Episode Transcript
[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.
Unicorns of love. It wasn't you did it.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: The Nexus.
Hello and welcome to episode 526 of the League rundown. This week's episode is LCS playoffs and Lec season finals continued and it is lovingly entitled Hotto three o.
I am your main host, Kangas, and I'm joined by two esteemed co hosts. We got a smaller crew this week. Up first. I had I shit you not a website with words that rhyme with Bickle last week, and I forgot to look it up and I'm just realizing it now. But we got Bickle. How's it going?
[00:01:41] Speaker C: I'm doing pretty well. I'm a bit sad. Energy ruined the entire 3.0 trend, but what can you do?
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Hey, there were enough to make the title make sense. And anybody who understands the title reference, you're my favorites in the community. We also have joining us, Hawk.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: I'm finally back. Also, I love how Bickle. You're not the first person I've seen be like, oh, man, the 30 trend is boom. But like, is that a good thing that we had one decent series to watch this past week?
[00:02:12] Speaker C: Here's the thing. Even with it being a three one, I wouldn't call it a decent series.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: Yeah, it was the sloppy, maybe not the sloppiest, but like, they at least.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: Like did something, you know what I mean?
[00:02:26] Speaker A: True, it's like Wippo might have just hand packaged or gift wrapped them the game, but, you know, overall, the energy, we're able to pick up one. We're talking about lcs, Lec this episode. Obviously, we are into playoffs now for the LCS and Lec season finals is continuing on. We're still fighting for those last world spots for that region. But before we get into all of that, let's cover some global news up first. I have just heard about this one recently, and I don't know too much behind it, but Aurora, the champion, new champion in League of Legends, kind of hyped up for LCS, like first weekend with Aurora available to play, is anybody going to play her? Already disabled until further notice because apparently there's a chrono break issue. Bickle, do you know much more about this story?
[00:03:13] Speaker C: I just know partway through the week we had players tweeting that they were upset. They were just finding out about this after practicing her for quite a while. Apparently she just breaks attempted chrono breaks. So riot's just saying it's not worth the risk.
[00:03:30] Speaker A: Not the first time that new champs have done this, by the way. Notable examples the Mordekaiser rework. I remember being a nightmare for Chrono break.
I feel like there was another one in recent memory. Hawk, do you remember anything about that? Like champions coming out and then Chrono break not working cause of them.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: I just remember Chrono break not working when Riot wanted to. In general, like, I don't remember specific champion releases, like, especially back in like 2016. I remember Riot would always be like, oh, I hope chronobreak works. Kind of vibes, you know?
[00:04:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Well, either way, hopefully they fixed that because it would be cool to see Aurora in pro play. Maybe. Unless you hate the champion. I still get confused as hell. I've read her kit like five times and I'm still confused when I play against her. Like, how is she doing this?
But yeah, it is fun to see the new champs in the hands of the best players. Also, a global news update. Congratulations to the fourth team to lock in a world's spot skull as the Vikings of Vikings esports from VC's have qualified as a resident Minnesotan, though, had to get that one in.
I'm sad we don't have Mongoose here to be confused about the VC's last time. That was hilarious. That was my favorite part of the episode when he just didn't know who was still in the running.
[00:04:53] Speaker C: The VC's actually has come to a close. They have their grand finals already. So Vikings did qualify, but they went on to get three O'd by Gam esports. So congrats to GAm taking the final VC's title as that league will not exist next year.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: That is. This is their last hurrah at the world stage before they join the conglomerate of all the, you know, developing regions kind of going together.
[00:05:20] Speaker C: But with the fact that gam wins that title, they guarantee themselves a spot in that AIPAC region next year.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: That is cool. Actually. I do like that. I did not know about that part. Viking esports, do you know much about the qualifications of, like, how they're going to get in? Is it an application process or is there qualifying?
[00:05:38] Speaker C: Have they do not have a chance to qualify? I just know there's two more invited guest slots, the guaranteed spot for the winner of AIPAC this year, and then four more spots that riot just chooses who they want. So I got no clue. And that's between the current AIPAC region, which is PCs, LGL, Oceania and VC's. So it's a bunch of teams.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: Remember when we would have msis and worlds with like twelve different regions represented. God what a time that was.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Time to be alive.
[00:06:17] Speaker A: I still remember the play ins being some of my favorite times for worlds cause it was just the scrappiest teams against each other.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: It was always my favorite when mad Lions were playing.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: Get them. I was such a fan of Fong vu Buffalo back in like 20 2018. I think it's 2018 worlds that just random. I want to say they're a VC's team, right?
[00:06:41] Speaker C: They were a VC's team. I don't believe they exist anymore. They went bankrupt.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: Yes they did. But spam Mark Ruffalo for fungu Buffalo quick shot made that a meme and immediately regretted it because Mark Ruffalo tweeted about it like please stop tagging me in posts.
And I never did. I never stopped tagging him in post.
But either way that will be happening going into next year where everything's still just continuing to merge together. Vikings I will be cheering you on at worlds though because I have Minnesota bias. We don't have an LPL update without Mister Mzelpl here with us.
Ls bickle if you have anything about lpl or lck that you want to update us on.
[00:07:26] Speaker C: Both of them are now in their playoffs. LPL is actually down to the final four teams in the playoffs. BLG and top esports are about to play in about seven and a half hours. The winner of that series will lock themselves into worlds, guaranteed at least second seed based on their points. Weibo and LNG are currently playing in the losers bracket in like a day or so. Those are the four teams still competing in playoffs along with that nip and who else? It's nip and JDG are locked in. Is the fifth and 6th seed to fight in the regional gauntlet for the potential last spot at worlds for the LPL. As for Korea, they're about to go into playoffs right now. They finished off Gen G and hanwha life get their first round bys. Gen G is the first seed, obviously only dropping one series. First round matchups are DK playing Fox, sorry, fear x and then t one playing KT in the telecom wars. We'll see what comes out of that.
