League Rundown - Episode 532: Swiss? I thought we were in Berlin??

[00:00:31] Speaker A: At the table with Messiah tanking it up. [00:00:34] Speaker B: I do not believe he just leaves. I cannot understand this game. [00:00:46] Speaker C: Unicorns of love. [00:00:48] Speaker A: It wasn't. [00:00:49] Speaker B: You did it. The nexus. Hello and welcome to episode 532 of the league rundown. We are in our worlds preview, including our play ins review, swiss preview and awards. This episode is lovingly entitled Swiss. I thought we were in Berlin. I am your main host, Kangas, and I am joined by three esteemed co hosts. Up first. Shaking his head for some reason, I dont know why, we got bickle Kangas. [00:01:31] Speaker D: I will forever adore your puns. [00:01:35] Speaker B: Well, you're also getting better at lying, so I appreciate that joining us as well. He is back on the loose, but also back on the pod. Mongoose. [00:01:45] Speaker C: I'm finally back. Let's go. And all it took was PSG winning. Sorry for the spoiler. [00:01:52] Speaker B: PSG makes it and suddenly mongoose is back. Coincidence? I think not. Although, unfortunately, river is who kind of out of here again. Spoilers. Who? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. How about the next co host of the podcast we got joining us, Hawk. Yo. [00:02:11] Speaker A: You guys are all saying who? That's another great bird of prey noise right there. Unfortunately not mine, but it's a good one. [00:02:17] Speaker B: Wait, I thought they go hoot. [00:02:19] Speaker D: What? [00:02:19] Speaker A: They go like who? [00:02:21] Speaker B: Hoot. [00:02:21] Speaker D: Hoot. Hoot. Hoot. [00:02:24] Speaker B: Yeah. All right, well, while we all debate what sound an owl, I assume that's an owl, right? [00:02:30] Speaker A: Yeah. I'd be a little bit worried if. [00:02:33] Speaker B: It'S something else, but there's a w in there. Kind of like hawk. Oh, this is a fun game to play. Hawk. Give me a bird fact. [00:02:39] Speaker A: Oh, I don't know. Did you know that albatross? No, that's not what I was thinking of. [00:02:46] Speaker B: Well, sure. [00:02:46] Speaker A: Albatross. I don't know. They migrate really far. They probably migrate more than any other bird, I think. [00:02:51] Speaker B: Wow. That was a very definitive statement. You put me on the spot. [00:02:58] Speaker A: If we're making this a thing, I'll be ready next week. Okay, hang on. [00:03:00] Speaker B: Okay. All right. That's gonna be our thing. That's gonna be our thing. Now introducing our new co host. Or not new co host. Our co host. Hawk with a bird. Fact. That's gonna be how I set you up. Well, either way, we are here to. [00:03:09] Speaker A: Talk about world people oftentimes undertake circumpolar trips and even, like, they go all over the place. I'm reading Wikipedia right now. [00:03:16] Speaker B: There we go. Love it. Absolutely love it. [00:03:20] Speaker C: But when I source Wikipedia, it's a problem in school. [00:03:26] Speaker B: All right, I'm gonna try it again. Bickle, you have to interrupt me this time. All right. It is time to talk about world's play ins. And Bickle didn't actually understand the assignment, so we're gonna actually talk about. [00:03:34] Speaker D: The thing is, I knew that by staying silent, you'd interrupt yourself. [00:03:39] Speaker B: That's actually a pretty smart move. Out. I cannot. [00:03:43] Speaker A: Michael's playing 5d chess right now. Oh, my God. [00:03:46] Speaker B: Wow. All right, well, jokes on you. We're not even talking about play ins because first, it's time to talk about global riot news. Yes, play ins happened. Yes, we have Swiss coming up, but to start off, a reminder, because we didn't actually do this last week, that's on me. But swiss stage officially begins October 3. If you are not paying attention to the schedule, it will be at 08:00 a.m. eST. 05:00 a.m. pST, normal time. For those over in Europe, I believe that would be like 03:00 p.m. around there at that time. I think that they're like 8 hours. [00:04:19] Speaker A: Ahead, but pretty much ahead of eastern United States. So it would be, what, 02:00 p.m. eastern start time for european folks, unless they're in UK, which would be 01:00. [00:04:30] Speaker B: P.M. well, there we go. Thank you, Hawk, for the quick maths on the casting, but make sure that you tune into that because that is when the action will continue as we'll finally see the best teams in the world play against each other. We saw the play ins teams already for the final spots in the to a stage, but this is where worlds proper essentially will begin. Also, world's song officially dropped. It was so late this time around. I feel like every year it's like, closer to play ins. And when it begins, I remember back when it dropped like a month before worlds and we had this whole ramp up of hype, and every year it feels like we're getting closer, but I want to get everyone's reactions real quick here. Bickle, let's start with you. What do you think about the world song by Linkin park? [00:05:18] Speaker D: It's very difficult in a sense, because I think if you take away what could have been, it's decent. But I think the video in particular really falls short if you look back at the storylines that have been told in the past, especially when you have the opportunity to tell t one's story in particular, Faker's story, someone so legendary throughout the scene, if you even look back at God's story of deft. What they could have done this year with Faker, I think falls short, but overall, I think it was fine. [00:05:57] Speaker B: I gotta agree with a lot of those points. I'll give mine at the end, though. Bongoose, let's get your thoughts. [00:06:02] Speaker C: I particularly like Linkin park and their kind of style of music, so I really enjoyed at least the music side of it. The video did fall a little short, and I also was a little disappointed because it didn't really feel like a world's anthem, which was one of my big problems with Star Walken. When it came as, like, the world's anthem, it just felt like it was one of their songs that riot, like, kind of picked instead of making it four worlds, which kind of makes all the other songs feel a little bit more special. Like, even though people hate on it, ignite using some of the words from the actual game in the song. I just think it's a lot more exciting when it's made specifically for worlds instead of just being grabbed from a particular artist. And the fact that riot's been getting DMCA'd for it on the broadcast has been really funny. [00:06:53] Speaker B: Wait, they have? [00:06:54] Speaker C: Yes. The first day they got DMCA'd twice for playing it. [00:06:58] Speaker B: That is hilarious. I did not know that. [00:07:02] Speaker A: And that recognizes, like, a Linkin park song and not a not a league song. [00:07:05] Speaker B: Yeah, well, they must have just messed up. Whatever. Like, uh, like, like, usually back when I worked at pro guides, we had to do this. When you were ever doing a live stream, there's, like, a code that you get from whatever licensed music you're trying to use. You have to make sure that that code is somewhere embedded in the stream, like, just on the backend, essentially. I never was responsible for doing that, but I had to make sure that it was done. I mean, somebody at Rio just did not do that when they went live. Or maybe they just didn't think that they needed to because it was a song that they theoretically paid for. But it also, who knows? Because it did sound like it was just part of an album, which I believe they are coming out with a new album. And I've heard. I don't know, does anybody else hear this, that they were doing music for Arcane as well? That, like, there's a. There's a greater partnership between Riot and Linkin park? [00:07:51] Speaker C: Or was that they were not listed on the set artist list for. Okay, the new Arcane soundtrack, which you can actually go find. It's on. I think it's on their instagram that they posted it and they also posted it other places, I'm sure, but it's a whole list, including a really popular french artist who I'm very excited for. [00:08:13] Speaker B: All right. Must have just been a rumor that I had heard Hochto. Let's get your thoughts real quick to wrap things up. [00:08:18] Speaker A: I think the song fucks really hard. I actually never watched the animation because I kind of heard it wasn't really that great. So I was like, yeah, whatever. I just never got around to it. And it's always going to sound better on Spotify than YouTube anyway, so. But I think the song is great. I like it. Makes me want to head bang, especially as, like, a stinger when they, like, go to breaks right during the broadcast. [00:08:41] Speaker B: Like, this is what you asked for. [00:08:44] Speaker A: Oh, man, that's good stuff. [00:08:47] Speaker C: It is already in my liked rotation for my song, so it's on the playlist. [00:08:52] Speaker B: I think it's a good song. I love the song. I agree somewhat with monkeys point that still doesn't exactly feel like it was made to be a world song. I also agree with Bickle's point that the music video could have been executed better, I think. I don't remember who it was, but somebody had a take on Twitter where they basically said every year they should just do last year's world story and then hype up this next world and what could happen as opposed to relying on a certain team or teams to make it because they just have to kind of guess for the video. [00:09:26] Speaker A: I agree with that take of, like, I think they should probably just stick to, like, animating the last worlds or whatever. Like, I think Rise still had the best video for a reason. My one thing about the song itself is, like, I heard the same argument for Star Walken of, like, it doesn't feel like a world's anthem or whatever, but I actually like that they're doing different stuff with the music and big artists and stuff like that. So I don't know. I think gods kind of fell into the same trap of just sounding like another pop song that, like, for example, burn it all down was just another pop song, you know, like, I don't know. I like this as an anthem, so I'm okay with it. [00:10:07] Speaker B: Mongoose, your thoughts. [00:10:09] Speaker C: I also think faker looks so fucking cool in the video towards the end. He looks really cool. And it was really cool that we got Masu in the video and Masu's reaction to it on Twitter was awesome. The fact that Masu was just, like, just so elated that he was included in the video was really, really cool. So I hope that they continue doing that and more stuff instead of just picking, like, the best player from the regions to represent them, picking someone, like, new or someone that's worked really hard to get where they've gotten to, instead of just being the same people every year. [00:10:43] Speaker D: Yeah, but in regards to picking people to be in the video, if you're trying to do this future look at what could happen for this year's worlds. You run a really dangerous gambit. We saw it minorly this year. They put a red Knids player in there for some reason, despite the fact they were never favorites to get going. Riot was one game away this year from having a very rough situation, as t one were. One game away from missing worlds. [00:11:14] Speaker B: Yep. And you just avoid that if you make the story about last year, because they can still make it about t one, they can still make it about Faker, but they don't have to have t one make it to worlds, because if anybody hasn't seen the video yet, first off, go check it out. Hawk hasn't seen it, so I guess I'll explain it to anybody else. And also, Hawk, the whole idea of the video is it's t one in, like, the throne room. And then all these other players from these other teams around the world show up and are laying siege to the throne room. And then everybody else, except for Faker, go out and then have little one on one fights in the kind of outdoor area. And then eventually Faker comes out, and that's a big moment where he joins the fight. It's like, that's cool, but if t one's not there to defend their title, it really falls flat. So it's not the world that we live in did actually work out, but you could save yourself some stress on Riot's side if you just do it with what happened last year. [00:12:14] Speaker D: I believe they featured nine players. This year, it was all five members of t one. It was Masu from Flyquest. Caps. Caps from, sorry, ten. Yep, you're right. I forgot