League Rundown - Episode 523: Tale as old as time, that finals was a crime

[00:00:31] Speaker A: At the table with Messiah tanking it up. [00:00:34] Speaker B: I do not believe he just leaves. [00:00:42] Speaker A: I cannot understand this game. [00:00:46] Speaker C: Unicorns of love. [00:00:48] Speaker A: It was the nexus. [00:01:06] Speaker B: Hello, and welcome to episode 523 of the League rundown. This episode is Lec Playoffs review. Along with LCS week six preview and week five review. This episode is lovingly entitled tale as old as time. That finals was a crime. I am your host, Kangas, and I am joined by three co hosts alongside me. First up, if he was a farmer, his favorite tool would be the sickle. It's bickel. [00:01:35] Speaker D: I'm feeling like the odd man out here. Everybody on this podcast right now is casting some or has casted some professional region in major, be it the LCS or CB lull. What am I doing here? [00:01:47] Speaker B: Well, hey, it just means that I have to be more creative with my rhyme scheme each week, so we're going to keep switching it up. Happy to have you on, though, but we also have joining us. No longer on the loose. It's mongoose. [00:01:59] Speaker C: I am finally back. My hiatus is done. I will hopefully be here consistently. [00:02:05] Speaker B: Hell, yeah. Also his natural predator, unfortunately here, he's got a big cock. It's Hawk. [00:02:12] Speaker A: Oh, wow. You just went right for it. All right. Yep, that's me. I'm also. [00:02:16] Speaker B: We're gonna do a better one next week. [00:02:17] Speaker A: Don't worry. I mean, I don't think you've used the big hawk hawk on this pod yet, so we're. We're good with it. [00:02:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:24] Speaker A: I'm back from my much shorter hiatus, so, yeah, vacation was great, and we got League of Legends to talk about. [00:02:31] Speaker B: Yeah, we do. Yeah. There's been a lot of travel from people on the pod so far this month, but happy that we're still able to string together co hosts. Bickle, you've been carrying this, by the way. You've been on, like, every single episode for about two months, so quick round of applause for Bickle out there. Hopefully the sickle is a good enough tool for you. There's not many things that rhyme with pickle, by the way. [00:02:52] Speaker D: It doesn't work that well. [00:02:56] Speaker B: I've used Tickle. I've used pickle. [00:02:59] Speaker A: You gotta start making up words like lickle. [00:03:01] Speaker C: Yeah, just. Just make things up. [00:03:04] Speaker B: That's happened already. But you know what? We're not here to talk about Pickle's name. We'll cover that next week when I inevitably have to come up with another rhyme scheme. We're here to talk about League of Legends and starting off with some global riot news. First up. This was fresh off the press this morning. Naz Nas. I think it's Nas. Nas. Alitoha steps down as the head of. Of global esports. I didn't even know this, but she had been on sabbatical for a little bit. I don't know what the reason was. Maybe. I mean, could be health reasons, could be personal reasons, could be a lot of different things. But she wasn't actively working for the past couple of months. And I looked back in her original post, announcing that was at the end of February, but then today she announced, yep, I am now off of that, but I'm also announcing that at the end of this year, I'm stepping down. So stepping into a transition period where somebody else will come in and fill the role. She can help train them up, and then she's going to be gone, uh, presumably after worlds. I assume that she'll stick around, at least through that. Um, but she is on the way out. Um, I I'll get everyone else's thoughts, if you have any. I'll give my own personal thoughts just because I have actually interacted with her at the riot offices before. Um, you know what? Whatever your opinion of her, based on public perception from channels like Travis Gafford, who I know talks a lot about riot global leadership and just riot global leadership in general, um, she was always very kind and welcoming and, uh, nice to me whenever I was there. Uh, felt like she was somebody that, at least outwardly was rooting for my success. So it's always tough to see folks step away that, you know, are a nice face, friendly face when you walk into the office. But at the end of the day, global has been taking a lot of heat from a lot of different angles for decisions. It's a tough job to have, tough role to have. So we'll see who's stepping up to fill those shoes. Anybody else have any other thoughts on it, though, or any parts of the news that we missed out on? [00:04:59] Speaker D: When you're catering to a global esports community, there's no way to make everybody happy, in all honesty. So I think she probably did the best she could in that position. It's not an easy role for anybody to step into, and best of luck to whoever's coming into that position. [00:05:17] Speaker B: Yeah, and it's. I mean, obviously the rumor mill is going to be spreading around like crazy anytime somebody steps down. It's like, oh, it's the budget cuts, or, oh, it was the decision to combine the north and southe conference. They're like, we don't know. We do not have any information as to why she is. She was pretty vague in her post that she made. You can go check it out though. It was mostly focused on the work that she had done and her gratefulness for the community and riot, rather than necessarily giving a firm reason. From at least what I skimmed it. Maybe there was something hidden that I'm missing out on, but you can let us know in the discord. But we also have a couple teams that have qualified for worlds on the global stage. Let's hear you talk about a mongoose. You got the doc up in front of you. Talk to me about the two teams that have already qualified. [00:06:02] Speaker C: So I think to no one's surprise, it's going to be generation gaming. [00:06:08] Speaker B: No way. [00:06:09] Speaker C: Gamers as well. So gen G and G two both making it back to worlds just seem to be a mainstay at this point, and everyone should expect them to be there unless something horrific happens, like an alfari incident. [00:06:27] Speaker B: True. Just keep him as far away from these teams as possible. If you want to make worlds as a I guess just have a g at the beginning of your name. That is the moral of the story there. But yeah, Gen G has been smashing it over. Oh, that's a good point. [00:06:44] Speaker C: I was going to say a PCs. [00:06:45] Speaker B: Game, but could you imagine? We'll cover that later. A little teaser for what happened over at the LEC, but I think that's a natural transition here because obviously g two will cover when we cover lec, but lck update what's going on over in the LCk because Gen G have qualified for worlds, but I'm curious as to kind of how they've already done that. I'm not really aware of the format over there, so if you have the ability to educate me, would love to hear quick little Lck update. [00:07:14] Speaker D: Yeah, sure thing. In terms of the LcK, with what's been going on, really calm going for now. As we mentioned, Gen G by qualifying for playoffs. Since they did win Msi, they have locked themselves into worlds currently sitting at twelve and oh in series score, 24 and one in a game score. They look unstoppable right now. It's just like they're going to win the LcK. It's not a question they look that unstoppable right now. Second place is also pretty solid. Hanwha life. Ten and two have only dropped, I believe to Gen G and a game to dk who is right behind them. It feels like the top four for the Lck is relatively solid with Gen G hanwha life. D kia and t one. Those are your four best teams. Those are the teams you should expect to continue doing well. And provided there are no massive upsets, I'd expect those to be your world's representatives coming out of the LCK, though it is obviously too early to tell. Bottom of the table, bro. Still bro. And one in eleven, bro. [00:08:24] Speaker C: They got a win. Let's go. [00:08:27] Speaker D: They did indeed get a win, but yep, they are going strong. LCK still has three weeks left to go before reaching their playoffs. [00:08:35] Speaker B: Wow, that's a lot of time, especially when you look at the LEC schedule and how accelerated that is. But we do have the finals still to play out for the world's team's qualification. But cool. That's lCk. We don't have Mister Mizel Pl tonight because he is actually celebrating his birthday. It was this last Saturday. So everyone go wish Mizel a happy birthday. But he's having a late birthday dinner tonight so that's why he's not able to be on the pod. So if that disappoints you, you can also voice that to him and say, how dare you take your own personal time instead of talking about LPL because this was his time to do it. [00:09:14] Speaker D: Do we need a brief rundown since the main summer season is ending? [00:09:17] Speaker B: You know what? Go for it. If you feel confident, I'll let you. [00:09:20] Speaker D: Oh yeah, it's the literally last two games of the regular season are tonight when we're recording. But group Nirvana, the group everybody loves and cares about, has finished out. We are saying goodbye to EdG, ultra Prime, we and Rng. Their seasons are over. They will not be seen again until January. OMG TT rare Adam and ignore have qualified for the play into playoffs. Meanwhile, group ascend going pretty solid. LNG has locked themselves into a top two position coming out and BLG also has the chance to depending on their game tonight. They win, they lock that top two as well. They lose, things get a bit more finicky and more importantly, at the bottom of group ascend where they're going to be playing against group Nirvana, we have LGD and Nipkin. Those two teams have not had a good ascend group and will be playing for the planes once again. [00:10:14] Speaker B: Okay, cool. Thank you for that. If anybody cares to watch those games. Unfortunately, you already would have needed to watch them because they're going to be out before you hear this. But you can also go check out the Vods. Thank you for that, pickle Lec. Also, little news before we get into the actual games that happened, they're going to have a week off. So if you are looking forward to watching the season finals for Lec, it's going to take a little bit of time, but