[00:08:28] Speaker A: Sounds good. Also, I have a hunch. Not confirmed, but a hunch. The reason mister Brazil Pale is not on this episode is he might be casting that series tonight. So rest up king. Outside of other regions, no big rash news in lcs or Lec to cover. No surprise as it is post season. Rarely do we see stuff like that happen in playoffs, unless it's teams that have didn't make playoffs already announcing changes. But don't expect a lot of that from LCS this year because we're having a whole format change going into next year with a lot of different teams just dropping out and LeC will probably start to happen a little bit more leading up to worlds or after worlds.
Otherwise though, if you have heard of anything behind the scenes or just want to talk about maybe roster swaps, roster changes, anything in the league that you personally have opinions on, come check out our community discord. You can find a link in the description. Wherever you are listening along, we'd love to have you in there. Community game nights are going to be coming back. I believe we've had like one or two within the last month, so that's fun to see those return and also just fun to see the discussion happening during all the games. We'll probably do another watch party for LEC or LCS finals. I will not be available for that, but LEC season finals I think I will be available for. I got to confirm the schedule, but hopefully I can hop in and watch along with anybody in the discord who would like to watch.
Also, we got merchandise. Duffy and Sam, our correspondent over in EU, have put together a merch shop. So in case you had not heard that update, you can go check it out at league Dash rundown dash shop dot fourthwall.com if you want to further support the pod for fun off season content as well as our Patreon, all the Patrons uroc. That's it. And now it is time to get in to what you came here for. Lec and LCs News. We started with LCS last week, so this time around we're going to take a look at the LEC. We are in week two now of the season finals. So we had two best of five series and two 30? S. They were pretty fast.
Bds was up against SK to start things off.
Bakel, I didn't prep you for this. I wanted to do the same thing where we both picked like three words to try describe a series to see if we could come up with anything. Do you have if I put you on the spot, if you don't have a, you can. You can marinate on it and then come to me later.
He's thinking. He's looking and maybe questioning my word choice. You have two words. Okay.
[00:11:11] Speaker C: Classic sk.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that could work. I do like that. I was gonna say she. Oh, masterclass jungling I was actually very impressed with Sheo's jungling in this series. I felt that that was if we had to identify who I thought was the most impactful player on BDS, it was going to be them. And especially in that game, too, as Sejuani, I mean, he was just making Smulder's life miserable because we did get a smolder mid this series. I guess I'm getting maybe a little ahead of myself if we want to run it game by game. But basically this came down to, in my opinion, Shao having more impact on the map and also just better drafting overall from BDShe. It felt like their comps were just way easier to execute and SK would just panic. Man, every time fights were happening, it felt like SK just did not have an understanding of what their comp was meant to do to interact with the opposing comp, say for like the first, I don't know, 15 minutes of the game, one where they actually had a gold lead.
[00:12:13] Speaker C: They just felt so uncoordinated throughout the entire thing.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
And it's tough because I felt like the solo lanes for SK were coming together as well as their bot lane kind of being a rock for them for a while. But the bottling didn't really get much done this time around in this series. And I mean, game one, they had the early lead, but like I said, it was a panic dragon fight. They were up like 3000 gold and then yesheo pops Maokai ultimate and everybody freaks the hell out, runs away, and then they get swept at the fight and then the gold lead's gone. This is also what I'm going to start coining this, the Minnesota deli comp where it says, juani Alistair Ashley. It's kind of cold. You got your meat selection.
And they got engaged for days. Like these three champs can fight anytime that they see somebody out of position. And whenever they want to start a fight, they have the tools to do so. And boy, did BDS start some fights and have the tools to do so. And then by the time game three came around, it was just a slaughter.
Yeah. Anything else to add from, from that one? Bickle or Hawk?
[00:13:20] Speaker B: It was just kind of surprising to me.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: How so?
[00:13:23] Speaker B: Sk's bottom lane started off the split really strong and we're like, oh, my God, this is the bot lane that is going to bring them to the future. This, that.
And they just kind of ended up being fine down the line. You know, they weren't bad. They just, they didn't impress me, which I think was a little disappointing.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: I wanted to cheer for them more, but they just didn't give enough reason. Like, later on in the season, SK.
[00:13:50] Speaker C: Repeatedly does this where they look phenomenal at the end of the regular season, look strong throughout place, well, then come into playoffs and just completely collapse.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, they.
I don't know, they, they did some fun stuff. I feel for Nitsky, that game. Too bad he was so focused early. Like the, the level one invade where he just dies on Spulder and then I and Sheo goes like, what, three camps or something into a gank under or just diving him under turrets, like, just leave the dragon alone, man.
But the dragon did not get time to scale and we didn't even talk about Adam Blade, Cassiopeia, top lane. That was kind of fun into rumble, right? Like, is that even a matchup? Does anybody know? Is that like, a good matchup for Cassiopeia?
[00:14:42] Speaker C: I mean, it looks like it worked.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: It did. And that's part of, I think, set up by Shayo to help out with that. But they needed AP somewhere in the cop, I mean, with ash and then the corki. And we know that Adam does like to play those fun picks. So I think talking from BDS aside, though, I was happy with the level coordination that they showed. I think level or the game one early on was a little shaky where they were, you know, falling behind.
But then throughout the series, I think they showed me two things. One, they're pretty coordinated in their engages and they are committing more often than not when they are looking for a fight. And also Cassiopeia being a flex pick for them. Now, they played a mid and top lane in the series. Really, really good to have something like that, especially when you're going up against teams like g two in the future where flexing picks in draft becomes so important against a team like that.
