League Rundown - Episode 517: Balls deep in Bo3’s

[00:01:06] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to episode 517 of the League rundown. This is LCS week one review and week two preview. And Lec week two review and week three preview. This episode is lovingly entitled Balls Deep in bo three s. I'm your host, Kangas, and I am joined by three esteemed co hosts and one special guest on this episode. Up first, we have the ever present. [00:01:29] Speaker B: Jack Zoman, twitch TV Jackson. Come join the rollercoaster. Cause holy shit. I dropped and gained two full divisions over the weekend. [00:01:39] Speaker A: Yeah, what was it? Plat two to platform, back to platoon. But you made it back, baby. You made it back. That's the important part. We also have Mister Mazelle pl joining us. [00:01:47] Speaker C: Hello. I'm excited to talk about some of the stuff we got going on today and get to poke Manny potentially. [00:01:56] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:01:56] Speaker A: Yeah. A little teaser for our guest here. Also, we can chat about being at LCS because you and I were both there this week to experience. [00:02:03] Speaker C: Baby. [00:02:04] Speaker D: It's back. [00:02:05] Speaker B: Dude, I had no idea you were there. And then jat just is like, oh, hi, Kangas. And the camera cuts to you in Pantheon cosplay. [00:02:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I was tweeting about it. This just shows that you don't follow my twitter or at least don't pay attention to it. So you just. [00:02:20] Speaker B: It was probably drowned out by all the porn. [00:02:23] Speaker A: Well, no. Fair enough. Well, now that that's out of the way, we also have, speaking of big Hawk, how's it going, Hawk? [00:02:30] Speaker E: Oh, I've moved up to big Hawk. I'll take that one. Yeah, I'm doing well. So it's a nice Tuesday afternoon. [00:02:37] Speaker A: You know, I feel like we are gonna. If you keep these predictions up all summer, you're gonna have to earn, like, a nickname as prediction king or something because your predictions have been weirdly good. This is the first time in my. [00:02:49] Speaker E: Life I've never been, like, good at predictions. So we'll take it. [00:02:52] Speaker C: Excuse me. Yeah, I had, like, all the predictions right in the first week, so, you know, a little caveat, but I was. [00:02:59] Speaker A: Only one behind you. [00:03:00] Speaker E: I was only one behind you, though. [00:03:02] Speaker A: The two of you will compete for that then. All right. [00:03:03] Speaker C: How about that? [00:03:04] Speaker A: We'll keep a running table. [00:03:05] Speaker E: I cracked my knuckles, and I'm like, it didn't work. [00:03:13] Speaker A: But also cracking his knuckles, I could see on his video feed. We have a special guest joining us, LCS associate producer Manny. Manny, thanks for coming on. Happy to have you. I've known you for quite a while, but the audience will probably be their first time getting to know you. So yeah. It's going to be an exciting episode. Happy that we could get you on. [00:03:33] Speaker D: Of course. Thanks for having me. Happy to be here. [00:03:36] Speaker A: Sweet. Sweet. We are going to grill Manny on everything. He doesn't know this, but he will leak the script. He will tell us all the stories that are going to happen this summer for lcs. And also we're going to make him personally defend why LCS finals are going to be in Los Angeles again. Two splits in a row. [00:03:55] Speaker D: All the bad things, you can blame me. All the good things didn't have any part in it. [00:04:00] Speaker A: Good things go to Mark Zimmerman. Bad things go to Manny. [00:04:03] Speaker D: Exactly. [00:04:03] Speaker A: That's, that's how we do this. [00:04:05] Speaker D: It was my. [00:04:06] Speaker A: Speaking of, I just said it right there. Getting into news. LCS summer finals have been announced September 6 and 7th and they will be at the YouTube theater in Los Angeles, which will make two splits in a row here on the west coast. I think the biggest kicker that people have been complaining about is that it's in the same state. People that are saying it's two in the west coast. I think it's a little cope because we just had two on the east east coast last year. So it kind of feels like we do this kind of ping ponging thing. So that's not that big of a deal. But it is a bit of a bummer for folks that are not going to be able to make it because it's twice in the same city, essentially. But I don't know much about the YouTube theater. Does anybody here know about the YouTube theater? Like what that is? Manny, can you maybe give any more explanation as to what that is? [00:04:53] Speaker D: So the YouTube theater is just like a small to medium size. Well, I'd say medium sized venue in 6000 seats, right? It's five, I think. Yeah, 5000. [00:05:03] Speaker A: Okay. [00:05:03] Speaker D: I'd known about this for like a little while, obviously, because it was like in the works behind the scenes. I think the issue that people have is less that, like it's in LA, but more that, like we only have one roadshow this year and it is like 10 miles from the studio, which I think just like objectively feels bad for fans that live anywhere else in the US or Canada, which is the vast majority of fans. I think that's like why people are upset. And I think they're like rightfully upset about that. But from what I've heard, everyone that's been there has had just people I've seen talking about it on the Internet and people I've talked to has great things to say about the way the venue is set up. [00:05:45] Speaker E: Yeah, I feel like a lot of people have been worried about the size of the venue or stuff like that. But from the esports events that I've been to, I would much rather have a packed, smaller venue than a, like, emptier stadium. And I think people overplay how, quote unquote empty the stadiums were at the last couple of events. Like, they block off a lot of seats and don't sell some sections and stuff like that. But still, I mean, they definitely weren't sold out or anything. So I think the fact that it'll sell it is cool. I do think it does feel bad that finals is in LA again after they did it at the studio. Like, I think LA getting a roadshow finals or whatever is cool and makes sense, but the fact that it was at the studio is unlucky. [00:06:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I've seen a couple takes that I do agree with. I think it feels like a temperature check of can we still sell out something like this in LA, where theoretically, like, if you can't sell out 5000 seats in LA, that could be bad news for future roadshows. But I do expect that because there's just so many gamers, so many teams, so many fans here that they should not have an issue with that, hopefully. But I do like the idea of the venue because stadiums are one thing I've gotten the chance to do. Stage hosting for the past couple of finals and stage hosting in a stadium, there's a lot of energy and a lot of excitement in a theater. It's a different vibe, but I think it's kind of cool because it gives more creativity for everybody on the production team to figure out. Okay, what can we do with this space now? I think it would be sick to do, like, I don't know, hand out like, the little binoculars or something. You know, like the binoculars on the stick that you sit up in the rafters and watch out on the stage with funny stuff like that would be really cool. Oh, yeah. Manny's taking notes right now. Let's go. Hell, yeah. I got ideas, but that's kind of the cool lcs news right now. But we also have LPL. Update with Mister Ms. LPL. You got your registered 30 to 60 seconds every week. What are the cool things happening over in the LPL right now? Mazel. [00:07:52] Speaker C: All right, well, we have some dominant teams. BLG, top of their group. We've got JDG, who are top of their group as well. Completely undefeated. Al still making a run for it. They did finally lose but they are still four and one and still very, very strong. Besides that, we have a couple up and covers in like we who actually gave BLG a little bit of run for their money last night in a 20, even though it was a 20. But big things are BLG are already BLG top esports already qualified for the next round to go to group Phoenix or no group rise, which is the a group of LPL next round. And then RNG is already qualified for group Phoenix, which is the second group. And if you want to know what those are named after, it's because of the world championships of the LPL. And the third one is called the. The like, actual playoff run is called the road of nights after EDG. So it's IG, FPX, CDG as the world champions that have been recognized, I guess, by the split. [00:08:58] Speaker A: That's kind of cool. Yeah, still confusing as hell. [00:09:01] Speaker C: Very confusing, but it's cool. [00:09:03] Speaker A: How close are we to finishing this first four group fearless thing? Okay. For two weeks? [00:09:10] Speaker C: Yeah, like a week and a half or so. It's like the end of next week. [00:09:14] Speaker A: Okay, so next week we'll. We'll probably have more teams that are qualified and kind of have a better idea of where everyone's going to be seating and. Cool, well, we'll keep our eyes on that. LCK also happening. I don't know anything that's going on over there. Anybody got any LC? We don't have bickle on the pod. Usually he's the Lck guy. [00:09:31] Speaker E: Gen G clapped t one's cheeks. I feel like that's the story, right? [00:09:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:36] Speaker E: Yeah, they two zeroed them. [00:09:38] Speaker A: Okay, sweet. Well, if you want to see cheeks get clapped, go check out twitch.com lck. It's probably up. [00:09:48] Speaker C: Nacl. Crap. What game was it? I don't remember. There was a car this game where I said that he's going to clap a bunch of cheeks. You can pull that one. [00:09:55] Speaker A: If you want to hear Mazelle shout cast cheeks clapping, then yes, go check out that one as well. Shout out to NACL and the fans who watch that. A couple of roster news updates as well. We have Hooni stepping down from the LCK broadcast. D Gone recently joined and who knew will be stepping down because of military service. So that was announced this last week. Hopefully we will get him back into the scene at some point. But that is quite common for Koreans that they will have to step away at some point either as a pro or broadcaster in their career to do that. And also team liquid, despite I mean, we'll talk about this later. Having a pretty good opening weekend. Didn't have their coach with them on stage. Spawn not currently with the team due to visa issues. Os has had a bad track record of getting players and coaches to Na on time. I don't know if this is going to be exactly because of that or if it was also, you know, stuff going on with the MSI journey, but either way, we'll all be crossing our fingers that spawn makes it here soon because Team Liquid also announced that they're extending contracts for APA. And yawn. So look at that, Manny. We get to keep telling stories of these young guys. [00:11:04] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. As we know, famously esports contracts always upheld and honored through their full duration. But yes, I'm excited. I'm very excited. [00:11:16] Speaker A: Happy that we have a realist in the room. [00:11:19] Speaker D: What do you mean? I think it's serious. [00:11:21] Speaker A: Yeah, well, yeah, but it is important to note players have unfortunately had their contract cut short. But it seems like Apnion are two that at least team liquid