about bin Ben. They had Brandtz from Redkinids, and I think it was chovy. But I'm still not certain who that Akali was. [00:12:37] Speaker C: No, I think the trophy. I think the Akali was Zekka. [00:12:40] Speaker B: Okay, that would make sense. But I have heard going around korean social media complaints that the asian players couldn't. [00:12:49] Speaker C: They all just looked like death is apparently the. [00:12:53] Speaker B: And you know, when the korean social media is complaining about it, that there's probably a point there. [00:12:59] Speaker C: Even bin came out and he's like, yeah, I didn't think that was me. I thought that was deft, right? [00:13:04] Speaker D: Okay. Mountain said, why am I on Jax? [00:13:06] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:08] Speaker B: When we first saw Ben, though, on the horse, I could tell it was him. But for the rest of the video, it didn't really look exactly like him, which was very funny. I have a theory that they actually made the video with all placeholders, and then they put in faces afterwards, like, last in the. In the order, because they were like, gave them the most time to figure out who would be going to worlds. But then that's the red candidates thing. Does nothing add up to that? So who knows if that's actually true? But, like, I was so shocked that Masu was in it, of all people, that that made me think immediately. Like, maybe they just kind of put people in there, but then I think they just did have, like, champions. Yeah, I don't know. I'm probably wrong. It just kind of felt like that could be the case either way. [00:13:58] Speaker D: Flyquest had been good this entire year. They were first place coming out of spring, top two and spring playoffs. So it's reasonable to assume they'll keep that run going. [00:14:07] Speaker B: He got a drive episode about him as well, but that's enough time, I think, on the world's anthem. Go check it out again if you have not already, and even if you have, keep listening to it. Let's get that shit up to number one, baby. It's already got many, many millions of views on YouTube, at least. So I don't know where it's at, global charts. But we can usually get the world's anthem to top ten every year on release, so it'd be cool if we did that again. Other global news, a lot of roster news, actually. One thing that we kind of said was most likely confirmed, but I was officially confirmed. Scout will be playing for LNG this year at worlds. So that story in the books all wrapped up. Thank you, Yagao, for being willing to step in. But scout will be at worlds. Players that will not be at worlds are players from the next two teams that we'll talk about from the LCS. In fact, we might not even see them again. Energy. Most of their contracts have been removed from the database, a la the immortals situation that we saw where all of their players and coach were dropped from the database. Pretty much guaranteed Immortals will not be back next year. All the rumors were energy would not be back next year again. I predicted this months ago at the beginning of the year, even saying energy got CLG spot without spending a fricking cent. It makes sense that they would take the millions of dollars buyout from riot and basically just cash out on essentially a free spot. But this is just further evidence. Do we know how many contracts? I actually didn't see this one until it was posted in the doc here. So was there like a post of how many players and which players? [00:15:31] Speaker D: I want to say off the top of my head, I know at least three. Let me double check. But I know it was at least Dokla Palafox. [00:15:45] Speaker C: Okay, so it was three players and four coaches? [00:15:49] Speaker D: Yep. [00:15:49] Speaker C: Oh, so is Palafox contracts Dokla, Juves, Croissant choose and so as. [00:15:59] Speaker B: Okay, from my understanding, most of those coaches weren't even like doing much with the players anyway. So interesting to see that they were still on contract. [00:16:09] Speaker D: All they've got left is FBI. Who he and Apollo. [00:16:13] Speaker B: That's crazy. FBI and who he are the last two? I would. Well, actually I would. I would probably keep pal Fox in contracts if you are going to run back anybody, but we'll see if anything else happens with their contracts. Expecting though that there are other players will be dropped eventually because this team is most likely on the way out. The not another one, though. Shopify Rebellion has pretty much publicly stated that they want to stay, that they are all in on League of Legends esports, but they are not all in on the roster. That kind of crash and burned, specifically fake God and Tomio no longer with the team. Fake God is kind of the big obvious one that you would expect to be gone. Tomio is the one that hurts because he only got a short stint, but he did not look incredible during that stint. And then the team looked much better once he was benched, which is just unfortunately. Look, Hawk, what are we thinking about the developmental players? I don't know if we can really say that for fake God. He's been around for long enough, but, like, fake God Tomio getting the axe? [00:17:16] Speaker A: Yeah, it's tough. I will say fake God getting cut, especially, you know, at this point in the offseason, signals to be the potential sturdy promotion that everyone's been talking about for the last six months. I know is a popular opinion that Serdi probably should have replaced him for summer split. We'll see if he does it for 2025. So that that's kind of my thoughts there. I do think unfortunately, like, I want to give fake out a lot of credit because I think people that don't watch Academy slash Nacl don't know that fake God genuinely has been the best top laner in academy at multiple times throughout his career. So promoting him to LCS has made a lot of sense. I feel like a lot of times people like, are like, who the fuck is this guy? He sucks. Like, no, he's looked really good. The problem is, I will say, I think by this point, fake God has kind of, I think, been proven that he can't really do it at the LCS level. It is what it is, you know, it sucks. I really like him. Um, but he's not really had. He's not really had what it takes, I think, to be an LCS top laner for Tomio. It's a little trickier because I do think, similarly, I think Shopify looked a lot better without Tomeo and they looked pretty bad with him. And I definitely am all for, like, give him a chance, you know, like, he only had three weeks. But also, it's hard to deny that when Boogie started playing for that team, they looked a lot better. Right. And I'm still rooting for Tomio. I hope he's still around next year. I don't know if he'll be on an LCS team because he, similar to fake God, has looked really good throughout his tier two career. But, but, yeah, I mean, it was not a good start. So we'll see. [00:18:59] Speaker B: The something that I've said on the podcast before, and I'll echo again, is that it is very difficult to tell if a player will be ready for promotion from NACL to LCS because you can be the best in your role in academy or in challengers. But that does not mean that you can compete with the competition that exists in LCS unless you were like head and shoulders above everybody in your role. [00:19:24] Speaker A: I think it's so mental, too. I think it's such a mental thing. Like, you know, Apa, I don't think, was really ready, quote unquote. [00:19:30] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:30] Speaker A: But he was a guy that was willing to, like, really grind it out. [00:19:34] Speaker B: Right? [00:19:34] Speaker A: And I'm not saying that fake God and Tomeo aren't, but like, like, I get just basically, like, Apa was built like that. Right? [00:19:41] Speaker B: And again, Apa's got that dog in him. Yeah. [00:19:43] Speaker A: And it's like, that's not to say, I think fake guy by this point we can say, unfortunately, probably doesn't have that dog. Tomio, maybe jury still out. It was one shot. It didn't go well. We'll see what happens the next time if he gets another shot. But. But, yeah, I agree with you. [00:19:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, we'll keep our eyes on what happens with Shopify's roster going forward, but yeah, I think a lot of credence to the 30 will make it to lcs if he doesn't. [00:20:08] Speaker A: Yeah, he said he's done if he doesn't. [00:20:11] Speaker B: That's crazy. It's crazy if he doesn't, but I respect that. Yeah, yeah, agreed. But that'll do it for roster news and all of our global news. Now, if you want to join in on the conversation, give your thoughts on who you think Shopify should pick up. If this means energy is for sure gone, make sure to join our community discord. You can find a link wherever you are listening along to the podcast, and also shout out to anybody who supports the podcast through our Patreon or through our Merch store League Dash Rundown Dash shop dot fourthwall.com dot holidays are coming coming up. If you want to give a funny present or just a wholesome present to a longtime listener of the pod or a friend that you have, we got both options. We got just normal merch stuff and we also got a lot of silly stuff that you can pick up through the shop. So thank you to everybody who does support us through there. But with that said, that's it for the global news. It's time to get into what everyone came here for, and that is world's discussion. Play ins are wrapped. It was quick, always is. And unfortunately, not every region can leave plans with their heads held high. We'll talk about that in a little bit because the way we're going to handle the discussion is go through the order of teams rather than through every single series. There were a lot of series, so that would just take forever. So we're going to spend more time talking about the teams that made it out and then less time as we go down to the teams that weren't able to even pick up series wins because there were some that just bombed straight out. So to start off, the teams that qualified and made it out of the play ins, stage up first a team that we all disrespected so much and now validation for LeC fans. MDK made it out, baby. Two series wins and it did not look that bad for them doing it. Hawk, I know that you had some opinions on this already, so I want to get your thoughts to start us off here. MDK took down vikings, esports and PSG to get a swift entrance to the swiss stage. [00:22:03] Speaker A: Yeah, and I believe it was a 40, right? Or did they drop a game to PSG? [00:22:07] Speaker B: They dropped one game, they dropped one to PSG. [00:22:09] Speaker A: Okay. [00:22:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:09] Speaker A: Thank you. I watched all the highlights of the series, but I didn't watch the MDK ones live well. Regardless, really good showing for MDK. I think Alvaro and Supa legitimately looked phenomenal in the bottom lane for MDK, which I think was a little bit unexpected, especially because this is, I believe, two rookies. At the very least, it's their first international appearance. [00:22:33] Speaker D: One rookies. [00:22:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:35] Speaker A: And they. They looked great. The lights did not look too bright for them. [00:22:38] Speaker B: They. [00:22:38] Speaker A: They had the best plays. I think the rest of the team looked, you know, fine, but mad looked really put together. And we talk a lot about, like, young teams kind of getting to cut their teeth on some lower level. Teams like to. To get started before being thrown to the fire. We thought it'd be a hundred thieves. I actually feel like it's MDK that really kind of got that experience to show their superior macro. All their players performed as they needed to and they looked great. I mean, the expectation from the pod, from myself, from a lot of people, was that PSG was the strongest team in play ins and it ended up being Madden. [00:23:19] Speaker C: I will say one thing that does worry me a lot about MDK is Frescawi just looks really lost in the middle. He goes down a lot in lane and I don't know what that's going to translate to into Swiss, but it didn't seem to matter all that much in play ins except for the one game that they dropped to PSG, where Maple was just able to become an absolute monster. And games like that are what really scare me for MDK going into Swiss. [00:23:51] Speaker B: Yeah, because again, the competition at Swiss is going to be so