[00:15:37] Speaker C: The good news for BDS is that after a rough series versus fnatic, they really seem to turn it around against SK and look solid. The bad news is they need to win two best of fives in a row to qualify for worlds, one of which is against g two.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: Yeah. In fact, their next one being against g two. We'll talk about that in a moment, though, because that brings us to our second series of this past weekend, which was, in fact, g two. I already told you it was a 30 and it was not g two getting three zero'd by giant x. Let me tell you, the average game time for this series was like 27 minutes. It's pretty fast.
[00:16:19] Speaker C: The average game time was about 27 minutes. The average gold lead at the end of the game was about thirteen k. Oh, God.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: Jeez.
Jeeze.
[00:16:32] Speaker C: It was a slaughter. It was always going to be a slaughter.
I can't even say again, anything about the series. It was just that one sided, like, g two never was behind.
They were never not in the driver's seat. They were never not the clear favorites.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is, I think, a great position for g two fans to now be in because it's. It's a clean slate for what happened against MDK the previous weekend, because that was looking like their series to win and they just couldn't do it. MDK specifically, Merwin's top lane pool. Really messing with them this time around. There was nothing messing with them. There were no weird picks. There was nothing, like, out of the ordinary, really coming out from giant X.
[00:17:16] Speaker C: Well, there was a bit of a weird pick by g two. They played Galio top, I suppose.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: Yes. Alongside an ivern, too, is like a really interesting composition. You're trying to play then heavily towards like mid lane. Bot Lane. And he also built riftmaker.
Oh, I didn't even notice that. What?
[00:17:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: Huh. You're really drain tanking as Galio, I guess.
Weird.
Well, you know, broken blade is gonna do broken blade things. He also played yone, which is another fun pick. One big thing I wanna highlight, though. Cause this is also gonna come up in LCS later on Smulder mid. I mean, at this point, if people are playing stuff like Zeri into you, Zeri does nothing against smulder in a one v one. Like, you can just flap away from her. If she ever tries to jump on you, you're just gonna stack up and have pretty much a free lane. And it would come down to the enemy jungle pick then if they can try and punish you. I think that in this instance, with the maokai, I'm a little scared because maokai can lock down a smolder, but still, you flap, flap as soon as you see the maokai on your screen and just try and get back under your turret and you're probably fine.
So I think it's cool to see that pick coming up.
Yeah. I don't know. Have we seen this, like lpl or lck? Or is this just an Euler mid.
[00:18:34] Speaker C: Has been and picking up a lot of traction in the east.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. I mean, you're getting waves faster than bot lane. You're able to pivot towards taking raptors and wolves much faster and more naturally, because typically with smoldering eventually you'd start doing that, but it was after, you know, like third or fourth rotation through the jungle. If you can even lane swap at that point, probably much later than that. But now, like, you can see junglers just giving up. Like low econ junglers like the Maokai can just say, oh, yeah, just take my raptors, you're good.
And it doesn't slow down the jungler that much, but accelerating the smolder feels great. So I think it's a cool place to put the champ. But yeah, overall for the series, yeah, this one way less to talk about. G two smashed.
So that brings us to predictions already. I mean, that was a fast coverage. That feels wrong. But this coming week we will see hopefully much tighter series because we do have potential bangers ahead of us. And I say potentially because that'll factor in a little bit to our predictions as well.
For our first series, MDK versus fnatic. Hawk, if you want to throw yours in there real quick, me and Bickle can at least start off talking about ours. We both have fnatic taking it. Bickle, you're at 30. I have a three one and Hawk agrees, 30. So you're thinking a sweep there for fnatic over MDK? I agree the fnatic should be favored. I think that a big part of why MDK beat g two was because, because they were so specific on shutting down top lane and picking these wacky top lane picks. But I think fnatic, now that they saw how MDK did that to g two, they should be able to prepare for that type. I don't want to call it cheese, but like that type of, you know, approach from MDK. So that's why I'll give a game to MDK. I think they're good enough for that, but I still think fnatic is a better team. Bickle, what are your thoughts, though?
[00:20:24] Speaker C: I think you're dead on with it. MDK's biggest thing against g two was this monica of surprise of these weird picks that came out the top side a little bit out of the mid lane. But now that's kind of been shown to the world, I think fnatic has had some time to look at it, say, okay, we see the pick. We understand it. Here's what we're going to do. And if we run into a similar situation and fnatic, when they're not playing, it's g two has looked solid this year. So I just think they're going to be better than MDK.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Any additional thoughts on that one, hawk, because you also agree 30.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: I just think fnatic and g two are still by far the best teams of in the LEC, if I'm being honest. Like I, we had the whole, like, one team region conversation a few weeks ago, and still nothing has been done to convince me otherwise.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: Okay. All right, well, we'll see if that changes for the next series then, because we have g two versus bds now. According to mongoose, this is the boring prediction. I'm going 30 for both of mine. I still think the BDS is good enough for a win. I think ice is just too good to not at least carry a game, even if it's against g two.
I say that knowing full well that they got three o'ed by fnatic, but, you know, is what it is.
But we have two 30? S from bickle and hawk. I imagine it's going to be kind of similar arguments. It may be on hawks side. It sounded like you said you just think it's going to be fnatic, g two and finals, and you're just setting that up.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: I mean, yeah, yeah, I I do think bds is actually kind of good, but I just don't think that they're gonna beat g two in a best of five series. And I think it's 30 because, honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if BDS is completely mental boomed from the last time they played each other, where they should have actually arguably won the series, and they didn't, which was pretty funny and also unfortunate.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely unfortunate for the fans and all of our predictions. Thinking that g two is gonna take that.
What are your thoughts? G two 30?
