Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Gets hit Kimmy kids a little too far here. He's gonna have to try and get himself out living O Tillery and the rest of the shots of fire Zion is just killing the next Zion can eat single handedly win the game by game by game by game by should be oh my God. Stupid marches through and manages to the table with Messiah tanking it up. I do not believe he just believe what I cannot understand this game.
Unicorns of love. It wasn't a mutant they Nexus hello and welcome to episode 547 of the League Rundown. This is your 2025 Split 1 LTA Week 3 preview along with LEC Playoffs Preview. This episode is lovingly entitled Screw it. We're streaming scrims live. I am your host, Kangas and I'm joined by three esteemed co hosts, one of which a special guest. Up first we have Mr. Mazzell. Po.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: Hello. I'm excited to be here. That. That title got me a little bit, I'm not gonna lie. Yeah, yeah. Nice.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: And also the one who actually gave the idea for the title, we got him. Badger.
[00:01:48] Speaker C: You know, I think in the this is the first time in the four and a half plus years that I've been doing this that I actually got my suggestion to be the title of the episode. So I feel like this is a crowning moment.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: And because you did get your idea as the episode of the title or the title of the episode, I had to put you lower in the announcement order for the hosts. So don't get too comfortable.
Know your place.
[00:02:14] Speaker C: You know your place.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Joining us as well, special friend of the podcast. Join us as a guest. Today we have LTA north stats guy, Leo. Welcome. Leo, we haven't had you on since you were LCS stats guy. What's the name change been like for you?
[00:02:34] Speaker D: Oh, it's great. It definitely hasn't caused any problems behind the scenes whatsoever.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Okay. Are you El Tan or a Latan guy?
[00:02:43] Speaker D: El Tan.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: El Tan. I think that's a better way to do it. Yeah.
Yeah, dude. Hearing like people talk behind the scenes about the name change, it's so funny hearing the people that love it, people that hate it, the people that don't exist, that love it because nobody does. But I felt like including those people.
Either way, it's still something we'll talk about, but mostly just because we got games that happened this past weekend as well as more games to talk about this coming weekend. Happy to have you on to talk about those. We also are going to play a little stats Game, since you are the stats guy. We'll do that after our global news though, so let's hop into it.
Up first, Riot, Global LPL and LCK updates. Mizel, what's going on over in the lpl? Any fun storylines emerging? Where are we at? In the. In the.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: Oh, man, I've got the hard hitting stuff. Guess what? We've been on break for two weeks.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Oh my God. I knew that.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: Yeah, that's amazing. But we do come back in two days, so I think the day that this podcast goes live will probably be on that night with game. So make sure you tune in because we got some beggars. Although a lot of the groups are decided already coming back into it, we do have a couple fun series coming up. Second day coming back, which is Monday, is Weibo versus jdg and that's a top of the group B standings matchup. There's only about like 1 1/2 weeks of LPL left, but there's some really fun matches to watch. So make sure you tune in.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: That's not a lot of time left. What's the playoff format look like for this split for lpl?
[00:04:23] Speaker B: So they are going to be best of fives and it's split between like a double double round. Not double round robin, double double elim. Best of five setup. So there will be teams that start in the losers bracket because there are going to be eight teams that make it through. So there'll be four teams or two teams. No, rather, sorry, four teams. The lower four of the eight that start in the losers bracket and the top four will be starting in the upper bracket. And I think they do the draw the night of the last game.
[00:04:58] Speaker A: Oh, cool. All right, well everybody tune in to that to see what that playoff bracket is going to look like.
Is that going to be at the end of this week, like of games that will have that draw happen?
[00:05:12] Speaker B: It'll be in about a week and a half. So next Sunday, technically.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: Cool. All right, well, mark your calendars everybody. If you want to follow along with the LPL Badger, do you have any LCK updates? Are you still following what's happening?
[00:05:25] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, of course. Of course I am. I'm the LPL.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: All right, all right. Do you want your normal 60 seconds? Do you want 90 seconds this time?
[00:05:33] Speaker C: I should be able to do it in like 45 seconds, so.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: 45. Okay. All right, let's hear it.
[00:05:39] Speaker C: So we are entering into the play in stage. Nong shim are playing Bro. Drx are playing DNF. What is the fucking DN freaks now. Nongshim vs Bro. Winner plays T1 Drx vs DNF. Winner plays Hanwha Life. Those teams play. And to get into the actual playoff to figure out who's going to the. What is it?
[00:06:06] Speaker A: First strike. I always call it first strike.
[00:06:08] Speaker C: Okay. I always call it first. I wasn't sure.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: First stand. No, sorry. First stand. First strike is what Mark Z called it in the Travis Gafford video. And everyone kept calling it first strike.
[00:06:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I think a better name, but. So the teams that are already qualified into playoffs, Damwon is the top. The first seed in the top side of the bracket. Gen G is the top seed in the bottom side of the bracket. KT is already made it through two playoffs as well.
Fear X. Thanks for showing up for the. Whatever the fuck this is to start the season. We'll see you in like April.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: Damn. So it is brutal for like every region. The teams that aren't advancing on to the next stage of whatever their format looks like it's gonna be a. A long break.
Cool. Also, LCK news. We might as well talk about it. Smash is still playing, right? That's like the big global news everyone's talking about.