for right now is committing to and for great reason, good players and also great branding. Specifically APA. I mean. Okay, Manny, actually, we have you here. How much of the LCS like, opener video, like the talk, your split video was inspired by simply APA being in the league because it feels like he's the main character of that video. [00:11:52] Speaker D: I think a lot. I was only very tangentially involved in the hero film planning. I, like, talked about a couple of the Easter eggs that were in the video, but as far as the writing and production, I wasn't there on set or anything. But a lot of the direction for this year wasn't particularly set at the start. We knew that our mission for a while has been to build up player personalities and make them interesting again, which is very good considering the string of years we had when I first joined or before we joined, where that was kind of tough, but now we're at a point where we can kind of start telling those stories. And then this really amazing organic beef developed over the course of playoffs between Flyquest and Team Liquid, and that just became like, I know there was another pitch. It was between, like, talk your split and, like, another. A different idea for summer and talk your split one out because of that happening on its own. Like, I think, like, that was able to happen because, like, we were able to build trust and, like, the stories have been getting better. But I'm very, very happy that APa is in the league, and I have been since. Since he came in. [00:13:11] Speaker A: Yeah, and I love the fact me and Mazelle were talking about this even on Saturday when we were there at LCS. It's like there were people in the so many people in the community and even like broadcasters, other players like saying, yeah, APa shouldn't be an LCS. Like they should team Liquid should drop APA. But Vizell, he's like ignited the league. Now it's like not even just as a player, but as a personality. So cool to have him here, of course, but that is global news wrapped up reminder for everybody, we do have a community discord. So if you feel that we missed something important or you want to join in on the conversation, make sure to check out the link to the discord in the description you can find wherever you're listening to the episode, and also special shout outs to the patrons that help support the podcast to help get the audio quality up to the standards that we want it to be at. And also, I hear you. I have been called out that the special bullshittery episodes that you get access to if you're at the certain tier of the Patreon have not been uploaded. Me and Duffy are in a holy war against the help desk at Patreon who are not very helpful in getting the account transferred over to myself. So sorry for the delay in that, but at this point we'll probably just have Duffy upload a couple of the episodes that are missing while we continue to fight to get that transferred over. So thank you for your patience. I know that there's a couple that have not been uploaded now, but those should be up soon. With that said, let's get into the week. Before that, though, we're going to start off with LCS. I know typically we like to swap it off, but we got Manny here. Associate producer. I want to take some more time to get to know Manny before we dive into what happened opening weekend, specifically from the production side. But before that, Manny, I know what an associate producer is and that it can do a lot of different things. It can be a very vague term, but how about start off by describing a little bit about what you do? So for the listeners at home who have no idea what an associate producer is on the LCS broadcast, give some examples of some of the stuff that you do day to day on the show. [00:15:06] Speaker D: Got it? Yeah. Like you mentioned, associate producer, I think I just have to disclose as well at the top, I'm not a rioter, I'm a contractor. So in the same way that like Jat is on the LCS broadcast, as a caster, but he is not a full time rioter. It is basically the same situation for me. Basically what my job is is I am a part of the production team, basically, with the producers, and we basically get to build the show every week, which is a lot of fun. I get to do a lot of stuff on basically the way a production runs is via something called, like a rundown, which is basically like a big, fancy Google sheet. It's my job to make sure that that's up to date, everything's correct, update all the copy, write certain segments, and then also make sure that I also get to produce certain segments and make sure that all of the different assets, like the videos and graphics and everything, are actually created correctly and make it out to stream. And then I just kind of am a bit of a swiss army knife and do a bunch of random stuff, which is the way I like it. [00:16:15] Speaker A: Yeah, that's why I was kind of prepping. It's a bit of a catch all title because it's whatever, really. They need you to be doing that. That's what the associate producer is doing. But you've also had the chance to work on a couple of content pieces. So I've actually talked about you on this podcast before. I don't know if you're aware of that, but I've name dropped you for the catching up with Doublelift segment that I know that you are deeply involved in. Is this where we. I don't think anybody knows this. You're the rat. You're the rat that jumps out of the wall in the keeping up with or catching up with. What a title to be known last year. [00:16:46] Speaker C: You're the rat. [00:16:46] Speaker E: You are the rat. [00:16:48] Speaker A: You are the rat. [00:16:49] Speaker D: I was the rat from catching up with Doublelift. That is definitely the most insane thing I can say. Not just that I've done at lcs, but that I've ever done for work is get, like, rat makeup professionally put on my face, and then burst out of a wall and scream at Doublelift. Although before that, I also dropped a weighted dummy dressed as raz onto a breakaway table in between them and also threw a bird over a wall and then also got, like, pushed back behind the thing by mark. So, yeah, I do get to do a bunch of weird stuff, and it's a lot of fun catching up with Doublelift, if you guys want to talk about. That was very, very crazy. That was a lot. [00:17:36] Speaker A: I can imagine. I can imagine. Well, I actually kind of want to start off with what your favorite content pieces are, though, because catching up with evil lift is obviously the big one that a lot of people will be aware of. Is that your favorite thing that you've worked on? And if so, what are some of the other favorite pieces you've got a chance to touch? [00:17:54] Speaker D: I think it's definitely the funniest thing I've worked on. It's just the weird. It's the best story, for sure. I, like, did all these ridiculous things. I jumped out from underneath the table and scared berserker. There's a bunch of ridiculous things I would say. My favorite stuff I've worked on was I did some work on some of the older replay files episodes. [00:18:19] Speaker A: Oh, those were good. [00:18:20] Speaker D: And then also, I guess my favorite thing that I've really ever worked on was because I'm a. But anyone that knows me knows I am. Like, one of my skill sets as a producer is that I am a massive nerd about the LCs and have been for a very long time. So back in 2022 summer, it was the LCS ten year anniversary thing that was going down. And it was kind of funny because just in the public slack channels, the person in charge of that initiative was just like, hey, before the start of summer split, like, hey, we're collecting a bunch of iconic moments and plays and everything. If you have anything that stands out to you as personally impactful, drop it in the slack thread. And I linked a spreadsheet with, like, 30 different things on it, and they were like, do you just want to be involved? And I was like, absolutely. So I wound up pulling a lot of the footage that was used in the opening ceremony. But then I think the best thing is the, I got to help write the walkout. Like the former champions walkout that happened on Saturday in Chicago. So when Dyrus and Bjergsen and Doublelift and high and all those guys got to walk back and bring the trophy out, I got to help write a lot of Dash's lines for that. And that felt really cool. I think it connected with a lot of people. [00:19:48] Speaker A: Yeah, that was a great moment to have. And the ten year anniversary, that brings me back. Remember being out there on the stage? It was fun. Yeah. [00:19:57] Speaker C: It was such an emotional moment. [00:20:00] Speaker A: Yeah. So everybody wanted to hear real quick, everyone's favorite memory from the ten year anniversary. [00:20:06] Speaker C: Dyrus, 100% his emotions. [00:20:08] Speaker A: That was a great. I liked watching doubles and Bjergsen come out together. That was. That was beautiful. The goats, we can all agree they're both the goats. [00:20:19] Speaker C: I love that Bjergsen has just turned into, like, the old man in the misty mountains or some. Some crowd. He's just disappeared out of esports. He, like, shows up to lcs every now and then. [00:20:29] Speaker A: That's a good point. [00:20:30] Speaker C: Gets thrown into the shots of the crowd and he just disappears for however. [00:20:34] Speaker D: Many months he's still in LA. I've run into more than one comedy show in LA. So he's arrested. [00:20:41] Speaker C: Doesn't have anything to do with it. [00:20:43] Speaker D: He's living his best life, I'm sure. [00:20:46] Speaker A: I was going to ask which riot closet he was trapped in until they needed him again, but I guess he is allowed to roam free. Well, Manny, to see the conversation now back into lcs to get us into that conversation. How'd the prep go for week one? Were there any fires behind the scenes that put out you can talk about, or was everything pretty smooth sailing? [00:21:05] Speaker D: It was pretty smooth sailing. I mean, it was good. Week one is always a little easier because even though we have less content that we've been able to shoot beforehand, we have more time to make everything so we can do normally. Like, the way this works, I think this isn't something a lot of people think of is, like, we have from the time the game's end until the time the games start the next week to build the. Build everything, right? Build the entire show. [00:21:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:33] Speaker D: This time we had two weeks instead of one. And that helps when you're making a bunch of stuff. So it's just, like, kind of a nice way to ease into it. And, you know, it was a little interesting just going back to, like, best of threes. There are just, like, a lot of things we had to think about. Like, where do we put the commercial break between the series and, like, you know, a bunch of stuff like that. Like, can we still do, like, we have this commercial break between series? Like, we could just do two interviews now if we want. Like, we can interview one person on stage and one person in the commercial break, which we've been. [00:22:06] Speaker A: I did notice that. Yeah, that was cool. [00:22:08] Speaker D: So there's a lot of room for innovation, this split. And just, like, in general, and, like, lcs is very encouraging and creative with, like, with letting us just, like, do cool things. So it was a lot of fun. [00:22:22] Speaker B: I liked the double interview, but I think you guys should have committed to the mistake of just doing them both literally, simultaneously. [00:22:31] Speaker D: Just have them flee each