the third quarter-final. Meiser Gen.G had to play against the third-placed team of the domestic league Damwon Gaming. Again, the match went the full five rounds. DWG tried the rather unusual champion “Kayn” twice in the Jungle and was handed a defeat twice. In both the first and last rounds, the champion was able to advance in the early game but was unable to secure a win. Both teams pulled various new picks out of their hats throughout the games and had varying degrees of success.
Yumi Worlds 22
Knife-sharp analysis. The cat secures victories – or gets banned. Gen.G also won the first game in the quarterfinals with her on the team. Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games
Just as clearly as the Rogue four-part final had gone, record champion T1 played its first round in the knockout round. 3:0 was the score for the team around ‘Faker’. There was no doubt about their dominance in any of the three games.
Their opponents were Royal Never Give Up from China, who had fought their way through the play-ins and then the group phase as fourth in the national league. The team only made a stab at it in round two, which remained reasonably even until the end. But again they failed to stop T1’s game-changing toplaner ‘Zeus’, who ended up 0/8/8 but contributed 32 per cent of the total damage in the process.
T1 thus underlined that when in doubt, all team members can take the carry. In round three, ‘Faker’ and ‘Gumayusi’, who are equally capable of deciding games, also held back. The match, which lasted just 26 minutes, was again dominated by ‘Zeus’, who this time went for the unusual champion ‘Yone’.
Weekend semi-finals
T1’s dominance has also made a lasting impression on the fans: in a betting game, 82 percent of participants currently assume that the ‘Faker’ team will also prevail in the semi-finals. Curious, because they will be playing against the Chinese champions JDG, who won just as clearly with 3:0. More realistic, therefore, seems to be an even duel, because T1 has the quality of the individual players, but the Chinese should be superior on the pitch with their understanding of the game in terms of teamwork.
For the semi-finals, Riot moves to Atlanta to the stadium of the name sponsor “State Farm”. The games will be played next weekend on 29 and 30 October from 11 pm and 10 pm German time respectively. In the first semi-final, T1 and JDG will meet on Saturday, followed by the Koreans DRX and Gen.G on Sunday.