much harder than Vikings and PSG, although, you know, potentially we could see a rematch there. A little bit of spoilers, but I want to get your thoughts, Bickel, on MDK before we move on to the next team that was able to make it out. Kind of what are the bright spots for the team and what, what do you think the expectation should be of them going into the swiss stage now. [00:24:16] Speaker D: The bright spots for MDK is absolutely their bot lane showing up. Alvaro in particular, in my opinion, was the mvp of play ins. He was phenomenal. Honestly, all five games, even the game he lost, he looked great. We expected kind of a, oh, my God, why am I blanking el yo yo to be the star of that show. But really, the bot lane is what came to play and kind of made things equal. As people have mentioned, though, the big question mark going forward is going to be those solo lanes of Merwin and Frescawi. How they're able to handle dealing with some of the bigger names as they were already struggling going up against Vikings and PSG. [00:24:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that members of this team, members of this roster that we did not have as high expectations for really stepped up and the players that we did have higher expectation for didn't necessarily like disappoint. But it was interesting to see that they weren't often the primary win conditions. But still good news from adliance, Coy and Lec because they got all of their teams now represented in swiss stage, which is more than we can say. What do you mean? [00:25:27] Speaker D: The Americas has three teams for set true. [00:25:30] Speaker B: Wait, that's so right. You are so right, pickle. Let's move on to another team that made it out also from this side of the bracket, although they had to qualify technically through the other side of the brackets, qualification match. But they're right here in front of me. So let's just talk about PSG. We've already mentioned them a couple of times here. They did not easily win out through the upper bracket, but they still did make it out. And you know what, mongoose, I'm going to have you started off because this is your baby. PSG. They are in swiss stage. How'd they look doing it? [00:26:06] Speaker C: So they looked pretty good, except for the match against MDK. I think the MDK match was a little questionable. Same with their match against pain. Pain. I feel like they just had a really bad meta read to start off and I think because of that they struggled in the pain series. But I do think once they got the meta read and got some more, like what's got to see what everyone else was doing. I think they righted the ship and started looking a lot better. So I don't think we'll see them as bad as we did in the pain series. I think we're just going to see them get better and better. The main thing about PSG that really worries me is, well, two things. Junjiya looks awful. He is just inting in certain moments he's just running in by himself and the whole team's like wait, come back. And Junji is dead before the fight can even go off. But the hardest thing that worries me true, he was getting the heart steal stacks. But the other thing that worries me is. [00:27:12] Speaker B: I just remembered that oh my God. [00:27:16] Speaker C: Aja, his champ pool is non existent right now at this world championship, at least in terms of what we've seen already in the play ins, there's no rumble, there's no kennen. I guess Gnar is still around, but you take away gnar, he doesn't really have anything else. I think top lane, and going into this, we kind of knew top lane for PSG was going to be the weakest part. So I think the Junji and Aja have a lot to figure out if they actually want to pull out wins. [00:27:50] Speaker B: In Swiss, what do we think about. Okay, is Woody also inting alongside Junji, or is it just Junji? Because I felt like Woody was also a lot of times is just out of position or just looking for really over eager engages, I guess, is another way to put it. Just like assuming that they could find these fights and it wasn't always working out for them. So what do we think about the support there? [00:28:15] Speaker C: There were some. There were some moments, I'll admit, but they weren't as necessarily as egregious as some of the Jun Gio ones, which is why it's a little bit more forgivable. Like, the jungeya ones, there was, like, very little intent. He was just kind of there, and everyone was like, why? At least with the woody ones, you could see, like, oh, people were just like, were a little bit too far away. And he, like, Flash engaged and his team couldn't catch up to him, kind of stuff like that. But with the Junjiya ones, he was just, like, skarner e ing into five people by himself just to, like, get the scuttle crap or whatever. It was just bad. It was so bad. [00:28:54] Speaker A: I think, as well. I do think Woody has always been known as a little bit of a limit tester, if you will, a little bit of a griefer. Whereas for Junji, compared to expectation, man. [00:29:10] Speaker C: He'S looked like shit. [00:29:12] Speaker A: So, yeah, I think that's the bigger thing. [00:29:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:29:16] Speaker B: I'll also say for Ozzy's top lane champ pool that you were talking about, kind of cool seeing some of the range champions come out. We saw Vayne and Corky. Right. And he played two different range matchups. I think that's kind of fun. [00:29:29] Speaker C: No, he was winning the Corki matchup, and then mid game came around and they couldn't fucking do anything because he's on. [00:29:37] Speaker B: That was more. [00:29:38] Speaker C: But I don't think it was necessarily his fault. But it was. Yeah, I mean, he did kind of stomp Lane. He was doing really well in lane. [00:29:47] Speaker B: But isn't that the one where we had the heart steel stack moment? I think it was that game. Maybe it was a different one. [00:29:57] Speaker C: I think it was that game. [00:29:58] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure Jungie for anyone who didn't catch it just on Skarner literally sees an enemy support. I think it was like an Alistar too and just says, I'm just going to go in. There's full fog of war. I have no teammates around. I'm just going to go get a hard steals deck. And there were like three members of MTK there and they just completely blew up this garter. The Casters had a great reaction to it, did not know what to do in that moment. I don't think that the rest of PSG did either. But I'm going to do same things here. Mongers, I'm just going to let you keep talking about your team because they're your favorite team. Bright spots for them. And what do you think expectations should be in the swiss stage for PSG? [00:30:36] Speaker C: I think PSG is a team that can play upset. I have them making it out. However, I think that is just me being just completely insane. But I do think that they can pull off upsets against some teams if they're not ready for them and if they don't come in with more of a game plan than just, you know, put everything into topside. Because Maple has always shown up on the world stage no matter what he looks like within his own region. I feel like when we come to international, Maple just feels like a different player completely. And then same thing can be said for Bettyev. I think Betty on the international stage, granted, he didn't look super insane in play ins, but Betty also has some of that experience that I think can carry them a lot farther than. Than most people are going to give them credit for. So I would expect them to get a few upset wins, not just over the other teams who made it in for play ins, but over some of the teams who auto qualified for Swiss. [00:31:37] Speaker B: Okay, cool. Well, PSG will keep our eyes on them. I don't think that they fully lived up to the hype that we had. Like last week we were saying things like, oh, they're the boogeyman of the planes. But I agree. I think it might've been hawk that said it that no, it's MDK that really showed that they looked like the best team that was in play ins. PSG, having lost directly to them and then also struggling even in their series against pain, have a lot to prove. But speaking of, I just mentioned their names. Let's talk about them. And hog, I'm happy we got you on because you have covered English broadcast to talk to me about pain gaming, the brazilian team that was able to make it out of the play in. [00:32:17] Speaker A: So this was really surprising, by the way. I have been saying for most of split two of the CB low that our region is weaker this year. You know, I think loud when they were playing in play ins the last couple of years, also at MSI, they, you know, kind of got close ish, but then like stumbled at the final hurdle or lost randomly and that was that, right? Like they beat gam one year, they took a game off of RNG one year, but they were never really, I guess, in danger of making Swiss. So I didn't think pain would do so either, but they did. Payne has done what CB law has not done in eight years. It's the first time in the modern play in era that the CB Lowell has appeared at the main stage of the world championship or any international tournament, I believe, for that matter. This is a huge deal and I will say to give, I guess, myself a lot, a little credit for, like, what I was, what I was talking about before. And then also I want to make sure to give pain their flowers. I had talked about how, you know, if pain is going to win games, it's going to come from bottom lane. Titan provides that dog that pain is always needed. I think Titan is a big part of the reason why they were able to finally win CB low after. For those that don't know, pain was the runner up in the four consecutive splits that loud previously won. So, yeah, so I think Titan was a huge proponent of that because he is a player that can sometimes be a huge inter, but also be a hero. Right. And a team like pain needed the x factor, where I feel like the rest of the team was oftentimes just pretty good, but not great. And Titan has had a phenomenal world championship so far. He has been that guy for pain gaming. I think Curry's looked really good alongside him, but it's not only been Titan. I think Karaoke has really impressed me at worlds beyond my expectation. I've always called him the premier facilitator jungler in the CB. Lol. But I feel like a lot of times, you know, facilitator kind of guys, they get to the world championship and all of a sudden you're against a world class jungler and oh, no, you're not as good at facilitating as we thought you were right, at least for Cibulo, right. Karaoke has looked great. He was able to keep up with river. He was able. Well, I guess he never played river, but sorry. He was able to keep up with Jungia. He was able to keep up with Adi, who has a lot of world championship experience. He got to cut his teeth though, which I'm fine with. That's what he plays domestically. Dude, Maokai Sejuani, that guy's a merchant, man. I'm fine with it. I don't care if he has a limited champion pool. Like, he is just there to set up the team. Kato, I don't care if he plays ari every game. He is just there to set up the team. Like, wiser is going to be the guy on the side lanes. And then, like I said, it's all about Titan. The team fights. I really respect that. Pain gaming has stuck to their guns. In game three against Rainbow seven, they played like re again. Like, I loved it because just do like stick to your guns and maybe you can win games. And so, so anyway, I said a lot of stuff, but I think pain has legitimately looked fantastic. Taking a game off of PSG was not giving a, giving us false hope. It was actually enough to qualify for Swiss. From this point on, they are just happy to be here. But I am so proud of this. [00:35:46] Speaker B: Okay, I said that we weren't going to talk about a lot of games because it takes a little while, but we have to talk about game three versus our seven. Man, that was the most pinnacle playing stage example of, like, what fun can happen at this level. That that game was a mess. That game made zero sense. And I loved every minute of it. Specifically the, like, triple base defense from r seven. They like, teleport two people top wave, but they don't have enough of a wave to shove in. And then they just back and lose the dragon. It's like, what do we do? Like, what? [00:36:21] Speaker A: There's zero macro happening after winning teamfights. Like, so by the way, pain's