League Rundown - Episode 524: The rodents are taking over, playing for second place.

[00:00:31] Speaker A: At the table with Messiah tanking it up. I do not believe he just leaves. [00:00:42] Speaker B: I cannot understand this game. [00:00:46] Speaker C: Unicorns of love. It was the nexus. [00:01:06] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the league rundown, episode 524. I totally didn't have to look at the dog because I couldn't remember which one it was. I'm your host for the evening. Quid badgering me. I'm back for a one night. A one night stand, one vase, given the work schedule. And this episode is lovingly entitled, the rodents are taking over, and everybody is playing for second place. I am joined by two esteemed co hosts. I have my fellow rodent in crime, mongoose. What's up? [00:01:45] Speaker C: How you doing? How you doing, rodent? Mongoose is rodent. [00:01:49] Speaker A: The rodents are. The rats are taking over the city, or whatever that Taylor Swift quote was. And then, of course, it's Bickle. [00:01:57] Speaker B: Who are you and what have you done with kangas? [00:02:01] Speaker A: I got hair. That's what happened. [00:02:03] Speaker B: Ah, that explains. [00:02:04] Speaker A: It's kangas with hair. It's fine. So kind of a little bit more low key of an episode. People are on vacation. There's. Mazelle's looking at a house. I don't know. It's just been fun trying to schedule and coordinate what's going on with everything that's going with IRL stuff, so. But this is also more low key of a week. Just some LCD LCS series to go over. Figure we have the three eastern region guys. We might as well talk a little Lpl lck shop. At this point, we. [00:02:39] Speaker B: We can't say that anymore. Mizzelle's on this podcast. [00:02:43] Speaker C: Oh, shit. [00:02:44] Speaker A: You're right. [00:02:44] Speaker C: I forgot that he might be a little bit of a bigger eastern guy. [00:02:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right. Mazelle is a little bit bigger of an eastern guy. But originally, the original guys that were the east, we were going to do the eastern podcast, but then that never actually went off the rails. So. Riot News LPL will start there. Just because their playoffs start on Saturday. The gauntlet is back. We have escaped the nine team 18 group fiasco. Shenanigans, whatever you want to call it, with the original stages of it. There's the play in matches to determine the last teams for playoffs. To nobody's surprise, the teams that came from Group A beat the teams that came from Group B because Group A was superior to Group B by far. So LGBT takes down Ig, 32, nip and TT sweep Ra and OMG, respectively. So I'm going to try my best to explain this in an audio format. So there's the top side and the bottom side of the bracket. The top side of the bracket is LGD versus nip in the first round. The winner of that plays JDG in the second round. The winner of JDG in the first round, team plays Weibo and the third round. And the winner of that plays blg in the first round of the double elim bracket stage. Does that make sense? No, it doesn't. You're right. [00:04:27] Speaker C: Just go. Just go look at it. [00:04:29] Speaker A: Just go, please. [00:04:30] Speaker C: It's impossible to explain it. [00:04:32] Speaker A: Just go look at leakpedia. It just. It's just way easier to do it that way. [00:04:36] Speaker C: It is a visual playoff. It is not an audio friendly playoff. [00:04:41] Speaker A: It's not an audio one. So. And on the bottom side of the bracket, it's FPX and Thunder talk in the first round. Winner of that plays anyone's legend, a name that I was jokingly saying was going to become TSM at the end of this year because they were just going to crater. And of course, what better team for TSM to buy than the 17th place LPL team? Boy, was I wrong when I said that. So FPX plays TT in the first round, winner of that plays anyone's legend, to which any. The winner of that plays tab Esports in round three. And of course, the winner of that plays LgD or LNG in the first round of double elim, BlG and LNG. [00:05:30] Speaker B: Locked into the double round. Well, the double Elim bracket, bye. Finishing top two in the group stage summer season, whatever you want to call. [00:05:42] Speaker A: It, basically summer super slam group stage, whatever you want to. [00:05:47] Speaker B: They were the top two group ascend. They locked themselves into the double Elim bracket and have two lives and a better chance to make worlds. [00:05:56] Speaker A: What's crazy to think about in this situation is it really is just group a versus. It's just the playoffs of group A. And then like Thunder talk from group B because, you know, that's where we're at at this point because they couldn't. [00:06:16] Speaker B: Have a full playoffs of group a because they only had nine teams and you need for playoffs. [00:06:21] Speaker A: So they're like, what's the best, what's the best group B team that we can throw in with the rest of these teams? So, yeah, kind of wild to think that ruler versus Xiaohu is going to be the. Hey, congratulations. One of you guys is going to have to play in regional qualifiers to potentially make it. Like one of them is going to get eliminated before double elm stage it's just wild how stacked some of the teams are over there. When you take a look at the bracket and it's like, oh, okay. Like, what do you mean? You, you might get rookie versus ruler in round two. Like, it's. The storylines are wild over there. So that's LPL. The first matches are Saturday morning at the six Eastern, 06:00 a.m. eastern, 03:00 a.m. pacific. They play Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, day off. Then it's Thursday Friday for round three. Just, just go look at the schedule. I can, I can explain it, but playoffs are gonna basically go for LPL for the next three weeks. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's very hard to explain out loud. Please, for the love of God, if you're interested in it, just go take a look at the page of so. And then we're going to shift over to the other, the other eastern region that we'll cover right now. I would love to talk PCs with mongoose, but we were talking about it in the pre show. Patreon. If you're a Patreon subscriber, please go listen to the pre show because we talk about how wild the bastardized version of the PCs playoff system is at this point of all of the regions being intermelded once in one super region that is just, you know, PCs and the teams formerly known of the LJL just kind of running the show and VC's and LCo just appearing. What's up? [00:08:36] Speaker C: Yeah, if you want to go watch minor region worlds, go watch PCs playoffs. Basically, it's basically just like the best teams outside of VC's. [00:08:46] Speaker B: So, hey, VC's still has their playoffs for now. You get to watch Vikings take on team whales. [00:08:54] Speaker A: Vikings take on team whales. [00:08:55] Speaker C: Are they officially back the VC's? [00:08:58] Speaker B: They're back from their hiatus, yes, they. [00:09:01] Speaker A: Are back with all of the players that have been permanently banned and suspended, I think so. [00:09:06] Speaker C: Well, that, but they also were like in a national mourning period, so they were. [00:09:11] Speaker A: Oh, that's right, I forgot. [00:09:12] Speaker B: They got four capacities left. We got Vikings, Team Wales, gam esports and team secret, aka all the teams we always see anyways, all the teams. [00:09:22] Speaker A: You expect to be there. So. Yeah, so that's, that's your other eastern region playoff updates. Let's move over to LZK Real fast where Gen G is currently sitting at a 15 series score. They are 31 in games for the split. That's, that's wild. That is fucking wild. They have dropped one map in summer. Who do they lose to? Was it. [00:10:01] Speaker C: It was DK. [00:10:02] Speaker A: DK? [00:10:03] Speaker C: Yeah. They dropped a game to DK and DK was in Lee in charge of that third game. And then they came back and won it. Yeah. So they're. They're getting close to losing, but they just pull it out in team fights because that's. [00:10:16] Speaker B: They're just. [00:10:17] Speaker C: They're just better than everyone right now. [00:10:19] Speaker A: They're just so much better. That team is so fun to watch. It. [00:10:24] Speaker C: It feels like one of the best super teams that we've had in a while outside of, like, pace being there. But pace is such an incredible player for how young he is. [00:10:33] Speaker A: Oh, Pais is. Pais is developing really well in his second season. [00:10:37] Speaker B: Yep. [00:10:37] Speaker C: And some games he looks like their best player. So. [00:10:43] Speaker A: Keen. Chovy Canyon and Lahens. Pace sometimes looks like the best player, but. So Gen G is locked first. They're locked worlds because they made playoffs. Hanwha is in second place right now at eleven three in the. In the prime, the driver's seat to actually get the second. Bye. The artists formerly known as Damwon Kia are in third right now at a nine and five series score with a plus seven on their games. T one, eight and six plus three. Fear X at seven and seven right now. But they also play dam one in like 9 hours from when we're recording this. So that's going to drop to. From seven and seven to seven and eight, most likely, and put them at a negative five, which would put KT Rolster back in the playoffs because they're both tied. KT Rolster and Kwong dong are both tied at seven and eight right now. Kwang dong with a plus one and a win over KT Rolster just 24 hours less than 24 hours ago. And Casey Rolster at a minus three with a nongshim Red Force dRx. And. Okay, bro. Bringing up the rear with the latter two of those three teams already being eliminated. But Nong shim's going to be pretty much eliminated after tonight. [00:12:10] Speaker B: The last time Gen G lost a series in either the LCK or an international or MSI was February. Yeah, February 14 they lost to KT two o. They haven't dropped the series in the LCK or at MSI since then. [00:12:29] Speaker A: Which is the most Casey rolls or thing that they're like sitting at 500 for the year, but they're the last team to be Gen G. And who knows, they might be the last team to be Gen G for the rest of the year. I'm not saying anything but golden Road still on the table. [00:12:46] Speaker B: Actually they have a chance to beat them again. They haven't played their second round robin game. [00:12:51] Speaker A: That's right. They play them in. They play them in a couple. They come in a couple of days. Forgot. [00:12:55] Speaker B: Still has to play Nong Shim KT and the big one. They have to play Hanwha life still. [00:13:00] Speaker A: Yeah, Hanwha Genji is definitely going to be a match to watch because those are definitely the two best teams in Korea right now, which is great because it's good to see Viper actually have a chance this time around. [00:13:12] Speaker B: It is also the last game of the regular season. [00:13:15] Speaker A: It is the very last game of the regular season. And then playoffs will start. The typical format, three plays that shoot their their choice of five and six, four plays the other. And then that feeds into one and two choosing their opponents for that. So that's your LCK update. Uh, moving over because we're just speed running this episode. Um, rundown discord. Pickums. I don't think pick up pickums and fantasy. They're gone. But hey, we're about to start using that wonderful world's channel again. It's going to get unlocked in the coming weeks once we start to figure out more teams that are entering into that cycle. I guess it's actually open right now. Probably world. [00:14:01] Speaker C: We never closed it since. [00:14:04] Speaker A: Just kidding. It's been sitting there this entire time. I totally knew that. I definitely thought it was