League Rundown - Episode 519: We never came up with an episode title for this week so I'm just not gonna give it one. This is the nameless episode. That's what we're calling it.

[00:00:31] Speaker A: At the table with Messiah tanking it up. I do not believe he just leaves. I cannot understand this game. Unicorns of love. It was the nexus. [00:01:06] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to episode 519 of the league rundown. This is lcs week three and Lec week four review. I am not your usual host. I'm Jack Soman. I'm hosting this week because Kangas is gone. And we never came up with an episode title for this week, so I'm just not gonna give it one. This is the nameless episode. That's what we're calling it. I've got three esteemed co hosts with me tonight. Bickle's here. [00:01:36] Speaker C: I'm first Twitch TV. Jackson, question mark. [00:01:44] Speaker B: We've also got Mazelle. [00:01:45] Speaker D: Hello. Excited to be here. [00:01:49] Speaker B: And we've got Hawk. [00:01:51] Speaker A: Yee haw. [00:01:54] Speaker B: Yee haw, indeed. Kangas should be back. [00:01:56] Speaker D: Cultural appropriation, Hawk. I will not stand for that. [00:01:59] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, sorry. I should not have done that in front of the Texan. That's my bad. [00:02:03] Speaker C: How dare you? [00:02:03] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Kangas should be back next week, guys. But for this week, I'm sorry, you get me hosting it is what it is. That being said, there are no games to preview this week. So, Mazelle, you get an extended LPL update. Tell us what's going on and what's coming up in the LPL. [00:02:22] Speaker D: Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy. It's gonna be a lot of fun. We got the rumble stage coming up, which, if you didn't know, is the actual season of LPL. Everything up until now has been fake reality. They called it a placement, so you were getting placed into two separate groups, Group A and Group B. Group A has a much easier time making it to playoffs and getting to those world spots. But let's give a little breakdown of what these. This rumble stage at least entails. Okay, it'll be two groups. Group A having nine teams, group B having eight teams. Single round robin. Within the group. Matches are best of three. No more fearless in the LPL. We're going back to normal drafts. Top seven teams in group A qualify for the playoffs. The bottom two teams in Group A and the top four teams in Group B qualify for the playing stage of playoffs. The bottom four teams in Group B are not qualified for playoffs, and we will not see them until 2025. The way they labeled it was. They have the. I think it was they have the honor of preparing for 2025, which I think is the most hilarious way of saying that you're not going to be playing League of Legends for, like, six plus months, or like five plus months, I guess, which is actually insane. So you definitely don't want to be one of those four teams. And this will also be the first time we're ever seeing teams eliminated so early in the season, which is actually kind of crazy. If you look across the world, there's a lot of teams that are going to be eliminated by this time, too. But if you wanted to break down of some of the teams in the groups, Nymera posted a really, really nice document detailing not player stories, but mostly gameplay focused breakdowns of each one of the teams. You can go find him. I mira, I believe, on twitter, but I'll give you a group breakdown. We have Group A, some unlikely heroes here. We got anyone's legend. We got Billy. Billy. We got FpX who barely slinked in. We got JDG, LGd, another shocker, Lng, nip, top esports, and weibo. We got a single round robin between all those teams. There's gonna be some super hype matchups, and this is kind of what everybody's been waiting for. We finally get to see top teams against top teams and not them destroying bottom tier teams in their own little groups and microcosms. [00:04:55] Speaker B: And it looks like weibo also just squeaked in by the scariest, barely squeaked. [00:04:59] Speaker D: In, and everybody's questioning why they're there. In group B, though, this is the one that I feel like is actually a little bit more important. Obviously, it's really cool to follow the top teams, but literally four of our LPL teams will not be playing after, like, July 25 or something, which is just actually insane. It'll be edg ig, omg, rare adam, rng we tt and ultra prime. So it's a lot of the likely candidates that you'd expect to be in a group B that's fighting for their lives. But you got to remember that the top four teams in that group are the only ones that get to continue on in the season. So it's gonna be some tight knit stuff, I'm sure some very chaotic games. Probably not the highest level of gameplay, but it's gonna be important nonetheless. [00:05:51] Speaker B: I just wanna emphasize there are two teams that have a world championship under. [00:05:55] Speaker D: Their belt in Group B, and if you look closer, you'll know why. [00:06:02] Speaker B: Valid. But still, it just as an outsider looking in, that just seems insane to see, like, EDG still has players like JJ and Kryan that, like, looked fine last time I saw them. [00:06:18] Speaker D: Yeah, JJ is obviously not the case anymore, but, uh, yeah, I don't know. I feel like ever since I think JDG's win in summer 2023 was the last of the old era of LPL, I feel like we're really starting to switch into a younger, more development oriented focus league. And we've seen that across the last couple years with a lot of rosters being brought up from LDL, but I. [00:06:52] Speaker B: Feel like we've seen every region, too. [00:06:54] Speaker D: Yeah, but it's also just a lot of new names that are at the top of the list now, and a lot of old names, too. We have a lot of really good players that have been there for a long. Like Mako is having one of the best splits of his entire career right now. Tien as well, having an incredible split, and he's, like, in the MVP conversation. And so I think it's just like a dawning of a new era in LPL, and I think it's really cool. [00:07:16] Speaker B: You love to see it. Any other thoughts you want to share about LPL, other than people should watch LPL? [00:07:23] Speaker D: Don't not watch the or do watch, rather the group B group matchups, because I think they're going to be worth it. Don't shy away just because it's Group B. I promise it'll be fun. [00:07:35] Speaker B: And if you're looking for League of Legends to watch this weekend, when does LPL return? [00:07:40] Speaker D: On the fifth. So technically it's the Thursday for west coasters, like Thursday night, but it's Friday, so we'll only be on Friday, Saturday, Sunday this week, because we're starting one day later. If you're wondering what the schedule looks like forward, it's every day, as is tradition. [00:08:03] Speaker B: That's just the LPL way. There's what, 17 teams in this fucking league? It has to be every day. They can't fit the games in otherwise. All right, Bickle, I think you're the LCK update person. Tell us what's going on in the LCK. [00:08:20] Speaker C: Yeah, so lck just finished up their third week. They are going into a week long break, like, basically the entire global esports