[00:07:03] Speaker C: Yeah, slated to still be playing.
Sounds like he's gonna be playing on Saturday when they play their first. Well, their first play in match.
So we'll see. Maybe. Maybe the trucks ran over Guma and they're trying to figure out the logistics behind being down a player and oh.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: Gooma's definitely dead at this point. They replaced with the clown.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: I buy into that. It's a look alike.
[00:07:32] Speaker C: Yeah, the Angels fly away.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: Get Sarah McLachlan in here quick.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah. I wish I had it on my soundboard. It'd be perfect for right now. I could play the Pantheon theme, but it doesn't sound like it's the same.
[00:07:44] Speaker C: Does it work?
[00:07:44] Speaker A: It doesn't. Not quite.
I do have a good one for everybody though. I think. I think maybe you'd appreciate this. Wait, where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Actually, where is it? Okay, I got it. Porn. There we go. Okay.
[00:07:58] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: All right. And now to give us our super Official in depth 10 minute overview of LTA South. Leo, what's going on in the. In the Southern Conference?
[00:08:10] Speaker D: Some great things, you know, look kind of similar to the past weekend of LTA north, which we'll get into later, but apparently the two Latam teams are going to the America stage as one and two, which I don't think many people were expecting.
There were Other teams who are heavy favorites that lost in round two.
Sound familiar, right? But other than that, I've got no idea. That conference sucks.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Okay, you know what? You gave way more than I was expecting. I was setting you up for a guess and that we're all gonna be like haha, that was funny. But you actually had information, which is fantastic. But yes, the LLA teams are doing fantastic down in the South. Cannot be said here in the north as Lion. We'll talk about it here soon. Did not have a fantastic run in Split one, but other news as well. For roster stuff, Shaden's back. It is confirmed. It's official. Visa issues have been sorted and he is now on the roster and we can talk about how he looked as well. I believe that's it for global news again, slow news week there. If we missed anything, don't forget to let us know about it in the community. Discord. You can find the link in the description wherever you are listening. And if you want to help support the podcast, we have a Patreon you can check out. And we also have a merch store. League-rundown-shop.fourth wall.com Go grab a mug, go grab a hat, go grab a mouse pad. I'm still lobbying that we get a Duffy face mouse paddle at some point or like an interactive.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: Oh my God.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: You know how like you, you. There's the ones where like you look at it from one angle and it's one thing you look at from the other angle, it's another thing. I want it to be mazel going. The face.
I have a recording of it and I want to. I want to make it so when you look at one side and the other, his tongue's going up and down.
[00:10:00] Speaker B: Nice. I think that we should do a full Hundred Thieves style drop, but it's like legacy collection. It's duff, just beyond everything. Just literally like a shirt with Duffy just all over it.
[00:10:15] Speaker A: That's good. That's good. I like. We have a lot of photos of Duffy too.
[00:10:20] Speaker C: That one in the chamber for a little bit.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: We'll workshop it. Well, we'll get the community's feedback on that too.
But it's time to hop into the leagues proper. Actually, before we hop into the leagues, we have Leo, the LTA north stats guy here with us. So I want to play a little stats game and then we'll get into talking about the games. But while we have you here, I have five stats that I have prepared. Leo is tasked with telling me with confidence which league they belong to because they're pretty popular stats. He should know. If it's a LTA north stat, it's on his sheets every single day. If he's doing his job. So if it's not that one, he can imagine probably over lec. If he's not confident, he can phone a friend and ask for help from the rest of the cast.
But we're going to test Leo stats knowledge here again as. Remember last time we did this, the pod was playing against Leo and we won, baby. Shout out to Badger. Shout out. Mazel. Let's go, guys.
But this time everyone's going to win. Hopefully.
[00:11:25] Speaker C: Unless we all everyone's a winner. Except if we get the questions wrong, then we aren't winners.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: Exactly.
Two categories.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: True.
True.
[00:11:36] Speaker C: Way my job's not on the line. Let's go.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: Yes, Leo. I actually am sending this recording to Emin after, so need to be careful.
So there's two answers. One is the easy one. That is which region does it belong to? For bonus points, you can say who the player it belongs to is. The points don't win you anything. But if you want to be cool.
Question number one, Leo, the LTA north stats guy.
The highest kill participation between both leagues right now is 86.9% kill participation. Almost a full 90. Is that an LTA north player or an LEC player that that belongs to?
[00:12:21] Speaker D: I want to say it's lec. I don't want to say someone on Fnatic.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: All right, so you're just imagining. Because Fnatic's doing super well. I imagine.
[00:12:30] Speaker D: Yeah, because we had three game bangers in the LTA north, which I imagine kind cooked the kill participations a bit.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: We did. We did some of the bangers. You know, you're doing well one, but you can smash the other one. But I will say it's actually a LTA north player. In fact, it's one of the players that was in one of those bangers. It's Vulcan. Vulcan has an 86.9% kill participation. But it's very close. Yzma from SK of all teams has an 86.4%.
[00:13:03] Speaker D: I mean, not many kills to participate in.
[00:13:05] Speaker A: I was gonna say. I think part of that is that they.
[00:13:09] Speaker C: Where did you pull your stats from?