still. I thought it was still locked, but I guess I'm wrong. [00:14:13] Speaker B: Tell us how long it's been since you've been around badger. Really? [00:14:16] Speaker A: It's been a while. It's been a while. Those, those, those ten, those 10:00 p.m. recording times into immediately having to wake up at 03:00 a.m. for work. Just wouldn't work out for me. So, yikes, here we are. I'm off work tomorrow so I can host an episode. Patreon. You guys rock. The merch is out. League dash. League dash rundown dash. Shop dot fourthwall.com I really, I showed my. So I showed my wife and the. The fish fear the fish want me. The rundown fears me. Hat is something that I might have to purchase at some point just because she really likes that one. I think that's her favorite piece in the entire drop that we have. [00:15:01] Speaker C: And Sam ended up getting some of the merch and he says the quality on it is really high. So. And it's. I think it's originally like a UK brand. [00:15:13] Speaker B: So if you're originated in the UK. [00:15:15] Speaker C: Yeah. You'll get it a lot faster in Europe. [00:15:18] Speaker A: You'll get it. [00:15:19] Speaker C: We don't know what shipping is like to the US, but you'll even get. [00:15:23] Speaker B: Our logo on the package. [00:15:25] Speaker A: Yes. He posted a picture of the box in the discord and it actually has the logo on it. [00:15:32] Speaker C: So you can cut it out and frame it and put it on your desk. [00:15:35] Speaker A: Yeah, you have a. You have the logo that you can put on your PC that's just free merch. It's just. It's free real estate. So. All right, Lec, what is it? What are they called? Season finals. [00:15:50] Speaker B: Season finals. [00:15:52] Speaker A: God fucking, I hate these form. I hate the LCs and Lec formats. I swear, Korea still has the only good format. Changed my mind. So we are entering into the home stretch for these leagues. LC or LPL? Playoffs is coming up. LCK is winding down. Le LCs is in the last week, but Lec starts their three week long trudge through the season finals. And what a better way to start it off than best of fives in the upper bracket between G two and Mad Lions and then fnatic and bds. [00:16:33] Speaker B: I hate to tell you this, it's four weeks, not three weeks, it's four. [00:16:38] Speaker A: No, finals are on the Fir. Nevermind. I. Okay, okay. So. Just kidding. LEC finals. Season finals take an entire month. Excellent. Okay. Just kidding. So for the next four weekends, you'll have european league of Legends to watch. [00:17:05] Speaker B: Yeah, theoretically. Because we still don't know what time some of these games occur at. [00:17:10] Speaker A: Yeah, they, the four, there's dvd's, tv, ds all over the place. They don't even have technically, like if you look at the league PDF page or the wiki, they don't even have SK and giant x slotted in because they just don't know where they go in the bracket there. I mean, those are the other teams. So it's GT fanatic bds, Matt Lyons, coy as your top four. And the upper bracket, one place four, two place three, standard format. And then SK plays the lower seed of the round one losers and giant x plays the higher seed of the round one losers. [00:17:53] Speaker B: I think. [00:17:54] Speaker A: Yes. Right. That's the only way that it would make sense. [00:18:01] Speaker B: Yeah, that sounds right. [00:18:03] Speaker A: It sounds right. Let's. [00:18:05] Speaker C: Yeah, that's right. That's right. [00:18:06] Speaker A: Wrong. If we're wrong, just tell. Tell. [00:18:12] Speaker B: Yeah, tell daf we'll tell you next week because the lower bracket doesn't matter until next week. [00:18:18] Speaker A: Yeah, lower bracket doesn't actually play next week. Upper bracket plays this week. So we just have two best of fives. We have gamers as well, taking on murder, death, kill, or whatever the acronym we chose for them at the beginning of the season was, and then fnatic versus the BDS boys. And so, uh, predictions across the board, pretty straightforward. So mongoose has. This is a 30 for fnatic. So let's just do fnatic BDS real fast. Mongoose has 30 for fnatic. I have three, one for fnatic. Bickel has three, two for fnatic. So we're all in the fnatic camp in this situation, but just to varying degrees of confidence of how quickly they could close out a series game wise. So I'll just throw it out there. You guys have any thoughts? Cause I think this is just gentleman sweep. Nothing really too inspiring from any team in europe except g two and fnatic when they actually decide that they want to show up and play league of Legends. [00:19:27] Speaker B: Europe right now feels like a flow chart, which is. Is your name g two? If yes, congratulations, you win. If not, is your name fanatic? If play g two, lose. If not, win. Fanatics not playing g two, therefore they win. [00:19:44] Speaker C: I also think after that super disappointing loss to g two, cazu, I mean, they were in charge for two out of those three games that they did end up losing for three games. Yeah, I mean, the first game was kind of close ish. I guess they still had a five k gold fleet. Close ish. [00:20:03] Speaker A: Fnatic. Fnatic had the peak definition of up until they lose the game they're winning. And we haven't seen that in a while. And they did it over a three game. They did it for three games and a best of five. [00:20:19] Speaker C: So I think, like, their early game is going to be better than pretty much every other team in Europe right now. And they've had enough time to actually have some coaching and understand how to close out games a little bit better, because the way that they were playing the mid to late game was really not great in terms of understanding their win conditions and understanding what they need to do to be able to get the objectives off the map. So I think with the few weeks that they've had off, those will be hopefully fixed. So a lot of the teams that aren't g