[00:22:31] Speaker C: G 230. They're the best team in europe. Even after dropping to MDK, they are the favorites for the season finals. I don't think anybody would say otherwise. It's just going to be them versus fnatic in the finals. And what's really sad about this is this mean it will be g two, fnatic and MDk going to worlds.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: That. Yeah.
[00:22:52] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Yeah.
[00:22:54] Speaker A: That's wild. So our MDK fanatic are either of them locked or the winner of that's locked for world.
[00:23:02] Speaker C: The winner of that is locked. And if g two beats bds, the other team is locked as well. But if BDS beats g two, then that matchup next week becomes for the.
[00:23:14] Speaker A: Final world spot because g two's spot is already locked one the summer split. Basically.
[00:23:21] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, cool.
Well, then MDK fanatic is gonna be a very high impactful match.
Huge implications for the future of those orgs. Cause if they can win that much cheaper plane tickets, you know, we know we're going. So lock em in now.
[00:23:40] Speaker C: Save you a day.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: Saves you a day. Yeah. Also, I did forget to highlight the fact that, that we will be saying goodbye to two of the teams for the rest of the year, SK and Giant X losing their series. We talked about the winning side and how they're going on in the playoffs. But let's talk about the teams that we're not going to see again and give a couple of eulogies here.
Hawk, you had SK throughout the summer split, so talk to me about SK, what their summer looked like and maybe some things that fans can look forward to, especially fans of individual players or people that you think kind of stood out.
[00:24:17] Speaker B: O sk gaming, a team that felt like they had so much promise and desire to play in the LEC this year, they really, they really tried their top laner. Who? Oh my gosh, I'm forgetting his name. That's really embarrassing.
[00:24:35] Speaker C: It's almost like he's irrelevant or something.
[00:24:37] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:24:38] Speaker B: Oh, perfect. Irrelevant.
Really. Rising star in the league. Their bot lane led us to false hope to believe that this team could do something this year. But alas, it's the same sad story. SK Gaming yet to really make an impact in the LaC.
I really do think this team had some good moments coming out of the regular season. They legitimately looked like one of the best teams. I think they were pretty definitively second or third best. And with BDS, BDSH being fourth coming out of the regular season and at least based on my eye test, unfortunately it was not enough. But, you know, they, they had a good year and I think, I think they can be proud of what they did.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: I agree. I think that I want to give shout outs to Rahel and Luan for coming in and having a, you know, completely different culture coming in from Korea and just making it work as best they could. And for the most part, they still did make it work. I know that we were saying, you know, I echo your sentiment, that was hoping for more out of them, but also it could have been way worse. We see sometimes import players come in and just not do well. And I feel like they were more middle of the pack than I was hoping based on their early season performances. But they still, they, I don't think they bombed out. I don't think that they were disgraced or anything. They can still, if they stay in the region, cool. If they do not, I think they can leave with their heads held high saying, hey, we showed what we got and what we're capable of. So there we go.
[00:26:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: Bickle, would you like to eulogize Giant x, please?
[00:26:15] Speaker C: Sure thing. Giant X coming into spring made two roster swaps that we were both all kind of very confused about, but it kind of worked. The big thing for them coming out of this season is they can look in the mid lane, they can see Jackies and say, we've got our guy. They found their mid laner to go forward and kind of build stuff around. Patrick likely still has Stockholm syndrome as ad carry. He's never leaving this team even if he wants to.
And the rest of the team is kind of where the question marks come in. The Antonio followed a bell curve this year or this summer where it started off as yeah, he's not good to wait a second. Is he okay to no, he's not good.
So we'll have to see what happens there. Juhan had his ups and Downs and Ignar is ignar. He will coin flip every single game and either be a godly engage support or your entire lead away. So we'll have to see what Giant X builds on top of. But the big positive for them has to be Jackie's.
[00:27:28] Speaker A: I agree. I think build around Yankees. If you're going to make big changes, make sure that's not one of them.
There we go. Also, games to watch. Typically we do that. It was only two series, so it's kind of hard to do that. Usually you would watch the whole series. But I will say go watch game two of SK bds. Probably one of the more entertaining of the weekend because it's not just a straight up slacking. And then you get to understand, you understand why I named it the Minnesota deli comp.
So, yeah, give, give that a whirl and that's it. That's crazy. We will have our LEC.
I guess it's not finals, right? Yeah, no, it's just these two. It's we got one more weekend after this of Lec.
[00:28:14] Speaker C: We still have two weeks of games to play for the LEC.
[00:28:18] Speaker A: Two weeks of games, two more series this weekend and then two series the final week. So stay tuned for that. That's our thoughts. Let us know yours in the community discord. But now it's time to hop on over the pond to the beautiful and sun shining in Los Angeles, California, or rather Santa Monica, California. I don't even know is. I think the riot building is technically still within LA, but either way, I.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: Actually think it's technically within Santa Monica or Santa Monica. Yeah.
[00:28:47] Speaker A: All right, well, I just wanted to prove, because he always said Santa Monica either way, week six, or rather not week six, playoff of week. Am I crazy? Was that week two? One. That was only.
[00:29:01] Speaker B: That was the first week.
[00:29:02] Speaker C: That was week one.
[00:29:03] Speaker A: That was first week of playoffs. Wow. My brain is all jumbled. First week of playoffs happened for LCS, and it was pretty fun. I will say we didn't get perfect 30 s, but it would have made the title even better if we did. But the fact that we got a such a dominant performance from one of the teams that we're going to start off talking about out gives me some hope because I have held out as the sole remaining believer in Dignitas to this moment that they could do it, they could make it work. And nobody agreed with me last week, and boy, were you rewarded. And was I just flipped the bird by Sven who said, nope, I'm not gonna carry shit.