that just gives the teams time to prepare as well. It's been a long season and they just finish up the summer playoffs, so we'll see the other teams joining g two representing LEC at worlds at a later time. Roster News we actually had some kind of fancy shakeup. Also news dropped today of the day. Recording Meech in the lcs for hundred thieves is taking a step back. Moving to the bench. It seemed like from the public statement, the PR statement, that it was a mutually agreed on decision. You never really know when it comes to moves like this, but it wouldn't necessarily surprise me, having worked with Meech in the past in NACL and academy, that he had been struggling. The reason given was kind of like to focus on his mental health, basically, which can sometimes be a scapegoat, but also can be a legitimate concern for players. Very stressful position for a fairly, you know, cheered for fairly popular in the LCs and they actually did already signed and announced their new ad carry to step in. And it's Tomo who is on Dignitas in spring, lost his spot and then is now coming back to the league. Let's go. [00:12:01] Speaker C: You're telling me they're not importing someone? How dare they. [00:12:05] Speaker B: No, this is way better. What are you talking? [00:12:08] Speaker C: Using. Using NA talent? [00:12:10] Speaker D: Yeah. It's not like their two import slots are already taken up. [00:12:15] Speaker C: They could. They could figure it out. [00:12:19] Speaker B: I do like the choice, though. I think that there are arguably better ad carries in the NACL right now that just like in this, in that league are performing at a higher state than Tomo is in this exact like, moment. But if the reason that meech is stepping down is mental health, potentially the pressure and the stress of being on that stage, I think it makes sense to grab somebody like Tomoe who's still doing well. He's still well above average in the NACL and has had that stage experience. So it's not like, oh, let's grab another rookie and see if they do better. It's like, now let's grab somebody actually has that stage time also. [00:12:54] Speaker A: I do wonder if part of it too is for other good ad carries in the NACL. Jerry or Lenz or whoever. It'd probably be pretty hard to get them to just come out to Los Angeles like on call and play in the LCS. I mean, like, I'm sure they could do it if they really needed to, but especially, I think, of Jerry is probably pretty tied down to his college obligations and things like that, even during the summer. So if I had to guess, that might have been part of it as well. Tomoe's right there. You can probably pull him in, get him on the team, you know, he'll be fine. [00:13:29] Speaker B: So, yeah, I'm happy to bring up that name, though. Cause I'm sure a lot of people will not recognize it. But yes, there is a promising ad carry in the NACL whose name is scary Jerry. [00:13:39] Speaker A: He's fucking awesome. [00:13:40] Speaker B: That is legitimately his name. And he's a very funny guy. And he plays for Maryville University, who have recently their naming rights were bought by Brandon Sanderson's Dragon Steel publishing company. So they're called Dragonsteel now. But yeah, I mean, players like that, I think, are playing at a higher level. Also be hilarious to have captain Flowers go scary Jerry, but I think we're going to have to wait a little bit longer. [00:14:06] Speaker D: That would be great. And as we mentioned, tomo coming up from the disguise roster in the Challenger scene, that does mean disguise is going to be making some changes, which, oddly enough, is sending tenacity to ad carry. [00:14:22] Speaker A: That's also crazy with Brandini coming back to top lane. When's the last time that guy even played competitive League of Legends? Like 21, I want to say, is the last time he played comp. I mean, yeah, disguise might be cooked. It was really interesting. I tweeted this after the changes were announced to disguised that to me signals that the Dragoons goons team that we have in tier three doesn't want to break up because the really obvious signing would be to get array back, which for those that don't know and don't follow, tier two array has been one of, like, the top performing ADC's in academy slash NACL for the last like two or three years now. Like, he's always. He's always good and he's playing in tier three at the moment on the top team. And it seems to me like they want to play together and promote instead of go to some NACL team as a e sub, which I find very interesting. [00:15:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Especially given the landscape of things right now. A lot of unknowns for what next year tier two is going to look like with the merger of the regions. Still questions be asked, but either way, that's the roster update. It caused a cascading effect throughout the league, but it is still cool to see that? 100 thieves were able to pick up. In my opinion, a pretty solid substitute for meech. That's it for news, though. So now it's just to remind everybody, if you haven't already, come check out the community discord. We do have one. The link is going to be in the description. Wherever you are listening to this podcast, if you want to chat about League of Legends, talk about global riot news, share your opinions on other random topics. We got a lot of fun topics in there. Starting to bring back things like community game nights. We did a watch party for the LEC finals, so that was really fun. Shout out to a free shooter who hopped in. So there were also a couple others, but free shooter is just the first one that was in there before I even hopped in. So that's the name that I'm remembering offhand. But yeah, awesome stuff going on in there. And also, if you want to support the podcast, we got a couple ways to do it now because, again, just want to reiterate, not my plan nor my designs, but we technically have a merch store now. So if you want to get my face a hundred times on a mouse pad, you can do that. But more importantly, if you want to get something like the rundown logo or stuff like that, we have all kinds of t shirts and things. Has everybody checked out the site yet? Has anybody actually, like, clicked on it? Because last week when we recorded, you actually couldn't see anything yet. No, I'm not seeing anybody. [00:16:49] Speaker C: I checked it out last week. [00:16:51] Speaker B: I would say I'm disappointed, but as I was asking that question, I was copy pasting into my browser so I could look at it for the first time. [00:16:59] Speaker C: I saw in our doc that the whole thing, like, lit up, so I knew someone was copying it. [00:17:04] Speaker B: Yep, that's me. Okay, we got a league rundown, official logo tee. That's cool. An official logo. Wait, this is. [00:17:10] Speaker A: Look at this. I'm on it right now. [00:17:12] Speaker B: I'm getting the mug I want. [00:17:13] Speaker C: Getting the mug I want that sticker. That sticker looks so cool. [00:17:17] Speaker B: Oh, you holographic of the hat, you can get like a sky blue. Wait, that's actually pretty cool. I want to vote. [00:17:25] Speaker C: Did you see the hat has five stars on the back? [00:17:28] Speaker B: It does. That's. That's amazing. I did not know. [00:17:32] Speaker C: I like that detail. Okay, go get the hat instead of getting. Or also give us five stars, but go get the hat and get your. [00:17:38] Speaker A: Is that a reference to something that I don't understand? [00:17:40] Speaker C: We tell people to leave five stars for review. [00:17:43] Speaker B: Also, I'm just gonna say I think I was misled. No, never mind. Okay. I clicked on the mouse pad because it just says league rundown. I was like, there's not the one with the faces. And then the. You may also also, like, has the one with the faces. So. [00:17:54] Speaker D: Okay, go to all that's down in the meme collection. [00:17:58] Speaker C: Yeah, you can get all products, and it'll pop up. [00:18:01] Speaker B: All we got says fish. [00:18:04] Speaker A: Want me the rundown tank top? [00:18:07] Speaker C: You can get the Sean Lowell on a t shirt. And it also has the league rundown on the sleeve. [00:18:13] Speaker D: The Giga Kangas T. The Giga Kangas shirt, as well as the tank top. [00:18:19] Speaker B: There's socks. We got socks, guys. [00:18:22] Speaker C: Let's all get socks and wear them on our hands. [00:18:24] Speaker A: Wait, someone, like, model this stuff? What the heck? [00:18:28] Speaker B: I'm actually going to get the Duffy shirt because I need that, and I'm going to. [00:18:34] Speaker C: Duffy shirt is so cool because it has the rundown logo on the sleeve. [00:18:37] Speaker B: There's a lot I want to get. Damn. Okay. I like that we have a washed, like, a vintage washed logo hat. First off, it's a. [00:18:45] Speaker A: Prices are very reasonable. [00:18:47] Speaker B: I like that. Great plug. Okay. I feel like we've done Duffy proud with the amount of plug there while we just go get merch. Go join the community discord and post. [00:19:01] Speaker C: Pictures of it in the community discord. [00:19:03] Speaker B: Actually, that's crazy. That that's a good idea. We should do, like a. Like a. Some kind of giveaway, like, you can be on. Maybe that'll be episode first person. They'll post a photo of them with merch. Like, physically with merch in the discord. And tag me. We'll talk about getting you on an episode as a guest at some point, or at the very least, like, a recording that I can play on my sound board of, like, a message that you want to send to the community. That'd be really fun. So there we go. And now it's just gonna be me posting something for the first time. And then I get to send a message to the community, and nobody can stop me. [00:19:34] Speaker D: Oh, no. [00:19:35] Speaker B: Because I get to buy it before anybody else does. [00:19:37] Speaker C: I bet you people. People have already bought them. I think that's confirmed. People have already started buying merch. No one bought your mousepad already? [00:19:44] Speaker B: No. The running bet was four. I remember thinking, I will buy four. We're not gonna sell more than four of them. But no, it's gotta be honest. We can't skew the numbers. [00:19:55] Speaker C: I'm skewing every number either way. [00:19:57] Speaker B: If you wanna support the pod, the funds from that is gonna go directly to things for off season content. We