two, they should just bulldoze over, which is why I have three o. [00:20:56] Speaker A: I have three one, because I just think that there's going to still be potential errors that come with it. Ice could have a pop up game. Adam could have that one game where he just pulls out Garen or Cassandra or not Cassandra, Darius or something like that. One of his signature Adam picks and has a 3000 gold lead at 14 minutes and just runs the map. [00:21:21] Speaker B: That's pretty dead on as to why I have a three two. I think fnatic's the better team, but I give bds one game because I think they have players that can pop off and carry and I give them a second game because I think fnatic has a tendency to int and throw away leads. [00:21:36] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [00:21:37] Speaker C: Fanatics won't do it again. They're not gonna throw another game. [00:21:41] Speaker A: Surely they won't throw games. So that's. That's our fanatic bds just kind of breezing through it real fast. Getting quicker episode out for you guys this weekend because really there's not too much to break down Lec wise, especially in the other series, which is gamers as well, versus mad Lions koi to which all of us have g two winning 30 because g two just wins these. [00:22:15] Speaker C: I could see g two dropping a game, but it's because they're going to play some shit like draven mid and caps is just going to roll. And just like, go o seven caps. [00:22:23] Speaker A: Has seen insanity play static shiv, rapid fire jin mid lane. And it's just like, I want to try that. Dylan. [00:22:31] Speaker C: He also searched dylan. [00:22:33] Speaker A: We had to play gin here. [00:22:35] Speaker B: The only reason MDK is even in the upper bracket is because they managed to fluke their way to a second place finish in summer. I mean, in winter. Ever since then, they've been a subpar team. And it's the only reason they're in this upper bracket. They're going to get demolished. [00:22:51] Speaker C: Yeah, it's going to be just quick. [00:22:53] Speaker A: These should be quick because I. I'm pretty. We were talking about this earlier. Lec and lcs don't do the fourth seeds battle for the atlantic thing, for worlds, right? It's just three teams from each region. So basically, we know the three teams that from each region, that should make it at this point, right? Like on this side, it's g two fanatic bds. Unless a minor miracle happens with one of the lower teams. And then when we get to lcs, it's C nine or NTLC nine and flyquest. [00:23:32] Speaker B: Something to note with the fact g two is already locked worlds. We are all saying they win against MDK. If they do beat MDK, that means the winner of fnatic versus BDS has also locked worlds. [00:23:47] Speaker A: And then. So then that's the two teams that pretty much can get determined this week. I haven't looked at the LCS format after this week, but I have a feeling can't. [00:23:59] Speaker B: Can't walk until playoffs actually begin. [00:24:01] Speaker C: Yeah. You have to win a best of five in lcs to make worlds. [00:24:05] Speaker A: Okay. [00:24:06] Speaker C: Which I like. I like that. [00:24:08] Speaker A: I like that. I appreciate the fact that it's not. Oh, these are. These teams are already locked. Like, yeah, I mean, I could understand, like, g ₩2.03 splits and Gen G, one MSI, and they're making playoffs. But, like, at least let there be a little bit of, like, mystery behind it, because, like, I mean, I have a feeling I could predict, like, at least, like, out of LPL, LCK, LA, LC, or LEC, and lcs. I could probably pick eleven of the 14 teams that are making worlds right now out of those regions. [00:24:39] Speaker B: It's just I feel like the only region with any sort of mystery is. [00:24:44] Speaker A: The LPL, for sure. [00:24:47] Speaker B: The other three regions are kind of like, okay, we know the top three for the lcs, we know the top three for the LEC, and we're pretty much set on the top four for the LCK. [00:24:55] Speaker A: LCK has a pretty clear cut top four. Unless. Unless fear X goes on a miracle run. [00:25:02] Speaker C: No, no. [00:25:07] Speaker B: I'd sooner bet on the Quang dong. [00:25:10] Speaker A: Quang Dong KT rolster Fear X. That's my order of confidence. And upsetting the apple cart in Korea. But. So. But, yeah. Lac playoffs start on Saturday, noon Pacific nine a, 09:00 a.m. pacific noon Eastern, 09:00 a.m. pacific time. Clearly, I know my time zones. Everything like that. It's fine. Everything's okay. We'll finish up with some lcs. Yeah. Last week, we had two zeros and weird games. And by weird, I mean actually, let's start at the top with the TLC nine series, because that's the one that I think everyone is talking about the most out of that. [00:26:13] Speaker C: So if you haven't seen the series and you want to watch a series from LCS this weekend, go watch this one. Before we say anything about it, go watch this series. [00:26:25] Speaker B: Okay. Now that you're back from watching that, I hope you only watched game number one. [00:26:29] Speaker A: I hope you watched. Yeah, I was about to say that's like, that's the only one worth watching from this entire weekend. And, like, game one is the only one that's actually, like, it's so depressed. [00:26:41] Speaker B: Game one was like, oh, my God, this is gonna be a great series. I'm so excited. And after that, it's like, oh, wait, never mind. [00:26:50] Speaker A: Wait, no. C nine, baby girl, what is you. [00:26:54] Speaker B: Doing that back and forth? Can you, can you make it happen again? [00:26:59] Speaker A: Can we go back to the back and forth, please? [00:27:02] Speaker C: And I also love how both of these teams realized that they didn't need to ban Aurora because the other one just didn't want to pick it. [00:27:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:10] Speaker C: So they just like, both teams start off banning it and then the game three, they