[00:13:11] Speaker A: Kangas Oracle's Elixir.
[00:13:14] Speaker C: Okay, cuz, not to fact check you, but I just pulled up Games of Legends.
[00:13:20] Speaker D: Oh God, here we go.
[00:13:25] Speaker C: Wait, who isma has a 91% KP?
[00:13:28] Speaker A: Wait, that's crazy. I mean, I guess the stats are different. Kill participation. I'M looking at right here.
Oracle's Elixir. 86.4%.
[00:13:40] Speaker D: All right, we gotta get Leakpedia to break this.
[00:13:42] Speaker C: I was gonna say Leakia.
[00:13:44] Speaker A: Well, Leo the stats guy, which one is a more reputable source In. In your opinion, in your experience?
[00:13:50] Speaker D: It. I'd say Leakpedia is my number one third party site.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: Leakpedia.
[00:13:55] Speaker D: I won't. I honestly won't use Gol or Oracle's Elixir. I just much prefer Leakpedia. But Leakpedia does have the answer as Vulcan.
[00:14:07] Speaker C: Oh, interesting.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: Let's go. Let's go at 86.9.
[00:14:11] Speaker D: Oh, hang on, I'm looking at LTA self, not LEC.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: Also. I love that these guys just also have the answers up on their screens while we're playing.
[00:14:22] Speaker D: He was like, I don't believe you.
[00:14:25] Speaker C: I keep Games of Legends as a stat. And I'm like, no, that seems wrong because I know that Isma. And we'll talk about Isma later. Because SK pulled off an upset.
Isma seems like the only functioning member of that team outside of the bot lane.
[00:14:40] Speaker A: Like, yeah, kind of. Okay, where are those stats even gonna be in Leaguepedia?
[00:14:46] Speaker D: You go to the split page and then you go player stats.
[00:14:52] Speaker A: Look at that. Okay. Okay, I'm looking at it. Leakpedia.
Should I just go off of Leaguepedia for the. Well, that's gonna change them. I'm just gonna stick with what I have and then you can say if it's wrong. Right. Based on the other ones. But hey, you know what? This one seems to be correct. It is. Wait, did you have the kill participation for him yet?
[00:15:10] Speaker D: Yeah, it is Vulcan, 86.9% and Isma with 86.4.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: There we go. All right. Games of Legends get shit on.
All right, question number two. For Leo, the LTA north stats guy, the highest CS per minute for a player across both regions is 10.1. Notably, 10 is considered by some. I don't know if it still is, but it has been historically considered. Air quotes. Perfect CS. One player has above 10 and it's a 10.1. Is that an LEC stat or an LTA north stat?
[00:15:46] Speaker D: Well, I don't remember seeing any CS stats that really blew my mind in LTA north so far. So I'm gonna say it's LEC, but I wouldn't have it. I wouldn't have a clue which team it would be.
[00:15:57] Speaker A: Okay, what do we think from Mizel and Badger? Do we agree? LEC stat.
[00:16:04] Speaker C: Mazella, you take this one.
I messed up the last one.
[00:16:10] Speaker B: Well, honestly, if it's 50, 50, you know. Yes, that's a good way to put it.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: And Leo, you are correct.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: Let's go.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: LEC stat. It is ice from team BDS of all teams also not doing like incredib well, but ice individually still doing well. CSing. Second is Noah from GX with 9.7. Third is a tie between Kalist and Henna from the LTA North. So we only have.
[00:16:41] Speaker D: We're not farming at all, are we?
[00:16:43] Speaker A: Yeah, we suck at farming, man. Let me tell you.
[00:16:45] Speaker C: We just grab. It's fine.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: True, true. All right, next one. The highest KDA is 12.9. Is that an LEC or an LTA North? Stan.
[00:16:59] Speaker B: Got him.
[00:17:01] Speaker D: It's gotta be LEC because like I said, the bangers this past weekend probably killed some kda.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: I believe it was closed before this weekend.
But surprisingly, the. The LTA north player with the highest one benefited. The one that was previously in that spot lost a couple points. It does belong to an LLC player. It is upset with 12.9.
[00:17:25] Speaker D: KDA player.
[00:17:27] Speaker A: I was gonna say that's the player right there.
[00:17:29] Speaker C: Line I've ever heard in my entire life.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: Everybody complains about.
[00:17:33] Speaker D: At least he's good this time.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: Two years.
[00:17:36] Speaker C: Let's go.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: Second and third are humanoid and razork at 8.9. And FBI from LTA north is fourth place at 7.6. So again, NA players, man, we're just. We're lacking in the stance.
[00:17:51] Speaker D: We're just having too many bangers.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: The highest CS differential at 10. It's a stupid stat.
It's. It's. According to the Oracle's elixir. I don't like it. It should be 15. But the highest CS differential at 10 is 13.2. Is that an LEC or an LTA north player?
[00:18:10] Speaker D: I mean, you've had. I think you've had three LEC answers so far.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: So based on the stats, I'm gonna.
[00:18:20] Speaker D: Run the numbers and go LTA North.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: Okay, but this isn't like. It's. It's bad determining.
Well, you are correct. I just don't like how you got.
[00:18:33] Speaker D: Let me. Let me try to guess the player, so.
[00:18:36] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:18:36] Speaker D: It was plus 13 at 10.