scene at the moment, but yeah, at the top of the table, standing alone. Undefeated in series, undefeated in games. Now on a. I believe this is a record 24 series win streak, Gen. [00:08:42] Speaker B: G. They are Jesus Christ. [00:08:44] Speaker C: Unopposed. Best team in the league. Best team in the world right now. It's not a question. It's them. Hands down, they look phenomenal. They're keeping their run strong. It's just a matter of if anybody can stop them. But then you have the usual candidates you got d, you got Holland life. You got t one up towards the top of the table. Good news for people that are kt fans. Your winless streak has come to an end. The zero six. Okay, bro. Gave you their win, which is a very kind of them, before you somehow won the telecom wars and beat t one. Because why would kt make sense? [00:09:24] Speaker B: But, I mean. All right, all right. Us western fans, we at least look at this roster. We're like, okay, Pyoshik, BDD, deft and barrel. That's a good roster. I don't know. Perfect. [00:09:34] Speaker C: They've been terrible this entire. Pioshik has something in his genetics that the second he goes up against t one, he goes up by seven levels. It's absurd. He's been getting gapped this entire season. Then suddenly, they played t one and he was looking like a goddess. But fair enough, really. Things going as expected with the unexpected quant freaks also up there in the top three. But, yeah, heading into a break. No real surprises over in the LCK. [00:10:04] Speaker B: Fair enough. When does LcK return? [00:10:07] Speaker C: LCK will be back Wednesday the 10th. That is for both eastern and western. That'll be 01:00 a.m. pacific on the. [00:10:18] Speaker B: Wednesday the 10th of gotcha. So Tuesday night, Wednesday morning type thing. All right, heads up. For those who haven't caught on yet, lcs and Lec are both gone this week. Lec will return July 12, beginning their playoffs. Cause Lec's format is wild and their playoffs start super early. Lcs will be back July 20 with week four of the regular season. We don't have any roster news. So join the community discord. We do. We do. We do have roster news. What's. [00:10:57] Speaker D: We have LPL roster news. Ten gen. He's been signed by OMG. He's a jungler. He's a Rengar. One trick. There was no reason he should have been dropped from last play. He was actually doing really well for IG and. But now he's back, and it's for OMG. [00:11:13] Speaker B: That is. Oh, my God. That is incredible news. [00:11:18] Speaker D: Hey, you said we got no roster news. Just say LPL exists. [00:11:24] Speaker B: Lpl does exist. I just don't think OMG matters. [00:11:28] Speaker A: Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. [00:11:30] Speaker B: OMG has not been relevant since season three. [00:11:33] Speaker D: They were dark horses in the playoffs the last two years. They were there. They were in the room. Maybe they didn't have the spotlight on, but they were in the room. [00:11:43] Speaker B: Whatever you say. All right, guys. Seriously, though, join the community discord. We've got pick'ems going on every week that mini quant runs. It's great. I keep forgetting to actually do my pick'ems, but come join the community discord. We also, I don't know if anyone's running a fantasy this season. [00:12:03] Speaker C: We've got four different fantasy leagues going on right now for the LCs. [00:12:09] Speaker B: Perfect. I don't pay attention to that shit. Anyway. [00:12:12] Speaker D: We have a lot. [00:12:15] Speaker B: We we host. We. I've been hosting watch parties for Lec most days cuz I don't work weekends. So I just get up and watch Lec and just join Discord. So come join the community discord. Links in the episode description also patrons. You guys rock. We appreciate you so much helping pay for Ian to edit this shit show so that we can continue to make it to your ear holes. Thank you, patrons. All right, guys, we're going to start with lcs this week because there's no lcs to preview next week, so there's nothing to cover for them. So I'm going to just do lcs here to give them as best a highlight as I can. [00:12:53] Speaker A: It's going to be a quick lcs. [00:12:55] Speaker B: Weekend I think is a quick LCS weekend. So we're going to just go over how the teams looked. We're going to start at the top. And Hawk, I'm going to let you go cause I've been talking for a bit. Team Liquid is currently 30 in best of threes. What are they looking like? How was their week? [00:13:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, hey, I can kill both my birds with 1 st here. Cause 100 thieves and team liquid played against each other. So, yeah, team liquid is 30. 100 thieves have lost four straight bo one s. Like in the best of three system, they're now one and two. After sweeping energy to start the season, I'll start with Team liquid because that's where the positives are going to lie. I mean, I honestly don't know what to say about this team other than that it looks like they picked up exactly where they left off, which Na fans should be very, very excited about because I think people that had heard of APA and yawn, you know, before they came on a team liquid last year, know how hard these players work. And even though they weren't that great when they started off, I mean, it's very evident that over the last split or so, they have really come into their own in this league. Impact, umpteen core, JJ surrounding them are also just playing extremely well. And clearly that hard work has paid off because this team is just looking better and better and better and their first game against Hunter Thieves. Maybe the least clean game of the weekend in LCS just because it was so clean all across the board. But they were never really in danger of losing that game for. For a good portion of it. And then the second game, they absolutely freaking destroyed them. Apa got his zigs. Yeah, I mean, I really don't know what to say. Team Liquid looks op as hell. [00:14:35] Speaker B: I think Apa got his Ziggs sums up game two entirely. [00:14:40] Speaker C: The summary for Team Liquid was Apa got a Ziggs game too. And world champion impact showed up. Yeah, he showed. [00:14:49] Speaker A: Why? [00:14:49] Speaker C: Mordekaiser is an answer to Skarner. Every team we've seen pick Skarner has looked like this champions, oppressive. It's broken. Why is this team giving it over? Team Liquid willingly gave it to hundred thieves, counter picked it with the Mordekais and said, oh, that's why they let them have Skarner as impact just demolished everybody. [00:15:07] Speaker D: I want to get in there on that, though, because I don't know, I hate to compare other regions just to like, downplay the play of another region, but Mordekaiser hasn't worked at all. It's been literally picked like eight or nine times in LPL and it just hasn't worked because Skarner is just really good at team fight impact, even through Mordekaiser. And I think that it has something to say with, like, maybe you're missing advantage of the player he was playing against. I don't know. [00:15:42] Speaker B: You're missing the key variable here, which is that LCS plays on live patch. Skarner got nerfs on fort. [00:15:53] Speaker D: It's not that much of a nerf, though. It's not. [00:15:55] Speaker B: I don't