both are like, ah, whatever. [00:27:15] Speaker B: Like, wait a second. [00:27:16] Speaker A: I don't think she did. [00:27:18] Speaker C: She was banned in almost every game except for the last game for c nine. Tl. [00:27:22] Speaker B: Yep. [00:27:23] Speaker A: Okay. [00:27:23] Speaker C: That's what I was saying, which is ridiculous to me. I feel like she should be global banned right now. But you do you. Yeah. [00:27:30] Speaker A: Imagine enabling a champion for like the last two weeks of the regular season or like, and then bread side has. [00:27:36] Speaker C: To ban it the whole time. It feels terrible. [00:27:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Although if you are listening to us relatively close, I don't know when Ian's going to put out the episode, but Quang dong freaks and KT Rolster played a role. It played Aurora and Bulldog had a masterclass on the champion because that champion is fucking stupid. [00:27:59] Speaker C: I think the ult is so fun, though. [00:28:01] Speaker A: The alt is so silly, but bounce back and forth. Aurora didn't get banned. Game three between TL and liquid or t t l and liquid. Tl and c nine. I'm really good at this. I'm so good at talking on a podcast medium about this stuff. It's fine. [00:28:19] Speaker C: You're doing great. [00:28:20] Speaker A: I'm doing fantastic. It's fine. TL bloomed big gold, leads both games. Yawn. Had a really good series. Apa just fathered Jojo the entire time. Except, you know, game one. [00:28:33] Speaker B: Don't pay attention to game one if you're an API. [00:28:35] Speaker A: Yeah, don't pay attention to game one if you're an APA guy. [00:28:39] Speaker C: I also think Mordekaiser needs to be getting picked more right now in this meta with how many ADC's there are just slam Mordekaiser and just ult the ADC's. At the very least you're going to get their flash and then you're both going to just walk away. [00:28:52] Speaker B: Honest question is impact just the MVP of the split right now? [00:28:57] Speaker A: He, to me, he is. [00:28:59] Speaker B: I think he's like the hands down choice. [00:29:01] Speaker C: He's looking pretty good even in their losses, I think he looks pretty good. [00:29:05] Speaker A: He's consistently the best player in LCS and like, again, he is. The lcs go like like, really, we talk about double if versus bureaucracy. It's impact, baby. [00:29:17] Speaker B: Like, game one was really exciting with apa kind of running it down. Game two was over. The second, eon picked up a triple kill bot lane at eight minutes, the game was literally over. And then game three, c nine had a reaper draft. [00:29:37] Speaker A: C nine, it was not good. [00:29:39] Speaker B: Gaming moment when your damage threats are Renekton, a yone, and Aleutian all ad, and you're. Most of those champs aren't going to do any damage. I think in the end, the only person who ended up doing any sort of damage was berserker. [00:30:00] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:30:01] Speaker B: Because you have five sets of plated steel caps on the enemy team. [00:30:07] Speaker C: Yeah, five sets of plated steel caps. And then both of the tankier members. [00:30:11] Speaker B: Had a randolinshe triple triforce, double randuins. [00:30:18] Speaker C: It's tough. [00:30:19] Speaker A: It's fine. [00:30:20] Speaker C: It was definitely tough out there for c nine, and I think a lot of people expected TL to be the better team. I know, like, c nine within the region itself has always looked good, but I think what we've seen from TL this year, especially at MSI, I think it should have a lot more people excited about Na's chances coming into worlds. [00:30:43] Speaker B: If you just ignore that one series they played against top esports, that never happened. [00:30:48] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that never happened. But I think. I think people should be excited for. For TL coming into worlds because I think they actually do have a playstyle that's very good into kind of the other big teams. I wouldn't say like, the top teams of the other regions, but definitely like, the three fours of the other regions. I think they're gonna give them a little bit more of a troublesome time than most people are thinking. [00:31:14] Speaker B: They have an actual chance to make quarterfinals, and not by the cheesy way. NRG made it last year by only beating european teams and north american teams. They might actually be able to do, like, what g two was doing with taking down, like, the fourth and third seeds of the LPL and the LCK. Possibly. [00:31:32] Speaker A: Yeah. So, I mean, we could briefly run through the other series real fast. Dague energy was. Was jensen. Jensen Zeri and some. Some happy gaming from Jensen. [00:31:49] Speaker C: Got way too happy someplace, though. Jensen would, like, try to, like, flash in and just get one shot. [00:31:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:56] Speaker C: And then his team was like, happy. [00:31:58] Speaker A: Gaming moments and couples airy games contracts had some happy gaming moments on the tree. [00:32:06] Speaker C: Contracts just look so bad in a lot of these games, and I don't. [00:32:09] Speaker A: Think it was his bad for him, honestly. Because, like, every lane this time last year, they were, like, peaking in summer, going towards playoffs, and eventually would be the team that makes quarterfinals for NA. And now I'm just like, there's a chance that they just don't make playoffs. [00:32:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:30] Speaker A: Their season could be over in, like four days. [00:32:34] Speaker C: I think this meta has hurt them a lot because Palo Fox doesn't seem super confident on a lot of the ad mids. And then I also just think, like, contracts is. This is not his wheelhouse right now of, like, having to switch between all these different playstyles for jungle. I think contracts plays what