[00:18:39] Speaker A: Yes, 13.2 at 10.
[00:18:43] Speaker D: That's the rap blabber. Is he just CEO full clear again, Blake Blabber inspired.
[00:18:49] Speaker C: No, it's got to be a top laner.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: It is a top laner.
[00:18:54] Speaker D: Impact.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: No, it's impact. Second impact. Second place.
[00:18:59] Speaker C: Oh, is it Castle Lane swaps? Because, like, you Just have to think about that.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: Leo. What'd you ask?
[00:19:04] Speaker D: I hate lane swaps. So the first 10 minutes of every game is just out of my memory. Is it Castle?
[00:19:10] Speaker A: It is, in fact. Castle.
[00:19:12] Speaker D: Yeah, he's popping off.
[00:19:14] Speaker A: Yep. Castle had a great split individually. There are a couple rough moments that happened later in games. He kind of lost the clutch factor, but early games, it was his comfort zone for a lot of the Split. Impact is second at 11.2. Notably, no LEC players have more than 10 CSD at 10 minutes. Interesting to think about.
All right, that's what I'm saying. Last question. Who has the highest counter pick rate of 100%? Counter pick?
[00:19:45] Speaker D: I mean, surely it's 30.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: No, it is not 30, but you did get the correct region, so I'll give you that. Badger, you want to gander a guess here?
[00:20:00] Speaker C: It's gotta be.
I don't know what. AD Carry is. Saving their pick for a while, I guess. I don't know.
[00:20:09] Speaker A: It's not an AD Carry.
[00:20:10] Speaker C: Not an AD Carry. Okay. Is it a solo laner?
[00:20:14] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:20:15] Speaker C: Oh, is it Loki?
[00:20:18] Speaker A: No, it is Loki's rival coming in as well from LCK Challengers.
Not the Norse God Thor. It is Saint. Saint has 100 counter pick rate.
[00:20:31] Speaker C: Really?
[00:20:32] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, it's a small sample size. It's only like.
[00:20:35] Speaker D: I didn't think that was a stat. Worth checking the stats.
[00:20:39] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:20:41] Speaker D: More power.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: Really? Huh.
[00:20:43] Speaker D: You said you were using Oracles.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: I was using Oracle's elixir. Yes.
[00:20:47] Speaker D: Salute to Tim.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: Salute to Tim. 7. Using.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: There you go. Still around.
[00:20:52] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:20:53] Speaker D: He's doing stuff. He's doing. I think he. Like last year, he started up Oracle's elixir for Valorant, I think.
[00:21:00] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. My goat.
[00:21:03] Speaker D: He's popping around. I think. Last I heard, like, last year, he was like, on A Hundred Thieves for something.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: I miss that guy. It's cool.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: I do, too.
[00:21:12] Speaker B: We used to have him on desks in amateur. It was awesome.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: I know. Yeah. He would actually hang around and, like, broadcast with us. It was so cool. All right. Cool. Well, that is it for our little stats game. Leo, you did pretty well. I'll say. I actually think that you got like four out of five.
[00:21:26] Speaker D: Well, it's real easy when you start off with three lec. I mean.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: True, true. Yeah. I didn't even think about the order. It was three.
I should have switched those up a little bit. But a bonus fun stat question. This one's mostly for Badger, because I know that you're the one Watching LEC the most with me. Who has the most deaths in lec at the end of the. The regular splits?
[00:21:51] Speaker C: Oh, God, it's gotta be.
Well, Mickey was. No Mickey. Hilly.
[00:22:00] Speaker A: Hilly.
[00:22:01] Speaker C: Hilly.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: Hilly was leading after week one. He had that one like 13 death game.
[00:22:06] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't think he died as much though, afterwards. Like, I feel like it's gotta be like, it's gotta be an SK player. Like, let's be honest.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. Who are you thinking?
God.
[00:22:25] Speaker C: Fuck if I know. Is it loopy?
[00:22:28] Speaker A: It is not. Loopy is up there though, is it?
Surprisingly, it is. Execute.
[00:22:35] Speaker C: Oh, that actually makes sense.
[00:22:38] Speaker A: Honestly, by one death ahead of Hillise.
[00:22:41] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: Well, Rogue.
[00:22:44] Speaker C: I mean, we'll talk about Rogue later. But Rogue the bed, like.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: Yeah, they really did. They really did. So it was a 43 for Execute, 42 for Hilly, 41 for Camillo from team Heretics.
[00:23:00] Speaker C: Oh, my God.
[00:23:02] Speaker A: All of them are within one of the next person. And then Loopy drops to fourth place with 36. Loopy was pull it for number one there, but he actually had a. He was able to ring it back in a little bit. But there we go. That's our fun stash game. Let's get into the actual games. Thanks for sticking with us there, everybody. We're gonna start off with LTA north for this week and then close out with our abbreviated LEC as we get excited for playoffs. That is happening right around the corner. But LTA north happened this past weekend and oh, boy, did we have some games. Mazelle. I gotta give props to you, man. Everybody was like, oh, the meme from the first week was it was all two O's. And you were like, well, the meme from this week is it's all gonna be two ones. It's all gonna be bangers and tip of the hat, sir.