composition shouldn't win team fights, right? And seven reals won back to back teamfights. But then immediately after winning each of those teamfights, they walked into enemy topside and died twice in a row. [00:36:35] Speaker C: Yeah, it was. [00:36:36] Speaker A: God, it was crazy. I accidentally fell asleep sometime after the second dragon where Pain got aced. Five for one. And I was like, we're cooked. I'm drifting off anyway. And I kind of fell asleep and woke up after the games were over and we won. I couldn't believe it. I could not fucking believe it. And apparently that game went for like another 20 minutes. So it was insane. [00:37:00] Speaker B: It didn't cross 50. I don't think. Wasn't it like 45 or 49? [00:37:04] Speaker A: It was like 45, 30 or something like that. But it was in that time bracket for all the pickumsers out there. [00:37:09] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure I put my pickums at 50 minutes so I was cheering for that. But mongoose, what are your thoughts? [00:37:15] Speaker C: If you only watch one game or one series, watch this one. [00:37:19] Speaker B: Yes. [00:37:19] Speaker C: Pain. Seven reals. And if you only watch one game, watch game three. It is just a fiesta and it will have you like screaming at seven reals for winning the fight. And then just immediately after either Lyons or Audi just like engage with the rest of their team. Mostly their damage isn't even there and then they just get wiped and so it's just this constant like, okay, we killed you, now you get to kill all of us kind of cycle. [00:37:47] Speaker B: Our seven were so much better at setting up like the objective fights and then we're so egregiously bad at everything else that happened in the game and it made for a pretty entertaining game. I think that seven reals basically gifted the win over to pain. They should have won that one with how they were able to dominate a lot of the fights initially. But a pain weathered the storm and they were able to close it out at the end. So they're the one that makes it out. Hawk, you already kind of answered. You don't expect them to make a lot of waves in swiss stage. But still it's cool that Brazil was able to make it. That is the official third seed from the Americas. We're claiming them as ours early, which mongoose. [00:38:33] Speaker C: Final thoughts though, Renekton is also such a disgusting champ. If you watch this game three, the amount of just shit Renekton just lives is just crazy. And I mean, huge shout outs to summit for playing how well he did in that game three. But man, once you get Sterak's on Renekton, he just feels unkillable in certain fights. [00:38:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I want to say too, shout out. I actually love how everyone is claiming like PSG or sorry, PNG as an America's team. Like, it makes me so happy. Please root for CV Lul van. Like, I am so proud of this team. They finally did it. Yeah. So let's go pain. [00:39:17] Speaker B: They finally did it. [00:39:17] Speaker A: But they're going to go three and I'm proud of them. [00:39:21] Speaker B: Proud of them going, oh, three. Well, we'll see. We'll see what they're going to go. [00:39:25] Speaker A: They're going to go three. Although them beating g two would be the dankest timeline, I've got to say. [00:39:30] Speaker B: Hilarious. That would be hilarious. [00:39:32] Speaker A: There's also, like, a g two cb low rivalry a little bit, I feel like. Is there maybe just for the Brazilians? Maybe just for the Brazilians. [00:39:40] Speaker C: Probably just for the Brazilians. But the Brazilians are also just very, like, hyped people where they're just like, we could beat anyone kind of mindset. [00:39:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no, exactly. [00:39:49] Speaker B: They're. [00:39:49] Speaker A: They're like, bring them on. And I fucking love it. [00:39:52] Speaker B: Bagel, did you have any final thoughts before we move on? [00:39:55] Speaker D: I was gonna say, all right, guys, we've hit the three main teams. Now we go to the fourth team, we get to see how hundred thieves got the clinch their way in. They obviously won the other side of the bracket. [00:40:04] Speaker B: Wait, wait, what's funny? [00:40:07] Speaker D: Why does that say gam? What happened? [00:40:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Well, gam, actually, four owed the only team, the only team team to four. [00:40:17] Speaker D: Oh. [00:40:18] Speaker B: Which is why we're saving them for last, because they crushed their series, Bickle. I mean, you're the one that brought it up. It's not the thieves. We'll talk about that in a bit. But it's Gam coming in from Vietnam. [00:40:32] Speaker D: Absolutely. And Gam came to play aggressive as always, ready to fight a big thing. We saw twice. We only saw four games of them, but twice we saw Levy break out that pocket. Shyvana. [00:40:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And damn, it look good. [00:40:52] Speaker D: Yeah, he made it look really good. But I have a feeling that's a Levi pick, not a meta pick. [00:41:00] Speaker B: Hmm. [00:41:01] Speaker D: But, yeah, all around. Gam was just better than their opponents. All four games. They only had to play the Hawks. And then r seven. There wasn't like a game where they were behind. In all honesty, they weren't that challenged. [00:41:16] Speaker B: No. Also, I think you meant the Fuqua Softbank Hawks gaming. I apologize if anybody was confused as to who the Hawks were. I liked, in particular their meta read. You're right that we didn't get to see too much of them. We didn't get to see them really challenged. But what we did see, AP top laners, ad mid laners, and aggressive early game bot laners. They went for, like you said, the jungler as well, with the Shyvana and the wukong, which are both kind of like one item spike champions, from my understanding, and their ability to control kind of mid game objectives. But Imo playing the yone in three different games, I think yone is one of the premier champions on this patch, and Imo looked very comfortable on it. [00:41:58] Speaker D: Yep. Yone being a premier mid laner and we got to see Kiah bust out a champion. I think we're going to be seeing a lot of this tournament both picked and banned. We get to see Aurora come out top lane for the first time in a is that the champ that all over summer playoffs had been disabled due to its issues with chrono breaks. But Kia made that thing look nasty. [00:42:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Both games against the Fuqua soft Bangkok's gaming and then rumble. Both games against r seven and then easy love played Jinn and Miss Fortune while Elio. Elio, I forget how to say that one was playing the engage support which pretty much everybody is playing right now. If you either play an engage or Braum kind of seems to be the meta early here in play ins. But I just, I loved how the. In so few games we already get an identity of how this team wants to play and they look damn good doing it. Mongoose. [00:42:53] Speaker C: I want to hit two things. The Aurora point. I think Aurora is a champion that does really, really well from ahead. However behind, I think Aurora can suffer quite a bit and so I think I. We might not see her necessarily as much just because she is sort of a champ that needs kind of the lead to be able to run away with the game. But once you do get that lead, she just one shots carries and it's hard to stop her from doing it. And then the other thing is, I am just so happy that emo got to perform well on the international stage because we saw him back at MSI and he just looked lost. He was constantly making best plays, just like bad mechanical plays too. Not even like positioning or like not even just like pushing up to a tower, just bad mechanical plays. So it's nice to see that he is sort of settling in and settling down a bit too because I think he was just too trigger happy at MSI. [00:43:54] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I'm happy to see gam make it out as well. I think it's really rough that it has to be at the expense. I mean, this was not the one that was at the expense of 100 thieves. They didn't match up against them at all and had no impact. But this was one of the ones that it felt like 100 thieves should have been able to make it through, but that was more seven upsetting them in the first series. That meant it that these teams never got to face off. But your four teams making it out of plans once again are game. Actually, wait before we kind of wrap up the four teams that made it out. Bickle, what are your expectations of what game can do in Swiss? Do we have any expectations for them? Do we think that they can pick up a couple games? [00:44:29] Speaker D: Their best case scenario is they leave this tournament one in three. [00:44:34] Speaker B: That is best case. [00:44:36] Speaker D: I love game as a team. I think they're really exciting to watch and they're really hype. Their peak is the same thing they achieved last tournament, which is one in three. [00:44:48] Speaker B: In all honesty, I think every team you can make that statement for, because PNG is in Swiss, but you probably can't make that statement for unfortunately. Sorry, Hawk. [00:45:01] Speaker A: I mean, dude, if they pick up a win in Swiss, I. [00:45:05] Speaker D: You're. [00:45:05] Speaker A: I'm gonna be the most annoying person on this podcast. [00:45:08] Speaker D: Technically, PNg and PNG GAM can meet in the two in the Swiss and one of them will get a win. True. [00:45:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Pretty much every team, you could say can at least pick up a win because any team could go up against PNG, but we'll keep our eyes on that in the future. For now, we only have round one sorted, but to wrap things up with the play ins stage, the four teams that made it out, gam esports with a 40 record, MDK with a four and one record, and then PNG and PSG both making it out through the lower brackets respectively. There are other teams to cover, though, so let's briefly go over those up. First one that's on everybody's mind, the team from a major region that is no longer going to have this seed going into next year's world. And maybe this is an argument for why hundred thieves from the LCS did not make it out and they did not look particularly good on their way out. Hawk, I want to get your thoughts first here, as this is a young roster with a lot of developing players still, but. But doesn't really make the hurt sting that much less. [00:46:23] Speaker A: Yeah, it was tough, man. Yeah, I I've seen a lot of interesting stuff on social media and everything about about hundred thieves performance. I really think this was disappointing. They're a young team, but they're still the NA third seed. We've never had a team get out in plans before. I think the expectation still should have been to make Swiss. They kind of looked like shit, dude. Like, no one played well the entire tournament. Like, because river shat the bed in the final series. I thought sniper played badly in the first series. I thought Quidd played badly in the final series. And the first series Elo was just like I the entire time and Tomoe was okay, like I don't know. [00:47:14] Speaker B: I. I don't know, dude. I thought Tomo had the most unforced errors that we've seen all summer from him. [00:47:21] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, no, you're not wrong. Like, I don't know, hundred thieves in LCS, they were able to win games off of, like, really clean early games and, like, scrappiness that was not there. I think Quidd was supposed to Lane Kingdom, this play ins did not happen. Just, just did not happen. [00:47:40] Speaker B: And I think. [00:47:40] Speaker A: I don't know why. [00:47:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:47:41] Speaker B: Quid was the biggest disappointment that I had. But, Beckle, I want to hear your thoughts. [00:47:45] Speaker D: I'm right there. Quid was the biggest letdown in terms of what we expected to come in. But looking at it in all honesty, the one disappointing part of their play ins performance was that series loss to Movistar. If they smashed softbanks, which is what you expect. And in all honesty, we all thought PSG was the better team. So we're not surprised that they lost to PSG. It's just in the manner they lost. But really, it does boil back down. If you're coming out of Na, you shouldn't be losing to the LLA. Team. Sniper