he does really, really well, which is kind of like the skirmishy junglers, but right now with, like, the two tanks being Sejuani Maokai, and then it's like AP champs in the jungle, I just don't think contracts is comfortable. [00:33:08] Speaker A: No, it's definitely out of comfort zone for him. So 100 thieves, immortals, I don't even. [00:33:19] Speaker B: Know what say Immortals pulled a fanatic. [00:33:22] Speaker A: Game one was. Was a game of League of Legends, avoided at all costs. And then game two is just 100 thieves taking over because, immortals, thank you for your participation. You're already eliminated. You're the only team eliminated from playoffs going into the last weekend. [00:33:42] Speaker B: With their loss as it was going o two last week, immortals eliminated themselves from playoffs. Yeah, I do want to say for hunter thieves, shout out to Tomoe, who literally stepped in with less than a week's prep and looked pretty solid. [00:33:54] Speaker A: Yeah, played well. [00:33:56] Speaker C: He, I mean, across both games, he looks pretty good. [00:33:59] Speaker A: He played really well on the zeri both games. [00:34:02] Speaker C: So I think this is also another team where the jungler is kind of struggling. I think river struggles with this meta. [00:34:10] Speaker A: River is definitely the opposite of what you want river to be playing. [00:34:14] Speaker C: His Zyra was just, he was just, like, caught out all the time, and then he's just, like, standing there, no teammates on either side, and it's just the entire group of immortals on top of him as the Zyra. [00:34:25] Speaker A: Jarvan. Unplayable. River cannot function. [00:34:29] Speaker C: True. [00:34:31] Speaker B: Don't worry, though, he had to play against our mayo, so no matter what he did, he was always going to look like the better jungler. [00:34:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I was going to say he could. He could be on. His Zyra was not that inspiring, and he still was the better jungler that game. [00:34:48] Speaker B: So the good news is we only have to see two more games of our mayo in the LCS before we never have to witness it again. [00:34:56] Speaker C: Hopefully. [00:34:57] Speaker A: Hopefully. I swear to God, if he finds another team, I'll be impressed and then fly in. Shopify rebellion. Shopify. Fake God. Fake God. Nar. Holy. Holy shit. [00:35:13] Speaker C: It's different. [00:35:14] Speaker A: It's different. He was. He was. He's insane on that champion. Is that the only champion he could play? Maybe. I don't know. Like, it's hard to tell sometimes with him. But Shopify not going to zero means that their actual stakes this weekend for matches, because if they would have lost 20 to FlyQuest, the six teams for playoffs would have been locked. [00:35:42] Speaker B: But this weekend, slightly interesting now. And for anybody wondering what not to do is Lilia watch our mayo. What to do is Lilia watch. Inspired. [00:35:53] Speaker C: Watch. [00:35:53] Speaker A: Inspired. The guy's really good on that. Champion also helps inspire is just really good. It also helps that inspired is probably one of the best, if not the best jungler in the region, too. So that makes things a little easier. [00:36:14] Speaker C: He's definitely top three two region. [00:36:16] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely top three. [00:36:19] Speaker B: So is there what all pros come out this year? Is there going to be anybody not on the c nine, fly, quest and team liquid? [00:36:28] Speaker C: I could see Sniper making it. [00:36:31] Speaker A: Sniper maybe as third team. No, I can't even say. Speak it with a straight face. Who am I kidding? [00:36:38] Speaker C: Yeah. Speak of my kid. [00:36:40] Speaker A: Jensen might get a little love over who. Quad maybe? Yeah. [00:36:50] Speaker B: I can't quad demolished him. [00:36:53] Speaker A: I know. That's the thing is. But okay, when you're top teams, the worst record of the top teams is going to be five and two. And the best record that you could possibly have on the bottom side is under 500 at three and four. None of those teams fucking deserve to have players in all pro. [00:37:13] Speaker B: We were talking about this. Dignitas currently sitting in fourth place has locked playoffs at two and four. [00:37:21] Speaker A: They are two and four. And I think their game score is what? Six and 8768? Yeah. Six and eight game score. [00:37:32] Speaker B: Yeah. To give everybody an idea, team liquid cloud nine and Flyquest have a twelve and 311. Three and eleven and five. That jumps down to six and eight. [00:37:44] Speaker A: So if so, Dignitas wins 20 against who do they play? [00:37:49] Speaker B: Gosh, they play against immortals. [00:37:52] Speaker A: Okay, so they. If they two o immortals, they will be eight and eight in games on the split. And with a three and four series. [00:38:00] Speaker B: Record, they will finish fourth place at. [00:38:04] Speaker A: 504Th place at 500. [00:38:08] Speaker B: God, this is in game score. In match score. They're still below 500. [00:38:13] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. So it's. [00:38:18] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, the top three teams are just like, I think outside of quad. I think it's pretty much like a lock across the board, honestly. [00:38:25] Speaker B: I think quads even more of a lock. I think if you drop anybody, I think it'd be dwip. [00:38:29] Speaker A: Oh, in all honesty, wippo for sniper makes a little bit of sense to me. [00:38:35] Speaker B: I don't even know if you can go sniper. [00:38:38] Speaker A: I just think I. Narrative, when you look at it, it's just, you can't jungle. [00:38:43] Speaker B: There's no chance in hell. Ad carry. [00:38:46] Speaker C: The top three is. [00:38:47] Speaker B: Yeah, ad carry. There's no chance in hell no support. [00:38:56] Speaker C: I still don't think support, it's like, there's no. The