got a couple ideas in the works, basically, to tease some of it, we wanna start hosting, streaming events and more things to interact with a greater community outside of just our own little discord pod and our own little community. We're gonna be doing stuff for ourselves as well, but also a way to kind of like, hey, you know, maybe we poke Travis Gafford and try and get something like a crisscross event, stuff like that. Right? So again, just a little tease that maybe we can start doing that in the off season. That is the plan. That's what we're using these funds for, at least right now. That is the plan for these funds. But also, if you have ideas of stuff that you want us to do with it, we're all ears. Again, you can let us know in the discord. Yes, mongoose. [00:20:44] Speaker C: We should do something for someone getting the merch on the LCS broadcast. [00:20:49] Speaker B: Oh, that. [00:20:50] Speaker C: I think that should be it. [00:20:52] Speaker B: I think that would be awesome. [00:20:54] Speaker C: Which it kind of sucks because it's, like, only people who can go to the games. [00:21:00] Speaker B: If you can go to the finals or something like that. [00:21:02] Speaker C: Yeah, something like that. And get it, like, get our merch on the broadcast. [00:21:06] Speaker B: Okay, that's a really good one. If somebody does, we need to have, like, a special tier in the discord. Like, you get a tag if you've. If you've pulled off that feat. And that can be like a side quest for everyone to try and do. [00:21:18] Speaker C: Or just get all your friends and get them all shirts and go and get a group league rundown. [00:21:26] Speaker B: Now, I'm concerned that at some point in the riot broadcast, there's gonna be somebody wearing a tank top with my face on it. Rafa's gonna see it, and Azale's gonna flay me again. Just like what happened was my band gameplay this last. [00:21:38] Speaker D: That was amazing. [00:21:39] Speaker C: But everyone will be like, that's a cool tank top. Where do I get that? [00:21:45] Speaker B: You can make a sign that has the website. The link to the website, too. There we go. All right, I think that's enough shilling for ourselves. We also have a patreon, so if you want to support us there, you get access to our bullshittery episodes, which are about, like, the ten minutes before we actually go live. All that helps support to make the audio quality better on our podcast, as well as, like I said, some of the off season stuff we have planned. There we go. We got through it. That's all the news. That's all the side tangential stuff to talk about. So now let's get into the leagues proper. I want to start this week with LCS because then we save the finals till the end and we can let that be a little tease for everybody. A reason to stick around because LCS got back into the regular season swing of things. We are in the week or just wrapped up week five and we're going to be previewing week six. LCS is super fast to get through, by the way, this summer. I love this format because it takes us like 20 minutes. Yeah, mongoose. [00:22:38] Speaker C: I have a suggestion for like before we go through the games is to do the games to watch at the start. That way we don't spoil the games so that if people want to go and watch the game and not know what happens, that was just something that I thought about a few weeks ago and wanted to bring up. So I feel like that'd be more fun so that people can stop the podcast, go watch it and then come back and listen to the rest of the podcast. [00:23:01] Speaker B: Hell yeah. I love on the fly live feedback. Let's go. Let's get more of this. Okay, so if you want to start with that, then do you, do you have a series yourself? [00:23:10] Speaker C: Not from LCS. I'll see us. I didn't even know it was on. I forgot about it. [00:23:15] Speaker B: Oh my God. Well, great. At least you're honest. That's important. Let's turn it to hawk then. Hawk, what is your series or even just game to watch? If somebody wasn't able to catch all the LCS games and they want to check out, see what's going on in the league, what's your recommendation for something that they should check out? [00:23:31] Speaker A: I'm gonna keep it kind of a stack with everyone. It was not the most exciting week of LCS. However, we did have some good ones. I would recommend, honestly, maybe dignitas, shopify game two. That one was pretty fun. [00:23:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:45] Speaker D: Also fly quest 100 thieves. [00:23:47] Speaker A: Game one was. Was pretty good as well. [00:23:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess if we're not spoiling it, in those games and series to watch, there is a specific champion locked in that makes the Shopify series very exciting and very cool and specifically that game a great option. So I gotta agree. I think that's mine too. Bickle, do you agree? Do you have any different ones? [00:24:09] Speaker D: It's dig, Shopify, game two. He's dead on with it. [00:24:13] Speaker B: Yeah. The funny thing is, the other series, this kind of stops. There's not really a reason to go check them out as much. We had a lot of very one sided games and it just kind of feels like the story of LCS right now. We haven't had the best gameplay in terms of like, oh, a lot of bad teams close. There's a lot of bad teams in the LCS, which is weird because we went from ten to eight teams. The expectation was kind of that it would get more competitive, right. That it'd be closer, tighter. [00:24:40] Speaker A: Well, my argument would be it is pretty competitive amongst the top three and the bottom five, but it's not competitive. [00:24:47] Speaker B: That's a good point. [00:24:48] Speaker A: Anybody else, like any crossover matches are terrible. [00:24:53] Speaker D: Can we even say it's close between the top three when we've only seen one game between the top three? [00:25:00] Speaker A: Well, we're about to see one next weekend all week long. [00:25:05] Speaker D: So I swear to God, if that's a blowout, I'm going to be pissed off. [00:25:09] Speaker A: Everyone's going to be pissed. [00:25:11] Speaker C: They've really been transition 25 minutes games and that's it. That's all we get. [00:25:16] Speaker A: Wouldn't even surprise me from those teams. Even if it's like 325 minutes games. Like they go to three games but they just blast each other every time. Wouldn't be surprising. [00:25:25] Speaker B: You are of course talking about team Liquid versus c nine, which is going to be happening this next weekend. First we got to talk about the games that just happened this past weekend. So let's give everybody kind of a rundown as to what went down. First up, the first series of the weekend was C nine versus nRg. And look at that. 100% predictions for everybody on the bot. It was a 20 for c nine. Who could have guessed it? Pickle. Yeah. [00:25:50] Speaker D: What a shocker. One of the best three teams against not one of the best three teams. Game two, Washington. An absolute shellacking after berserker. Picks up a triple kill a minute into the game and after that point it's done. Game one, C nine. Also pretty consistent throughout. It's a steady game until it's not. I hate Nidalee. I hate any person playing Nidalee. I don't like the champion right now. I understand it's one of Blabber's best champs, that he picks it a lot. I don't care about it. I don't care who you are in the world. I don't like this pick. [00:26:30] Speaker C: You don't like canyon? [00:26:31] Speaker A: I was going to say canyon though. [00:26:33] Speaker B: He gets. [00:26:33] Speaker D: Canyon is the exception. [00:26:37] Speaker B: The crazy thing is it was Nidalee. Not with like a Renekton or a Leona or stuff like that. It's a raw Nidalee, no lubrication. There's a gnar, there's an Alistar, there's an azir and an Ezreal. That's it. I mean, you got poke with the ezreal if you're able to land your spears from long range. Azir can work with that range, too. But, like, not a lot of things that are going to just like, instantly cc a target in one place. Alistair's the closest, but even then the z axis can make it kind of, like, weird to hit the spear on that target. But it worked out. I mean, blabber was able to kind of just poop all over blabber just. [00:27:12] Speaker A: As the best jungler in the league. I mean, that might have something to do with it, but, yeah, blabber can. [00:27:17] Speaker D: Play anything and win this. Like this. Game one was so just boring. It was basically close and nothing was happening until Dokla goes for a flank, gets picked off, all of NRG dies, and the game just ends. [00:27:32] Speaker B: Yeah, Dokla playing the AP cannon. And then also in the next game, also AP on the rumble. And I think Dokla's tweet at the end of the series really summarized everything. Sometimes you do the fisting, sometimes you get fisted. Today was the latter. And, yeah, that is basically what happened here. C nine just showed again how good they are as just mechanical players. They're cleaning up a lot of their team fights as well. I think macro, like, big picture Macro is still something that they are working on and are improving at a team. Like energy. Wasn't really pressuring them too much in that department, though, right? [00:28:09] Speaker D: Yeah, they come out of this five series stretch, ten and one, having played every team but the other top two teams. So this is where they actually get tested and things actually get interesting as they play team liquid and FlyQuest in back to back weeks. [00:28:26] Speaker B: I'm happy to bring that up because they do have the hardest strength of schedule remaining of any of the teams, which I just realized. Also, I forgot to do the breakdown of the standings, which is typically how we kind of get into this. It is c nine in first place because they have the best series score, only dropping one game, or rather game score. Same series score as TL, but TL's dropped two games, so ten and one to ten and two. Team liquid, technically second place. Flyquest right behind at four and one. They're nine and four in game score. And then it's a big drop off. We got NRG with two series wins three series losses pretty close to 50 50 in games with five. But then dig 100 thieves, Immortals and Shopify Rebellion all tied at one and four. That's a four way tie for last. That's crazy. Well, I guess technically for fist, but also for