was going to have a rough lane against summit. We expected that, but we really were looking at the rest of the map to try and pick it up and carry that load, and it just didn't happen, dude. [00:48:34] Speaker B: The fact that we lost both sides of the Lucian Nami matchup against r seven and then that game three quid's vex was one of the worst, like, professional Vex games I've seen. Not for lack of him trying most of the pretty much from like minute 15 on. If he didn't die eight times already, his plays probably would have worked. He would have killed everybody that he was holding on to and everyone back line he was diving to. But he was not able to adapt to how atrociously he played the early game. And a lot of it was just getting kind, kind of camped. But it wasn't even like, it didn't feel like a hard camp. It just felt like just don't die. [00:49:18] Speaker A: To obvious timers, bro. Like, respect when you don't have Flash. [00:49:23] Speaker B: Yeah. And also you have the counter pick into the blanc and you're still kind of losing the one v one to the Leblanc. Anyway, that was really rough to watch. So that's why Quidd was my biggest disappointment, because this, that game three, this is one of the most reset comics that you could ever reset comp. Viego vex Jynx, all three of those. If one person dies, they pop off. The problem being they don't have that person to start off the damage. It's like Cassante, a nautilus, which can start fights, but who's going to be the one to start the damage? You kind of need the vex to go in, but then when the vex is that far behind, she doesn't do enough. And river tried his goddamn hardest to win this game, man. Like, river really wanted to win this game game, and they just couldn't do it. And then unfortunately, at the end, it was really Tomo that just, with flash up, just gets one shot by just a simple culling, just a nami empowered choline from Lucian and just completely disintegrates. Tomo's health bar. It doesn't even flash. He dies, and then they just lose a game off of that. Such a disappointing way to lose the series against the fourth seed from the Americas, if we want to call it that. Actually, our seven looked a little better. So they might even be the third seed. 100 thieves or the. [00:50:36] Speaker D: No, you're right. [00:50:37] Speaker B: Seed there. [00:50:38] Speaker D: The PNG or the PNG's the third seed. [00:50:42] Speaker B: I was right the first time. Should have even second guessed myself. Yeah, yeah, it was rough. Any, any final thoughts though on hundred thieves? I mean, we got to move on because we also have Swiss to preview, but I'm willing to take a little bit longer on this team just because we had such high expectations for them. [00:51:00] Speaker C: Young teams just knew. [00:51:02] Speaker D: Young. [00:51:05] Speaker C: If you ban Jarvan. Oh, River can't do anything. [00:51:10] Speaker B: Damn. [00:51:10] Speaker C: So sad. And PSG new. They had the most matchup experience. [00:51:14] Speaker B: Wait, actually, we did win the only Jarvan game that we got. I just realized that. [00:51:19] Speaker C: Yep. 100% win rate on Jarvan. [00:51:22] Speaker B: That's disappointing. Bicka, what was, what was your point you were making? [00:51:26] Speaker D: I was gonna say young team, a lot to learn. We did not expect much coming into this tournament. Yes, we're still disappointed at the result, but I think they're going to take something out of it. Honestly, a lot of the players looked really rough. I think given that sniper was up against the summit in game one, he's kind of the one pseudo bright spot I'll take away from this as he was having some solid moments. Even in that PSG matchup on the Aatrox, he was looking really solid. Obviously he has a lot to work on and improve upon, but rookie year, first international tournament, there's some hope there. [00:52:08] Speaker B: There is. And another point that I'll make. Another positive to take away from the team even if execution wasn't stellar. I was kind of happy to see some of the creativity that they had. They got beaten by the classic Orianna Nocturne combo from seven reals, then they play it against Fukuoko Softbank Hawks gaming and they looked really good with it. So they're kind of pivoting, adapting to the meta. They played Renekton mid, which didn't work out, but it was cool. I like thematically or theoretically it into the yone obviously would have loved to see a different result, but I think credit where it's due that they did at least show adaptation. It wasn't like, oh, they only tried to do one thing and they were stubborn about it and they lost. It's like, no, they tried to do a lot of different things and they didn't look great on all of it, but I would rather go down that way than go down doing something that they're practiced on without like adapting at all. Mongoose final thought though, huge shout to. [00:53:09] Speaker C: Tomo though for coming into this team and like summer comes around not not thinking about worlds whatsoever and then finally gets picked up by 100 thieves after kind of the rough stint with Dignitas comes beats Dignitas out for in playoffs and then comes to make this run to get into worlds and for only being on this team for two months, I think Tomo did everything we could have expected him to do, even though he didn't look necessarily great in play. [00:53:38] Speaker A: Ins, honestly, I think he did more than we expected him to do. [00:53:41] Speaker C: That's true. [00:53:42] Speaker A: Playoffs. Yeah, he should be proud. [00:53:46] Speaker D: I thought Lane swapped. [00:53:47] Speaker B: Final thought. [00:53:48] Speaker D: I thought lane swaps were dead and 100 thieves got killed by oh, dude. [00:53:52] Speaker B: Yeah, they looked really bad with the lane swaps. They were historically the worst team of the three that we sent to worlds at the lane swap meta. So I think no surprise that they, especially in that last series against PSG, got completely blindsided by them. So yeah, 100 thieves disappointed that they did not make it. I don't want to mince words and pretend like, you know, this isn't a big blow, but this is the last time that we will see CB Lowell or Llaevdeh as regional representatives at, you know, the world stage. So I think it's cool that at least one of them made it out and the other one got to battle it out pretty hard. Let's spend some time about our seven and then we'll wrap up quickly with Vikings and Fukuoku soft hawk gaming since neither of them were able to pick up any game wins. Yeah, they both just bombed out completely. But seven reals. Let's start with them. Pickle. They looked decent enough, right? They looked serviceable as a team. Team. [00:54:49] Speaker D: They did better than anybody expected them to do. Coming out of this, taking down hundred thieves alone is kind of that. Well, we're already exceeding expectations. Things are going great here. What else can we manage this? They then went on to get smacked by gam and come so close to beating pain gaming to making it out. It's such a good story that we got LLA versus CB low in both of their last for their chance to make it out of Swiss. It's sad that they weren't able to do it, but they had a great showing this tournament, better than anybody expected. I have a feeling and a theory that this might be the team we see joining the north next season, but we'll have to wait and see. That's just my guess. [00:55:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I echo that, especially the whole, like, kind of rivalry between LLA, CB Lowell. There are two of the minor regions from the same continent that have just never really made big waves other than CB lol that one time at worlds, like Hawk said, eight years ago. So it's heartbreaking. [00:56:03] Speaker A: Even longer ago than that. Yeah, it's been a minute. [00:56:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So it's. It's heartbreaking to see that one of them had to go and that qualification match, but I think the storytelling element was really cool. Hawk, how seriously do CB low players take the rivalry? Because from the broadcast side, they were kind of talking about it, but I never really know regionally. Do you have any insight into that? Like, do see below, players actually consider LlA like, a regional rival of theirs? [00:56:31] Speaker A: I don't. I don't know if I'm being honest. Like, I'm sure they consider LLA more of a rivalry. They definitely consider LLA more of a rivalry than, like, anybody else, or like, any, anyone else would be, I suppose. But, like, they're also like, we're gonna beat everyone. So I don't really know, actually. [00:56:57] Speaker B: Okay, no worries. Well, either way, it's cool to see that is the last time Loa will be sending their own regional representative to worlds, unless they are able to win out in either the north or the Southern Conference. But again, it will be representing the Americas at that point as opposed to just LLA. So I think they can leave with their heads held high. It's tough, but they still turned a lot of heads and I think made some damage. Now, let's talk about the final two teams that did not make any damage. We can cover these very briefly just because there's not a lot to talk about. Vikings esports and Fuqua SoftBank Hawks gaming did not pick up a single win and that is gutting for me and Hawk because Hawk, you lose your team representative, I lose the Vikings, which are the Minnesota home team. Shout out NFL and meat sports, which I do not even watch. But skull, do you want to take Fu Cuoco real quick? Again, just keep it brief. Maybe like a cool thing that they did. I got one if you don't. [00:58:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I actually did not get to catch any of their games. I didn't watch Reks I top. [00:58:05] Speaker B: They played Rek'sai top. That's kind of funky against 100 thieves and they got bopped. Did not look great. Also, Lucian mid with the Ziggs bot lane. I think it's just like a pretty rough read of the meta and not really keeping up with the trends that were going on. And then on the side of Vikings esports pulled out the ootyortop. That's kind of funky as well with Smulder still in the mid lane when not a lot of other teams were going for the smolder on this patch. Notably so interesting to see there, actually, now that I think about it, was smolder banned very much or were teams just not picking it? I don't remember. [00:58:43] Speaker A: Teams were just not getting played. [00:58:45] Speaker B: Yeah, interesting. [00:58:46] Speaker C: It got hit pretty hard though. [00:58:49] Speaker B: But the America's Challengers tournament, it was still like one of the premier picks. I know that is still challengers and it was only like a couple days after the patch dropped. So we weren't sure how much teams would have to prepare, but it was a little preview into the world's patch. Interesting to see that. Yeah, a lot of those big picks are just not as popular here other than still the yone. But that is how the play ins stage shook out everybody. Only four teams made it out. So congratulations to them. But that means that it is time to talk about swiss stage and preview what's going to be happening here. We already have our round one of swiss bickle. Do you want to run through all the matchups that we can expect on October 3 at 08:00 a.m. eST or 05:00 a.m. pST? [00:59:33] Speaker D: Yep. And just for a rundown for format for anybody that does not remember, there were four pools going into this the pool one seeds are made up of the winners of the four major regions. Billy. Billy gaming Hanwha Life esports, g two, and flyquest. The pool two teams are the runners up in every region, or in the case of the eastern regions, the team with the most championship points. So that would be. That would be team liquid, fnatic, gen g, and top esports. The pool three seeds are the third and fourth seeds out of the LCK and LPL. That would be LNG, esports, weibo gaming, D, Kia, and t one. And the final four teams for pool four are the four playing teams that we had previously mentioned. MDK, gam, PSG Talon, and pain gaming. And so, for matchups, you have pool one versus pool four, pool two versus pool three. These are best of one matchups. In order, we have billy. Billy gaming taking on MDK, top esports versus t one. Gen G versus weibo gaming fanatic versus DK, team liquid versus lng hanwha. Life esports versus PSG talon, flyquest versus gam, and g two versus pain