[00:23:46] Speaker B: Delivered. Delivered. Oh, it was actually a great weekend. It was fun.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: It was fantastic. Lion vs Shopify Rebellion was the one that kicked things off. We pretty much all had Shopify Rebellion except for Bickle, who thought lion might be able to take it.
But let's talk about how Shopify was able to. And were we convinced that this means that they're going to be able to do more damage going forward? What do you.
[00:24:09] Speaker B: What do you think?
[00:24:10] Speaker A: Mazel. Shopify Rebellion overall, like, out of five, what's your confidence scale? Did they just be lion because Lions bad, or is Shopify bouncing back?
[00:24:19] Speaker B: That's a great question. I feel like we saw the Shopify that maybe was a little bit more expected to some Extent. But I would say still struggling to close out a series cleanly against lion is a bit of a head scratcher, I guess. I. Maybe I'm discounting Lion a lot, but, like, not having your main shot collar in the room with you and like, on stage with you is so difficult to play around. And I feel like it should have been a 2 0, but they got the wind, baby, and they have. They kept themselves alive until they run into a brick wall the next time.
[00:24:59] Speaker A: Notably, though, the one loss they had was with a couple of what I consider, like, S tier champs. They had, like, Jay's victor. They lost with that one and they lost to another support Pantheon. Dude, we're seeing it pop up and pop off.
I love it in the league, but they were able to come back and still win the series. Game three, the. The Amumu baby contracts. Pulling it out. That was pretty exciting.
Leo, do we. Do you have any, like, fun stats for Fearless so far? Do we have any tracking of, like, how many unique champions have been locked in and how's that look compared to last year and such?
[00:25:34] Speaker D: I don't have it off the top of my head or, like, set up. I can grab it real quick. But, like, we do have individual tracking and four players on a hundred thieves have all picked different champs in every single game they've played so far.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: That is really cool. I like that stat. I remember you mentioning that earlier this week.
All right, cool, cool. So we'll keep track of that then. I think that's a fun part of the Fearless draft system is that there's a chance for more types of comps. Yeah, mazel.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: I. I'll just say, and this is gonna be a little meme y, so take it with a grain of salt.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:26:12] Speaker B: Palafox was having a tough series, the whole series for Shopify. And I don't know if, like, rumors got to him that people were talking bad about him or something in Game three, but the man just went like Super Saiyan to save his career in the last game.
And so, like, I don't know if that's something we'll get to recreate because I think Palafox has been having a really bad split, but it was nice to see the. The genius mid laner that. That Shahu was talking about at least once.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: Yeah, we know that the ceiling of Palafox is really good, but it's getting that consistency up, which you can say that for a lot of players on this roster. Honestly, like, I think Fudge contracts, even Zazel, that same statement Applies to all of them, but yeah, agree. Love to see when Palafox is able to show us just how good he can be at the game.
All right, cool. Shopify did advance on and we had to bid farewell to Lions. That was an elimination match. But there was another elimination match that happened right after it and oh boy. Another two. One Dig versus Disguised. The creator team, the one currently sitting in the relegation spot. Remember that at the end of the year they will have to defend this spot from the teams promoting up through the NACL system.
[00:27:33] Speaker D: Not relegation. Guess, but guess.
[00:27:36] Speaker A: Okay, okay.
[00:27:37] Speaker C: I can't call it relegation because that's a negative connotation to a Kangas. Come on.
[00:27:42] Speaker D: Exactly.
[00:27:43] Speaker A: They're getting fired. If they lose, I will report you.
[00:27:46] Speaker D: To product if you do not use the cursor.
[00:27:49] Speaker A: Oh, we're just gonna be reporting each other?
[00:27:51] Speaker D: This entire Zimmerman is going to call you.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: But either way, Dig versus Disguise happened and Dignitas walked away with it. Two and one.
Ah, Mizella, I'll let you start. You're already mourning the loss of disguise.
[00:28:10] Speaker B: What? This is gonna be mean and I, I, I don't know how to not to have these feelings, but why did we bring Abadage back? Why? Why not any other goddamn mid laners that we could take other than this person? Like I, okay, I don't have anything against him as a person, but dude, this guy literally cost ESG the entire series on multiple occasions. And I think yes, Keane was having a hell of a series, but man, if they had any semblance of strength of midlade, like especially that last game where Xu got his patented lease in and just had no kinds of support and was still trying to go for plays. Like I really, really, really hope that we get to see another iteration of this roster even with Abu Dhabi. I don't really care. I'm just really worried that changes are coming. I would like to see a little bit more time committed to these guys.
[00:29:06] Speaker A: Yeah, if change happens, I agree. I would like to see the rest of the core say the same. I know that there was a lot of criticism thrown at or sorry, Scary Jerry as well.
[00:29:16] Speaker D: He was rough.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: He's not.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Dude, when has this guy ever proficiently played Zigs? He plays jinxes. He plays carries. He plays mechanically intensive carries. And like I don't feel like a 05 performance on Zigs in a game where you could audibly see that he was not with like he has a very kind of carefree attitude to him in a lot of cases and especially when he doesn't agree with things, but wants to go along with it. I know I've interacted with this guy for many, many years, even on a personal level, like from his mannerisms in that champ select. When they picked him, Ziggs, he was not certain about it. And you can't have that kind of stuff. You need to give your. Your carries comfort. And I just feel like we should not be judging this guy off of one bad series because I actually think his first series was not bad.