last. So, yeah, the standings are a little janky right now. [00:29:14] Speaker D: If people genuinely think that it's just a top three of c nine, TL and fly getting first place coming into playoffs is so important because it means the other two teams of team liquid fly and c nine, whichever two aren't in first, are going to be on the other side of the bracket, which means you can qualify for worlds without having to play either of them. [00:29:36] Speaker B: That's actually huge because, yeah, you'd only need to win, I believe, two best of fives with the LCs format, if. [00:29:41] Speaker D: You one seed or two seed, you only need to win one best of five. [00:29:47] Speaker B: I remember it being two. We'll have to take another look at that. But either way, it's an easier path. It's a much easier path if you're able to get that top seed. But. Okay, so that was c nine NRG for the first series of the weekend. Then we had shopify rebellion versus dignitas pickles. [00:30:03] Speaker A: Right. By the way, that's crazy. [00:30:05] Speaker B: You only need one, but you do have to win. [00:30:06] Speaker A: You have to win one against. [00:30:08] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:30:08] Speaker A: You can just win one against seed four or five. [00:30:10] Speaker D: Wow. [00:30:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:11] Speaker A: You want to be the one seed really badly. [00:30:14] Speaker D: Seed one and seed two because they automatically start off in round two, they have a first round by only need to win one best of five because that instantly puts them into the round four upper bracket finals, which means they will be one of the last three teams remaining. [00:30:31] Speaker C: Yeah, it's crazy. LCS schedule is. Our playoffs are a little weird. [00:30:37] Speaker B: Wait, that is absurd. Okay. Wow. Huh. [00:30:42] Speaker C: Because unlike where other regions have it, where the bottom two teams just go into the lower bracket and then the top four teams play each other, they have it like. Like all teams start on the top side. [00:30:55] Speaker B: Well, then that's well for them. And it's looking like we have that already. But like we said, c nine do have tough opponents ahead of them, so maybe that does shake up. But getting back into the games that had last happened last weekend, Shopify rebellion versus Dignitas. We all had dignitas taking it. Hawk, I remember putting you on the spot being like, why do you think Shopify can even get a game? And wouldn't you know, Shopify kind of smashed this. Talk to me about the series Hawk, what were your thoughts on Shopify digging? [00:31:25] Speaker A: To us, Shopify is so based. Like, okay, it's really interesting because I'm a huge tomeo fan. However, watching the series, I don't think it's fair to say Tomio was the problem on the Shopify team at all because he wasn't. However, Boogie looked like the solution. He was on an absolute tear. And also insanity looked absolutely unleashed. Like, he played Zeri mid and he played Jin mid. Jinsanity. That's the fun pick. If you're still sitting around, you don't know what happened at Shopify. Dignitas game two. It was a crazy game where insanity went massive. He solo killed Jensen on Jin mid. Yeah, super, super fun series. Like, shopify just looked like, I think what all of the fans of Shopify wanted the team to be at the start of the split where insanity's playing cool stuff. And also b Boy and Zazel just individually having good games. I think we always knew that B boy was individually a good player, but now he wasn't playing with, you know, four anchors attached to him. [00:32:24] Speaker B: People forget he got first team all pro and spring like B boys. [00:32:27] Speaker A: He's a great player. Fate, God, to be honest, like kind of got in backpack. But hey, that's all you need to do sometimes. [00:32:34] Speaker B: Hey, he got the pantheon, though. That was an awesome play. [00:32:37] Speaker A: Pantheon? [00:32:38] Speaker C: Yeah, he got the Pantheon so Kangas could catch astray. [00:32:42] Speaker A: So by the best part of the game. [00:32:45] Speaker B: So what we referenced, we said earlier also in the game, he goes for a pantheon alt and instantly dies. And I was like, he's just like me for real. So in twitch chat, I said, that's my pantheon. And then it usually takes like five minutes for riot to get tweets with the hashtag to air on the broadcast. So then later, like five minutes later, he does another play and survives and they like sweep the fight and it's really good. And then they show my tweet or my Twitch message and azales, like, that's not your pantheon. I've seen your pantheon. Well, a sale. I was talking about the bad play. I was outing myself, but then the broadcast aired at the wrong time. I just needed to get that off my chest. [00:33:29] Speaker A: It was really funny, though. It was really funny. [00:33:32] Speaker C: If nothing else, if you just don't have time to watch the games, just go back and watch that. [00:33:37] Speaker A: But watch the game. Like, that was by far the most fun game of the weekend also. So the casters had a really fun time with it. Like, they were popping off at the fact that Shopify was popping off and truly this was like what we had been wanting from this team. Like, I was coping really hard for Shopify at the start of the split because it felt like they had this in them and whether or not they win any more series, the rest of the split, at least they took this one and it was super fun. [00:34:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that it was a big surprise also to see dignitaries continue to struggle. Dignitas has been racking up loss after loss after loss. I was not a believer in the scrim record coming into the year thinking, nah, on stage they got what it takes Venkan carry and I think we're getting hints on stage now as to what was going on in the scrims and why everybody was like, no, dignitas are not actually that good. They're not that scary. Interesting picture though. I mean like Zven pulled out the Ziggs bot lane. That was kind of cool, but I'm gonna be work out for him. [00:34:36] Speaker A: I think Jensen in particular has looked bad. [00:34:41] Speaker B: He had the one really good game last week and other than that, yeah. [00:34:46] Speaker A: I feel like Jensen, more than he ever has in his career in the last year or so has just been losing Lane, which is not something you would expect from a player with his pedigree. Like, he still can pop off really hard when he does, but he just loses Lane much more frequently than I feel like he used to. And it's a little concerning to me. [00:35:06] Speaker C: Me, I think we just have a different mindset of mid laners now in the LCS where it's like people are just wanting to play more aggressive and play for jungle prio as opposed to, all right, let's get through lane and just be like late game monsters, which is kind of where Jensen came from. Yeah. So now we have these super aggressive just rookies coming in or people who've been in the league for a few years and they're just like, they want to win Lane. They want to challenge you on everything. So I just think Jensen hasn't kept up with the change and it's just starting to look like nothing. What a great look for him. [00:35:39] Speaker B: That's a good, yeah, you're not against Pobelter Bjergsen anymore. You're against Jojo Apa. Like they're, they're going to fight even like quid, right? Like aggressive mid laners that are going to fight you for stuff. So I do like that take too, but that was the fun series so we highly recommend going and watching that one. Outside of that, we did have two other series on Sunday. Then first up was team liquid versus Immortals. And wouldn't you know, we were all perfect on our predictions again, two. Oh. [00:36:07] Speaker D: Oh, boy. This was a series that took. Honestly, it wasn't even that long a series. [00:36:14] Speaker B: But it still lasts 50 minutes. Yeah, yeah. [00:36:16] Speaker D: It lasted way too long. Like, game one went exactly how you expected, where from minute one, team Liquid was just demolishing Immortals. But game two, Immortals was managing to hold on just for like 1520 minutes into the game until suddenly team liquid cracks the game open and it's just overd. Like, team Liquid is going to win this series no matter what happened. And that's just about it. Immortals has some serious issues going on. I really am not a fan of our mayo. I think they need to make some changes. [00:36:53] Speaker A: Yeah, Immortals looks bad and team Liquid is good more at eleven. I feel like that is what describes the series. [00:37:02] Speaker B: It was, I think, reminiscent of, in my opinion, t t l is learning from their matches against t one teams that are much better than them, where it's like, okay, how fast can we punish a mistake and end a game? And I like to see that from TL against the bad teams. Cause it's not just, oh, bleed them out, win over time. We're gonna beat them at elder or baron. It's like, no, just, they're just gonna walk up at us, kill them, just push everything. Just like, take their jungle, take their turrets and make them fight for every single inch when already ahead and they can't really fight you back. So I'm actually happier to see Tl play a more, like, definitive, let's end the game style. [00:37:42] Speaker D: And in regards to Immortals, they were on red side both times, but with their r five counter pick, they self counterpicked themselves. They picked the cassante into a rumble and then the gnar into a kennen. [00:37:59] Speaker C: I just don't think Castle's champ pool is quite there yet for them to really be giving him five reals. And it's just, I think it comes down to, like, a draft thing, which I know a lot of people talk about drafts and it's like, oh, it's like a huge thing where you can realistically win with any draft. But I just think that they don't really have a good r five and they just need to be going blue side because it's just the better side. [00:38:23] Speaker A: Or like five reals. Yeah, dude. Okay. I don't want to go too down the rabbit hole, but there are some teams that just do not know how to play red side and draft. Bye. Like they handshake five reals. If you're handshaking five reals, you're asking to lose on red side. [00:38:37] Speaker B: That's like my really, that's the only advantage that you have on red