Hundred thieves three owed dignitas. It was insane.
Do you want to start off talking about it? Because, like, yeah, I didn't think there was a world where they could 30.
[00:29:55] Speaker B: No, absolutely not.
[00:29:56] Speaker A: Just like, win the series.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: I think most people would have expected a reasonably exciting, competitive series, right? Like, hundred thieves have been good ish. And dignitas have been disappointing, I think, to say the least. Right? Yeah, I think most people could have respected, expected something reasonably competitive. But, yeah, the 30 came complete completely out of nowhere. Dignitas looked terrible.
Absolutely terrible. And this hundred thieves team, an absolute joy to watch. For me, I really like the young guns on the team.
They, since Tomo has come in, have looked completely revitalized. It has been so much fun. And, yeah, I unfortunately didn't get to watch much of the series. I didn't get what to watch much of the games at all this weekend because I was super busy. But, I mean, from everything I saw, it was basically like, all right, dig, time to prove we're good. And they got shit on. So, you know, it happens.
But congratulations on hold thieves. I'm happy for that team, and we'll.
[00:31:03] Speaker A: Hold it against you. Hawk, you did just start a new job. Everybody say congratulations to Hawk in the discord for having some really fun work coming up. But I'll catch you up on what happened exactly in the games.
Game one lane swap. 100 thieves actually pulling it off and sending their bot lane top much earlier than any other team has been doing. Save for Team Liquid. They're really like the team that's making that happen right now in a fellow 800 thieves with a substitute ad carry coming in basically or like a last minute change to the roster, sliding in perfectly well with everything, getting an early kill top lane and then just, just committing to it, racing for turrets and then out executing in team fights and then Quidd is the one to pull out the smolder mid in game two. And this is when I see Smulder is perfect. You see a zeri mid on the enemy team and a brand jungle. They ain't doing shit to you. You're free farm for the entire game and just be a problem. Like they do not have an answer to that and it's great to see. And then even like the Lilia Senna coming out of in game three I think is kind of fun. There's just full different identities of comp for hundred thieves throughout each three game. It's like a lane swap with an aggressive ad carry miss fortune in Nautilus. Then the smolder protect him in the mid lane with scaling and like a Jack Salia smulder and then just like Senna with Lilia to say run in. I'm going to keep you alive and have fun.
I don't know, Bickle. I thought it was just really cool to see that despite the changes and how young the squad is that they have so many different ways to play league of legends.
[00:32:35] Speaker C: Definitely it shows a lot of potential for the squad and it's really exciting. You got to give props to Tomo. Like you mentioned coming in as this sub ad carry Meshing really well with the team last week pulls off the player of the week this week gets to three o the team that kicked him. That's got to feel good for him.
[00:32:55] Speaker A: Yeah, that is the craziest part. Thoma was on Dignitas last split. Dignitas kicked everybody. To be fair, they did a full, you know, roster explosion.
Still rip Xu in his situation but yeah, I mean, I think that's got to feel good for Tomo and Tomo stocks should be at an all time premium. I still felt that he was one of the players that I was like, it hurt the worst to have him gone from, from the league of a lot of the players on Dignitas in my opinion, from last split.
[00:33:29] Speaker C: So yeah, Tomo actually went deathless this series and so did sniper who got to solo kill licorice and then emote on him in real life.
[00:33:38] Speaker B: Oh yeah. Oh, we didn't talk about that global noise top tier. The fact too, I saw a Reddit thread like the day before being like, yo, why the hell is riot nerfing this emote and cypher? Does it like, come on, man, that's crazy.
[00:33:56] Speaker A: It's amazing, dude. Sniper is such a fun character to have in the league and I love that he's willing to do stuff like that. Also, shout out to Quidd for I know he you're saying deathless performances from top lane and bot lane quid. It's so rare that in a series you see somebody over eleven cs per minute. But Quidd pulled it off. A lot of that being the smoldering because my God, was he just farming and taking everything.
But yeah, I mean this, this team clicked and they slaughtered dignitas.
So, yeah, I mean, that really, I think changes perception of them going forward.
There were still questions of like, okay, we think that they're better with Tomo, but how much better? And this was a resounding statement of oh, we're this much better with Tomo on the roster.
[00:34:45] Speaker C: So I do think it looks really good for them. But I also think people are getting a bit too overhyped from all these results because so far they've beaten immortals, Shopify, rebellion and dignitas.
[00:35:00] Speaker A: Okay, you know, fair enough. With the rosters change, those are not the hardest teams and they have the hardest team coming up ahead of them on the schedule. But we'll talk about that in a moment. But I'm happy you bring that up. Tempering expectations or rather slowing the hype train a little bit might be beneficial. But the other series that happened this last weekend was the only not 30 between lcs and Lec and that is between Flyquest and NRG. I had FlyQuest 30 and pretty much everybody did except for Mazzello. Actually believed in the three one and he was right. Energy picked up a game, but FlyQuest still took the series. And Bickle, we talked about it a little bit. It already, it was kind of a sloppy one, like, let's get it. But specifically top lane.
Something's going on with Pueblo, man.
[00:35:55] Speaker C: That game too, the one that energy actually wins. They owe a big thanks to that Wippo flicker blade, volibear build giga chat.
[00:36:05] Speaker A: Oh my God.
[00:36:08] Speaker C: In their defense, we also did see the brief return of Palafaker in game number two. He just never showed up again and gave Wippo his thanks in game number four as he decided to into the Renekton multiple times.
[00:36:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
Okay, game four aside, I actually thought Pal Fox had a really good series. I know that there's still two other losses in there, but in those losses it kind of felt like he was still doing the best he could. His DP's was solid on things like the Corki, despite the fact that the games weren't going their way. But, but, yeah, game four was really.