disagree. [00:15:57] Speaker D: The team that Skarner has, I don't disagree. [00:16:01] Speaker A: I think it's actually a really interesting conversation because Mordekaiser has been picked so far this year. Sorry, let me double check my stats here. It's been picked 18 times against Skarner in major regions so far this year, and it is actually 13 and five against the pick. So it has generally worked out pretty well. Obviously. I definitely agree with you, London. It's really interesting. Like, there's definitely an argument to be made of just that Scarner is such an insane champion anyway. And I do think part of what was showcased was, as Bickle said, world champion Impact showed up. And also, maybe I can transition this into the conversation about hundred thieves. Sniper did not have a good weekend and the kid is still growing. And I don't think this should take away from, you know, how generally competently Sniper has played throughout his young career so far, but he did just unfortunately get blasted by impact. Impact has been the stonewall of na top lane for so many years, and I don't think there's too much shame in that, but I think that's at least part of the success of the Mordekaiser pick, is the fact that impact is maybe just a better top laner than. Than sniper. But, yeah, it has succeeded globally against the pick so far. This split. [00:17:19] Speaker B: Fair enough. So team liquid got nothing to. To be afraid of. 100 thieves looking worrying. [00:17:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it is a little bit worrying for me because I do think that some of the concerns that people had at the beginning of the year of, like, Man river and quid are so good, and then the side lanes are kind of mediocre, is. I think those are kind of reasonable claims at this point in the split. I think Sniper, Meech and Ayla, they've still had their moments. They still have plenty of time to bring it back. But to be quite honest, they got completely outclassed last weekend. I think, in particular, a lot. Sniper just did not have a good series. And, you know, what happens? We move. Right. But I do think, you know, those three young guys, they need to continue to show that they can consistently step up because river and quit are not going to be enough to overcome the other teams in this region, which, dare I say, I feel like the level of play in LCS has so far been elevated throughout summer split. So I think hundred thieves needs to, you know, keep. Keep taking steps forward. [00:18:19] Speaker B: I think it's been elevated for some of the teams. So let's. Let's keep talking about the teams where it has kind of been elevated. I'm going to talk about cloud nine, the other first place team. Cloud nine got to beat the shit out of Shopify rebellion. [00:18:34] Speaker A: It was their turn. [00:18:35] Speaker B: These games were so fucking boring. In two games, there is a combined 16 kills. Shopify Rebellion got two of those 16 kills. It's just a shutout. It's not fun. Don't watch these games. Just don't watch the cloud nine Shopify Rebellion series. Cloud nine continues to look individually good, and Shopify is not good enough to test any kind of team cohesion whatsoever. So I don't think there's any takeaways to really have for cloud nine. They got a free week because they were against Shopify, which means I'm going to throw it over to bickle to talk about FlyQuests week. [00:19:17] Speaker C: Yeah, well, coming in, everybody's like, okay, who's the third team? Is it flyquest? It's flyquest. It's fly. We were excited. There's a big rivalry buildup. Some content came out from both orgs, like, building up this exciting series. It was great to see them punch back and forth. The cast up the broadcast had some stuff going for it. FlyQuest came in and said, this is not a series, this is a murder. Because they just demolished dignitas. Like, it wasn't even close and it wasn't where we expected it. Overall, we're like, okay, yeah, the Wippo inspired is probably going to be taking a big lead. Quad versus gents. We'll see. Zen's pretty favored in the bot lane. Masu and Busio demolished them, and it wasn't even close. [00:20:04] Speaker B: Finally. [00:20:08] Speaker C: It was so good to see from FlyQuest, just the bot lane prowess come out and just run over the game. And really, there's a top three in the LCS right now, and it's three big gap. That's about it. [00:20:26] Speaker A: Yeah. This series was so funny to me because, honestly, I thought the teams in the broadcast did such a good job of building the narrative surrounding the series. Honestly, that was, for me, the most entertaining part of the weekend was seeing, like, wow, they actually did a really good job with the content and stuff, and then it just didn't matter whatsoever. And, you know, obviously, hey, it happens, and it was a bummer, but unfortunately for the LCS broadcast and everyone involved with the content, Flyquest, to me, looked the best that they have since, like, spring, regular season. Honestly, they kind of had a slump towards the end of playoffs. Obviously, they still went to finals, lost to TL, went to MSI. Looked terrible. They looked, to me, a little shaky the first two weeks of the split. FlyQuest, this series was a statement. They're back leagues on notice. [00:21:17] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It was painful watching licorice just be completely helpless against the TF and Spica being on Nidalee, meaning he could provide absolutely zero help, because, like, usually the answer to TF when you're playing a tank is bring your jungler. Just two of you want him. He can only stone one of you. He just dies. [00:21:38] Speaker C: I understand that AP junglers are really good right now, but that's with the hyper farmers. That's with the Karthus, the brand, the Zyra and the Talia. Those are your four big AP jungle carries. You can still play something like Sejuani and Maokai. I hate this. [00:21:59] Speaker B: I don't know why Spica played God. [00:22:01] Speaker C: No more Nidalee, please. Nobody can play it unless your name is Canyon. Please don't touch this champion or you're in the LPL. Just don't touch it, please. No. [00:22:11] Speaker B: All right, well, that's a good transition over into dignitas. Since they played against FlyQuest. [00:22:18] Speaker C: It is questionably dig season because, oh, boy, was it for us. Good news, they got this matchup out of the way and they're going to have some time to recuperate. But any momentum for this team is like just hit a brick wall. [00:22:38] Speaker B: Bad news, Jensen lost both sides of Corky Tristana in this against Claude. [00:22:43] Speaker C: Yeah, that Jensen was the problem, quote, looking to have a little bit of legs right now is quaddem. Look pretty solid in that one, v one. [00:22:54] Speaker D: Does any get developmental get to claim quad? [00:22:58] Speaker C: No. [00:23:01] Speaker D: He was here for one split. You know, he's development in a talent, baby. [00:23:09] Speaker C: Oh, dear God. [00:23:12] Speaker D: I'm meming. [00:23:14] Speaker C: Can't you be happy with Masu and Busio? [00:23:18] Speaker D: No, I am happy with swine. I'm actually happy with Quad. I really am. I was actually, like, kind of serious about, like, I would kind of want to claim him, but he can't because