other. [00:22:33] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what happened briefly. [00:22:36] Speaker D: Yeah. Well, you know, it's. There's been some audio difficulties, but what. [00:22:41] Speaker B: I want, I'm pitching a segment to you here, I want you to do an interview before a match, a hyped match with both, like, a player from each team being interviewed simultaneously and have them try to talk over each other on purpose. [00:22:55] Speaker D: Oh, see, we tried to do that in the face off in spring, and it went all right. A couple of them were not that great. A couple of them were okay. But it was interesting because we tried to do this whole, like, we try to create, like, you know, oh, this is the face off. They're in the cage match. Everyone's going to trash talk. And then we tried to just. We put two people on other sides of the room. We were like, trash talk. And it. It didn't work. But then during playoffs, obviously, this whole, you know, all the organic trash talk happened, and now it's like the identity of the league for the summer. So that it is, it was some interesting takeaways, I think, from that. [00:23:36] Speaker A: I love it. I think that you should have rather put them on opposite sides. Just put them in a smaller cage, inside of the cage, like, in the middle of the room. That would have been great. [00:23:45] Speaker D: Cage was already pretty small. [00:23:48] Speaker A: Fair enough. Well, week one has been a wrap, Manny. So before we transition to kind of our thoughts on lcs and get everyone else to chime in, what were some of your favorite narratives from week one? What's on your plate and on your mind going into prepping content for this next week? [00:24:04] Speaker D: I mean, I like that. It seems to me that a lot of our parody from last split is potentially carrying over, and even if it's not, it's going to take us a lot longer to figure that out because it's a single round robin, so teams only play one game per week, which I was initially worried about, but, and we'll see how, like, stuff develops over the course of split, like, fan interest. But it is cool, to borrow a phrase from jat, every game matters, TM, basically, but it is cool that, like, teams are actually challenging each other and things are close. I think it's good for the league that hundred thieves are winning. And, you know, Dignitas is better than I expected. So overall, like, I'm glad that's happening. I'm glad that TL is still rolling. It was just, like, a very nice, satisfying first week to ease us in. [00:25:01] Speaker A: Well, that's a perfect transition because you said it right there. Dignitas performing above expectations, potentially. I had them actually taking that series, the first one against cloud nine. They weren't able to close it out, though, as it was cloud nine taking that win. So, Jax, let's start off there. Cloud nine. In the LCS, there's going to be a big clump because every team's only played once. So we're going to have four teams that are one and zero right now. Four teams that are zero one right now for the best of three score. So I'll just let you start off with the team that a lot of people are still kind of expecting to be one of the best in the LCS. [00:25:36] Speaker B: All right, so the. The hype narrative coming in for cloud nine was thanatos. This. This top lane prodigy. And I'm going to caveat this with. We saw him in three games. He just looks like an NA top laner. [00:25:51] Speaker A: I wasn't that impressed. I didn't think he was, like, popping off or doing anything, like, super crazy. [00:25:56] Speaker B: So, like, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt. We're going to give him a couple more weeks and see how he progresses. But. But initial first impression off of one best of three series, he's all right, which is a bummer because all of the rest of the cloud nine issues we saw in spring are still there. They do not seem to be all that coordinated as a team. They're individually still really goddamn good, but they just seem to be on a different page as far as what to do next, what moment to moment plays to make, and they're just not setting each other up well. They're not moving around the map together well. They did win. They did beat Dignitas, and game three was very convincing. But the fact that it went to three games. [00:26:45] Speaker A: Go ahead. [00:26:46] Speaker E: It felt to me like a series where berserker was like, wait, guys, I actually want to try this split. All right, let's not lose here. And then he just. He was like, I've had enough of this. [00:26:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:58] Speaker E: I don't know. Cloud nine is. I mean, I feel like, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, Thanatos is not fixing all their problems, and they actually might have to try to do that and remains to be seen whether or not they can. [00:27:13] Speaker D: I mean, absolutely nobody. Like, I think, like, we're preaching to the choir here, but, like, I've been saying this for a long time. People were like, surprisingly, I was like, people are very positive on these cloud nine changes. Like, I've been talking about this for a little bit, but I was. I looked at it and I'm like, this team is cooked. There's no way that this is going to fix their problems. Like, when I look at a roster that has former MVP blabber, former MVP Jojo Pune, former MVP berserker, former first team all pro Vulcan, and then fudge, who has just been very good for a very long time. Right? The bot lane doesn't function. Your double MVP mid jungle doesn't seem to be on the same page ever. And then people are like, ah, clearly the problem with this team is that our top laner is not one v nine ing the game. I think there are, like, probably the list of top laners that can, like, legitimately one v nine carry a game. You could probably, like, in the world fit on one hand, at least they could do it, like, consistently. And it's like, why are we asking our top laner to do this? Like, have we all been watching the same competitive League of Legends for the last, like, eight years? Like, to me, I was like, there's no way this is going to happen. And then obviously, like, it's cool to see Reaper come back. But I think a lot of people are conveniently forgetting why Reaper left cloud nine in the first place, which was for wildly mismanaging a super team into missing the world championship. And I was like, pulling my hair out. I'm like, why are people so positive on this? And it turns out, you know, yeah, but thanatos picked Cassante and went even top lane versus licorice. [00:28:53] Speaker A: And also, Thanatos isn't, like you mentioned, you can kind of one hand the number of top laners that can one v nine in the world and just win games for their team. Thanatos is coming up from the developmental scene. This was technically his first series, first stage games in a major region because he had been playing in the Challengers League over in Korea. So it's not like the signing of this proven player with a track record of one v 19 against top competitive players. So, yeah, tough to see. I don't want to put too much judgment on him, though. I think that he saw a chance to come back and prove his worth later on in the summer, but for the out the gate wasn't like this roaring start. [00:29:31] Speaker B: I do want to caveat a little bit that I think a lot of the hope for cloud nine wasn't necessarily, oh, Thanatos is going to fix the problems, but rather they've had a lot of time to work on their communication. These players are all amazing. They should pop off in summer. Just should. [00:29:49] Speaker A: Sure. That's a lot of talk about cloud nine, obviously, because they're a team with a lot to talk about, but they did. I think they were the one that benefited the most from the change of best of three, because if it was best one, they would have lost that game. They even toss would have taken it as they did take game one. Cloud nine will be happy with the best of three changes taking the series. Two, one. Which brings us to our next next team. Hawk, are you there? Can you chat with us? I am back. [00:30:12] Speaker E: I got Spectrum gapped for a moment. [00:30:14] Speaker A: But yes, Spectrum gapped. All right, as long as your audio recordings, fine. We're no worries. [00:30:18] Speaker E: We're still. Yeah, audacity still rolling. Got spectrum gapped, but just in time for team liquid. Yeah, I mean, honestly, not a whole lot to say about team liquid, other than it feels like they picked up where they left off. You know, the players talked in interviews and stuff about how they took, like, a little of a bit of a break after MSI and everything, but. But even without spawn, they drafted well. They played well. It was a three game series against Flyquest, but I think they should be very happy to win the first series of the split, arguably the hardest series that they will have this split. And I think the expectation is that TL will be another contender. [00:30:56] Speaker A: I think it's still crazy to think that we probably won't see TL versus Flyquest for another two months if they even match up in playoffs, which isn't guaranteed, which I think this was probably, if not just definitely the best series of the weekend with some of the best games. I think Dignitas, cloud nine also had a couple of good games in there, too. But, yeah, we started with the banger and hopefully we do get to see them rematch at some point because it does seem like it's going to be between these two teams yet again. They were the MSI representatives, but early expectations with how cloud nine was looking seems like there might be a bit of a gap. Do you agree with that sentiment or do you think that's too far of a stretch? [00:31:35] Speaker C: Ooh. [00:31:36] Speaker E: I mean, between. Sorry, a sentiment of a gap between. [00:31:40] Speaker A: Liquid fly west at the top, and then there's a bit of a gap between them and, like, the c nine s, the digs in the. In the league. [00:31:47] Speaker E: Yeah, I would generally agree with that. I think, honestly, jury may be still out on Flyquest. I mean, they should. They should be really good. But I do think Team Liquid still looks like the obvious favorite to win after their, like, their strong finish to spring. I do think, as we just discussed, cloud nine and everybody else has problems that they need to fix if they want to beat Team Liquid and I think Team Liquid proved that by winning their first series coming back from MSI, which g two completely failed to do in the first weekend of regular season lec. So, you know, it's a good. It's a good look for the team coming back. [00:32:22] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll keep our eyes on team looking to afford. Manny, did you have something you want to hop in with? [00:32:26] Speaker D: Yeah, well, I was actually going to ask you guys as NACL folks about how you thought Quad did in his first game. Because I haven't really watched much of quad beforehand. I have, like, known of him and his time on DRX. I know he used to go by the name Sulka. I know he retired for a period because of stage nerves. I heard. Well, in part because of stage nerves, I've heard that he was insane in NACL, spring 2023. And obviously, stepping up to the LCS is big, you know, big deal. And Apa has proven himself to be really good. So my question is, is he performing in line with your guys expectations from NACL or did he look nervy? Like that could be an issue going forward. [00:33:18] Speaker A: Mizelle, do you want to take this one or do you want me to take this one? [00:33:22] Speaker C: You can take it. [00:33:23] Speaker A: I think Quad