[00:30:04] Speaker C: Bring back Matt.
[00:30:06] Speaker A: What are your thoughts then, Leo, from the Scary Jerry point in particular, what did you remember noticing that you liked or didn't like about him from week two?
[00:30:17] Speaker D: I mean, he had a much better week too, but that doesn't say much when the week one was on the rock bottom.
You know, I mean, I'm not gonna. I don't think I'm gonna judge him too much from the start because, I mean, week one, in. I think in game. In the. In game two, he just wasn't allowed to play the game just because computer.
[00:30:40] Speaker A: Yeah. It was like, what Xin Zhao plus yone. I think like just a bunch of dive that he had to deal with.
[00:30:47] Speaker D: Yeah. And. But his week two, I think, was okay. You know, I want to see how he does next split.
And I'm not a viewer of NaCl, so I don't. I don't know how he usually works or how he usually plays, but I.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: Mean, yeah, like, he was.
[00:31:07] Speaker D: He was doing plenty of damage this week. Like, he was 38 damage per minute above his opponents. And his landing phase was all right, you know, up 228gold after 14. So, I mean, there were some upsides, but very unfortunate for him that he cannot play for two months now that.
[00:31:27] Speaker A: That'S the biggest kicker. And I. I don't. I don't know if Mazel has the same breed of him as a player as I do. We can get your thoughts too, but. But the way that I always saw him in NACL was he and Zyko were a scary bot lane because if they got the snowball rolling, it didn't stop. Scary Jerry with a lead was very scary to deal with, but when he didn't have a lead, it was more of the rest of the roster. That was the reason that they were winning games. So that's what I'm seeing here in the tier one league now is like, they're not able to get that lead that they're. That he's like, been show, like at his peak. It's because of him just smashing lane phase and we haven't seen that version of Scary Jerry yet in tier one. Mazel. Do you, do you agree, do you think that that's missing anything?
[00:32:14] Speaker B: I think that his from behind team fights were underrated from some of the things I saw. So I just think that he needs to be set up more for success. He needs to be playing things that he's comfortable on and having like he's definitely having a situation where he's not speaking up for himself in a lot of cases and I think that he should do that because I think the best Scary Jerry is a confident scary Jerry and when he's not confident he loses a lot of that, that edge.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: Yeah, well, we're talking a lot about disguise side here just because they are the first creator team. It was very exciting having them join the league. They played two series and they're gone. That is just the reality of how brutal this format is. But Dignitas is advancing and I think Dignitas looked very good. Kaney in particular, Tomo also really showing up here very happy with both their performances and Serdy is showing that he's just kind of like he can play rock for the team. He doesn't have to be this big pop off. Oh, I, I get a carry and I'm the reason we win. He can also just play the Kazante, play a relatively calm jacks game. Like the Jackson's still like good but it wasn't like oh he's popping off. That one was still more like Kaney having a really good Silas game, constantly roaming around the map and getting off into the bot lane multiple times to get himself a lead.
So yeah, I liked what Dignita showed. I think that they really are stepping up after week one looking rough with lira in the jungle. But shaden now, this is the first week with him and we're already seeing I think a little more just firepower from this team. What were your thoughts Badger on Dignitas? Do you have anything that stood out to you?
[00:33:57] Speaker C: Just overall, I mean the ABBA dag point is kind of very funny to me because like we see these like Korean challenger mid laners coming in. There's so many of them have come that have come over in the last couple of years. I mean Quid quad, Loki, Kian, Kian. I mean had it stopped.
[00:34:16] Speaker A: It'S like like the champion and then the ability.
[00:34:19] Speaker C: Okay, but like it's Kaney but like we're seeing all these like Korean challengers mid laners coming over that are like graduates of like the. Just basically we actually call them the disciples of Showmaker Toby Faker. Like bdd. Like all these guys coming over and they're actually having like really standout performances and popping off. So like, I, I mean I don't think we give. I. I don't know if giving Mask a second chance is gonna fix disguise potentially because, you know, Abidag. But I, I just think it's fascinating the fact that like we're back to oh, Korean Mids.
[00:35:00] Speaker A: Like, yeah, it. We do have a lot of them right now and Abadaki was not one and was other receiving end instead. Ding Dust. Take it though and advance on. We also had some upper bracket matches happen over the weekend and these were also bangers.
Leah, what was it like with the not having a crowd around? I think this was such a rough weekend for that specifically because like these matches were so good, but there's just like no nobody making noise.
[00:35:31] Speaker D: That first, that first series was a turbo banger. Like TL versus 100 Thieves. I was like geek marking out in my chair.
If we had the crowd there, it would have been so loud. Like what a series. That was so much fun. And then the second series was kind of boring in my opinion. But it went to three games, which is great.
[00:35:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:35:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, let's talk about the series and game one was part of why it was so exciting. A lot of people just said TL2. Oh, TL2.0. TL2.0. That's expectation. Hundred Thieves take it. Game one, they take it and yeah, I freaking like Orn for Sniper. They have like Orin plus Maokai and then they flex the Jace into the mid lane like a unique kind of poke style comp with the. The Jace plus the Ezreal.