gaming. [01:01:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Now, this is the second year that we're doing swiss stage as opposed to the groups. Typically, we were talking about group of life, group of death. But. But since it's only round one, let's just talk about the winners and the losers of the round one. Swiss draw, hawk, who's a winner and who's a loser. Dude, swiss stage one, winners. [01:01:18] Speaker A: Fucking flyquest we got. Damn, baby. Let's go, g two. Also probably feeling pretty good about drawing pain. Losers, honestly, probably Gen G and Weibo for having to play each other. That's. That's a pretty crazy match. [01:01:34] Speaker B: That one is actually crazy. We knew that there was going to be something like that because pool three had all eastern teams. Notably, you cannot play a team from your own region, but, yeah, that one in particular is pretty crazy, in my opinion. [01:01:48] Speaker D: Winners of this is the west, minus MDK. I think every western team, aside from MDK, got their best possible round one matchup. Like, best possible who they could have drawn. [01:02:03] Speaker B: I think, though, the one argument against that you could talk about, I mean, other than MDK, like you said, you know, they were going to have a rough. Yeah. Would be team liquid against LNG. I've heard some people being like, DK is the easier opponent. We would have rather gotten them pretty good. It's still pretty good. [01:02:23] Speaker D: I agree there. But in the fact that I feel like DK and LNG are the worst of the pool, three seeds, and the west needed to draw two of them for. [01:02:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I would. [01:02:36] Speaker D: So that leaves lNg for team liquid pretty much. [01:02:40] Speaker B: Pretty much. Okay, so if those are the winners, and the losers. Then again, we can't really talk too much more about what round two would look like because it's going to be drawn after round one is completed. So we're going to have to give a lot of foresight and kind of just average expectations and predictions when we talk about our predictions, because we have filled out the teams that we think will make it out 30, the teams will make it out three, one, and the teams that will make it out three and two. So we can move on to that. But bickle, do you have any final points, at least on swiss round one? [01:03:12] Speaker D: I was just going to talk about the format for Swiss overall. [01:03:15] Speaker B: Okay, lay it on me. [01:03:17] Speaker D: So, as we mentioned there, those are your round one matchups for Swiss. Winners will play winners, losers will play losers. That will continue in a best of one fashion until a team either has two wins or two losses. Once you get either two wins or two losses, you enter a best of three stage where it is now best of three to determine what happens with the series if you reach three wins. So win my best of one win a best of one win a best of three. You qualify for quarterfinals if you lose three series. So lose a best of one, lose the best of one, lose the best of three, you are eliminated. So there will be eight teams that advance from Swiss, eight teams going home. There will be two teams that advance, three go, three teams that advance at three, one and three teams that advance at three, two. [01:04:07] Speaker B: And of course, quick description of that is whether it's a promotion or elimination match, it's a best of three. Everything else is best of ones, minor. [01:04:17] Speaker D: So, yeah, unlike last year, rematches are not allowed. So later in the tournament, later in the swiss bracket, you are not able to play a team that you have already matched up against. [01:04:29] Speaker B: Is it possible to guarantee that that's. [01:04:32] Speaker D: Just the way the tournament. They will not allow it to happen? [01:04:37] Speaker B: Interesting. Interesting. I'm just wondering if there's some way the bracket would shake out where it's impossible. Like if there would be, if there's two rounds remaining and there's four teams. Well, I guess the. They would all have had to play each other. Yeah, it's most likely possible that they could avoid that. [01:04:52] Speaker D: There's no situation where that is because at the very end, there will still be six teams remaining. [01:04:57] Speaker B: Okay. Well, let's quickly cover at least the favorites that we have. We won't go through the full exhaustive list and give time to talk about every team, but we can talk about trends here. Everybody here has some combination of, like, blg, gen G, or hle making it out into three zeros. I'm in the blg gen G camp, so is bickle and so is hawk. Badger actually filled out his prediction, and he thinks it's hanwha life, esports and blg that make it out. So instead of Gen G and then mongoose, you actually have hanwha life, esports and LNG making it out at 30. I think LNG is the biggest surprise there. So do you care to kind of explain what's going on? [01:05:41] Speaker C: I think the meta is shaping up in a way where it could benefit LNG a lot. I think ADC carry is going to be pretty prevalent as well as lane swaps coming through, and I think that really benefits LNG in terms of putting their top laner into the weaker side and then letting their ADc farm for free and then scouts coming into a really good meta for him. So I think there's always a team that impresses and does above and beyond what everyone has expected, and then there's teams who do less than that, which I think is going to be blg and gen G for this year. [01:06:14] Speaker B: Okay, cool. Well, I think the HLE nod is also nice. I was kind of torn between them and Gen G because I feel like it's one of those two. And hle by far have the easier swiss round one matchup, and, like, you never know what the round two and three are going to look like, so it's kind of hard to predict past that. But just based off of round one, hle against PSG, as opposed to Gen G against Weibo, uh, should be easier for hle to win. I still just think Gen G is a better team, so if they can beat Weibo, I think that they have a better chance. [01:06:47] Speaker D: The re. Basically, we can say that these are likely the top three teams. What it comes down to is only two teams can get out at three, and, oh, that means two of these teams will likely face off against each other. So it's just one of these teams gets to bypass that really tough game. The other one has to face off head to head. How do we think it turns out? [01:07:08] Speaker B: That's a good way to put it, because we. We don't know what the seating will look like for round two and three. For the teams that will make it out in just the two best of ones and the one best of three. [01:07:18] Speaker D: Technically, it's possible they get drawn at the ten stage, and then one of them drops down to one. [01:07:22] Speaker B: One exactly. It's not to say then that the, you know, hle is better than Gen G. It just means that maybe Gen G had a tougher opponent in round two or even round one. They could drop to Weibo and then went out from there. Right? Like, there's all kinds of different ways that they could end up running the bracket, but three ones, pretty much the rest of the eastern teams, we got like dks, we got top esports, we got LNG's in there. I'm trying to see if there's any big ones. I guess t one has shown up a couple of times. Bickle and Mongoose, you both have t one at the three and one. Most people, most other folks have them at the three and two. So talk to me about that, Bickle. Why do you think t one's got it for the three one? Because they did not look convincing in the lck. [01:08:08] Speaker D: They did not look convincing. But I think a meta change back towards mages in the mid lane is going to be really helpful for faker in particular. I do think they may still have an issue down at support. Kerry is really at his best when it's some of those poke style, really able to flex your hand and go a lot of different ways. It supports. I still think engage is the meta, which I think will be tough for them, but in particular, it's t one. They always show up, especially at worlds. Zeus is still a monster in the top lane, and I think a meta changing to be more favorable, t one will be really beneficial for them. [01:08:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's funny that I was making a big point about Weibo being a tough opponent for a Genji, but I'm noticing that, hawk, you actually have them three in one, whereas I think only one other person, and it's only badger that even has getting into the quarterfinals. So what are your thoughts on Weibo Gaming? [01:09:03] Speaker A: I'm going to be straight up. I think everyone that's rating Weibo low didn't watch much LPL and specifically the playoffs. I think this team is the second best team from China, but I think people just look at the records Tarzan is playing out of his mind right now. It's three quarter, three fifths of the team, or four of the players even that, that made finals last year. I think this team is going to be fine. Even though their year as a whole was admittedly pretty bad. Yeah, I think Wayobo is extremely strong, not a team anyone wants to fuck with. [01:09:35] Speaker B: Okay, well, maybe we're all rating them too low. Maybe Hawk is going to be able to say I told you so. We'll have to watch the swiss stage to find out. Now the big question on everybody's minds, how many western teams do we all predict to make it into top eight? And there's really only two on anybody's list. Now, these two are present on most people's list. We have t one, everybody. Sorry, tl. Tl. Wait, nevermind. I was reading t one. That's why I thought everybody, Bickle and mongoose don't have tl making it out. You cowards. And you traders, but me, badger and hawk all think tl is making it out. The other one on everyone's mind is g two. I have g two making it out. Bickel's g two making it out. Mongoose has g two making it out, but hawk actually has them making it out. Three and one. So, hawk, you got some trust in g two? [01:10:24] Speaker A: I think g two is good. Yeah, I do. [01:10:27] Speaker B: I got, I got, I got belief. [01:10:28] Speaker A: I think the, the west is strong this year, so I'm ready for it. [01:10:33] Speaker B: All right. I really hope you're correct also that tl is able to make it out because, God, we need the morale, man, we need the morale boost after hundred thieves. Any other notable things that we want to talk about before we move on to our award predictions? A fun thing that we do every year before going into the group or. [01:10:54] Speaker C: Swiss stage proper, something that Kangas didn't say. I have PSG making it out. They're going to do it. I don't know how, but they're making it out. This is their year. Surely one year out of the ten years that they've been here, they make it out. [01:11:08] Speaker B: It's because Maple. It's the last dance narrative. [01:11:13] Speaker C: The next world song is going to be named after Maple. [01:11:15] Speaker B: Yeah, it works for deft. Even though he didn't retire, it's going to work for Maple. And then if he wins, maybe he doesn't retire. [01:11:22] Speaker D: Really. You have to have at least one western team getting out. Even if you think the eight best teams are the eastern teams. The statistical probability that it will just happen to be a draw where a western team has to get out is very high. I in all honesty, I could very much see it just being eight eastern teams if it weren't for the probability. And I think the best western team is just g two. [01:11:48] Speaker B: Still g two. Tl to see who makes it out. There we go. Na versus eu, just like last year. And we're going to pull an energy yet again, that'd be pretty dope. [01:12:00] Speaker C: I think the percent chance is like 80% that I don't. [01:12:06] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure. [01:12:07] Speaker C: I'm pretty sure that high. [01:12:08] Speaker D: It was like 65%. [01:12:10] Speaker C: No, I'm pretty sure it's like 80%. Almost impossible for a western team not to make it out with the swiss bracket. [01:12:20] Speaker B: I mean, I love it. Keep huffing that opium, everybody. I don't know where those numbers are coming from, but I'm going to choose to believe them. [01:12:28] Speaker D: It's based on the probability that eastern teams will face each other in the swiss stage and forcibly not one of. [01:12:34] Speaker B: Themselves at I understand that. I just don't know where those specific numbers are coming