play it definitely felt like there was first time stage nerves. I know he's played on that stage technically for NACL, but for LCS, I had a slightly higher expectation for him. I didn't think he was going to get solo killed by Apa in that game one. I think that was just a miscalculation. It was still pretty close. People like Apa, everyone's talking about how much he was typing and how funny it was to hear him kind of flaming quads, but you look back to how close their health bars got. It actually was not like Apa dominated that exchange. I still think that Quad's got a lot more to prove in terms of what he's able to do in the steering wheel early game, because that's what everybody at NACL was talking about with Quad, is that he was so oppressive in lane that it felt like it was kind of suffocating and you couldn't get into the game as a mid laner. I think Apa was able to handle him just fine. And Quad actually showed up more late game in big moments and high impactful plays. And that's what we saw, which Quad also was able to do that in NACL. But the difference being that we didn't see the same, like suffocation coming out from Quad early game. I do shock a lot of that to stage nerves, but it's always tough to know from the outside looking in. [00:34:38] Speaker D: Welcome to the LCS is real. Also, listen, if that, that ace old thing can happen to faker, it can happen to anyone. [00:34:46] Speaker A: Fair enough. Oh, my God. I also just, I'm thinking back to all the different times that we just saw the camera behind APA showing him typing. God, that was a good opening weekend. All right, cool. There's team liquid. Now we also have Hawk. You're going to be up two in a row here because 100 thieves had a very solid start to their weekend as well in the 10 club, but also in the 20 club as they were able to 20 their opponent. [00:35:15] Speaker E: Yeah, I know it was a pretty good weekend for my LCS teams here. Hundred thieves, I know a lot of question marks about whether or not they'd be able to replicate the success from spring. Did they just get hot at the right time? Yada, yada, yada. Well, guys, it turns out that quidd is kind of just that guy because he played a really great series. I mean, I think hundred thieves in general played a really great series. Like, fans of hundred thieves should be really happy with that 20. I think silencing a lot of the doubters. I will say I think at least 30% to 40% of that win is that I think NRG might sneakily be like the 7th place team as I had them in my power rankings. I think that team is quite bad. But I mean, even aside from that, I think hundred thieves, they played a really nice, clean series. They definitely are picking up where they left off. And I think, you know, remains to be seen whether they've leveled up enough to contend with the top dogs, but it was a good showing. And they, I mean, are hoping to be a playoff team. [00:36:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that hundred thieves, I'm so happy that not only they won, but they looked so convincing in the win, and everybody felt like they were firing on all cylinders. We didn't get as many, like, oopsie plays from the bot side of the map. Sniper was still doing sniper things. [00:36:31] Speaker E: Ayla had a great series. Like, a really had a really good series. [00:36:34] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And he was. One of the potential concerns from that team that I had coming into summer was like, okay, we've seen Ayla do really well in NACL, but he's struggled to transition to the LCS level a couple times. But now it's really feeling like he's, he's earning his keep and great to see him do that super early, man. You, you were really hyped on hundred thieves getting the win here. What, what was the reason behind that? Was that just for narrative? Just so you can push Sniper more on broadcast? [00:37:02] Speaker D: Yes, exactly. No, that is definitely part of the equation. Sniper is an awesome pro to work with in general because he, he has that star power. He is very like, you know, he has the charisma as well. And so the fact that he's, like, actually able to. He is that good and he's been hyped up for all these, like, all these years, it is very good for us. The player I was honestly the most surprised by pleasantly on hundred thieves right. This, this season so far has been like, because, like, we know Sniper could be really good. We know river is really good. We know Quidd is really good because he was MVP. I thought Meech looked a lot more confident in these games. I thought, like, you can watch a player and kind of tell when he's playing confidently versus not. I think, you know, there were a couple times on the Kaiser, he may have been a little too confident, but that's kind of what you want out of a young, developing player. I thought last split, he was kind of hanging back and doing his job and that was good enough to get them, you know, into the spot that they were in. [00:38:02] Speaker E: Also kind of a Senna merchant last split. [00:38:04] Speaker D: Yeah, I'm hoping that he's taking a step forward. Cause he looked more confident and like, as we kind of seen with a lot of other teams, like be that like NRG or Immortals or, you know, Shopify, the scrims versus stage thing is real. So seeing someone bring their potential to the stage is always good. [00:38:24] Speaker A: And even though Hawk had energy ranked pretty low. I think it was still against one of the teams that you give a little more credit for them beating than if it was like Shopify or immortals. Speaking of. [00:38:37] Speaker E: I mean, they didn't look good, but. [00:38:39] Speaker A: Yeah, they did not. Immortals are up in that club and I'm going to say it right now, the last time we'll see them died for first summer. They did win their first series of the summer against Shopify Rebellion in a Swift 20. And I will say this was definitely the slowest and boringest series of the weekend. Game one was pretty action packed, but game two was definitely really slow and I will say calculated, I guess, if we want to put a positive spin on it. But overall, Mars were able to still close it out. Pretty impressed with, with the play coming in from the bottling. I think tactical had a really good weekend and was kind of my star player from this team on behalf of. [00:39:23] Speaker E: Shopify Rebellion and the normal games we played last night. Fuck Skarner. Like, I just need to put that out there. That champion is so unholy. [00:39:31] Speaker A: The amount of time that production got to utilize that cabin. Flowers in the Skarner suit meme. [00:39:36] Speaker D: I was so excited. [00:39:37] Speaker E: They did get to milk that. [00:39:39] Speaker D: Yeah, I was worried we were never going to see it. I thought it was going to get Perma banned and we were never going to be able to use it. But should have been happy. Yeah, it was tough. I have some interesting insight on Shopify. So we have a sponsored segment called LCs Connected, presented by at and T, which is a comms replay at the end of every series. So in order to do that, someone has to screen the calls to make sure that we can air them on broadcast. So I was listening the Shopify's calls during the whole game. Basically I was listening to their comms. They seem to have very, like, they have very. They agree on their ideas about the game. The issue is they go for the plays and they didn't seem to work and I don't really know what to do about that because it's not like they're like being pulled in different directions. Like they are trying to do stuff and it's not working. And I hope that they could get on top of that because I very. I may have made a tweet last week while extremely high, saying they would be top four, so they need to get it together. [00:40:49] Speaker A: So what you're saying is that the old adage of five players committing to a bad play is better than one player committing to a good play, but in this case it's not working for Shopify Rebellion. It's not true here. [00:41:01] Speaker D: I don't know if they were always committing, but okay. They were like, at least seemed to be on the same page. [00:41:09] Speaker A: Okay, well, hopefully they are able to find the correct plays going forward because immortals was still able to take it. Again, I think Dax was a great play and they got scarred in two games in a row. The rumble was picked into it both times, right. I want to say rumble was the counter pick in each time. I'm not exactly remembering the draft, but if memory serves, and that was correct, which also, once we get into LEC conversation, we can talk about it there because that seems to just be the counter into the Skarner. If you're going to leave it up, you pick rumble into. It did work in one instance. [00:41:39] Speaker C: It's been Mordekaiser in LPL oh, really? [00:41:42] Speaker B: There wasn't Mordekaiser. [00:41:43] Speaker C: It doesn't work. But it's been Mordekaiser. [00:41:46] Speaker B: Oh, there was a Mordekaiser attempted in Lec too, and it didn't work there either. [00:41:50] Speaker C: You cannot do it. It just doesn't work. [00:41:53] Speaker A: Skarner's just too strong and it's strong enough to get immortals that juicy win. Which means in total, what am I at? Me and a hawk, by the way, agreed that it has to be series wins for Immortals. It can't just be game wins for my cumulative eight wins across the teams I drafted. So that gives me one win for Immortals. And then was it up to four with my Lec team? Something like that. [00:42:15] Speaker E: I think you're up to. [00:42:16] Speaker A: I had vitality and only update, which is three. No, no. MDK. [00:42:20] Speaker E: It's vitality and KC because you traded away. [00:42:23] Speaker D: Yes, yes. [00:42:25] Speaker A: Vitality and Casey. I thought it was four. So I'm up to five total already. I'm just saying, easiest bet of my life. Even though there were no stakes on that bet. We covered immortals. We even covered shopify a little bit. So let's just round it out. Flyquest. Mazelle. I'm going to ask you, are we disappointed that FlyQuest couldn't win the series or do you think that they still gave up enough of a fight that we have promise and hope that they can still be one of those? [00:42:50] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:42:50] Speaker C: For best of three. Like, I think the, the thing that people will immediately change to invest the three is be like, oh, well, it's more games. So that means that one series is a definition of what this team will be. I don't think that's true. And I think, I'm not gonna lie, I think in the series, TL got it in their head 100% and I think, yeah, exactly. They've been living there rent free since summer. All right, in spring. So I think the reality is we'll see a lot of growth from this team. I do. I know I pointed out to you at LCS, but I am a little bit worried about the communication structure and the fact that I watched Busio not say a word for like 20 minutes of one of the games. And I think knowing Allen or Busio, you know, I can call him by his first name because we're like that. I think knowing him, he won't wants to have a voice because he has a very. I love the way he problem solves in League of Legends and I want him to be a factor in FlyQuest. I think that's going to be the biggest growth moment this play, because all we saw was whippo yapping the entire time and then inspired throwing things in here or there. I think it's going to need to be busio taking more of a forward step. [00:44:02] Speaker A: Yeah. So for anybody who hasn't gotten the chance to be at LCS live, you get all the player cams on