[00:36:24] Speaker C: You're burying the lead.
Umpty set the death record for a game like that single game.
[00:36:31] Speaker D: That was insane. Yeah, it's a. It's a LCS record specifically. We hit like we're kind of. We're still figuring out how we treat all the league stats in relation to LTA. But the LCS record before was 11 by Serif. But I know CB LOL has. CB LOL and LLA have both had more deaths of in a game before.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: But 13 is a lot like holy crap. 12.
[00:37:00] Speaker C: 12.
[00:37:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:01] Speaker A: Oh, 12. Oh, I thought okay, 12. 12.
[00:37:04] Speaker C: He almost got 13 but he had.
[00:37:09] Speaker A: There's.
[00:37:09] Speaker C: There's limit testing and then there's Umpty and that game won.
[00:37:13] Speaker A: Like it is weird how rough he's looking compared to last year. Last year we saw obviously a lot of the Tank Jungles, but the conversation had always been, oh, that's just the style team. Look who wanted to play. He can play the carries. Like, don't worry, he has the champ will. He also is able to pivot and doesn't just play Sejuani Maokai. It's weird the team liquids having him only play Sejuani Maokai. And now that he's not playing Sejuani Maokai, it's like, oh, oh, no, oh no.
[00:37:43] Speaker B: This.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: This does not look great. Game two again, it's back to Pantheon support. I'm gonna highlight that every time I see it. But then Xin Zhao looked a little bit better for Umpty. I still think that APA's Azir is really impressing. Mazel. Can we officially retire the Apa Azir bad meme? Is. Is it time he's had two good Azir games?
[00:38:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think he's leveled up a lot on that pick in terms of how he looks for things and especially his angles, because I think that was one of the biggest issues I had with it was he just never was finding the big angles and was always just like dying in mid teen fights. But it was nice to see him actually find some good Shurima shuffle angles and stuff.
[00:38:22] Speaker A: Yeah. And then Jan, I think still showing that he's becoming more consistent carries on the team as well. But game three, it's again another loss. This time we have the Elise support for Ayla. Bill's pulling it out, baby. And FBI also just popping off on the followup.
[00:38:41] Speaker B: He made Core JJ spend an entire day after the game practicing Elise on stream.
Everybody was playing it.
All the sports had already already been played. But I think it's hilarious because Core JJ had put in his stream titles like copying Bill or whatever because they're really close from their time on Team Liquid.
[00:39:03] Speaker A: I. I mean, Core GJ has been quoted. We don't really talk about it that much because it was, I think like two years ago now. But he was saying like, oh yeah, Ayla is like, like the second best support in, in the region. I think. Like he was on the the B team, the Team Liquid Challengers, but Core GJ really thought highly of him as a player. And now we're getting to see what 100 Thieves looks like. With Ayla unleashed, they take the series to one really, really cool stuff. And that means Team Liquid are going to continue a kind of tame start. I know Umpty, they still won the games Week one. But there was still criticism that he wasn't looking great this time around. The VI and the Zyra left a lot to be desired and now Team Liquid kind of have their backs against the wall when we look at their next opponent as well.
FlyQuest C9 also happened. Leo, you said this was a snoozer. Why do you think this was a snoozer?
[00:39:52] Speaker D: Well, it probably didn't help that the night before this day I had a 83 minute game of league that ended at 2am oh, this was that day. I think I just ran out of energy from game from the first series and I was just like dead exhausted in the second series.
[00:40:10] Speaker B: And the people that were in that game were really cool. Like they were like the coolest people ever.
[00:40:17] Speaker A: Why do I feel like you're being facetious?
[00:40:19] Speaker D: No, no, no.
[00:40:20] Speaker B: Because I was in there.
[00:40:21] Speaker A: Oh, oh, okay.
[00:40:23] Speaker D: Are now a band of brothers with Rhodey and Cubby, whoever those five randoms were. Yeah, we're all league.
[00:40:32] Speaker A: I saw a tick tock. I don't know who the streamer was, but there was a tick tock of a streamer reacting to looking at that. And the enemy, like velka's support did 100k damage.
[00:40:42] Speaker D: 162K damage and he lost.
I would be steaming if I was him.
[00:40:50] Speaker A: That's almost a thousand damage a minute in a 83 minute game. Wow. All right. It's like two.
That is what it's like.
[00:40:59] Speaker D: 2000 damage a minute. 83 minutes. 162K.
[00:41:04] Speaker A: Oh my God. I can't do math.
[00:41:07] Speaker D: And that's why you're not the stats guy.
[00:41:09] Speaker A: Hey, I just look at Oracle's elixir which is apparently not always right. Or actually no, we learned Games of.
[00:41:16] Speaker C: Legends is not always right apparently.
[00:41:17] Speaker A: Okay, good, good.
All right. Well, other than it maybe being a snoozer from Leo's eyes because he was probably a sleep during this game, C9 were able to take it. We all thought FlyQuest would have it 2 0. But C9 playing a bit of an upset and I gotta say I got cake on my face. I put C9 lowest on my power rankings compared to anybody on the LTA north broadcast. I did not have a lot of faith in them thinking that Loki would not be the biggest of the mid lane imports. Thanatos was still going to be showing some growing pains with the rest of the team in terms of getting on the same page. But despite also my reservations about Sven being able to slot in and replace the firepower that was Berserker he is. And Vulcan looks like a much better player with Zven than he did with Berserker as well. I think notably, that's leveling up fly or, sorry, Cloud9 a lot. So props to Cloud9 and the players over there who gave themselves a very early guaranteed spot at the Brazil portion of the split.