side is that counter pick. So you better be using it. Or the flex pick. Like holding flex picks till the last moment. [00:38:46] Speaker A: By the way, sorties just hit 2200 lp. Just want to say that for no particular reason. [00:38:52] Speaker B: True. You know, if any teams are looking for a top laner, maybe there's one that's already out there for you. Okay, cool. Well, that is the second series of the Sunday games, but we also had FlyQuest versus 100 thieves. That's another pretty exciting series because this one actually went the distance. Finally, all the other series were two o's. This one, we actually got three games. And I'll say it, I think that Flyquest should have 20. I don't think under thieves actually really deserved that first win. But what are other people's thoughts? [00:39:33] Speaker A: Sniper dropped a nuke, put some respect on his name. [00:39:36] Speaker B: True. True. Sniper is the one that kept them in that game. [00:39:39] Speaker D: One sniper did really well, but this game again brings out my I hate Nidalee Tangent and adds on to it. I hate lethality Callista. I do not like this style build. I think on hit's just much better for that champion. We see it pulled out game three when they do it and Masu just demolishes the entire game on it. [00:40:03] Speaker B: It's basically the thought process with the lethality is that if there's enough squishy people on the enemy team, you can blow them up fast. Things like the brand jungle as well are in that kind of category. But it's easier if you have things to lock down those targets. You actually land the spear because your spear becomes suddenly much more impactful than it is in the on hit build. And again, you know, it's like Bard, Lucian, Italy, Kazante. It's like you're just. You have to be really good at hitting your skill shots. There's nobody really to set that up for you. [00:40:34] Speaker D: And in regards to quad versus quid, which is kind of the matchup to watch, coming into this quad looked phenomenal in lane against him. He dumpstered that zary with the Lucian twice. [00:40:48] Speaker C: I'm going to go back to the Kalista thing. I like Kalista a lot as a champion just because I feel like in teamfights and it's not something that gets talked about a lot, I think it allows the support to really overextend and go really far on certain engages, but it can also allow the support to get off two rotations of spells as opposed to just one. So when you're playing it with things like the rel and the Leona, it just allows those champions to have a much higher impact in a team. Fight, fight. So I think that's a point that no one really ever talks about is the Callisto, unless it's support. And then people are like, oh, Callista saved the ADC with the uLT and it's okay. [00:41:27] Speaker B: Karrion. [00:41:28] Speaker C: Yeah, only Karius plays. [00:41:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think anybody else is playing Kalista support, but not to burst anyone's bubbles. By the time game three rolled around, though, Flyquest had completely dismantled 100 thieves like that. That third game was not even close. The first one was sniper keeping them in as the Jacks. And I think Sniper overall had the best series on 100 thieves. But no surprise. I mean, Meech is heading to the bench this next weekend. I think bot Lane is really where things fell apart hard for 100 thieves. [00:41:57] Speaker D: Masu Rookie of the year any contestion anywhere? Or is it kind of like just. [00:42:02] Speaker B: Give him the award now it's him or sniper? I believe Thanatos also has credibility for it, though. Right. [00:42:10] Speaker D: But the thing is of the year, so Thanatos is already playing at a disadvantage of only having one split. [00:42:17] Speaker B: Yeah, he would have to really head and shoulders perform above because Sniper had a great spring and is having some really good performances in some games in summer. And Masu overall, I mean, his team, I think you can always argue that against him. Like, oh, he's got the more veteran players around him. Right. Like, there's less required of him. But he's also just really stepping up in a lot of ways. So I think it's a cool conversation, and I'm very excited that we're already starting to have the rookie of the year conversation because we only have a few more weeks left of the regular season, and I believe that's a regular season award. Right. Don't we vote on that at the end of the regular season, not at the end of playoffs, correct. Yeah, typically that's how that happens. I say we as if I get a vote. I don't think maybe I will. Who knows? Maybe I'll ask. [00:42:57] Speaker C: I think it's really cool that we do have, like, multiple contenders this year because usually it's just like one, maybe two. But the fact that we have three people who could potentially get it is really fun. [00:43:08] Speaker B: Agreed. That is very fun. But look at that. That was lcs this last weekend, which means that we get our bring our attention to the following weekend. Up first in week six, we have FlyQuest versus Shopify Rebellion and we got FlyQuest across the board, most of us with two o's. Although Mazelle, who filled out predictions put FlyQuest losing one game and Hawk also have FlyQuest losing one game. You're those shopify believer, man. You just really like their chances in these special threes to grab at least one. [00:43:36] Speaker A: I dude, I'm knowing coping really hard. I still think Shopify especially like with boogie coming in, I think they have what it takes to be a decent team, especially if they just don't get blasted in all their lanes. Like they're not that bad. They just oftentimes aren't that good either. But also same with like man flag was InT's face sometimes like, I don't know. [00:44:00] Speaker B: No, it's dude Wippo sometimes ins his fricking head off. So yes, actually, I think that if Wippo has one bad game, the problem is Shopify's topside is not going to be the top laner to fully capitalize on that. But maybe the rest of the team can punish him if they have like insanity on scion mid ulting top or something crazy. All right, I like it. I like it. I still think 20 for FlyQuest, but either way, we all believe in flyQuest. 100 thieves are some mortals. We got 100 thieves across the board with a lot of two ones. I still have 100 thieves winning this, but with the change to the bot lane, I think they're going to have probably two bad games, one of which is going to be bad enough to have it be a loss just because you know it's going to be hard in one week to get in ad carry on the same page as everybody else, especially with river and quid having a albeit kind of more neutral playstyle now with the meta, but different than how a lot of other mid jungles have been playing in the lcs. Other thoughts on that, though? Anybody else opinionated on it? [00:44:57] Speaker C: Just put ADC on Ash R. Honestly. [00:45:01] Speaker B: If ashes up and trying to think what Tomo's like best champions were in spring, I'm not remembering offhand so we won't have to dive into that too much. But day two on Sunday, we have NRG versus Dignitas. Now, this one is kind of hard to call, guys. It's, it's two of the teams at the bottom. Dignitas is in the clump with the one in four, energy has two series wins, but it doesn't. I don't know if anyone else agrees. It doesn't feel like energy are better than Dignitas. It feels like these two teams are basically like the same level of mediocre and they've just not impressed me on either side. I saw Dignitas taking it because I still just think if Zven and Jensen show up on a day, they can do it it. But I'm not like confident enough. Pickle, you actually have a 20 for energy. Are you strong on that opinion? Like, do you really think energy can sweep this? [00:45:57] Speaker D: I'm not strong on it. I think energy has looked fine. It's more so dig has been so up and so down. Like they varied their positions so much. Like yes, they took games off of team liquid and cloud nine, but then they just got two owed by Shopify rebellion. You can really see it going either way and I just think dignitas, I just don't see them coming in strong. Next week could very well be a dig win. It could be an NRG win. It could go. [00:46:31] Speaker B: Anyway, I'm about to type it up right now to send it to Raz. Lcs should do a content piece called big dig summer school because they need to go back to class and figure out what's going wrong with some of their gameplay decisions. I still think that they can take energy though, but there's a good chance energy is the fourth best team in the league and are on the up and up. Either way, that's going to be an interesting series. Probably one of the closer ones, but the one that we all want to talk about and are all excited for and the entire summer has been building up to. Thank goodness it delivered with neither of them dropping a series. Team liquid versus cloud nine, the only two undefeated teams in the LCS. Best of three. C nine has dropped a game. TL has dropped two games, but neither of them have dropped a series and that will change this weekend. I have TL 20. Mongoose agrees. Hawk has TL two one. Mazelle agrees. Bickle, the only one believing in C nine with a two one. But no matter who wins, I think we all win if you're an LCS fan, because this should be the highest level gameplay that we will see in the region. Hawk, I'm going to have you defend your point though. You have TL two one. It's pretty close. Pretty as close even as he can be. But why do you have team Liquid taking it over c nine? [00:47:55] Speaker A: So I think that regardless of the individual talent level on c nine and how much better they have looked in the summer split so far. I do feel like they have yet to fully iron out all of their issues. As a squad of five, they sometimes can be happy gamers. They sometimes can be. I mean, honestly, like a little. They can ego a little too much in game and, you know, they've gotten a lot better. But I feel like Team Liquid is the more complete team, especially when APa is still playing the best league he's ever played in his life. Yawn. Still looks fantastic. Like, everyone on Team liquid looks like they're locked in. They honestly have not taken any back steps since MSI. They've just gotten gotten better and better all year year. And so I feel like they are still, until, you know, I'm proven otherwise, the team