screen underneath the big screen where you can see the game, so you can can see all of their faces. And Mazel did notice that, that he was like, dude, it's just wipo the entire time talking. And, like you said, sometimes inspired, but, like, nobody else really talked. And then you look over Team Liquid, they're all talking the whole time, and they're all communicating with each other. So the communication structure, team liquid definitely seemed better. Mazelle, I think you might be muted. [00:44:32] Speaker C: Oh, my bad. Sorry. The biggest thing is that when Busio was in challengers or academy, he was the target, he was the shot caller. He was the person that was always making calls and always talking. So that's why like, it for me, it's a stark difference. [00:44:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:48] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:44:49] Speaker A: Manny, what. What are your thoughts? [00:44:50] Speaker D: I, uh. I have a completely unrelated thought about FlyQuest. Just because you mentioned busio talking, I got roasted on a piece of lcs content that released today by Busio and Wippo. [00:45:02] Speaker A: You personally got roasted? [00:45:04] Speaker D: Personally? Yeah. It was incredible. It was. The LCS players react to, like, flame like thing, basically. And pastry time had posted a tweet looking for, like, hot takes about energy and fly. And I had commented saying that their mascot is plural now are not real because you can't dress up in a stupid costume, like a traditional mascot costume and be the mascot point. And they told me that I just need to put in more effort. I want to take a minute to respond to these allegations and say that a mascot and cosplaying as something are different things. The mascot character, you know, it's like, super big and puffy and fuzzy. There's way too many angles on those, their new mascots. This is a completely unimportant, unserious take, but I've been called out by FlyQuest, and, you know, I feel like I need to respond. [00:45:59] Speaker A: I'm happy that this can be the platform in which you respond on. And now we're going to go back and click flip that audio response and make sure that makes the rounds on Twitter. Of course we're going to get it hurt by FlyQuest. Well, closing things out, we got two more teams to cover here. Quick in the lcs, before we move on to the predictions and then Lec. We have Dignitas and NRG. I'll cover Dignitas because they're the team that I was hyped about coming in. I was a big dignitas believer. I was. I was willing to gamble, man. I was like, we have no idea if these players are going to work together but enough of them have worked together in the past. I think it's going to be fine. And I was a c nine doubter so I had them winning the series and they were close. They got game one. Zven in particular I want to give big shout outs to. I think Zven stepping back into the ad carry role is looking very solid and I've always felt that Jensen's the best mid laner to have if he's like the third best player on your team. And I do think that this is going to be that type of team because licorice also I think is going to be able to hold his own pretty well up top. And Spica hopefully can. You know, it's been a while since he's been playing at the pro level and had this kind of competition so I think that he will continue to scale throughout the summer. I'm still hot on Dignitas. I still think that they have a chance to turn it around. But a team I'm less confident in is energy. Jax, real quick, talk about energy's opening weekend before we get into predictions and matches to watch. [00:47:22] Speaker B: All right, are we skipping Shopify entirely? [00:47:25] Speaker A: Well, we kind of covered them with immortals. I felt like we did both of those together. [00:47:29] Speaker B: Okay, well, I can do this on energy as well because they played a quirky game. Energy got two owed. And I am going to rant for a moment because all of the LCS pros playing Corky have been losing to the shopkeeper and I'm fucking mad about it. I don't know why. Every LCS pro playing Corki is still building Trinity Force is building rapid fire. Second, they do no goddamn damage. This was most egregious in the second immortal Shopify game, but Palafox did it in game two of energy 100 thieves. There's no ad in this building. Kirky's all about his fucking ad ratios now. [00:48:08] Speaker A: They did get buffed. Yeah, it's. [00:48:10] Speaker B: It's so frustrating. It's so useless. They should be going collector, infinity edge and then either more lethality or crit items from there, depending on a lot of variables. And watching this many corkies, palo Fox is not alone in this all build wrong and Corki being this prevalent. I was so fucking mad. [00:48:34] Speaker C: I completely agree, actually, because you just see a huge damage increase at that second item spike. Especially when you watch Corky and the LPL when you're getting ie completed second a lot of the time and it feels real good. Like you're wondering where all that burst damage. Why are base talking about Corki? It's because you're not seeing it in the LCS, you're seeing in other regions. So I would hope I'm not. I wouldn't say I've necessarily like hardcore put down the rapid fire, but it's definitely better to go ie well and. [00:49:02] Speaker B: Skip the Trinity force and build a fucking collector. It's just more damage because he has so much damage in his ENR. [00:49:08] Speaker C: I think Trinity force is still the go to. And you see like all the better core keys in LPL still going Trinity force, and they are on 1411. So it might be a little different. I don't know if Trinity force got. [00:49:18] Speaker B: I think it would skew more towards Trinity force in 1412 than in 1411. [00:49:23] Speaker D: Yeah, I liked Apa's Corki. I saw him in those games and I had that thing after the quirky buffs. There's like some corky plays where I have my perceptions of like how and when Corki does damage over the past couple of years. And I just see some of these plays. I'm like, holy shit, that happened to me the first time I played against him in like, in like a normal game ever. And I'm like, oh, okay, he just kills me there. And I saw a lot of that in that game. [00:49:49] Speaker B: All right. [00:49:49] Speaker A: He packs a lot more damage up front these days. [00:49:52] Speaker B: And the reason I chose to talk about Corki instead of energy is because they literally got one kill in game two against 100 thieves. It was bad for some reason. They're still picking smolder. I don't understand. [00:50:04] Speaker C: Hey, hey, hey, don't dump that. [00:50:06] Speaker D: Here's the cope, all right? Right where we can all be happy, right? We're all happy. That hundred thieves is good. Last summer, NRG, in the regular season, they lost to all the good teams or no, sorry, nevermind. [00:50:21] Speaker A: No, they lost to the bad teams. [00:50:23] Speaker D: I have it reversed. Never mind. [00:50:24] Speaker A: It's doomed. [00:50:25] Speaker D: It's over. I was trying to set it up like last minute. Wait a minute. Okay, that in this, in this case, that would make, that would make 100 bad team, which I'm not. [00:50:37] Speaker E: Does this just mean 100 thieves actually is a fall off? [00:50:40] Speaker D: I mean, if that's true, hundred thieves being good for the league is really good for. Oh, I agree. [00:50:50] Speaker E: For viewership, I like this hundred thieves team. I'm not. I'm not hoping they fall off. [00:50:55] Speaker A: We can't have the ghost of David Shinob haunting all of us. [00:50:58] Speaker D: He's been eating good this week. [00:51:01] Speaker A: True, true. Also, the New York watch party went great, I hear. So shout out to all the people in the community making cool stuff happen. Games to watch or series to watch. Overall, I got mine. I got dignitas versus c nine, game one. I think if you can only watch one game, that's what I would watch. Because first off, dignitas win it. Second of all, it's a return of Zven to the ad carry position. And he looks good. Really fun one. And I think in general, that series was my favorite series. TL Flyquest was also great, but I still actually ranked dignitas. Cloud nine. A little higher. Jax, what's your game to watch? [00:51:34] Speaker B: I actually would just say the entirety of TL Flyquest. [00:51:37] Speaker A: Okay, fair enough. [00:51:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it was. They're all good because game three, cloud nine, dig, felt so one sided, even though the score line is just as one sided in tl fly, it felt like game three was not nearly as much of a blowout. So it's just a more exciting series, in my opinion. [00:51:54] Speaker A: Hawk, real quick, what's yours? [00:51:55] Speaker E: Yeah, tl fly. I just think that especially TL is just a fun team to watch. And it was a good series as well. [00:52:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Mazelle. [00:52:04] Speaker C: Well, I was going to say the game one of tl fly, but now I feel like I need to say something different. So. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I'm cooking. I'm cooking. [00:52:12] Speaker A: Well, I mean, you could also think of it this way. If three members want tl fly, then everybody knows they should check out tl floor. Yeah. Unless you want to throw an immortals. [00:52:25] Speaker C: I don't think so. [00:52:26] Speaker A: No. All right. All right. Game two, immortal. Shopify is the one you should not watch. [00:52:31] Speaker C: Yeah, probably not. [00:52:31] Speaker A: Most likely. Yeah. [00:52:34] Speaker C: Tomi a fan. [00:52:35] Speaker A: Manny, did you have a favorite game? [00:52:37] Speaker D: So I was also gonna say teal fly, game one. [00:52:40] Speaker A: There we go. [00:52:41] Speaker D: What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna say NRG 100 thieves. Game two, if you're not degenerate and like things like Zyra jungle, because we had. [00:52:52] Speaker A: Okay, that actually was. [00:52:53] Speaker D: We had the zungle. [00:52:55] Speaker E: Such a jungle game. [00:52:57] Speaker A: It was insane. The fact that he gets like dragon and the grubs and that hits level six on them. That was gross. [00:53:06] Speaker D: And I will say about Shopify. You said immortal Shopify game. You shouldn't watch. That is the only time we will see immortal Shopify for the rest of this split unless they meet in playoffs. True. Rejoice. [00:53:18] Speaker E: The only time we will see immortal shopify the rest of this. [00:53:25] Speaker A: All right, we'll get into predictions real quick then going into next week before we hop over the pond to lec. First up we have c nine versus immortals. No surprise. C nine across the board except for frickin Manny. Okay. Wow, you're a big c nine. Immortals two one. Defend yourself. [00:53:40] Speaker D: Okay, so I'll explain it will. This will all come to a head later in my predictions as you will see. But a immortals kind of had C nine's number last split. They had that big upset in week four. It was after the shopify game. But still when we thought that was like a weird fluke and c nine were good. They're doing better. [00:54:04] Speaker A: They beat them both times. Didn't immortals beat c nine both times in spring? [00:54:08] Speaker D: I think they did that was shot. [00:54:10] Speaker E: Shopify that did that. [00:54:11] Speaker D: Maybe it was Shopify. They had one game with the mortals that was like a banger. And then in another game with immortals where like first blood didn't have happen until like 25 minutes into the game. I remember that. I don't remember who won that. I didn't care. But the reason why I did this is for maximum content purposes. My predictions are laid out so it ends. The week would end with immortals and soul possession of first place. [00:54:36] Speaker A: That's ridiculous. [00:54:37] Speaker D: An amazing screenshot that I would love to see. [00:54:41] Speaker A: That would be a great screenshot. We'll screenshot Manny's predictions if he's right. We have up next though, hundred thieves versus dignitas. And this one's a little more split, I think a little more justifiably so. I'm 100 thieves or sorry, Jack's under thieves believer. I'm still a Dignitas believer along with Manny and I guess miss Ellen Hawker. 