he was literally. [00:23:31] Speaker B: Yeah, it's all right. So with that loss, dig is at one two. But they have a three four game score which puts them tied with NRG, which is my team to talk about. NRG got basically the same as cloud nine, except they're not nearly as good of a team. They got to play against Immortals. So they got a free win. Cause immortals did not even attempt to put up a fight. These games also sucked. FBI and who? He just kind of steamrolled tactical enolay. And no one else could really do anything. Castle picked the Renekton into Dokla's jacks and just lost the matchup entirely. You know, the one that you're supposed to win early. It was painful. There's nothing. Don't watch these games. As far as energy. It's good for them that they got a win. They got a 20. They. They played well against a team they're supposed to beat. I don't think this gives a lot of confidence for. If you're an energy fan going like, oh, yeah, they gotta make worlds their energy. Remember how they did last year? It's like, I still don't think they're the ones right now, but we'll see. They've still got four weeks of regular season, I think. Yeah, four weeks left. So maybe they pull things together and become the energy of last year. I know these players are capable. [00:25:03] Speaker D: Cope. Cope. Cope. Cope. Coke. Cope. Cope. [00:25:05] Speaker B: Yeah. All right. Hockey already talked about hundred thieves who's holding 6th place, tied with Immortals. So since I just talked about NRG giving them an ass blasting Mazelle, is there anything to say about immortals? [00:25:19] Speaker D: Nah, I was gonna say we could probably skip both the last two, but it's just. Yeah, I don't know, it's a little rough. I feel like. I feel worse for Shopify more so than immortals. I feel like immortals had it coming for them for a long time, but it just feels like they're not finding exactly what works for them on the map and they're not efficient at executing those plans. I think much of the same for Shopify as well, but a lot of the pieces in the developmental side of it make it a lot harder to deal with. [00:25:52] Speaker B: I think it's safe to say these two teams are the ones that everyone expects not to make playoffs. [00:25:57] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:25:58] Speaker C: The good news for Shopify is they have three weeks to prep and figure out what's wrong. The bad news is they had multiple months to do that already and didn't win. [00:26:08] Speaker D: Didn't figure out they were signing kind of late, but, yeah, I think it's worse that you're owing six. You haven't found a single win. Right. You haven't found a single map when. And I think that's really rough and it's just not the Shopify draft strategies and things that I would have expected with the composition that they have, especially with the kind of holdovers from DSG and the way that it worked for DSG with this roster because they literally have, like, the main pieces of DS. Young had an incredible split as well, but he's not there, obviously. And then ADC is a little bit different. But like, Tom Tomeo and Zazel were the driving force of DSG and fate. God had incredible performances, like almost mvp caliber that, like, it's difficult to see them not using that as an advantage for them. And it's much the same what IMT did with Kenvi. When Kenvi came over, they just didn't play to his strengths and tried to mold him into something he wasn't. [00:27:06] Speaker B: I think that's typical of what we see of bottom tier teams in general. When they have, like, a really good talent who's really good at playing a specific style, they seem to always try to make that player do something else and then they suck. We've told that narrative so many times over the years, it actually frustrates me every time. [00:27:28] Speaker D: Yep. [00:27:29] Speaker B: Speaking of frustrates, me we don't have any games to watch for the LCS this week. Every one of those series was boring. Don't recommend any of them. If you really must watch an LCS game, I guess got game one of hundred thieves team liquid. That's the closest to an enjoyable match we had. Watch NACl and NACL qualifiers instead because those games were bangers. I'm sure my caster friends who casted those games can agree. [00:27:58] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. We had a lot of fun on tier three this weekend. There's some fun narratives. Look, if you want to watch a bunch of players you've never heard of but will soon, that's the place to start, you know? So that's my pitch. And if I'm not mistaken, London, you guys are starting early again this weekend, right, because of no lcs. So that means tier three begins after NACL, basically. Usually NACL. We're usually already in progress by the time NACL ends and then NACL sends a raid over. So if you start with Nacl at. What is it? 01:00 p.m. pacific. [00:28:31] Speaker D: 01:00 p.m. baby. [00:28:33] Speaker A: There we go. You can just watch NACL and then get rated over to tier three where we'll be at some place in progress of a best of three. [00:28:42] Speaker D: If you want to have a game to watch from NACL, go watch TLC versus Supernovas, the first series from Saturday. It was very fun. [00:28:52] Speaker B: Right on. [00:28:53] Speaker D: You got C Nunu. [00:28:55] Speaker B: Ooh, gotta love. [00:28:58] Speaker C: NACL's got a super week coming up this week. [00:29:00] Speaker B: That. That's what I was going to say is I looked up the schedule and there's games Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and it's money matches. [00:29:08] Speaker D: If you don't know what that is, it means that the teams are playing for serious cash arena. Like the whole, like WWE money in the bank, like, box of money. That's what. That's what the teams are facing out. It really is just teams are going to be facing. This weekend's like a little mini tournament style. Whoever comes out on top ends up getting a cash prize. So it'll be a lot of fun. It's so good. [00:29:35] Speaker C: There's some good narrative games coming up this weekend, too. You got team liquid versus fly, the two academy branches of an LCS squad facing off. You've got a CCG going up against blue water, the two new kids coming in some really exciting matches. [00:29:51] Speaker D: Yeah, it's giving long days, though. Three best of threes every day for three days. So six. Make sure you. [00:30:01] Speaker B: God damn fearless. [00:30:05] Speaker D: All right, full omega overdrive. Fearless. So you never have to worry about knowing which champions are available because they're all unavailable. [00:30:13] Speaker B: Gotcha. So you're saying it's the fearless version where all ten picks are removed? Yeah. [00:30:18] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, it is. I come up with a new name that's over the top every single time I say it. [00:30:23] Speaker B: Not just the picks that your team made. [00:30:25] Speaker D: Yep. [00:30:27] Speaker B: Cool. All right, guys, that's it for na. This week we're gonna cross the Atlantic and we are gonna talk about LEC. Because Lec wrapped up their regular season. Their single round robin best of ones are overdeveloped and we're going into playoffs in the next. The next week the LEC plays which again will start on the 12 July. So how do