to be in the LCS good enough to challenge them. So one game. [00:48:54] Speaker B: All right, that's opening arguments for TL. Bickle, let's hear your opening arguments for c nine because you're the only believer that they take the series. [00:49:02] Speaker D: So first off, I think it's just a better story overall. If c nine wins this, it kind of makes it okay. There's actually a lot of competition versus if TL ones. It's like, okay, we have a best team. That's that. But along with that, I think the meta alongside the changes that are coming in with the next patch because they're playing on the most recent patch the coming weekend, that means a lot of the ad carry mids are being nerfed and they still have really strong carry style junglers, which I think fits c nine style a lot better. I think TL's focus on having played the Maokai alongside the other sejuani haven't been punished as much by the bottom tier teams. I think cloud nine is strong enough that if they get them in more uncomfortable picks, they're going to be able to punish that a bit more. Could I instantly see a TL just being like, okay, this team has better synergy, they're going to win? Yes, but I think the changes in the meta and the strength of C nine as individuals can help put them. [00:50:01] Speaker B: Over the edge of okay, I actually like that argument. I still favor TL heavily, but I could see a world where the meta shift does favor c nine. The winds change in their favor. The reason that I have TL 20 and the reason I'm confident in this is the reason I gave earlier is what has TL been doing lately in the LCs. It does not necessarily matter if they have a smashing early game and are stomping their opponent, if their opponent makes a mid to late game mistake, TL, our team at NA that has learned how to punish heavily because it's been slammed into them too many times by t one. Every time they face t one, it's the same thing that happens. They have a lead, then they make one mistake and they lose the game off of it. I think TL is trying to adapt that type of play style, which is really exciting to see. I honestly think c nine probably win both early games. They're probably up like four or 5000 gold by the first baron. Fight, fight. But somebody's gonna be out of position. They're not a coordinated enough team that they approach these late game scenarios clean and TL is a team that can punish them heavily for that. So I think C nine are up early both games and lose anyway because they make the bigger mistake. At the end of the day, I'm gonna talk about this a lot with LeC. Once we get into those games where League of Legends in the west feels like right now is don't make the bigger late game mistake and you win. Unfortunately, that's just how a lot of teams are finding their wins is, oh, you made the bigger mistake. Cool. We'll close out the game as opposed to let's make the best decisions possible. So I know that's a very negative way to frame it, but that just kind of feels like how League of Legends in LCs and especially LEC has been playing out. So there we go. That's our predictions. That is LCS week five review and week six preview. So let's get into the region that just wrapped up its summer playoffs. I know it's crazy scheduling, the fact that we still have a couple weeks left in LCS, but Lec already wrapped. They will have their summer finals, or their season finals rather to determine the teams going to worlds. Bickle, it looked like you might have wanted to hop in. Was that something to tail end LCS? No. Okay, cool. Then we'll keep going on to Lec. We had three series happen this last weekend and some big determining matches. At least the first match became a very important one because the winner of this BDS is able to maintain a really good position going into that season finals. KC, if they win this and got top three, they make it into season finals. Because they did so bad, winter and spring split that they had zero points. The only way to get in was to make it so that top three from summer automatically are in. They could have nabbed the spot there and damn, was it close, man. Five game series between KC and BDS. Bickel, I'm going to be asking you some questions about the second series and the third series, so I'll kind of summarize this one first, then you can take the next one. This is one of those series. This is one of those instances that relate to what I just said before. Whoever makes the bigger late game mistake gets punished and loses the game. Both of the games that KC Wondez, or at least the first game that KC won, it was because they just were able to get a second Elder dragon. They just won the Elder fight. They also like 50 50 to an early baron and 50 50 to earlier elder, too. But it's about that later game mistake that you capitalize on the opponent, finding somebody out of position, having an advantage for that final elder, and then just closing the game out from there. Casey should have lost that game. This should have been a three one for BDS, but Casey were able to just barely bring one back. And then we saw consistently bds winning the earlier objective fights around heralds and dragons throughout the entire series, basically, except for that game four where Casey were able to just kind of smash. It's cool to see the drafting from this. Overall. I still felt like it was a lot of sloppy play around macro late game teamfight setups, but there's a couple cool things to talk about in terms of the picks. Game three draft was so fun. Mandy Adam's on the malphite against four ad champs, being nar, tristana, zeri, and Vi, but he's countered by Targumas on Lulu. So he like ults in and then Targamis. Lulu just ults somebody and is like, oh, whoops. Well, okay, now I don't blow up that key target or whoever I was able to find, and now I'm knocked up and I'm in trouble. And then, like I said, we see the vibe, but that's countered by Shao on Morgana jungle. So you just black shield whoever the vi's going in on. And it was just like intricate little like tug and poll and like little song of dads in the mid game of who engages first because you probably lose because the other team has the counter to whatever your primary engage was. Bigel, I feel like that was the most fun game of the series. Was that game three? [00:55:02] Speaker D: It definitely was. And it shows us that despite ad carries being extremely meta in every lane and really broken if you have no ap damage, Malphite is always going to be a problem. Yeah, once they locked in that Tristana Zeri and then picked up the vi, everyone's like, wait, they have no ap damage anywhere. And Malphite's just the freest angle there. Even after he's either polymorphed or knocked up from that wild growth, he just sits there dancing in front of them, taking no damage. [00:55:31] Speaker B: Yeah, he died a couple times, like earlier, but yeah, once you get the items, it doesn't matter. You know, you're. You're a tank, you are a rock, you're a mountain. And they were able to get four infernal drakes. And then watching Malphite ult, four infernal drakes was so funny, man, you're just blowing people up. Game four is also fun. We got closer on Viego. He played Viego actually, the last two games. So playing more carry style, we're seeing a lot more Kennan's and such. And then game five Adam on the Olaf, he's pulling out the classic Adam champs as well. Versus Kana on Akali, we got Olaf Akali toppling. That was really fun to watch in terms of like, oh, my God, the Akali can, like, kind of dance around the Olaf and, like, play out of his range and has the damage to threaten him. And then they. They never really interacted until team fights happened anyway. But it was still fun to see. So BDs were able to take it. That final game was, again, BDS just winning early objective fights. They got a gold lead, and this time they did not make a late game mistake and they were able to close it out. So it was a close series. Really fun to watch. I do recommend it, but it, I feel kind of encapsulates that point that I was trying to make where it's like, yeah, somebody's going to just be out of position at some point late in the game. And if you're the team ready to capitalize on them being out of position, going to win the game. [00:56:50] Speaker D: And really minor thing is, obviously K Corp were playing for their lives. BDS, this didn't affect them at all. They were playing for a trying to keep mad lions in the upper bracket of season finals. But more importantly, they were playing for GX's lives. And to go with this, the LEC had jackies on broadcast. [00:57:14] Speaker B: That's actually really fun. I only watched the games. I was tuning in when they were happening, but I didn't catch the desk part. That's really, really funny. They should have had a cam on. Jackie's just like a Jackie's update. [00:57:30] Speaker C: Just a heart monitor. Just watch his heart rate. [00:57:33] Speaker B: It could be pipped in like live during the coach cams but instead it's just is Jackie's making it or not? [00:57:39] Speaker C: Instead of the gold graph they just show his heart rate graph. [00:57:42] Speaker B: Yep. But BDS does take it. Bickle, you're the only one that believed in them in predictions so congrats on that. The rest of us were baited into the KC faith but it was still close and I still think that KC put up a great fight. Which means that it's time to eulogize them actually because we're gonna move on with the rest of playoffs. This is the last time we will mention KC for the year. They are not in these season finals and I gotta say it's disappointing because of how good they looked at the end on the way out. KC at the beginning of the year was not the casey we saw at the end. This is a team that deserved a spot in the season finals based on their summer split performance. But that is not how positions are filled due to the format you needed to get top three. And yeah, they were so close but they just did so poorly earlier. Props though, to the players. I think that Vladi really leveled up throughout the year. I think he should win like some kind of most improved award. Khanna got on the same page as everybody cause he was the big change and it was like how are he and closer gonna fit together? Khan at the beginning of summer felt like he was playing solo queue. Khanna by the end was playing with the team and it felt like they had clear objectives. One of the strongest, biggest