100 thieves too. Wow. So it's a two v three. Right now we are split on the cast. Mazelle. Talk to me. Why do you think hundred thieves take it? [00:55:07] Speaker C: I think we saw some really good things from from them in that first week and I'm really excited to see what they can do with the meta when they feel a little bit more comfortable with it. And I think that's what's going to be this team's strength over the split. [00:55:18] Speaker A: How do you think me too is going to handle? [00:55:21] Speaker C: I think he hands handles them all day like he's stealing lunch money from them. [00:55:27] Speaker A: Classic thievery. All right. That's the big thing for me is I actually think Zven had such a good breakout performance in week one that there could be a bit of a gap in the bot side. As great as Meech is looking still and as confident as he's growing, if he's playing on all cylinders, is a tough ad carry to get through. And licorice hopefully will have enough, you know, experience to just be able to isolate sniper and hold him back a little bit. Manny, thoughts? [00:55:54] Speaker D: Yeah, I am a pro dignitas in this just because I think for week one everyone was kind of concerned about how, like, with this team, everyone's like, oh, well, speak is coming back after breaks, then swapping back Andy at a break. Licorice is coming back after a break. Break. Do they still have it? I think it looked like they do. Especially Zven and licorice. I thought look looked really good. They all look good. My thing is like, they kind of have this. I think they might have this reputation that hundred thieves had last split where they're losing. I've heard from behind the scenes they are losing a lot of scrims, although that is like a team with Jensen on it, special from the past. But, you know, they're staged players. They're going to, they're going to turn it on on stage. And then the last thing. Oh, shit. I had one more thing and it was good. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I walked on the way out of the studio on Sunday, I walked past the Dignitas team room and if you have any questions about whether or not, you know, it's like, oh, these guys are, they've been in the league for so long. You know, they're, they're complacent. They're motivated. I heard some of that post game chatter. Those guys were pissed that they threw that series away. They were not happy. They really wanted to win that, that game. And I really think they're going to not want to go. Owen, two. [00:57:12] Speaker A: Yeah. All five of them. I saw a graphic. All five of them had worn c nine jerseys in the past, right? [00:57:17] Speaker D: Yeah, of course, all five. There was nothing wrong there. [00:57:21] Speaker A: Definitely remember that time. Speaka yeah. Just don't think about it too much. [00:57:25] Speaker D: Yeah, I drew that jersey on in myself. [00:57:29] Speaker A: Great Microsoft paint skills, by the way. Great Microsoft paint skills. All right, that's day 100 theater ziggy ties. Very close series. That's gonna be the closest one for predictions. Then it's flyquest versus NRG. We don't have a single NRG believer yet. I think they're good for one game. So does Mazelle. Everyone else thinks it's gonna be a 20. Flyquest are just that good. And energy did have a very disappointing start in their opening weekend without showing a lot of bright spots to play around other than maybe some early game game plans still. So it'll be up to them to prove us wrong. Team liquid versus Shopify rebellion to close things out. Manny, the only one believing a Shopify rebellion with a 20. And is this already because you had said you just want immortals to be in sole possession at first place? [00:58:13] Speaker D: Yes. [00:58:14] Speaker A: How it happens, it's that. [00:58:15] Speaker D: And because of my tweet from before that I have to defend now unless I say yeah. [00:58:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:20] Speaker D: So, yeah. Yeah. I really want the immortals number one. [00:58:25] Speaker A: But you are aware Team Liquid has a mascot that can be worn and has actually somebody often inside the mascot wearing it? [00:58:35] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:58:35] Speaker A: Does that change your prediction at all? [00:58:37] Speaker D: Blue is awesome. The mascot. The only mascots that I have beef with are the flyquest mascots. [00:58:43] Speaker A: Okay. So Shopify rebellion. Shopping cart mascot is good. [00:58:47] Speaker D: Or the rebel. I don't know. I haven't seen this thing. I don't know how that. [00:58:52] Speaker C: Arm the rebels. [00:58:53] Speaker D: I did. I. You know, I was thinking it. [00:58:57] Speaker A: I just wanted to be a guy, just a dude pushing a shopping cart. That's their entire mascot. That would be so good. He's just going shopping. All right. Otherwise, the rest of us still team liquid. Most of us with a 20, other than Mazzell two one. That's predictions for lcs. Now it's time to hop over the pond to leave the absolutely much more competitive region because they're keeping their world spots next year and also historically made it much further. But not the teams we currently see at the top in recent memory because, Jax, things have shaken up a little bit here in the LEC. There is one team in sole possession of first place, and they are not the one most people think about. It's fnatic, baby. Five. And, oh, talk to me about their weekend. [00:59:45] Speaker B: Fnatic had a great fucking weekend. I'm going to gloss over their game against Rogue because it's rogue. There's nothing to say there. [00:59:52] Speaker A: Fair. [00:59:52] Speaker B: They did, however, face the other undefeated at that point. Team in SK gaming. El Clasico is back in Lec. It was hype as fuck. And fnatic just was the better team. Rahel and luan against Noah and June. This was the hype matchup up. And noah and June came out swinging. I know a lot of people have been kind of down on Noah personally, like, not june so much, but Noah specifically out of that duo because of MSI. Now that they're back in Europe, Noah looks back on form. [01:00:29] Speaker A: Yep, agreed. I think fnatic are surprisingly, but also not too surprisingly, the top team. I think it's, it's not surprising that they're doing so well. What is surprising is that g two hasn't been able to keep up. They haven't gotten over their MSI slump yet. But the fact that fnatic has seemed unaffected and if anything, is hungrier for it now means really good things for Europe and also the region. I think it's a fun region, especially when fnatic is doing well. Like you like to see fnatic do well. [01:00:57] Speaker B: That's really the key is them being five and o is not surprising. They made it to MSI off of being the clear second best team in EU. It's the fact that five and O is first place alone. [01:01:09] Speaker A: Alone. Because SK is right below them. Hawk, you have SK. They almost were able to keep up, but they did lose the match against fnatic, like Jax had just said. So talk to me about SK. [01:01:22] Speaker E: Yeah, Rahel and, and Luan are kind of. I mean, we talked about this last week. Like, this bot lane is really good for SK. The problem is specifically when compared with fnatic, they were worse everywhere else. But, but this is a really good team. And I think like a genuine contender at this point. It seems to be the expectation, expectation from most people. [01:01:43] Speaker A: I mean, we had such, so many question marks around Rahel and the one because coming from Korea, we weren't sure, like how much language barrier could play an issue or just, you know, their ability to compete with the top players in Europe. But they have been doing incredible. Like, they, they might be the best bot lane in the LEC or at least top three. I would say top two at the lowest is what I would put them right now. But, yeah, I think overall, still very confident in them. Do you think, what's their strength of schedule going forward here for this next weekend? I'm trying to think, yeah, it's like team heretics. It's MDK. Yeah, they're gonna, they're gonna end still pretty high. I wouldn't be. [01:02:20] Speaker E: They should make playoffs for sure. I mean, yeah, SK's in a really good spot. It has been. It's been a successful split for them so far. [01:02:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:29] Speaker D: Personally, I welcome this change because, and I, and I hope it continues and because if G Two isn't doing well. By Reddit's logic. This takes LeC from a one team region to a zero team region, which. [01:02:46] Speaker A: I would welcome immensely as the NA biased producer. Extremely biased. You could do a lot with those stories. Very well, a lot with those storylines. But I think realistically the other teams are trying to prove that they are now going to be the one team representing EU because they can only ever have one team. Right. I'm pretty sure that's, that's the bit for LEC. [01:03:09] Speaker D: One team is really close to zero teams. [01:03:12] Speaker A: It's. [01:03:13] Speaker D: That's math. [01:03:14] Speaker A: The closest that a real number can be. Well, not a real number. I don't remember math. Closest that a something number. Can somebody back me up? Anybody remember counting numbers? Horrendous math. All right, no worries. Well, either way, SK looking good. Thumbs up to them. Another team looking good. Mazelle. BDS also up there and they were competing for that top spot, too. They got to match up against SK but lost that one. But how was their weekend overall? [01:03:45] Speaker C: Another weekend of ice. Ice, baby. Yeah. It's seriously actually incredible what I've been able to do to kind of buff up the weaker parts of BDS. I think they're having a lot of fun with the meta. I think it's been really fun to watch some of the different styles that they've been or like at least different picks they've been able to bring out. I think Adam has some really good moments but also has some really questionable moments. But I think all focus on ice and get aboard the train. [01:04:12] Speaker A: Which game was. I'm trying. I think it was their second game, BDS versus KC, where their comp basically just required Adam to do well and he was able to carry it. I'm trying to remember. Jax, you happen to remember like one of the BDS games was like two. [01:04:28] Speaker C: Against KC was one, three, six Yasuo on Adam. [01:04:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Basically like you get the counter pick into the. It was the tF, right, that they picked the yasuo into? [01:04:38] Speaker D: Yep. [01:04:39] Speaker A: It's like if that falls, everything falls. But it is a counter and it did work, but they were like, that just shows the confidence they have in Adam still. [01:04:48] Speaker B: It's like the hardest counter that exists and he made canna look bad because that counter is that brutal. [01:04:55] Speaker A: But when you're made