[00:36:40] Speaker B: Rough, I think, on the Palafox point, you know, I know he tweeted that he's felt a lot of pressure this season. He knows he's not been himself, that kind of thing. I do think Palafox had a reasonably good series, and, like, I want. I want to give him that props because he has really struggled. This split. It was by all means, not a great series, but he played fine. And, and so I. I know a lot of people were memeing like, oh, Palafox totally griefed that one, whatever. But I think that is important to emphasize. I think he had a reasonable series against Flyquest.
[00:37:15] Speaker A: Yeah. And had to play against Quad, who then pulled out the smolder as well. Dude, the smulder mids just going everywhere. Be ready for that to just be the thing right now.
And I also want to give shout outs to the bot lane for FlyQuest. I know Masu is getting a lot of praise this past weekend's performance. I think he had a fantastic performance. Specifically, his ash game was insane. Those arrows were just sniping people. He was basically the primary engage.
[00:37:44] Speaker B: Was it in this series? It might have been the last fly quest series. Again, the games are kind of running together for me. Was it in this one where he almost had a crazy kiting one v three on the end?
[00:37:52] Speaker C: That was the last.
[00:37:55] Speaker B: So close to one of the most ridiculous outplays I've ever seen. It still was a ridiculous outplay, even though he didn't kill anyone.
[00:38:01] Speaker A: And we got even closer to one this series.
[00:38:04] Speaker B: The loss.
[00:38:04] Speaker A: Okay, the loss that they had. He's one v four or one v five in base as Miss Fortune against all of energy, and he gets a double kill. And, like, they still end the game because they just focus Nexus, but he almost sweeps them there. And I was like, dude, Mazu's been like, he's been nice. His moment, man.
[00:38:22] Speaker B: But, like, he's getting there, though. He's been nice. He's been nice.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: Ramping up.
[00:38:26] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. We talk a lot about Masu there. But in that ash game in particular, the pairing with Busio's bard was just money.
[00:38:34] Speaker A: It was the moment where Busio hits. It's a top river. I don't even remember, like, what time of the game, but there's a double barred ult and Masu times the ash arrow. Perfect. There's a support in ad carry. He times it so that the arrow, it goes through both. But when the Bardold expires, it's on the ad carry so it stuns them. Oh, so good.
[00:38:57] Speaker C: It was just great to see. Yeah, but also that's my one to watch.
[00:39:03] Speaker A: You got to watch that game. That's game three of Flyquest versus that's a game three.
[00:39:07] Speaker C: That was great to see overall. But something to note for inspired. He's been all about these hyper farm carry style AP junglers this entire split. But aside for game four, when he pulls out the Lilia and does inspired things. Things. He really changed it up. We saw him on Vigo and Sejuani.
[00:39:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
And he was a problem. The Lilia. He was just constantly going top lane. I feel so bad for Dokula, for first off taking this loss and then the second loss hours later on Twitter when Wippo just outs his, like, rumble win record. That was wild. Fucked up.
[00:39:47] Speaker B: Like, that was fucked up. Yeah, it's had been talking shit, like, before the series or like, it's right after hours later, like, come on, man.
[00:40:00] Speaker A: And then. Yeah, I mean, Dokala just had a rough time. Top played like that. Game four was very. In game four, he had a rough time. Top play. I actually thought Oklahoma, for the most part, was kind of outperforming bwipo in most of the series, which was. It made it funnier that so, like, aggressive with them.
Maybe that was part of it, though. Hopefully it was friendly banter, but, yeah, I mean, I still think FBI is trying his best on this energy team. I think pal Fox had a relatively good series, all things considered, but they just can't put the pieces together and it shows. We did see contracts try and pull out, like a Nidalee game and pull off that type of combo. It was like Nidalee Ziggs, like poke, but then also Nidalee Renekton. So, like, theoretically you can play the top lane. Even Leona can lock things down for the Nidalee Spears, but they just weren't given those opportunities because this game, Wipo said, I'm going to pick Darius, just smash it down in Lane against Dokla.
And yeah, I think FlyQuest, I'm happy with a lot of what I see, but I'm still concerned with other things that I'm seeing specifically. Like I said, top lane not being able to hold it down consistently.
And while it's cool to see inspired trying different jungle picks, it's against the contracts. Who is having one of his rough splits. And we know the difference between a good contract split and a bad contract split. We're getting a bad one against other junglers in the league. I think that inspired still shows that he struggles more.
[00:41:32] Speaker C: We've talked about basically everybody else on Flyquest Quad is coming to his own. Really. We were all worried coming into the split, especially that first series against team liquidy reveal looked really shaky. But ever since then, he's continued to elevate himself and his booked really solid as one of the stronger points of Flyquest.
[00:41:52] Speaker A: That game one, Orianna, was actually filthy. I'm happy you brought that up because I did kind of forget about quads performance on that champ in particular. He had like three different four to five champ ultimates. It was like, oh, juicy man.
Yeah, that's what you want to see when that champion's locked in. And it was like with the Vi too. So it seems like Flyquest is pivoting back to a. We've seen this in the meta before and you know what can counter ad mid laners, maybe just lock them down and blow them up. Although this was against an Azir, but theoretically, I think it could also fit some other things too. Or against other types of comps.
Yeah, there we go. That is the last week in a nutshell. Like I said, my game to watch is game three of Flyquest energy just so you can watch Masu Busio. Absolutely steamroll, kids. Bickel, do you have any must watch games from the weekend?
[00:42:45] Speaker C: Not too much. Game four is the closest style game where one team gets a lead and ends up throwing it away. But I do agree that games three is the most entertaining of them all.
[00:42:58] Speaker A: Hawk, any thoughts on your end of. Well, you said you weren't able to catch all of them, but any ones you'd recommend?