we think the standings should go? Surely g two and fnatic topped the charts, right? I mean, that's what always happens. [00:31:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Nothing weird happened whatsoever. [00:31:07] Speaker C: I mean, fnatic was undefeated coming in last weekend. Surely they kept that momentum going. [00:31:13] Speaker A: I've never seen fnatic choke personally in my entire life. [00:31:17] Speaker B: This was not a repeat of 2015. Fnatic definitely choked a little bit, but we'll talk about them soon. First of all, Hawk, talk about first place sk gaming. [00:31:28] Speaker A: Yeah, let's fucking go, sk. You guys were all haters at the beginning of the season. Well, look at them now. Eight and one top of the standings. Rahel and Luan are the goats. They've won four in a row to finish the split of this past weekend. I mean, it was not really that impressive. They beat KC and they beat vitality. But hey, wins are wins. And Casey has been looking actually somewhat competent in the back half of the split. So. Yeah, we're so up right now. Sk. Gamers. [00:31:57] Speaker B: Hell yeah. [00:31:58] Speaker C: Talk about Luan. And down in the bot lane this weekend was the irrelevant show, especially against KC on that gnarly irrelevant showed. He's still one of the best top laners in this league. [00:32:10] Speaker A: I actually am glad that you brought that up because I feel like what was it? It was like summer of like 22, I want to say where irrelevant really had like a breakout split. Wasn't irrelevant on like the last team that misfits ever had and he played really well on that team. If I'm not like completely mistaken here. [00:32:28] Speaker B: I'm looking it up cause I can't remember. Yes, he was on like the last misfits roster. [00:32:32] Speaker A: Yeah. And that team was really bad. But I remember being impressed with how he played on that team. I don't know, I feel like we've been seeing it again. I. This SK team, I mean, they look like a well oiled machine. They have the individual talent in specifically. I'm glad you mentioned, like. Like top and bot and then, I mean, Niski is as reliable as he always is in domestic leagues. Eastman's been playing well. The team just looks good and, yeah, top of the top of the table. And I know we had this conversation last week, but I want to reiterate, it does not feel like a fluke that, like, oh, g two and fanatic are choking, and that's why SK is top of the standings. It does feel like SK has just been that good. [00:33:10] Speaker B: It feels like we've actually graduated to a four team league, at least for now. Let's go for now. Yes, for now is the important. [00:33:17] Speaker A: Until someone beats g two, we are. I still hate, like, will not say it's a multiple team league until someone beats g two. [00:33:25] Speaker C: This is g two's league. Until they lose a vest of five to somebody domestically twice, or once, depending on if it's grand finals. [00:33:34] Speaker B: The other qualifier on this is. These are all best of ones, guys. Now we're going into the series play, and we'll go over what the bracket is when we preview lec next week. Now, I did say SK was in first place. That's because they own the head to head against team bds, who also went eight one in this round robin. Mazelle, how's bds looking? All right, I guess I'll cover bds. Cause mazelle has stepped away or something. Maybe a potty break. [00:34:09] Speaker D: So bds, it's really good into. [00:34:12] Speaker B: Skarn did not really have a challenging week at the start. They got to play mad lions. They kind of crushed them, but then they had to play fnatic, and this is like, had they lost this, they would have gotten, I think, fourth because of the way head to heads play out. So them beating fnatic was a big fucking deal, and this game was not close. This was shao popping the fuck off on Viego for BDS. This team still has a lot of good players. They're jiving well. They're playing well together. Ice looks phenomenal. Nuke is a solid role player. He's a great secondary carry. And adam, I think, has moved past his gods phase and is actually just a good top laner now, which is a little shocking, to be honest, but, like, he actually looks just good on a lot of different champions, some of which are very much champions that you would expect to be in his wheelhouse, just as the. The meta shifted and. Yeah, so the other thing I want to talk about with Adam is he played volibear. He played the stupid fucking rod of ages. Flicker blades. Volibear. How do you guys feel about this? [00:35:42] Speaker C: I don't know. [00:35:44] Speaker B: You don't know? I hate it so much. This is a solo queue pub. Stompy build. So fucking frustrating. [00:35:51] Speaker C: It's entertaining to see a new champion pulled out top lane by Adam, even if he has played it before. [00:35:58] Speaker A: It is so annoying. [00:36:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, it is. All right, so that was bds. It's my turn to talk about g ends. The regular season seven and two. There are two losses being in the first week and then they go undefeated afterwards. G two's back. Like, I don't even know what to say. They look absolutely back in form. They look completely terrifying and unstoppable that week. One falter is the reason they did not 90 this fucking league caps absolutely destroyed VTo. And then I think the funniest thing, broken blade pulled out Doctor Mundo. Specifically, he pulled out heart steel. Doctor mundo. The casters literally were talking about like, oh, is he gonna go heart steel? No, probably not. That's a solo queue thing. They don't use that in pro. No. Broken blade goes the heart steel in pro. By the end of the game, he has like 7400 life. It was cartoonish. There are multiple teamfights where broken blade just runs around just bopping everyone to get all his heart steel procs and then runs away with mundo ult running. It was hilarious. I was so sad that g two actually won the game before he could complete the overlord's blood mail he was clearly working on for his last item. [00:37:30] Speaker C: So close. [00:37:34] Speaker B: There's not really much else to talk about because heretics versus g two, it was a banger, but it was not a close game. Everyone on g two just kind of destroyed. If you're a g two fan, congrats. Your team looks good. They're probably going to win the split. They're probably going to be the first seed going into worlds until we're proven otherwise. I think that's the safe assumption. [00:38:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:01] Speaker B: All right. [00:38:02] Speaker A: Oh, boy. [00:38:04] Speaker B: Now it's time for the slightly more down note of our top four teams. Bickle, how did our other MsI representative fare this week in fnatic? [00:38:15] Speaker C: Fnatic? What the hell happened? I know you always mental boom after losing to g two, but this was bad. So obviously last week they lost their undefeated streak with the loss to g two. Then they come in this with like, okay, they have a game against heretics. They're gonna bounce back, look pretty strong, and have a competitive game against BDS. Pause. They got smacked by heretics. It wasn't close, but you could tell the way this game was gonna go when they tried to two man dive wonder and both