other supports are just kind of like. Yeah, they're just kind of invisible. [00:39:07] Speaker B: Yeah. I honestly think it's just gonna be the top three for everybody. [00:39:12] Speaker C: I could see, like, one other player from another team making it on there. Just so it's not like, oh, all three of the top teams had all three players on there. [00:39:20] Speaker A: But I think they'll figure out a way to get, like, a narrative going to have it so that somebody from, like, dake, if it'll. [00:39:29] Speaker C: They want to be like, oh, it was the most influential player that wasn't on a top team will kind of be the narrative. [00:39:36] Speaker B: It'll either be sniper, Jensen, Sven, even. [00:39:41] Speaker A: Though the top 380 charactersven over. Not Meech, Masu, whoever the Masu. Yeah. [00:39:53] Speaker C: I think out of, like, any of the teams, Flyquest has, like, the most that could be replaced if they really want to. But I think team Liquid and C nine are just like. They just have the best players right now. [00:40:06] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [00:40:08] Speaker B: Well, at least this weekend has three series that actually slightly matter. [00:40:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, it's going to be a battle for second. [00:40:21] Speaker B: Yep. That's actually a direct battle for a second. [00:40:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:40:25] Speaker A: So we'll get started. We'll just. We'll just do predictions real fast. Uh, NRG versus team Liquid start the weekend. We all said Liquid 20. NRG hasn't been inspiring, which. It's very important for energy to win this series somehow, because if they lose and Shopify beats 100 thieves, which is the next series, energy doesn't even make playoffs. [00:40:58] Speaker B: That is only if NRG is zero two'd and Shopify Rebellion, two o's. That puts them directly in the head. [00:41:09] Speaker A: That's right. They have to. [00:41:11] Speaker B: But here's the fun thing. That makes it a three way tie, because NRG, 100 thieves and Shopify would all be two and four. Sorry, two and five with a five and ten game score, which, let me double check. [00:41:28] Speaker C: Please, please don't let that happen. [00:41:30] Speaker A: Riot. If you're going to do best of threes, please, please, please, double round robin because this has just been. [00:41:36] Speaker B: What, you mean you don't love hearing about how Team Liquid could be the only undefeated LCS team ever after going seven. [00:41:46] Speaker A: With all, like 14 and three match, like 14 and three game score, which is still two and a half games behind the 2017 spring Immortals. If you look at it on like, the standard standings thing. Cause, yeah, that's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They won seven best of threes. That's. That clearly means they're the only undefeated team ever. You don't look at the game score that it's associated with it. [00:42:14] Speaker B: So I just checked this. If Shopify win 20 and NRG lose zero two, the three way tie there can't be broken by head to head because all of them will have beaten one team and lost the other. We'd actually end up with tiebreakers. [00:42:29] Speaker A: We've got a circle of suck. [00:42:32] Speaker C: Who would be the bottom two? [00:42:34] Speaker B: Triangle of the bottom two would be game time, right? [00:42:41] Speaker C: Yeah, it'd probably be game time. [00:42:43] Speaker B: And let's see, let's see. That would mean the bottom two teams on this. [00:42:50] Speaker A: Let's just let it happen first. [00:42:52] Speaker C: Shopify. Yeah. [00:42:54] Speaker B: Unless it's wind time, in which case things change. [00:42:56] Speaker C: It probably would be wind time. [00:42:59] Speaker B: Plus there's an entire other match we have to have in there. But who knows? [00:43:02] Speaker C: That's true. Three matches, potentially. [00:43:05] Speaker A: All right, so tl Energy, we both have tl winning 20. They're the cream of the crop of the region. They've beaten both of the other top teams at this point, and I don't think energy is struggling. Sorry asses can win a best of three against them at this point. If it was best of one, maybe they could fluke into it, but I just don't think energy has good. Rita Meta teal is a really good. It is in a really good spot right now, and they're surging going into playoffs. Anything else that you guys want to add to that series? [00:43:38] Speaker B: I think it'd be funny if NRG could stop the undefeated streak just so we don't have to hear for the next couple months about the undefeated team liquid in regular season. [00:43:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And then everyone's going to be like, gen G literally went 34 or 36 and one in match score. [00:43:58] Speaker B: Or if we get to worlds and people, like, the only two undefeated regular season teams, gen G and team liquid, like, one of these teams went 18 and out, the other went seven. [00:44:09] Speaker A: One of these teams won 18 best of threes. The other one went seven over seven weeks. Like, I cannot wait to hear that narrative get beaten into the ground overly. [00:44:20] Speaker B: They haven't even done it yet. And I'm already sick of it. [00:44:23] Speaker A: I know they haven't even done it yet. That's the important part of it. Next series, Shopify Rebellion versus 100 thieves. Bickle and I both have Shopify winning 20 for the memes. Mongoose has 100 thieves winning 20. For what reason? [00:44:42] Speaker C: Shopify so fucking bad. I mean, 100 teams with Tomoe coming in is definitely going to be better, but, I mean, shopify just is terrible. I'm sorry, but manga betting against boogie roster, how could you do that? Yeah, but I'm betting for river. I have to choose one. And river has my heart. I've. [00:45:05] Speaker A: River. River was the original. [00:45:07] Speaker B: So think about it this way. If Shopify beats 100 