from. Like, who's doing the calculations? But maybe Mongoose can google it as I see his face illuminated by his computer screen. [01:12:45] Speaker C: But, you know, it is 60%. [01:12:50] Speaker B: 60 is still pretty high. That's over half of the possible outcomes. Just allow a western team to make it out regardless of. Because that's like, regardless of, you know, performance, right. That's like we could. That's going to be a three and 260 percent of three and two happens. [01:13:06] Speaker D: Last year, energy got out of three, one with only facing western teams. [01:13:10] Speaker B: Wait. Well, they. The one they lost was to an easter team. [01:13:14] Speaker D: Only beating western teams. Sorry. [01:13:16] Speaker B: Hell yeah, they did. Let's go remind EU again. All right, there we go. That's it for swiss round one. Again. We can't really predict much going further beyond that, but there's our expectations for outdoors teams can perform, which means that it's time to wrap up the episode with our award predictions and a little bit of world's bets if we want to throw those in at the end. We do this every year. So it's tradition at this point where we talk about expectations for trends that seem to always happen at worlds. One is a classic one, the rundown knighthood award, aka which player is over hyped. There's a lot of talk about them coming into worlds, a lot of expectations for them, but they will fall flat on their face often. This does actually happen. So everybody's knighthood award given. We actually have two people that agree. Mongoose and Hawk have showmaker as their winner of the knighthood award for this year. How hyped up is showmaker, though? Is he actually. Is there a lot of hype around him on Goose? I feel like I haven't seen that much expectation for him. [01:14:24] Speaker C: I think with the meta change and especially Syndra coming back, everyone's like, oh, this is the showmaker meta, and I guess the same thing can be said for your pick. [01:14:36] Speaker B: Hey, don't say it yet. I'm saying. [01:14:39] Speaker C: I think showmaker, definitely, especially when it comes to worlds. I think people just look at showmaker as being one of those titans in mid level lane, and every year he's looked pretty good, but this year, I don't see it happening. The midpool is very, very strong this year it is. [01:14:57] Speaker B: It is quite tough, which is also part of why I gave mine. So I'll just talk about it. Cause he already teased it. I put faker as my knighthood award winner. He's the final boss of the world's video, and you look at his performance in the LCK, you look at his injury that he's coming in with on his wrist that is still reportedly giving him issues, and you look at just being the fourth seed from the LCK in general, I do not think the faker is going to have a particularly good tournament, and I honestly think there's a chance that he bombs out. Not that I'm preying on fakers downfall. I'm a big faker fan. Love the guy has carried this esport for a decade, basically, but I do not think this is going to be a good tournament for Faker. Would love to be proven wrong, but that is my pick. We also have bickle with another member of the t one roster, but somebody else. You have Kerria as your knighthood award. [01:15:50] Speaker D: Yeah, I'm running with Kerria this time. I think I touched on it earlier. Kerria is a name that carries a lot of weight. He's been really strong at support for quite a long time, but I don't think engage champions are where he thrives the best. I don't think that's where he'll find success. So I think he may have a bit harder of time this time in the meta in worlds than he has in the past. I think he'll be fine, but I don't think he'll be living up to that carrier name that everybody knows and loves. [01:16:20] Speaker B: Counterpoint, he finds what is the perfect answer to the engage supports and defines the meta from that point. If you are a t one fan, that's the copium that you're huffing right now or the hopium. [01:16:30] Speaker C: If you're winning, you are the meta. That's all that matters. [01:16:34] Speaker B: Exactly. Ash support is back, baby. Unironically. It may be a timer dinger, but we're not ready to have that conversation. Anyway. Anyway, bench the Kench award, aka, please don't make this champ popular in my solo queue every year at worlds. Despite the fact that solo queue will be played on a drastically different patch. People get excited about picks that they see locked in by the best in the world and think, I can do that. I did it when barrel played Heimerdinger and did not hit diamond that year. Note, I have not hit diamond any year, but I really tried that year. Anyway. I picked yone as mine. I think that yone is going to be the definitive mid laner to pick up in this meta. And I just hate seeing yones in my solo queue games because it's that same thing as Yasuo. If it's on your team, it's. If it's on the enemy team, it's impossible to deal with. Just seems to be the trend. It's kind of feast or famine as a champion. So that's my one. Although it does scale kind of crazy. Let's go reverse order here. Hawk, you got Cassante. You don't like playing against Cassante in your solo queue games. [01:17:37] Speaker A: It's more so like, it's not playing against, it's just the champion is so different on the new patch. Like after all the changes, it's not even the same thing anymore. So like I. Yeah, I would prefer to not see Cassatta come out because. [01:17:54] Speaker B: Fair enough. [01:17:55] Speaker A: Probably just gonna feed. [01:17:57] Speaker B: Fair enough. [01:17:58] Speaker A: Although new w does a ridiculous amount of true damage. [01:18:01] Speaker B: So I've not looked at the changes actually, so I gotta take a look at those. But mongoose, you have Shyvana. I actually like Shyvana in solo queue games. I feel like solo queue is a perfect environment for her. But why do you not want her? [01:18:13] Speaker C: Shyvana has been my perma band for three years. I no champion tilts me more than playing against AP Shyvana. I feel like people just cannot dodge the e and no one invades her early, at least in like diamond and below. So she just free farms and then becomes an AP one shot monster. And I fucking hate and I'm not going to deal with it, so I ban it every game. [01:18:35] Speaker B: Okay. [01:18:36] Speaker C: So I actually will not be seeing it in my solo queue games out of principle. [01:18:41] Speaker B: Pickle picked Aurora. Is this just because it's the latest b's champ? [01:18:45] Speaker D: It's the latest B's champ. There's a lot always going around. She's hopping around, turning invisible, jumping around in her giant portal, blowing people up, but also can fall very behind and be absolutely worthless. So I just don't want to see it. [01:18:58] Speaker B: Fair enough. Well, next up for our awards. We have Airport Speedrun award aka the western team with the worst show in now this doesn't notably not play ins teams. 100 thieves doesn't count. They're already out. This has to be for the swiss stage. You say it doesn't count. PNG is the third seed baby from the Americas. So I put pain gaming. Historically we don't pick minor regions. I would pick MDK, but I didn't want to disrespect MDK twice in a row because I looked like a fool last week after doing that. But there are two players or two co hosts that are willing to throw MDK under the bus yet again. We have mongoose and Hawk both say MDK. Hawk, you weren't convinced by the swift exit out of the plans with the four one win rate? [01:19:47] Speaker A: I still don't think this team is very good at League of Legends. Unfortunately. Their bot lane looked great. But no, I think especially because I will say I think there is like genuinely things to get excited about for some of the other and western teams, right? So you know, like team Liquid Flyquest. Honestly, my runner up for this award is probably fanatic. I also think they're very bad, but. [01:20:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I'm dude, when they lost like with, what was it, three games in a row with a 10,000 gold lead. Yeah, fanatic have some problems. I'm curious what they're going to look like at worlds, but there is somebody who also doesn't have faith in fnatic and that's bickle. You actually put fnatic as the fastest airport speed run. [01:20:29] Speaker D: I'm just not feeling fanatic right now. Their bot lane has really taken a step back from what we've seen them be able to do. June in particular. He looked great in the spring, but in the late summer to season finals, he just hasn't been doing it. I don't expect Razor to be the one to kind of be able to take over against international junglers. Humanoid is way too hit or miss in my opinion, to be able to do something and I'm still not sold on. Oscar has his hype pop off moments, but he still also has those int games within him. I'm just not feeling like Fnatic is going to be able to put together a good showing this international tournament. [01:21:12] Speaker B: Well, they are up against arguably one of the easier opponents in their swiss round one, which brings us to the longest walk award, which is the eastern team with the worst showing. And we have two of our co hosts again in agreement, Mongoose and Hawk really are agreeing on a lot of their takes so far that you both think that DK, which happens to be Fnatic's first round opponent, will have the worst showing of any eastern team. Mongoose, why do you think DK is so doo doo bad? [01:21:41] Speaker C: I think they're coming in with a lot of pieces that just are not good. I think Lucid is going to struggle a ton on the world stage. And then I also have not been very impressed with their bot lane. Aiming is really, really good, but I also want to see aiming crash and fail at every single point in his league of Legends esports career. And I hope after this year he does not have a team anymore. [01:22:09] Speaker B: Well, that's an aggressive take. [01:22:11] Speaker D: I mean, mongers, all aiming has to do is make it to 15 minutes. [01:22:17] Speaker B: Is that a. Is that a meme? Is that a joke? I don't get the joke. No one's going to explain to me. Perfect. All right, well, I'm going to make aggressive take as well because Hawk said earlier that weibo is the second best team from the LPL. Everything I've ever heard about Weibo is that they are the most coin flip of all coin flip teams and they flipped too many heads as of late. So I think they're going to be flipping tails as at this world. And I have them actually being the longest walk team. Bickle, you agree with me, but what's your reason for the take? [01:22:47] Speaker D: I think Weibo is the eastern team that's kind of get, kind of gets screwed by swiss. I think it always happens to somebody. I do agree they are better than the fourth seed, but I have LNG is the team that gets blessed by the draw and I think it's going to be one of them that falls out. I would have picked LNG, but I think they get blessed by the draw and Weibo get screwed by the draw personally. [01:23:08] Speaker B: Well, we'll cover that one later. But moving on here we have the get in the bin award. Which player has the biggest Lane kingdom? And I can't believe that in a tournament with the literal guy who the awards named after, I'm the only one that picked Ben. So y'all are going to have to defend yourselves here. Let's go quickly through this pickle. You got Chovy. [01:23:25] Speaker D: What the hell do I need to explain? [01:23:30] Speaker B: It's Cho, the biggest Lane kingdom, but we also have him. Him. Oh, wait, sorry. Wait, not show me. Sorry. I was thinking showmaker in my head and I was very confused. Makes way more sense. Never mind, never mind. It. I was. Wow. I just completely trolled that. Sorry. Chovy, if you hear this, nothing personal. [01:23:47] Speaker D: There'S a church in everything. [01:23:49] Speaker B: He's got a whole church. You're right. I used to be a member. Now I'm agnostic. But we have mongoose with Mako. [01:23:58] Speaker C: I think the support pool this year is really fucking weak, to be honest. And I think Mako is going to go off. That's my prediction. [01:24:07] Speaker B: Okay. Mako, popping off hawk, you got Canyon. Notably not a laner. [01:24:12] Speaker A: Yeah. I asked if I was allowed to do a jungler, and you guys said yes, and I thought it'd be fun to not do bin, so I decided to do Canyon. That's really my logic. He's the best juggler in the world. And I will say, for as long