died to him topside to give first blood and humanoid whatever funk you're in, you need to get out of it. Because he got gaffed by Zviru. Honestly, the entire map just didn't look like it had anything going together. But it was mainly the jungle mid of razor humanoid. The part that usually looks so strong for this team just fell apart this week. And it wasn't just in the game against Heretics. It was the game against BDS two that was Ivern, Corky and just humanoid. Despite being the part of this team that has so many high bright spots and at times looks like the best player in the league, not just the best mid laner. He this weekend he looked like a bottom three mid laner. [00:39:50] Speaker B: Here's what frustrated me the most about that Ivern Corki. If you just replace the Corki with Orianna, who I know is not in the meta right now, but we know humanoid is a very good Orianna. The whole comp makes sense. Noah is so good on Zeri. They have two big fucking tanks, and then you just have a control mage with Shields and an Ivern. And how do you lose? Instead, humanoid plays a terrible game of Corki. [00:40:16] Speaker C: It's just sadhesthe like they should be better than this and they're just not. Yes, Oscar had some moments like his mid tower dive that basically turned the entire BDS game on its head and just let them start snowballing. But there's big question marks in that mid jungle that need to be succinct and answered by the time playoffs come around. I'm worried about fnatic, in all honesty. [00:40:49] Speaker B: They'll probably be fine in the first round. The worry more is that they're gonna have to figure it out by the second match they play. Cause they're gonna be up against SK. [00:40:59] Speaker A: I feel like it's just weird because fnatic every split, it looks like they've turned their corner. But then I think particularly humanoid and razor seem like such streaky players that go up and down all the time. And it is weird that it's happening now because it really felt like summer was their split after the first few days. But yeah, now it's back into the meat grinder. I mean, like you said in the first round, they should hopefully be fine for fnatic fans. Hopefully they'll be competitive with the other top four teams. But yeah, it's been. It's been a weird look for them, for sure. [00:41:39] Speaker B: Fair enough. All right, well, that rounds out the teams we think are actually good. Normally this is where Kangas would be stuck talking about K Corp, because somehow they got fifth place. But Kangas isn't here this week. Who wants to talk about Kayce? [00:41:56] Speaker D: I could talk about him. [00:41:58] Speaker B: Do it. [00:41:58] Speaker A: Mister France. He's got to be the one. [00:42:02] Speaker D: I think they look okay going into, again, I think you made it clear. Obviously, there's a bit of a gap in gameplay. I feel like in some regard in the next little bit that we have in the LEC, but I think in general, against SK, it wasn't. It was. It wasn't that bad. It was bad, but it wasn't that bad. But I think over GX, they showed a lot of their. The way that they can use draft priorities around a lot of their big picks, and I think trying to find a way to utilize canna and Saiken a little bit more if they can. In some ways, I think is really big. [00:42:43] Speaker B: Okay, a. Saiken? Do you mean Vladi? [00:42:49] Speaker D: Yeah, sorry, sorry, sorry. B. I was thinking French, you know? [00:42:53] Speaker B: No. K corp played Yuumi. [00:42:57] Speaker D: They fucking deserve it. I was trying. Hmm. [00:43:01] Speaker B: No, they deserve the loss to SK for pulling out Yuumi. [00:43:06] Speaker C: Congrats to Targamis for pulling the ultimate support dream and ending the entire split without a single kill. [00:43:14] Speaker D: You guys gotta be so negative because they played Yuumi. [00:43:21] Speaker C: And small thing to mention that we haven't been talking about. This is all coming into summer playoffs. Season finals is the big thing that matter. G two is the only team that's currently locked into season finals. Fnatic and bds are this close to being locked in. I think a series win gets them into season finals. [00:43:40] Speaker B: It is technically possible for anyone not named g two to not make season finals, but doing so requires, I think, both giant x and Carmine Core to make deep runs in summer. [00:43:52] Speaker C: Because the way summer playoffs work is the top three teams are guaranteed into season finals. So any of these teams are still available. SK has a bit harder because they didn't have a solid winter spring. K Corp needs to finish third or above to make season finals. That's it? [00:44:12] Speaker B: Yep. It's just. It's do or die. K corp must get third place or better or their season ends. Everyone else, I think, depending on how the other teams shake out, can qualify from as low as, like, 5th, 6th. [00:44:28] Speaker C: Don'T worry, k corp, I'm sure you'll win your first round matchup against checks, notes g two. [00:44:37] Speaker B: So let's move on then. Hawk team heretics got a win against Fnatic. How did the rest of their, their week go? [00:44:46] Speaker A: Yo, we're so up right now. Yeah, the rest of their week. Well, so heretics was one of two teams that had to play against Fnatic and g two in order to make the playoffs and probably win one of those games. And heretics did it. They beat fnatic. We don't have to talk about what happened against g two. They beat fnatic, guys. And actually, okay, we. Maybe we can talk about the g two game, because that game was actually a turbo banger. [00:45:11] Speaker B: They're easily the best game of the weekend. [00:45:14] Speaker A: For ellie's, it was one kill per minute in a 40 1 minute game, which is insane. It was like battle of the ADC's. I've been saying all split that flock. It has felt like the one on heretics that has been competent throughout the split. And man, we saw it this past weekend. He played so well. Proud of my boy for popping off. Also you. I think it was bickle that mentioned it earlier in talking about the fanatic game. Swearu had a great weekend as well. I think the best weekend we've seen from this player since he's joined the LEC. I don't want to like say that things are looking up for heretics, necessarily, but they have scraped into playoffs and they at least have momentum on their side, right? They've. They've made it. Now they can reset, hopefully look to convert this momentum into genuine wins moving forward to try to make season finals. I don't know what their scenario is that they need to do to make season finals. They had a decent spring and winter split. So, yeah, go ahead. [00:46:15] Speaker B: Heretics is doing all right points wise because they did qualify for playoffs in both spring and winter and got fifth six and spring for Mad Lions. Heretics and SK, basically they just need giant X and Carmine corps to bomb out and they make season finals. No matter what else happens. [00:46:36] Speaker C: Basically prevents otherwise. [00:46:37] Speaker B: They just need to be better than those teams. [00:46:39] Speaker C: We are assuming K Corp does not finish top three. That eliminates them. Then the bottom team out of heretics, SK and Giant x is eliminated. Everybody else makes it through to season finals. [00:46:51] Speaker