strengths of KC in that last series was their ability to link up as five and have a game plan for how they're gonna set a up the fight and how they're going to approach a scenario and I think that they actually did that better than BDS in the big impactful moments. But BDS in the early game were just usually on objectives first. But Casey did a great job of playing the map and playing for picks overall. So shout out to Khanna. I still think upset had some really good performances. He had some really rough performances. But if he can get more consistent and follow up on closer and Kana's engages as well as Targumas, I think things can really work out for this team if they keep the same roster going into the next year. We'll see what happens though. Mongoose. [00:59:42] Speaker C: I really do hope that they keep their roster going in the next year because I would have liked to have seen a full year of this roster. I think it was really unfortunate that it kind of, like, only happened towards the later part of the year because they did a lot of the changes. They changed chop, they changed jungle, and they changed mid. So it's just like they had this huge overhaul, which I guess is like, what the format really is trying to encourage. But I think it's just. It was a little too little too late, and it was just a little unfortunate to see because of how much the earlier see or earlier splits did matter for their placement. [01:00:23] Speaker D: I think overall, I don't believe we're going to see the same roster, at least in terms of ad carry. Because callist, their ad carry in the LFL, is about to turn 18, and he's been the person they've wanted to bring up this entire time, but have been able to due to age restrictions. So Kalista is finally Lec eligible come January. [01:00:44] Speaker B: Well, I think if you are going to change, somebody upset could be that choice. I think Targamis maybe could be on the block as well. And based on that last series performance, closer to. I mean, closer had some cool plays. Like, that Viego game was awesome, but he also died 23 times, the most of any player in that series. And yeah, sometimes when closer sees the angle, it's not the angle, so. Okay, cool. Well, we'll keep our eyes on KC roster rumors in the offseason once we start getting news about that. But that's a lot of something. We need to talk about them because bds advanced to face off against g two in the lower bracket finals. Bickle, we all thought g two three owes this. They didn't three o this. How'd the series look? [01:01:31] Speaker D: Did not, in fact, three o this. They ₩3 it, which is no surprise. But what is a surprise is the way they did it. And we will be talking about this not only this series, but next series. Because g two, game one, they come out with a two k gold lead, but end up not able to capitalize on that. And unfortunately for them, taken away the loss in the end. Game two, three and game four, they drop to seven and a half. K gold lead for bds. 4k gold lead for bds. Six k gold lead for bds. G two wins all of those games. [01:02:14] Speaker B: It is absurd. [01:02:16] Speaker C: G two is just preparing for international when they'll have to make huge comebacks in the late game. [01:02:22] Speaker B: True. [01:02:25] Speaker A: Oh, my God. [01:02:25] Speaker B: The final. [01:02:26] Speaker A: I can we, like, group the last two series into each other because both of them were so heinous like as I'm gonna say. [01:02:34] Speaker B: I'm gonna say let's do it after we at least talk about maybe pauses from BDS got the first game wave because, yes, the series are weirdly similar. [01:02:43] Speaker A: For the first game and a half of that series, BDS was like the best team in the world. And then also for, like, part of game three, but then g two did the g two stuff. Like, that's. That's kind of how it went. [01:03:01] Speaker B: They can't keep getting away with us. [01:03:03] Speaker A: In fact, they could. [01:03:05] Speaker C: They won't if when worlds rolls around, game match up against TL, they are. [01:03:12] Speaker B: At worlds, but they have to play through season finals. So we'll see how they look there. If any of the other teams have been able to figure out how to not throw late game to g two, how to not just lose one person and then stick around like idiots while the rest of g two collapse on you and chase you down and then kill you one by one every 10 seconds, and then your deaths are staggered, so they just clear the entire map. Every freaking game is the same way for g two, man. They just get that one pick, and it snowballs into the game. Win. It's crazy. [01:03:41] Speaker D: In game number one for BDS, nuke on the lucian looks absolutely phenomenal. He's dunking on caps as quirky. Dunking on most of g two, they're like, okay, nuke's on form. He's looking really solid. He's gonna be solid throughout the rest of the series. And then game two happens, and from then on, he just doesn't show up. Like, the difference between game one nuke and rest of series nuke is night and day. [01:04:07] Speaker A: I mean, honestly, like, I feel like even in game one, he kind of was not the biggest proponent of their win. Like, he played fine. I think he did his job. He had the sick triple kill, like, to kind of end the game. But I really do think Nuke was already one of the weak links of the team. But the whole team played so well. It was fine. Like, ice was on fire. They were cooking. But then in game sort of 2.5 onward, it really became an apparent issue. And honestly, maybe credit to g two for sort of adapting themselves to play around caps more when Caps is basically like, yeah, I'm better than this guy. [01:04:50] Speaker D: Also, if anybody wants a specific moment to watch in this series, go watch game four in particular. Adam picks up a pentakill on the Cassante, and it ends up not mattering. [01:05:03] Speaker A: It was a four v five pentagill, by the way. Um, I'm if I remember that moment, I'm gonna get upset. It was like the most cassante bullshit you've ever seen. [01:05:13] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. And then late game. It just doesn't matter because broken blade is scaled on the Doctor mundo and just basically two shots ice on the jinx. [01:05:23] Speaker A: Real champ right now. Doctor Mundo's like, good, good. [01:05:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Which is something. Yeah, yeah. So it's funny that we got an impression both. [01:05:32] Speaker C: I do really like it as an answer into the Renekton too, because a lot of times you'll pair Renekton with something that can really punish just the w. And it did die solo to. [01:05:42] Speaker B: Connor in the previous. [01:05:46] Speaker A: Warmogs. And then you're completely winning against. [01:05:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like Warmog's heart steal second. [01:05:52] Speaker A: I looked this up because someone in tier three played the mundo into the Renekton and solo queue. It has a 50, 58% win rate. Like, it's crazy. Yeah. Like Mundo is a really good pick into Renekton and interesting. [01:06:04] Speaker D: For the first time this weekend, but not the last time this weekend, we have to say g two has to give a big thank you to the enemy ad carry in the final game of the series because in this game deciding series deciding elder Dragon fight Ice just wasn't with it first off. While the rest of his team is trying to fight, yet tries to start the elder on his own, then flashes into the middle of g two and just. He's the man with the gold lead and it doesn't do anything with it. It's sad to see, but in all honesty, nobody's going to be talking about it because the next series in ad carry does it even worse. [01:06:46] Speaker B: Yeah, we had some big chokes this weekend. I'm happy you bring that bridge up because let's go to the finals. Bds are out, but they will be in season finals, so we don't need to utilize them. Right. Anything. We'll talk about them again in a. In a week or two here. But the finals between fanatic small things for BDS. Yeah. [01:07:07] Speaker D: Winter, spring and summer, all third place finishes. [01:07:11] Speaker C: Hey, consistency, consistency. [01:07:15] Speaker B: Place in season finals. [01:07:18] Speaker C: No, it's going to be gX. [01:07:21] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Hey. Yeah. They got a g at the start of their name. They have to make worlds. [01:07:25] Speaker C: Yeah, they got them. They got to make it. [01:07:26] Speaker B: All right, g two versus fnatic. The rematch. Fnatic did it. They ended the 847 day lose streak against g two. They're the big boss in the end of summer finals. And what happens in matches between Fnatic and g two when it matters compared to when it doesn't. G two. Somehow, someway smack fanatic 30. But it's not a smack, dude. [01:07:55] Speaker A: Like, it's ah. [01:07:57] Speaker B: This series infuriates you to watch. If you haven't seen this series, you're gonna king probably a lot of flame from us. [01:08:03] Speaker A: I am a fanatic fan. I wanted to like, do terrible self harm. Yeah, series. [01:08:12] Speaker C: I'm also a fanatic fan. I put all my fanatic merch back in my closet, which I do do not go into for anybody that heard me say it will live there until worlds. [01:08:23] Speaker D: Anyone that heard me say during the BDS series, like, wow, g two came back from a lot of gold deficits. You ain't seen nothing yet. [01:08:31] Speaker B: What was it? Yeah, in the BDS one, it was like around five k each time. Talks about the gold deficits in the series against Fnatic. [01:08:39] Speaker D: Game one, five k. So about the same thing in the BDS series. Game two, six k. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's pretty good. Game three is nine k in like 9000 gold. [01:08:56] Speaker A: It's not even about the size of the throws. Like, BDS at least had the decency to give us, like, good honest throws. Like, guys, let's all get killed in front of Baron. Oh, fuck. We lost the game, right? Fnatic though, like, just completely lost the plot. [01:09:13] Speaker B: In every game, the dominoes falling. Like, every time it's just one domino, domino falls and then everything escapes. [01:09:19] Speaker A: It wasn't some game one. Maybe it was like a big mistake and then it all went away. But game two and three, it was like not one big mistake, but like one small mistake into another slightly larger mistake into another. Another slightly larger mistake into ups. We lost the game. And that was what made it so infuriating to watch. I just couldn't believe how, like, slowly they imploded across the games. Like, in game three, you could see it. It was like a car crash in slow motion. Because instead of trying to open up the map, they're just chasing kills all over the place and dying. I'm like, oh, my God, it was terrible. [01:09:54] Speaker D: Game two, when they pick caps, go towards the baron and start it up. Yike. Has no flash on brand. There's no blast cone for him to get into the pit. So okay, just finish off the baron, then go from there. They all go over the pit. Oscar dies to the bran burn while in the pit. And they get aced in a four v five. [01:10:21] Speaker B: Yep. It was absolutely ridiculous and frankly, a little embarrassing for the fnatic. Extremely consistently get these leads and then just throw them over and over and over again. I do want to give some props to g two and one player in particular who I think was 100% robbed of series MVP. That's han sama. Han sama deserved that series. Oh, no, bro. [01:10:51] Speaker A: Got blasted in lane three games in a row. [01:10:54] Speaker B: In lane. But you watch his ezreal compared to Noah's ezreal night and day, dude. Han sama is doing so much damage even when he's behind in game three. [01:11:06] Speaker C: A single kai'sa w won them the game. [01:11:08] Speaker A: Yeah, that. Yeah, I mean, terrible recall location, but that was a really nice play, hans. [01:11:13] Speaker C: Yeah, there's just like, that play alone. Just the whole gold lead. You see it just, like, start sliding back in GG's favor because it's like they get the pick onto Noah, and then they go and do the Baron, and then after that, they just get so much gold back from it. And it was just so, so sad to see because everyone on fanatic recalls except for Noah and June, because, like, and then Noah just gets hit by a random kai'sa w. Before that play. [01:11:37] Speaker A: Too, they fnatic had, like, started to mildly throw, but then they, like, righted the ship. Like they had a really nice play. Bot Lane took the tier two, like, okay, we're back. We're still up, like a million gold, right? We're fine. And, yeah, that one really turned things around. It was. It was a good play by Hans, for sure. [01:11:57] Speaker D: Mickey also had a bit of a Mickey series. He had 23 deaths over the three games. [01:12:04] Speaker B: His game, games and game one. [01:12:11] Speaker D: Okay, not much is going on. He's playing the poppy game two to start the game. He dies in Lane against Noah's Ezreal. And that gives Hans, obviously, a disadvantage. Lane, game three again against in Ezreal as a nautilus. Now he and Hans die early in Lane and give Noah a free double kill. [01:12:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm going to say it. The lanes went bad. It was not Hans fault. Game three was maybe a little bit of shared, but Mickey was kind of running it down and giving a lot of those kills over. So I still think the Hans had a fantastic series overall and was the reason that they were able to stay in those games and get back. [01:12:51] Speaker C: I think game three, the bot lane stuff was both of their fault, because it's the exact same thing that happens in game two. And the fact that they both are just still up there wanting to fight it, it's just, just like, shouldn't ever happen. [01:13:05] Speaker D: Does anybody know the last time fnatic beat g two in a finals. [01:13:10] Speaker A: Must have been 2018, right? 2018? [01:13:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:13:14] Speaker D: Spring of 2018. [01:13:16] Speaker A: Wait, spring? [01:13:16] Speaker D: 23 days. Wow is how long it has been. [01:13:23] Speaker A: Sorry, I know this isn't the point. Who the hell did they beat in summer 2018? [01:13:27] Speaker D: I want to say it was vitality maybe. [01:13:31] Speaker A: Oh, they were the second seed for. [01:13:32] Speaker D: Europe at world because g two was the third seed at war. [01:13:35] Speaker A: Okay, maybe. Yeah, sorry, I know that wasn't the point at all. That's a crazy long time ago. I just for some reason assumed that fnatic beat g two both times. But yeah, that was the series too. That reckless had like two penta kills on sivir. [01:13:47] Speaker D: Oh, I'm sorry. It was actually shulke. [01:13:50] Speaker B: Oh, I do remember. [01:13:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:13:53] Speaker B: Okay, well, we got our history lesson out of the way. It's been a long time since fnatic has beaten g two. When it matters, the upper bracket series was awesome. We loved talking about that one last week. This series. It sucks. It honestly sucks. It was fun each game up until fnatic through. Because each time it was exciting. Each time it was like, fnatic are doing it. They're actually just better than g two. They could do this. What is happening? No, why? Ah. And then three. So I can't even recommend like, going and watching this series. It was actually such a weird way for g two to win another title. And the celebration after felt so lackluster. I mean, like, they try their best as a production to make it exciting. There's like, oh, g two one again. But I guess the impact really cool thing that did happen is this is the first time in three or I guess in now two years having this format, same team wonde three splits. Kind of crazy. G two has won five of the six that you could. [01:14:53] Speaker D: They now have a shield for every player because they won two last year and three this year. [01:14:58] Speaker B: Yep. [01:14:59] Speaker D: And minor. Crazy stat when g ₩2. Game three. Fnatic still had their tier one mid lane turret. [01:15:12] Speaker B: That's why didn't either. Yeah, if you just need the late game, win the late game, fight the late game, pick the late game. Snowball or not snowball, domino fall and g two are your Lec summer split champions. [01:15:28] Speaker C: I will say, if you're a fanatic fan and you want to feel something, watch this series. [01:15:33] Speaker D: Whoa. You're. [01:15:34] Speaker B: If you're feeling something. [01:15:36] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:15:37] Speaker B: You'll feel again excited for like 1520 minutes. [01:15:41] Speaker C: You'll be excited and then it'll be met with just. Just crushing defeat. [01:15:46] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a good point. You know, if you just feel numb and you want to feel something. [01:15:50] Speaker C: If you need some ups and downs in your life, this is the way to go. [01:15:54] Speaker B: True, but that's it for Lec for the summer. Then we have the season finals in two weeks, which will get a team qualified or get all the teams from the region qualified for world. So we have more competition. But that's it for the regular season and for the splits themselves. The format's very different, but we are expecting this to maybe be the new norm for formats going forward. With the third international event already announced for riot next year, all regions will be adopting a three split format, presumably to accommodate that. I don't know if that's official or it's been like said by riot, but that's just everything I'm hearing is like, yeah, that's just happening. So. [01:16:29] Speaker D: So, Mongoose, we're not going to talk about your early lec prediction, right? That happened before. [01:16:36] Speaker C: What LEC prediction? I wasn't here for that wasn't me. [01:16:39] Speaker D: You totally didn't call it. K Corp would go to worlds as Lec's first seed. [01:16:44] Speaker B: I was. [01:16:44] Speaker C: So I was gonna say, in my prediction, I was gonna say K Corp does not end the year with the same roster they start with. I thought they were gonna completely flip it and just get like a bunch of insane players. And then I was just like, you know what? Fuck it. Just send it. Just be like, all the new players are gonna be LEc first. [01:17:04] Speaker A: That's rough. [01:17:05] Speaker D: Fair enough. [01:17:07] Speaker B: Okay, cool. Well, that is the LEC summer split reaction to the playoffs. They're going to have their season finals in two weeks where the top six LEc teams will continue on. I don't have that up in front of me. Does anybody have that? Otherwise I can grab that in a. [01:17:24] Speaker D: We have. So upper bracket is top four teams. That will be g two versus mad lions and fnatic versus bds. [01:17:32] Speaker B: To start. [01:17:33] Speaker D: Start off, SK and Gx are waiting in the lower bracket. They will face the losers of the first round. I believe SK will get the lower ranked of the two teams. GX will get the higher ranked. So assuming g two wins, it'll be SK versus Mad Gx versus the loser of fnatic bds for g two versus mad and fnatic versus bds. You win that series, you qualify for world. Actually, pause that. Because if G two lose that, it's not the case because they've already locked one of the series, so it makes it a bit finicky. Basically, if g two wins, whoever wins between fnatic and BDS locks worlds. [01:18:15] Speaker B: Okay, thank you for that update, Bickle. And thank you everybody at home for listening along. That's another episode in the books. All the reactions Lec and lcs are done. So that means how many stars should people get? Give us if they enjoyed the content for this episode. [01:18:33] Speaker A: A fat five. As a parent, I learned with the hat. Yeah. A really thick fat five. [01:18:39] Speaker B: Thick and juicy and rotund and girthy five. Voluptuous across the board voluptuous fives for this incredible episode. And maybe knock one off for this outro will understand. Thanks so much for listening though. Everybody reminded to join the community discord if you have not and you want to hop in, get to know the community and talk more league of legends with people across the globe. And also reminder, we have the patreon if you want to support as well as our new shop, if you want to get a mug, I'm getting the mug, man. I need that mug. That mug is as good as mine. But thank you so much for listening, everybody. We love you and we'll see you next time. [01:19:20] Speaker D: Bye bye, peace. [01:19:24] Speaker B: Oh, I don't have my soundboard. The volume's down. Let's do that again. Say bye again one more time. [01:19:29] Speaker C: Bye bye, peace.