thieves, then there's a chance that both river and Boogie could make playoffs. [00:45:16] Speaker C: Nah, fuck boogie river. My ride or die. [00:45:20] Speaker A: River is the a one since day one. So. All right, next two series, we could blow through pretty quickly because we all have the same team winning it. Flyquest versus c nine. Open Sunday. We have c nine across the board. Bakel and myself have two. One for c nine. Mongoose has a 20 battle for second place. [00:45:45] Speaker B: And second place also ends up with a first round by. This is likely a preview of the series we are going to see in summer playoffs. [00:45:56] Speaker A: Most likely. Most likely. If I had to take a gas, probably going to be semis. [00:46:03] Speaker B: Yep. It'll be. [00:46:06] Speaker A: Wait, is LCS double? Is it double elim? [00:46:08] Speaker B: LCS is double elim. Top two seeds get a first round buy. [00:46:15] Speaker A: So this could be upper bracket semis and lower bracket finals. [00:46:21] Speaker B: Yes, it will. [00:46:22] Speaker A: It should be upper bracket semis, lower bracket finals. [00:46:24] Speaker B: I should say, in all honesty, we will see a combination of team liquid flyquest and cloud nine playing each other quite a lot in playoffs because they're just better than everybody else. These are our three worlds reps. I'll put money on it. [00:46:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it should be. These should be the three teams that are playing at finals weekend in three weeks. [00:46:48] Speaker B: If it's not, there's a very big problem. [00:46:50] Speaker A: It's a huge issue. So, yeah, I just think c nine better team Flyquest, they have. I have a lot of question marks about them. Bot Lane Berserker is a better player. I always. I'm. I. Surely thanatos will play like the thanatos we were promised at some point. Right, guys? Right. [00:47:11] Speaker B: Don't make me sad. [00:47:12] Speaker C: He's had his moments. [00:47:14] Speaker A: He's. He's also had his moments. [00:47:18] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. [00:47:21] Speaker A: So. And then last series of the weekend, the only one that does not have major seeding implications to it is dignitas versus immortals. We all have dignitas across the board. Bickle with a 20, mangas with a two one, myself with the two one immortals. Thanks for. Thanks for playing. [00:47:52] Speaker B: Maybe good news is this is likely the last time we will ever see Immortals play as an organization in the LCS. [00:48:03] Speaker C: They're gone. There's no way. There's no way riot lets them back. [00:48:07] Speaker A: If everything that's going on with how the regions are like, getting mixed together, if immortal somehow survives this. I'm not going to say another shoei but it feels like this is the, the final nail in the coffin for them. [00:48:25] Speaker B: In the past ten splits they have. [00:48:29] Speaker A: Made playoffs once and that was 18 playoffs. It wasn't even 16 playoffs. Yep. [00:48:36] Speaker B: They know they finished 5th, 6th once, they finished 8th out of ten, 10th out of ten, 7th out of ten, fifth, 6th out of ten, 10th out of ten, 9th out of ten, 9th out of ten, 10th out of ten, 8th out of eight, and then either 7th or 8th out of eight. It's absurd. They have made playoffs once. This is the best they've done as a team since spring of 21. [00:49:09] Speaker A: Remember the hoony rain over roster? [00:49:13] Speaker B: I remember Petridge Farm remembers. [00:49:16] Speaker A: Pepperidge Farm remembers Huni Raynover, polebelter, wild turtle and Adrian. [00:49:26] Speaker C: I don't know. [00:49:27] Speaker A: Ole Adrian. [00:49:29] Speaker C: I think it was Ole. [00:49:30] Speaker A: Was it Olay? I can't remember. [00:49:33] Speaker B: Ole sounds right. [00:49:34] Speaker A: Ole sounds right. Um, yeah, so that's pretty, that's pretty cool. [00:49:40] Speaker B: Adrian. [00:49:42] Speaker A: Adrian. Okay, I thought it was Adrian because Ole was 2018 with Dylan Falco as head coach. I forgot that Dylan Falco was head coach before he went over to fnatich because that. Because 17 is when he had the guys over here. And then he went over with Cootie and rain over and. [00:50:03] Speaker B: Yep. And they got replaced. Then the entire immortals roster started to change up quite a lot as they ended up with Flame X, Smithy, Cody, son and Olay, still with Pobelter, coached by song and Dodo. [00:50:20] Speaker A: Forgot I saw my flame jersey. It's somewhere. [00:50:26] Speaker C: What an insane player. [00:50:27] Speaker A: Pile of laundry. I miss Flame so much. What I don't miss is, guys, help me out. Five stars. Something. Please help. I got nothing for five. [00:50:41] Speaker B: What you don't miss is having to shill for the podcast and telling everybody to leave us five stars. [00:50:46] Speaker A: That's right. [00:50:48] Speaker C: He misses that so much. [00:50:49] Speaker A: I miss it. [00:50:50] Speaker C: He misses it every week. He's just. Every week he wishes he could tell people to give us five stars or a thumbs up. [00:50:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Five stars. Thumbs up. On whatever platform you have. Go buy the merch. The hat that's just the logo has a five star. Five stars on it. So you can represent your favorite podcast or one of your favorite podcasts, or. [00:51:21] Speaker C: Go get a Kangas face mouse pad. [00:51:23] Speaker A: You could get a Kang. You could get Kangas's face on a tank top. [00:51:28] Speaker B: Give us five stars. Or the number of times immortals has finished 9th or 10th since returning to the lcs in 2020. [00:51:39] Speaker A: So. All right, short episode this week. We could go on for three more minutes, but I am just choosing that to you. Thank you, everybody, for listening. It was fun coming back for the 45 minutes I've been in your ear holes. Subscribe to the Patreon, check the merch shop, and we will talk to you guys later. Peace.