[00:43:04] Speaker B: I have nothing to add to that. I mean, gotcha.
[00:43:07] Speaker A: No worries. No worries. Well, that means that we just go ahead to our week two predictions. We have more best of five series ahead of us and really exciting teams to watch at this point.
Do we not have three best of fives this next weekend? I thought we did. We just, oh, we do.
[00:43:27] Speaker B: We have a Friday game as well.
[00:43:29] Speaker C: That's my fault.
[00:43:30] Speaker A: No worries about that. We'll just throw that in because we got to make sure we get our predictions there as well. We have dignitas versus NRG to kick things off, then team liquid hundred thieves, and in c nine versus flyquest. I think after the regular season it was really tough to tell. Oh, a lot of people lost to each other. And like the clump, it was just clearly two best teams, a third place team and then everybody else. It feels like after the first week of playoffs we were really solidifying. Okay, now there is a bit of a difference between the other teams that were below the top two and we're going to see a lot of those matchups like Dignitas energy. This is for the rest of your year and potentially for the rest of your legacy as an.org in League of Legends. A reminder that LC, we don't know if LCS exists next year it's going to be different. We already know the format changes and what it's going to look like for format, but we do not know what teams are going to be in. And either one of these teams I could see potentially on the chopping block. So dignitas NRG, I have not put in my prediction yet. I'm going to stick with it. I've been a Dignitas coper the entire summer. I'm going to stay with it. I'm going to say Dignitas 30. NRG just does not look like they got the heart left in them and most importantly they got who he supporting them.
I take aisles any day of the week if I had to pick a support given current form. But hawk, you got three one, Dignitas. Bickle, you got three two, nrg. Bickel, I'll let you defend yourself first since you're the only one rooting for the boys in silver and black. I don't even know what their team color are.
[00:45:08] Speaker C: I mean, dig just looks dead this past week and if they show up like that again, I just don't see a way they take this series.
NRG at least.
NRG at least showed like a little sign of life. They took a game off of Flyquest.
Honestly, neither of these teams are going to do anything. They're going to win here and then lose to probably 100 thieves next round.
[00:45:33] Speaker A: I 100% agree. I don't think it matters when the series because I do not expect any lower bracket miracle run from either of the teams.
Hawk, what are your thoughts on the match?
[00:45:47] Speaker B: I have been pretty unimpressed with dig this entire year. However, I have been an energy hater for longer. So I am going for dignitas three one. I still have to believe that one team of washed veterans is better than another other.
[00:46:06] Speaker A: They got it.
[00:46:07] Speaker B: They got it in the bag. My goat.
[00:46:09] Speaker A: Jensen, at some point you have to stand on principle and this is the principle you're standing on. And I like it.
[00:46:15] Speaker B: I predicted energy to come in 7th this split. So I'm going to stick to it. I'm going to. I'm going to be a hater.
[00:46:21] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, they haven't given much argument against that other than I do. Think Bickle's got a point. Dignitas did not look good either, but. Oh, they've been trash. Yeah, but all right, that one's gonna be the gulag. If you want to watch some grimy, sloppy, slimy League of Legends, check that one out. If you want to watch some slick, high octane action watches. Next one. Because whether it's a sweep or it's not, I think it's gonna be a fast one. I or the game like average game time is gonna be fast. Hundred thieves versus team liquor. TL is playing faster than they ever had. And if we get the version of hundred thieves that we saw this last weekend where they're able to lane swap and play it effectively and better than their opposition, where we have quidd pulling out crazy pigs in the mid lane. Okay, bickle, what are you doing? Why are you raising your finger here?
[00:47:15] Speaker C: Did you just say that 100 thieves could potentially lane swap better than team liquid?
[00:47:19] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great.
[00:47:21] Speaker A: No, no, better than their competition in this last weekend. Better than they just did. I don't think they're going to be able to do it better than team liquid, but they can do it. They're, they're showing that they can play that style now. And I'm going to be honest, anybody who has tried to do it has just failed or just, it has not looked like it got them a lead. They pulled it off and they get first turret, they get first blood. They get a lot for the lane swap. Anybody else who tried lane swap and it was like, okay, well we're just going to go back to our normal lane after like the first back and pretend like nothing happened.
I think that they can bring it to Team Liquid and give it, give them some competition. That being said, I got a 30. Liquid.
[00:48:01] Speaker B: Yeah, what's this guy on about?
[00:48:05] Speaker A: But it's going to be a good series. I think it's going to be a really fun gameplay.
[00:48:10] Speaker B: I love this hundred thieves team. I like a lot of the players on their team. I'm rooting for them. With all of this being said, I think they are still going to get blasted by Team Liquid, who I still believe is quite substantially the best team in the LCS.
[00:48:27] Speaker A: I don't disagree with the statement that they are the best. That's why? I got three o. But I do think that 100 thieves have sparked. They got fire in them, and they are not going to just lose gracefully. They're going to lose fighting tooth and nail for everything that they can. And that's what I hope we get. I really hope that we get that type of gameplay, and maybe they can get a win or push team liquid. I think it's only going to be good for Team Liquid to get pushed and not just have an easy sweep to worlds. So. Yeah.
Bakel, any additional thoughts on that?
[00:49:01] Speaker C: You guys have hit every point. Well, if 100 thieves were playing c nine or fly, I could see him fighting, taking a game. It's team liquid, though.
[00:49:11] Speaker A: All right, well, let's talk about the others, then. Cause we do have c nine and flyquest matching up against each other for our last best of five of the weekend on the lower half of the upper bracket. I got c 932. Bickles got c 931. Hawk has flyquest 20. I am so happy that at least somebody believes in flyQuest, because I think it's gonna be a close series. But why do you believe in Flyquest? Hawk, I'll let you go first.