as I have been a fan of Lol esports, I don't think we've ever had someone that has definitively been the greatest jungler of all time. Like, a lot of people argue, like, oh, it's not bangi or whatever. And so I think Canyon is playing for that title at this world championship. [01:24:39] Speaker B: Okay, well, let's see if he can put the final statements on that argument. Up next is the I'm not locked in here with you, which is the most underrated team award. Now, surprisingly, we all have different picks here. Hawk put literally in all caps team liquid naehood talent. Let's go, baby. But did not add an apostrophe for let's. So grammatical error points off for you bad guys. Yeah, unfortunately, I put fanatic, which I know is counter to everything else that has been said, but I actually think that fnatic could pop off. [01:25:16] Speaker A: You're crazy for that. [01:25:17] Speaker B: And as I say that, I know that I am cursing them, so you're. Well, gum to all the fanatic haters. Bickle puts MDK. That's worse than fanatic. [01:25:30] Speaker D: I think they're underrated in the fact that they're going to do better than a lot of people expect, but not good enough to make swiss, to not good enough to make knockout stage. I think they'll make two, three. I think they'll ride the momentum of playing. [01:25:45] Speaker A: You're right. That is better than I'd expect. [01:25:47] Speaker D: Yeah. I think they'll ride the momentum of play inside to have a strong performance coming in to start. They'll lose to BLG. They'll win their one one game. They'll draw another western team. They'll upset flyquest, say go two, one, and then drop two in a row to eastern teams in n two and three. [01:26:07] Speaker B: That could easily happen right there. I just think it's hilarious that we have MDK and Fnatic both represented when both of those teams were ones that were represented in the airport Airspeed airport Speedrun award as well. So just kind of a funny little bit there. I will let everybody in the discord take a guess as to who Mongoose has. You will get it right. So we don't even need to mention it. Legends never die, aka the breakout player of worlds is the next award. So, mongoose, LG, Hugo here. Since I robbed you of the ability to talk about PSG, you have gala. [01:26:44] Speaker C: I think LNG is about to go stupid, crazy this tournament. [01:26:49] Speaker B: Stupid, crazy, stupid, crazy struggle, man. [01:26:53] Speaker C: We haven't seen first seed do insanely well at worlds in a long time, and I think it's. I think that's going to continue. So I think LNG is just going to absolutely pop off. This is definitely a gala meta that we're coming into. I think the jinx is going to be a huge ADC pick and I think Gala and Jinx is just going to be a terror. [01:27:16] Speaker B: I do agree that I think Jynx will be more represented in Swizz than we saw in the play in. So interesting take. Hawk, you got Masu, a western player. Let's go. [01:27:26] Speaker A: Yes, sir. I think Masu, he had a really great summer split and was deserving of rookie of the year for lcs. What's impressed me is his mechanics. I've come such a long way, I think since the start of the year. I see no reason for that to not continue. [01:27:40] Speaker B: You okay, Bickel lucid talk about him. Yeah. [01:27:45] Speaker D: I look at breakout player, meaning a player not a lot of people have on their mind. Not a lot of people know a lot about. So usually a younger player, lucid coming in in his rookie year. I think even if DK only makes it to quarters, I think he'll have a strong ish performance and kind of show people like, hey, this is why DK were okay running with me instead of canyon going forward. I think he'll have some pop up moments here and there. Also, I got a question for you, Kangas. What? What's your definition of breakout? [01:28:14] Speaker B: Okay. You know, now that you, you said those words, now that those words came out of your mouth and entered my eardrums, I'm realizing maybe I had the wrong definition. I put Ben as my breakout player. You know, nobody really knows much about this guy. [01:28:30] Speaker D: You know, top five players in the world. He's real up in color. [01:28:36] Speaker C: We definitely don't have an award named after him. [01:28:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know, I just. I thought it was kind of that. [01:28:44] Speaker C: You mean the guy that looks like deft? I've heard about him once or twice. [01:28:47] Speaker B: True, true. Yeah. I actually meant to put deft. I just got confused by the world's video. You know, I'm gonna keep it. Cause it's funny, but I do think that Ben's gonna be the best player at world. So I guess that's kind of the interpretation I had. Like the one that everyone's talking about at the end of worlds as the guy. I think that's going to be Ben. So there we go. Next up, not another pantheon, aka the highest picking band champion. This one we probably have the least to talk about. And the episodes already going long, so let's just go through it quick. We got mongoose and Hawk again conjoined at the hip scene. Skarner Bickle says yone. I say poppy. I will only give argument for my own because I think the reason is the flex. I think it's going to go top jungle and support and that's why it's going to be so highly pick and band. But a good nods to the other two as well. Now, the final one, an all being hand. I don't even understand the pun here, but maybe Pickle can explain the team that benefits or hurts the most from the swiss jaw draw. And to explain the name Bickle Alping. [01:29:48] Speaker D: Hands, the the Swiss Alps blame Badger. He made this up last year. [01:29:54] Speaker B: That's pretty. That's pretty good. That's. [01:29:57] Speaker D: It was either badger or Sean, I can't remember. [01:30:00] Speaker B: All right, that sounds like a Sean one for sure. [01:30:02] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:30:02] Speaker B: Actually it was probably badger. He's not welcome back next week, which we do. Had expected him. But I'll have to confirm an alpine hands. Then. The team that benefits are hurts the most from the swiss draw. I put HlE specifically because round one, they match against PSG and that they're. They're the number one seed from LCK. They have arguably the easiest of the teams that they could have grabbed outside of, like, pain would be the other one or I guess, gam. You know what? Maybe there were easier ones. I still think that they have the easiest round one from the eastern teams. So, boom, I picked them. Bickle, you put lng. Why you think? [01:30:39] Speaker D: I think they're just going to get lucky with the swiss draw. I think they're going to make it out without beating an eastern team. I think they're going to three o western teams and get a one by the west, by the east. [01:30:49] Speaker B: Amazing. It really is hard to predict this one. This was an easier one with, like, the group stage that we used to have with the actual groups, but now with swiss, you're basically just saying, who gets lucky? Hawk, you have flyQuest. [01:31:05] Speaker A: All right, guys, math is math. Flyquest already drew gam. That's one. They just need to get helped, like, one more time, and then everyone's gonna be talking about it. So I decided to play. Yeah. Like, oh, honestly, g two is a way better. I'm gonna change my answer to g two because. Okay, everyone's gonna be like, g two. Ollie made top eight because they got. [01:31:30] Speaker C: Png in the first round. Right. [01:31:35] Speaker B: And then they're not gonna make that joke when tl make it three two. After beating Png at some point along the path. [01:31:40] Speaker A: See, more than. More than likely, too. It is actually an NA team that would get roasted for this. Okay, I'm going back to Flyquest. [01:31:48] Speaker B: Let's go. Let's go. I don't know why I'm excited about that, but yeah. All right, so to fly to g two. Back to fly. Now, the funny thing is, because I gave my argument first and reals, and I should have saved it for last year, because Mongoose, he picked a team that I have mentioned the name of. I said hle, because they got to play against PSG. First among us, of course, picks PSG. What's going on here? [01:32:12] Speaker C: Having to play hanwha, life is pain. This. This shit sucks. [01:32:17] Speaker B: Okay? [01:32:18] Speaker C: But if you lose your first round, you'll play against worse teams in the second round, which means it's easier to win. [01:32:29] Speaker B: Um, true. [01:32:33] Speaker C: The more you lose, the easier it is to win. [01:32:36] Speaker B: The statement it helps is uncomfortably accurate. [01:32:40] Speaker D: So if you lose, you might just be bad. [01:32:46] Speaker C: If you go zero two, you're playing against the worst teams in every single round from there on out. [01:32:52] Speaker D: But that means you're one of the worst teams. [01:32:55] Speaker B: But you need the best of the worst. You only need to be better than eight teams. That's all you need. Not even technically. You could be better than three teams and just match up against those exact three teams. [01:33:08] Speaker C: They are included in that 60% calculation for a western team making it out. So, okay, they could do it. They could be the 60%. [01:33:18] Speaker D: It's a 60% chance that at least one east, one of the LCK LPL teams will team kill each other so that there's an open spot. [01:33:27] Speaker B: Oh, okay. I didn't understand that. But you know what? We'll adopt them as our fifth seed. Unofficially, from the Americas wouldn't. [01:33:38] Speaker C: If you keep doing bad, you don't have to play the east. [01:33:41] Speaker B: True. [01:33:43] Speaker C: Just keep playing the west. [01:33:44] Speaker B: Well, they have to play them in the first round. But yes, I understand. [01:33:48] Speaker C: After that. See, it's just. It hurts them to help them. [01:33:51] Speaker B: Well, thank you for that one, Mongoose. But I actually, I'm a little confused. Let's imagine that the final series for PSG goes to the full three games. How many games total would that mean that they have to play in order to make it actually. Wait, no, that doesn't actually make sense. Cause that would be seven. I'm trying to find a way to get to five here. Let's imagine a world where PSG wins out, but their final series goes to three games. How many games is that? [01:34:23] Speaker C: Five. [01:34:24] Speaker B: That's exactly how many stars that everybody should give. The podcast that's listening right now. That's crazy. What a coincidence right there. If you are listening to anywhere that you can give a rating, make sure to drop one. It does really help us out here. And also make sure to join the community discord as well to let us know your thoughts on everything that's going to be happening in the swiss stage because I believe that is everything to cover on this week. Week's episode. Swiss stage again is starting up on October 3 in the morning. For us Americans, it is 08:00 a.m. est. 05:00 a.m. pST I'm so sad. I was in Toronto, Canada all of last week and it was awesome being able to wake up at eight and see the games. Now I'm back in California. It's gonna be 05:00 a.m. that's gonna be a little brutal, but I will be up watching them, of course. Bickle, sounds like you want to get something in there. [01:35:11] Speaker D: No, this time zone is perfect for me. I love it. [01:35:15] Speaker B: God, so jealous. [01:35:16] Speaker A: Let's go out here. [01:35:19] Speaker B: It does. Well, okay. It has been worse. [01:35:22] Speaker A: It has been worse. I have murdered my sleep schedule during play ins trying to watch like the, like 07:00 a.m. series or whatever. Yeah, I stayed up and watched pain gaming beat seven and then that's why I fell asleep in the middle of it. [01:35:38] Speaker B: But yeah, yeah, crazy. Well, I'm happy. 05:00 a.m. i'll take it. And hopefully everybody else around the states and in Europe. Europe is ready to watch the games as well. Worlds officially kicking off I know play ins gets things warmed up, but Swiss is where things really start to come together. Cannot wait to see how all the teams kick it in week one of swizz. But that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for tuning in, everybody. Like I said, join the community. Discord, drop a review wherever you listen along. But most importantly, just remember these words, we love you and we'll see you next time. [01:36:13] Speaker D: Peace. [01:36:13] Speaker B: Bye.