B: That's the most likely scenario. As we said, there are technically scenarios that it's possible that even fnatic could not make season finals, but most likely, yeah, it's the top six in championship points are g two fnatic bds, mad Lions, heretics, SK. And those are the teams that everyone expects are just making it. All right, let's talk about the team that has a shot at it, at least. Bickle. How about Giants? [00:47:24] Speaker C: Well, they're. They went one on one this weekend. They played rogue, which at this point may as well just be giving a free win. And then they lost a k chord and a series that was fine. Like this weekend is nothing too surprising. Their win against Rogue was the only thing that really mattered to them. It gets them into playoffs, which is all they really need now. Playoffs is where things are really going to be decided as basically, they just need to finish better than heretics and they'll be in a really, actually, no, they need. Wait, no. [00:47:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I just need to finish better than heretics or SK. If they can get more points than either one of those teams, they're safe. [00:48:06] Speaker C: And the break between 6th, 7th, 8th, and fifth, again with the assumption that. [00:48:11] Speaker B: Carmine corps doesn't get third, the 20. [00:48:13] Speaker C: Points would tie them with heretics. And then summer breaks the ties. Yeah, finish better than heretics. You're into season finals. That's all you need to do. Again, this team really needs to be focusing around playing through their mid lane. That's been where they're strongest. With Jackie's some questionable moments still coming. But you got the playoffs, which is all that really mattered. This weekend is nothing too interesting, though. [00:48:40] Speaker B: Fair enough. Yeah. The I for me, I think the highlight for them was just that they played Silas. They lost that game, but at least we got to see a Silas. Jackie's looked all right on it. All right, we're gonna move quickly through the rest, cuz. Mad Lions, I guess. I guess we can't move quickly through mad Lions. We'll move quickly through the last two. But mad Lions, this started out goes together. Yeah, they do go together. So let's just cover all of them. Fuck it. I'm hosting today, I can make the decisions. We're gonna talk about. We're gonna talk about mad Lions vitality and rogue. Because these teams fates are intrinsically linked together. This weekend, Mad Lions started out playing bds. They got their asses kicked. That's not surprising. There's nothing to say there. Vitality got their asses kicked by g two and Rogue got their asses kicked by giant x. All three of these teams sucked on day one. Vitality got destroyed by SK. In an actually pretty entertaining game like Vitality found windows and fought back, I think. But SK was just better in the end. And then Mad Lions and Rogue played each other for the first of two times that they played each other on Sunday. And el yo ya pops the fuck off on Viego. That's literally the only notable thing. That's the reason they beat Rogue. It took 44 minutes for them to beat Rogue despite Viego going 70 eight. [00:50:26] Speaker C: That win by Mad Lions against Rogue ensured that a two and seven team would make playoffs. [00:50:34] Speaker B: Yep, because with Vitality losing to SK earlier, that created a three way tie between Mad Lions, rogue and vitality. And I believe just because of head to heads, Vitality became the boss of the three person tiebreaker. Wind time, win time. There it is. So in their two wins, Vitality won faster than Mad Lions or rogue in their two wins. So Mad Lions and Rogue had to play the lower end of the tiebreaker. This was not close. Mad Lions fucking blasted the shit on a rogue. Um, I don't even want to talk about this game. It was so much less entertaining than their previous match. I'm not saying something. Since their previous match was 43 minutes of Mad Lions and rogue, their previous. [00:51:23] Speaker C: Match had a clad for Fenn. [00:51:25] Speaker B: True. And he looks alright. He looks like Finn on Kled where he doesn't have a fucking team, but yeah. So Mad Lions handily dispatched Rogue in 32 minutes the second time around, moving on to the tiebreaker that decided everyone's fate. Rogue was knocked out. At this point, mad Lions versus vitality for all the marbles and all right, I want to set the stage with draft on this one because I was so fucking mad. I was in a watch party with several listeners of the podcast. At this point, we're in discord. We get through the first three picks of champion select, and they get to the second round of bansite and I see photon has his rumble already locked in and vitalities then also picks jungler and ADC. And I'm like, okay, surely they're gonna ban twisted fate, right? Merwin's a known twisted fate player. He was playing it before it became meta in top lane. They're apparently afraid of his varus, which, alright, I can respect banning Merwin's varus. He does play at top lane. And then they banned Cassante for some fucking reason. You know, the matchup that rumble should shit on in the first place. So then Merwin, of course, locks twisted fate and proceeds to absolutely destroy the shit out of photon. I was so mad, I literally called the shot, and then they didn't fucking take it. And Vitality loses the game. And gets knocked out of the league for the rest of the year because they didn't ban twisted fate. There's more to it than that. They definitely floundered in other regards in this game. I'm not sure they would have won even if they had done a proper ban. But I was so mad at Merwin just getting the freest twisted fate game of his life when everything was on the line. [00:53:26] Speaker C: These two teams for rogue and Vitality finished playing a game in June and will not play again until January of 2025. [00:53:38] Speaker B: Yep. So with the results of that tiebreaker, both rogue and Vitality do not have enough championship points for there to be any scenario where they could ever make the season finals. Their season is done. Had mad lost this tiebreaker, there still could have been a theoretical scenario where they make season finals, even though they probably don't. But now it's. There's no scenario where they're not gonna make it. Really. It's. It's the crazy giant. X and Carmine both make top three scenario is the only way mad doesn't make it. So. Yeah, vitality and rogue got knocked out. They're gone. We're gonna eulogize them because apparently we get to eulogize teams on July 2, 2024. So since they technically placed above rogue, we're gonna start with vitality. Bickle, give us a eulogy for vitality. [00:54:34] Speaker C: I will forever be in awe of this vitality team. I guess just as vitality orgs, they did the exact same thing last season. It makes no sense. I mean, Mac came on euphoria, said they want to go to war. In these last few games, they forgot about that. They were the losers. And unfortunately, in war, some people are gonna die. They died. [00:55:01] Speaker B: I forgot about that. They literally had Mack and Carter on euphoria last week before these games happened. [00:55:07] Speaker C: The fact that you have a team with Vitiel, a former mvp, Karzi, widely considered one of the top ad