[00:49:38] Speaker B: All right. I think this is gonna be a close series as well. Honestly, I probably favor cloud nine on paper. However, I'm voting for my boy masu. He's got it. He's been rampant into the split. He's going to take down cloud nine. Also, it's really boring if we all predict c nine. So I am going flyquest.
[00:49:55] Speaker A: I do.
[00:49:56] Speaker B: I do think this team can very legitimately win the series.
My thing with flyquest is they have a lot of issues with their game. However, I also think that they have had to learn how to play harder games, more so than c nine, which still just kind of relies on winning. Like, just winning, you know what I mean? And so, for that reason, I do like flyquest in this matchup.
[00:50:28] Speaker A: Okay, Bickel, what are your thoughts? Why do you think c nine takes it?
[00:50:32] Speaker C: I think both these teams are very solid. We saw that when they last played that even though it was a c nine 20, they were both competitive against each other. But a fly plays like they did last week. They did not look up to their normal competition. They did not look like they were on the same point, on the same setting of kind of getting everything all together. They need to work better if they're going to beat c nine. I think they have the potential to. But based on what I saw last week from Flyquest, I have to give c nine in the edge of all right.
[00:51:08] Speaker A: I just think that top lane is going to be such a massive diff. Like, I actually think Thanatos kind of fists weppo in current form and that's going to be too much of a black hole for the rest of Flyquest to be able to pick up and carry. But I will give shout outs. Bot Lane, I think has a really good chance of, if not winning Lane at least having a big impact in games.
And Berserker not necessarily known for being the most consistent at even doing that great in lane. He just kind of like coasts in lane and then shows up later. So there is a window there for Flyquest to get in and find leads. And mid lane Quad's been playing very well so I'm excited to see him versus Jojo.
[00:51:47] Speaker C: Minor thing to note, teal versus hundred thieves and cloud nine versus Flyquest. The winner of both of those series qualify themselves for worlds.
[00:51:56] Speaker A: That is actually massive incentive for both of the teams and would make an upset for 100 thieves. Even crazier. Cause that means that, like Tomo comes in, just gets them to worlds again. Unlikely to happen, but would be cool. Would be kind of cool. That's it for LCS predictions, though. We got those three series ahead of us this next weekend. And then do they also know that we also have two more weeks of lcs after that, I believe.
Or do we just have the one?
[00:52:25] Speaker B: We have two more.
[00:52:26] Speaker A: No, we should have two more.
[00:52:26] Speaker B: We have two more weeks after this week.
[00:52:28] Speaker A: Yeah. So we have this week and then the 31st. And the first and then finals is the 6th and 7th.
[00:52:34] Speaker B: The week following this one is also a three day.
[00:52:38] Speaker A: Yes, we got super week. Super week. And then Friday Saturday finals first, I think first ever Friday Saturday finals instead of Saturday Sunday finals. And I know why. And it's very funny. The YouTube theater, which is where LCS is doing their finals is actually, it's been rented out on that Sunday for a very long time. It was already reserved for Kidz Bop. There is a Kidz bop concert. I'm sorry, what?
At the YouTube theater on Sunday. And that's why lcs can't do a Saturday Sunday finals, which is just the funniest possible end to the last lcs split ever.
But I think it's pretty appropriate.
The kids moved on from league. They didn't stick with us. So the kids are also gonna take the premiere time from us at the location that we wanted.
Yeah. When I learned that information, I thought it was incredible. Again, it's out of control from LCS. It was already reserved and it was a good venue. Anyway, it's not that big of a deal to do Friday Saturday, but it is odd because a lot of people that would fly in now have to take a Friday off of work. Makes things kind of annoying, but yeah. So there you have it. Lcs and lecithin reviews and previews in the book. Thank you so much for listening along, everybody, and also for supporting us on Patreon, supporting our shop that we have. I still haven't made my purchase yet, but I'm gonna try and go on tonight and purchase up yourself yet and hats that I want. I'm not gonna get that mouse pad, man. Dude, I don't even know how to train the purchases. But still, four was the bet. There's no way we get that.
[00:54:24] Speaker B: Imagine you're about to go live for a cast. You take your selfie of your. In front of your setup, and next to you is just a mouse pad with your face on it, like everywhere that's here.
[00:54:34] Speaker A: I don't. We have different opinions of top tier, I suppose, man. It's funny if other people have it. I suppose. I have no issue with it being out there, but I just. I don't think that there's a market for it. Pickle, have you gotten anything yet?
[00:54:47] Speaker C: I have not. I've been meaning to, though, and it'll probably be that mousepad.
[00:54:52] Speaker A: You know, we can do now. Now is we can, rather than doing silly hot sauce bets, which, by the way, Leo, LCS stats guy, still owes me, I have a video of him confessing to the fact that I went to lcs and he didn't have the hot sauce on him to do the bet. But anyway, I'll post that on the discord later.
Rather than doing hot sauce bets and stuff, we could just do mousepad bets. And it's like, hey, if you lose his bet, you have to buy me a mouse bet. Let's inflate those numbers, everybody.
[00:55:21] Speaker C: Buddy, it's the dignitar special.
[00:55:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
All right. Well, either way, that's it for this week's episode. Thank you so much for listening along, everybody. If you could leave us five stars, wherever you are listening along, it really does help us out, get more notice. We are the longest running League of Legends podcast in the world, or at least in the english speaking world. I'm not. I can't speak for the whole world, but we can at least hold that title. And across many different hosts, many different platforms. We appreciate those of you who have stuck with us. We love you. And we'll see you next time.
[00:55:55] Speaker C: Peace.
[00:55:57] Speaker B: See ya.
[00:55:58] Speaker A: Oh, yes, daddy.