Connor die to an Ivern, he was so far behind. [01:05:01] Speaker C: I think when you're picking Ivern, it just automatically shows that they've realized that ice is the way forward. [01:05:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I think BDS's heavy hitter is still their bot side, but it is cool that they have confidence in Adam regardless. Which brings us now down to a team that's had a good weekend. Weekend, all things considered. But they're still not in the top three. In the LEC at three and two, sole possession, g two. Jax, talk to me about how their weekend looked. [01:05:31] Speaker B: All right, so they went to o. That's the good news. The bad news is they managed to make Skarner look mortal even though they won. And cap still looks off. Like. I don't know how to explain that one because it's, it's an intangible thing. He just, he doesn't look like the caps we saw at MSI. He looks so much worse, so much less caps outplay power going on. And I don't know if it's just the patch change and he hasn't adjusted well. I don't know what's going on, but it's, it's rough. Also, Mickey just seems to be oblivious to the map. [01:06:12] Speaker A: Yeah. His nami game, like, the fact that GX was almost able to win that one, I think that was mostly on Mickey. Just getting caught out at egregious moments. [01:06:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Quite literally. If not for, yike, having some of the most, like, incredible engages on Xin Zhao, I think they would have lost giants. [01:06:32] Speaker A: Yeah. But they still are good enough to get that win. And g two, I would say I chalk it up. Still do a bit of a slump from MSI, maybe taking them longer to get over that hangover. [01:06:42] Speaker B: And importantly, they did beat Rogue for the first time this year. [01:06:47] Speaker A: That is incredible. That was their biggest competition in spring and in winter despite Rogue being not the best. [01:06:56] Speaker B: That's not hyperbole, by the way. That is literally their first game win against Rogue in 2024. [01:07:03] Speaker A: Oh, what a historic moment. [01:07:05] Speaker D: Crazy across the pond. Yeah, because Dig had their first winning at CNN since 2017. [01:07:10] Speaker B: Yep. [01:07:11] Speaker A: Oh, I forgot about that. That was such a cool little stats. [01:07:14] Speaker D: Truly a historic weekend. [01:07:17] Speaker A: And maybe the last time g two and Rogue will play against each other in this 2024, depending on how rogue's rest of the split goes. We'll get into them later, though. But g two overall, Jax, are you worried? Are they still a thumbs up from the weekend? [01:07:29] Speaker B: I mean, they're making playoffs. Like, they're already locked in season finals. Regardless, they look good enough. They're making playoffs. There's nothing to worry about. Once they get into best of series, they'll be g two again. They'll probably win summer most likely. [01:07:44] Speaker A: They, they have a tendency to ramp. So that brings us to our next team here. We got a bit of a comp at the two and three and at this point, honestly, I hate to say it already, but we get a pretty big decrease in the quality of teams from the top four to the bottom six in the LEC. Hawk, talk to me about team heretics, the next team up in the LEC. [01:08:05] Speaker E: Yeah, team heretics. They look rough. Zwiryu has not exactly had a great performance in his time in the LEC so far. You know, he's not been terrible. He's not been great. Jankos does not look like the Jankos of old, I think. Flock, it has been fine. I don't know this team. I saw it, you know, it's bad when something is best summed up by a Reddit comment, but I saw it best summed up by a Reddit comment of like this team looks like it's a different team every time they play League of Legends. They, they try to play the game so differently. It feels like every time and it's, it is. Yeah. It's not been a good split so far for heretics. You know, obviously they're still in the mix, they could still make make playoffs, all that. But it's been a very tough go of things. I believe they went one in one last week with a win over KC. So, you know, congrats to them for finding a win over KC. But it's also KC. [01:08:59] Speaker A: Hey, they had a good, fair and valid. Yeah, I mean, team heretics, they seem like they're going to be one of the walls and the same with the next team coming up here. Vitality, they actually had a pretty good weekend. 20. They finally picked up wins, guys. Vitality did it. They showed that they can in fact transition to early game leads into wins. And I will say it was all the cars he show this weekend. Got Ezreal twice and just crushed on this pick. I think it's really good for Carzi. He's got the hands to play Ezreal. Ezreal's in good spot in the meta right now and also it allows hilly to do hilly things inting often. But Hilly's intein in positions where now it's putting opponents in rough spots and I think that they found a really cool way to utilize vithio on things like LeBlanc and Tristana to actually get out of mid lane and impact the Dragon river and bot side. We saw a lot of roams backing up Hilliseng and it felt like vitality in general were just on the same page to punish people out of position. They even had a perfect bot lane dive against team heretics. I thought that when I was watching that dive happen, Jax, I don't know if you remember the exact one I'm talking about. I was like, oh, God, it's all going to fall apart. Everyone's going to die here. They all got out without dive. They had very low health bars, but they juggled turret agro perfectly hilly, was like one hit away from dying. And then LeBlanc tanks. It then jumps out. It was like, that was great. Well done, guys. So it feels like they're getting things together. I think Warmogs being the support meta, a lot of these, like, melee supports are just russian warmogs. It's perfect for hello Sang because now if he's in a bad position, he's going to die slower and if he's able to make it out, he just walk right back in. So I think, yeah, I'm actually kind of hot on this team right now, but I don't know how much they're going to be able to push or surge for like a top finish. But I do think that, like, it's kind of them in heretics, they're going to be holding the wall for the teams below that are trying to get into that playoff scenario. [01:10:58] Speaker D: I'm really glad to hear that they're doing well as a hill Sang fan. Very glad that he's back. [01:11:06] Speaker A: Let me tell you, this was maybe the first weekend that I didn't see Hilliseng die seven times in a game, which is good news. How the role is supposed to be played. [01:11:14] Speaker D: You just in. It's great. [01:11:18] Speaker A: I also have KC up next. Let's talk about the old Kaiba corporation who went zero two against team heretics and BDS. It feels like Casey, the way I see them is they got the hands, they just don't have this energy. Khanna is not on the same page as the rest of the team and they were trying out a TF comp which requires you to have, like, more map play and synergy. And their matte play is really rough to see, but when you look at their micro and, like, actually what they're clicking, they're not making like that many mistakes. It feels like they, they're all good enough to play the game at this level. They just don't have the same game plans at the same times. Like, they almost came back against BDS, but then they went for like a Baron flip. And you watch that Baron fight and you're like, just watch what everybody individually is trying to do. And you're like, yeah, they are. None of them are on the same page as how they want to handle the Baron. And then Ivan's just able to walk and smite it away. So I will continue to say the scariest thing that you can possibly do when you're playing against KC is trying to end the game, though, because, my God, do they fight tooth and nail at their nexus turrets. That is the most terrifying place to find KC on the map is at their own nexus. But they did still go zero and two. So, yeah, Casey stocks are low. [01:12:37] Speaker D: Yeah. It's also the least french thing that I can think of. I was surprising to hear that. They fight tooth and nail. [01:12:44] Speaker A: That is a good point. [01:12:45] Speaker C: I'm gonna slap you so hard next time. [01:12:49] Speaker A: But I will say I tried to. [01:12:50] Speaker D: Get one in while I was trying. [01:12:51] Speaker E: To say, welcome to the cast, Manny. Welcome to the cast. [01:12:54] Speaker A: Bazelle had stepped away from his PC for just one moment and then immediately the anti french sentiments come out. So what do you say to mazel? What do you say to that? Oh, I thought it was gonna be viva la France. I don't know what he just said, but hopefully it wasn't too bad. I was. [01:13:12] Speaker B: Cause it's funnier if he just said something horrible. [01:13:16] Speaker A: It is kind of funny. Okay. Either way, I've heard a rumor and I just want to address it now because if anybody remembers going into the year, we have our two spicy takes or extra hot takes. I said this was my prediction. Conviction that the police would be called on the LEC studio due to KC fans twice. Not just once. I thought that was too obvious that it would happen at least once. It had to happen twice. I have heard this is unsubstantiated. It is not confirmed. I can't even say who gave me the information because then it could come back to who gave them the information. And they don't want that line to happen. But I've heard that it has happened. And not only has it actually happened, it has happened three times that KC fans have gotten police called due to something happening. I don't know if it's exactly at the studio or outside the studio or at other watch parties or at bars near the studio, but they have been involved in police intervention thrice this year, which I think is so fucking funny. [01:14:24] Speaker D: I will say to give some credence to this claim. I did also hear this at the same time, Steve. However, I can also say, much like Steve, this is at least third hand information. [01:14:38] Speaker A: Okay. We don't need to worry about that. [01:14:40] Speaker D: I'm not saying who said it. I'm just saying we heard it from someone who heard it from someone who may have heard it from someone else. [01:14:46] Speaker A: Who doesn't want it to be known that they are the one giving the information. But not going to stop me from spreading a really funny rumor because it does confirm my prediction and even 50% more. So. Just had to get that out there while we'll start talking about KC. We got three more teams to get through quick and then we'll get into the matches to watch and predictions. Mazelle, talk about Rogue. Rough weekend for him. [01:15:09] Speaker C: Do we have to? [01:15:10] Speaker A: We don't. [01:15:11] Speaker C: Yeah. No, we do. It was really rough. Rough. Maybe the fanatic game. You just don't even think about. You don't. You just walk away. It was really. It was really rough. Specifically, Zoellus had a really, really rough time. But I do think their game against g two was better than that game. That's not saying much at all, but it was better. [01:15:33] Speaker A: What percentage better? 