carries in the league. Hilla Sangatk, who is one of the greatest EU players of all time. Photon, who's been shown to be a relatively strong top laner coming out of Korea, and new blood and Linkus, who everybody was really hyped on and finished this badly. [00:55:35] Speaker B: It's impressive that there's vitality, continues to have the reverse Midas touch. [00:55:44] Speaker C: They're just so bad for some reason, and we will never understand why. I think that hopefully we've all learned by now, or I'm telling myself, hopefully I've learned by now to stop getting excited about a vitality roster because I keep looking at the roster saying this is going to be so great. They're going to do so well coming in, and then they're just garbage. [00:56:08] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:56:09] Speaker C: Hopefully they improve next year. They've got six months to do. [00:56:14] Speaker B: So I will give a little bit of benefit of the doubt of on that euphoria episode Mac talked about. They did not put this roster together as a let's make worlds in 2024 roster. They viewed it as a developmental roster. They think this is going to be a contender in 2025. Well, now they get six months to practice. Several, like most of these players, are still on contract through 2025. I believe so. Uh, yeah, the matter of fact, I'm. I checked. Uh, Hillisang is not and Photon is not correct. Which, if they have any brains at all, they'll renew those contracts and just run it back because they're not going to get better players than Hylissang and photon. If Hylissang and Photon are smart, they will not let those contracts be renewed. They will go elsewhere and find a team that isn't vitality to play on. All right, Hawk, I know you've been dreading it. [00:57:21] Speaker A: Oh, boy. [00:57:22] Speaker B: Eulogize rogue for us, please. [00:57:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Rogue, rogue, rogue. Where to begin? Um, perhaps the worst year in the history of competitive League of Legends for a single team as they have gone 9th, 9th. And now, just when you thought they couldn't go any lower, they have finished the LEC summer season 10th, much the same as team vitality. They will not be playing a competitive league of Legends game for the next six months. And, man, it's a team that, on paper, looks like it should be competent. You've got guys like Larsen and Comp who have won the LEC in the past, back when it was not a Mickey Mouse region. And you've got players like Finn and Marcoon who are veterans, no titles to their name as far as I know, but they are at least competent. And yet, when you put it all together, competence is not the word that comes to mind. Um, I know when rogue was bad in the past, they used to have the rogue time memes of just they would maybe get ahead and then do nothing and lose anyway. Now they just do nothing and lose the entire game. They don't even get ahead. It was a really, really unfortunate showing for them. That's. That's the eulogy, guys. See you next year. I hope that these players are able to find different teams where they can look like even, even like remotely a shell of their former selves. Cause dare I say they didn't even look like that on this team for. [00:59:03] Speaker C: Rogue in terms of contracts, they are only going to have two players under contract coming into 2025. Larsen, who they give a big contract extension coming into this year and the top laner they benched earlier this year, Sheienda. Everybody else's contract is expiring. [00:59:21] Speaker A: It's a tough scene in the rogue camp gamers. [00:59:25] Speaker B: Now here's the important question. Do they actually lose their players though? Because who the hell is going to pick up Larsen Compsorfin right now? [00:59:35] Speaker C: I think the bigger question Mark Hoon. [00:59:37] Speaker B: I think is the only one who has any prospects. [00:59:40] Speaker C: Yeah, honestly, I would not be surprised if Rogue just doesn't come back because originally they had the big partnership with Koi that ended up just splitting coming into the season. I wouldn't be surprised if they're gone come next year. [00:59:53] Speaker A: Wouldn't surprise me either. That's why I said we might see them in six months because, yeah, I don't know if we'll see many of these players again, to be honest. I mean, it at least feels to me like Larson is probably done. Larson did not have a good 2024 at all. Even on the teams. When rogue was good, I felt that Larsen was not the strongest player on that team and especially now that the meta seems to be just not his champions at all. I worry for him. [01:00:23] Speaker B: I think if rogue is still around, he's still there because they've just signed him to such a long contract, they're not going to be able to afford to replace him. [01:00:30] Speaker A: That's fair. [01:00:31] Speaker B: So his fate is more the org's fate at this point. I think Marcos the only one we see next year on any team. [01:00:38] Speaker C: Though the fall from grace from Larson has been something really to be looked at. Like he was one of the top prospects coming. Everybody's talking about him and humanoid as these two new blood mid laners coming in to contest caps and perks is top of the league and humanoid has lives up to that. And Larson is just fallen and then fallen and then fallen. [01:01:03] Speaker A: And you talk about false from grace. Like I want to talk about comp a little bit because I feel like comp was never hyped up as much as Larson. But when rogue was good, I thought comp was maybe the best player on that team. Like there was a split or two where comp was the best ad carry in the LEC and I, to me, his peak was higher. Larson had some of the hype, but I mean, man, that guy fell off really hard. It's been. It's been tough to watch, like. Cause this really is a team that when you look at it on paper and if you've not watched LeC in two years, you would think like, ah, this team sounds great. And that's what we all thought too. And I mean, it just did not come together for them at all. [01:01:46] Speaker B: Yep. Well, they've got a lot of time to try to put something together for next year. We'll see what vitality and rogue wind up doing. We do actually have games to watch for the LEC. They are all Sunday games. Vitality versus sk, bds versus fnatic and team heretics versus g two were all very entertaining matches. Highly recommend any of those if you're looking for games to watch. And that's gonna be it. We have nothing to preview. The western leagues won't be back until next weekend for Lec and two weekends from now for lcs. So, yeah, give us five stars on apple podcasts, thumbs up on Spotify, or whatever the other podcast platforms use. And I don't know how the fuck to end the episode. This is a weird episode. [01:02:41] Speaker A: Well, you know how to end the episode. [01:02:42] Speaker D: Oh, you know how to. [01:02:43] Speaker A: You know how to end the episode. [01:02:45] Speaker D: And since you don't have to. [01:02:45] Speaker B: I don't have the sound bar. [01:02:47] Speaker D: You have to do it physically with your mouth. [01:02:51] Speaker B: Oh, yes, daddy. [01:02:54] Speaker D: Oh, my God. And I immediately. [01:02:57] Speaker A: Dude, everyone that listened to the other episode getting a treat.