50%? [01:15:36] Speaker C: Probably 10% better. [01:15:38] Speaker A: Oh, God. All right. [01:15:39] Speaker C: Well, yeah, I mean, so in. In that game, like, they. They had, like Zoellis didn't go. Owen six comp actually had a little bit of strength. Like, they were able to play through bottling a little bit. They played Caitlin Blitzcrank, which was really fun to watch, but also, like, something a little bit flexible with the meta. But it just. They aren't a top of the table team. Right. And I think it showed a lot of times. I think caps actually had one of the better games of his weekend and against them, too. So it's. Sorry. You got your hand hovering the everything's on fire button. It's real close to pressing it down. I'm just saying. [01:16:16] Speaker A: Real close. Real close. Well, that brings us to the last two teams. These all three, rogue and the next two are tied for last place. MDK, better known as the most disappointing kids. Man. Shout out to Mathias in the discord for coming up with that one because. Because they looked rough this weekend. Zero two against Vitality and GX. Vitality, who were zero three coming in to that match, and GX, who are also tied for last place. What I can say is that the positives for MDK feels like they're identifying a style. They're trying to go for team fight front to back, put super on a carry and put kind of tanks around them. They're doing. These double threat type compositions were for scowies on something like an Azir Supas on something like a Jynx. And then they're going for the Ivern jungles and they're really, really trying to make these fights work and they're really, really bad at team fights specifically. Alvaro has just not been it for this team. And it just feels like they have conflicting ideas of how they want to set up for the fights. Like, they went for, like, even a gym jinx, Braum Lane swap at six minutes, top lane. And then they lost grubbs. 30 seconds later, they're trying out things. You're like, oh, cool, there's a game plan here. There's an idea, but then the execution after the idea just falls apart and it's tough to see. But like I said, the positives are at least they have identified a draft style that they're going for. Hopefully they can catch up in the actual games to back up that draft style. It feels like there is intention in what they're doing and that they're not just running with the chickens with their heads. Get off. [01:18:00] Speaker E: Yeah. [01:18:00] Speaker A: Real quick. [01:18:01] Speaker E: Before we move on, I unfortunately have to dip for the very end of the episode, so I'm going to say a quick goodbye to everyone, understand me, on this week. And I picked Casey over g two because how freaking funny would it be? All right, take it easy, guys. [01:18:16] Speaker A: And we'll give a salute to hawk on his way out right there. But we'll try and close out here quickly, manny, because I know that you have other stuff to get to this evening as well. Jackie's and Antonio stepped up solo laners are showing up for GX. Happy to see that. And they also actually played their fights incredibly well with things like Poppy Talia. Feels like GX are really coming into their own in figuring out how to pull apart opponents in five v five s. Also, they're committing to plays together, which is really cool. And suddenly one of the more exciting teams at the bottom. But they are still at the bottom. Let's get into predictions, actually. First games to watch. Jax, let's just go quick here because we're already going a little long on the episode. What's your game to watch for? Lec? [01:18:55] Speaker B: I forgot to even think about this. [01:18:58] Speaker C: Um. [01:18:59] Speaker B: Fuck. [01:19:00] Speaker A: I'll get mine. First one. [01:19:01] Speaker B: Kc bds it was. [01:19:03] Speaker A: Oh, KC bds. [01:19:05] Speaker B: That was a pretty fanatic. [01:19:07] Speaker C: I auto have one. [01:19:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I I have sk fanatic. SK fanatic was such a good game. Mazelle, what's yours? [01:19:18] Speaker C: Wait, do I have the right ones? Because maybe I'm looking at the wrong week. Actually. Hold on. [01:19:24] Speaker A: Potential we, somebody had put, I believe was bickle put on g two. Gx, which I also think was a really good game just by the Png struggling so much. That one was exciting at the least. [01:19:35] Speaker B: I have one other. [01:19:36] Speaker C: Can g two happened this last weekend, right? [01:19:39] Speaker B: No, it's coming up. [01:19:41] Speaker C: Oh, well, then yeah. Wait, no, that I was getting baited because I thought we. We had a conversation about the old rivalry, but no, it's 100% fnatic versus g two. That's gonna be a banger. [01:19:52] Speaker A: So you're excited for the one coming up this next weekend? Awesome to hear. Yeah. [01:19:56] Speaker B: All right, Jack, I have one other game to watch from this past weekend, which is bdssk because it is Niski not losing to shopkeeper. And you get to see what Corki is actually supposed to fucking do. [01:20:08] Speaker A: Hell yeah. Love to hear it. It's so much better. Gives us into predictions to round out the episode. We only have two days of Lec this next week. Just like last week, we're done with the super week. So bds versus rogue. It's bds across the board, except for manny, who's got rogue. Manny, why are you being Mister contrarian? [01:20:27] Speaker D: A little bit of context. I am unable to watch the LEc because when you see the promos at the end of Lec, the person responsible for making sure they get to Lec in time is me, meaning that I have to spend that entire morning incredibly stressed out and making sure that it gets there in time. So I do not. I just physically unable to watch Lec games. So I've decided to just go for the funniest timeline and be a contrarian on every match. [01:20:58] Speaker A: I see you have literally the opposite picks for every single game than Bixby. So from now on, what? We'll just go through the rest of the host predictions and just know anything Bickle says. Manny says the opposite. How about that? [01:21:10] Speaker D: Exactly. I think that, like that. Way to go. [01:21:13] Speaker A: BDS should be the favorites in this matchup for sure, though. SK versus team heretics. We have SK across the board. Vitality versus Gx. Vitality across the board. G two versus KC. We got g two across the board. Except for Hawk, who said Casey would be funny, which I agree would be very, very funny. Then fnatic versus MDK. Also fanatic. Crossboard not. I think these are probably the safest predictions. Like day one, it's a lot of lopsided matchups, so we do expect the favorites to win. But it is Lec that rarely happens. Rogue versus team heretics for day two and we have team heretics across the board except for a couple rogues with hawk and manny. Bds versus gx. We got bds across the board. Oh, my God. This is really happening. G two versus fnatic. This is the one mazelle you are excited about. We got split cast here yourself. Bickle and jax believe in g two despite them having a slow start. I along with manny and hawk. Oh, no. Those are bad people to have my predictions with. Based on how the previous predictions this weekend are, I still believe in fnatic. I think g two are going to take a little bit longer to come back from their slump. Jacks. Why do you think g two though? [01:22:17] Speaker B: G two almost always beats fnatic in the direct head to head matches and I don't think fnatic can just straight up go 90 and I think if they beat g two then they do actually go 90. [01:22:30] Speaker A: That's a good. Has anybody gone 90 in this current format? [01:22:33] Speaker B: No. [01:22:34] Speaker A: Trying to remember. [01:22:34] Speaker B: It has not happened. Not even g two when they were stomping the league managed to go 90. [01:22:40] Speaker A: Fnatic could be the first and that would be historical. SK versus mdk. We got sk across the board. Vitality versus KC. We got vitality mostly across the board. Actually. No, it's, it's actually pretty split. We got vitality for Jax, Bickle and Hawk. But I believe in Casey Mazelle. Viva la France. [01:23:05] Speaker B: This, this is the french civil war match, right? [01:23:08] Speaker C: Yep. Well, one of them. [01:23:11] Speaker B: One of two true cuz bds is also french. [01:23:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:23:14] Speaker A: Also, I just gotta say. Oh, yeah, no, no, you first because mine's just a meme. [01:23:19] Speaker C: Well, I will say, I don't know, like vitality is french, but I feel like the other two organizations definitely flaunt it more. [01:23:29] Speaker A: Well, I was going to say either way I win because this will be one more win in my pool of teams that need to get up to eight wins. So I'm feeling good. I'm feeling good either way. Lec fans feeling good as well with some good teams at the top and teams fighting together. Get there. That will wrap it up, though for Lec for this week three preview. Thanks so much for tuning in, everybody. Hope you had a fun time. Manny, thank you so much for coming on and being a wonderful guest. We got a lot of insight into the inner workings of LCS production as well as some fun kind of your thoughts as a producer on LCS teams and some LEC teams as well. Where can people find you if they want to follow your work and check out more of what you do do. [01:24:11] Speaker D: Yeah. Thank you guys so much for having me. It was a blast. You can find me on Twitter at msanchez tv and yeah, hell yeah. [01:24:22] Speaker A: And you also are working on. I'm going to tease it. I won't fully spoil it. But you're working on some other content that people can be looking forward to going forward. So make sure to follow him because I'm assuming that you'll post it to your socials at some point whenever your other content will start to come out. Because you do a lot of stuff with LCS, but you also are just a very skilled and talented producer in general. And you're working on some of your own projects too, so I'm excited. For a lot of your own projects. People might have actually seen one of them. This is one that is out. So it's not a spoiler, but you came up with what was the video that came out before the split even started. [01:24:56] Speaker D: Yeah, I made the Faker hall of Legends video that you guys were all very normal about talking about fans in general, definitely didn't get some interesting replies and DM's, no, but that was, that was a blast to make. The response was fun. So I'm going to make more, just not on that channel. Which is hilarious. [01:25:21] Speaker A: How clickbaity is the title for the next one going to be? Because for anybody who didn't know, he made a video literally titled why Faker should not be the first inductee into the hall of Legends. [01:25:31] Speaker D: It was more clickbait than that. It was why Faker shouldn't be in the hall of Legends. It was extremely oh my God, it was great. We got. And guess what? People clicked on it. It was great. [01:25:40] Speaker A: They did. They did. And that, in fact, was not the argument at all. Not at all. But you did get people to click and more importantly, you got people to send you DM's based on the title of the video without watching it at. [01:25:54] Speaker D: All, which was great. [01:25:55] Speaker A: Yeah, that's interaction, baby. But thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much for the co hosts, as always, for hopping on. Thank you for for supporting the episode by listening. If you can drop five stars or a thumbs up wherever you are listening, make sure to check out the community discord so you can join in on the conversation. And for those that are able to and willing to help out with the Patreon, thank you so much. We will be getting those bullshittery episodes uploaded shortly, but that does it for another episode of the League rundown. We love you and we'll see you next time. [01:26:23] Speaker C: Goodbye. [01:26:24] Speaker D: I'll give a five and a half. [01:26:26] Speaker A: Oh, yes, daddy.