About the games, though, what do we think, Badger, when it comes to gameplay itself, do we think that Cloud 9 is showing that they are good enough to actually compete with the top of the region? They're like, this is where we start to say, oh, how are they looking going into potentially representing us at first stance, stuff like that. Do you think that they are one of the best teams in the region or able to get like, a surprise when they go over for like, West?
[00:42:40] Speaker C: They have the pieces. I mean, Loki coming over has been playing really well. And I mean, Thanatos, I still think has another level to his game that we still haven't seen yet. Just. I don't know if. I don't know if it's overconfidence or anything like that. I need to go back and watch the C9 fly scrim game that they have and see like, his POV, like, how he plays because I kind of want to take a deep dive into him because, like. Like, I remember at the beginning of last year, Bickle and I were losing our shit just because of the fact that Thanatos was teamless at that point. And we're like, how is this guy not on a team like everyone else from that Damwon team was getting taken and put on different rosters but him, he wasn't. So I wasn't. I wasn't sure if there was something like in like tryout periods or something like that. But, like, there's still another level to his game that we haven't seen yet. And quite frankly, the top four teams, TL, I mean, C9, Fly, TL and 100 Thieves are like the cream of the crop for like the lta probably as a whole. Unless, like, Iseris, like Eternal has upset potential in them. I mean, they have Bertle on the team. Like, anything's possible when you have Bertl on the team. So.
But we'll see. It's.
It should be interesting to see once we get to the Brazil section of it, like, assuming the teams that we think are going to make it with the other two of, you know, Fly Quest and tl, like, it'll be. I'm kind of curious to see when we get down there what. How the regions are going to stack and if it change, if it changes just because we're getting more tape on these teams. Because realistically speaking, 100 Thieves and C9 are already in Brazil and they've only played six games. So like there's not much tape on.
[00:44:35] Speaker A: These teams, notably six games because they had the, the seating best of one. That happened at the end of the day. Before we talk about that though, shout out to Vulcan on the Bard. I love that. Champion deathless 0019. Big reason why they were able to take that game three win. But now game number four for them on the day as well as for 100 Thieves.
Okay, what do we think overall vibes wise? Mizel, do you think it's weird to have just like a best of one randomly after a day of like best of threes? What do you think about that? The pacing of that when it came to like the broadcast?
[00:45:09] Speaker B: No, I think it's fine. I mean it's just to decide the side select and stuff. I don't think you need to make teams come in for a full day for, for just one. One series if they're already there. I think it does suck more for one of the teams especially 100 Thieves. Had to sit around for a long time and you know, the coach was talking about how they retired and stuff. But I think if you know ahead of time, I think it's fine. And they did okay.
[00:45:33] Speaker A: Fair enough. Yeah, I mean they were talking about that on pros too. They like took a nap and we're like resting and they got to even vod review a little bit of their previous series before going into this one.
Pretty slow game. Didn't really see a lot of action until like around the 20 minute mark. But then it was just slow. Incremental advantages for 100 thieves. And eventually they won the fights they needed to. And C9 didn't really get any leads early on with a arguably more snowbally type comp with the Renekton with the varus.
And yeah, 100 thieves take it. Technically the best team in North America. Who would have thought the number one seed being a hundred freaking Thieves?
[00:46:16] Speaker C: I, I didn't.
[00:46:18] Speaker D: I. I love our timeline right now.
[00:46:20] Speaker A: It's a pretty fun.
[00:46:21] Speaker D: It's gonna crash burn at some point, but I love it.
[00:46:24] Speaker B: Oh my God.
[00:46:25] Speaker A: We didn't like really do this going in. We did our power rankings basically. But if you had said what percentage chance would you give 100 thieves for being first seed? I would have given them like a 10.
[00:46:37] Speaker C: Yeah, that's the number I was thinking of, too, but they did it.
[00:46:43] Speaker A: All they needed was that 10%. And let's see if they're able to carry the torch of first seed proudly into the Brazil portion of the tournament. Because them and Cloud nine locked in first and second seed, but they don't know who their opponents are gonna be. They will find out at the end of this coming weekend, as well as the other two teams that will be sending. Because it's time to talk about the final day of the North. Only part of Split one. It's kind of weird that it's like split one is broken into two different parts, but the way I'm thinking of it is it's just that this is, you know, part one and the part two is down in Brazil. Part one ends, though, with Sunday games. We have two more best of three series to determine who is going to Brazil. And it just so happens to be a classic. It's tradition. LTA/LCS has to happen on Super Bowl Sunday. I don't make the rules. It's gonna happen every time. And you better be watching this instead of super bowl or you're a fake fan. No, it's fine. You can watch this on vods afterwards.
[00:47:42] Speaker B: It literally starts like, before this. The super bowl doesn't start till like 5pm or something.
[00:47:48] Speaker C: No, it's East Coast.
[00:47:52] Speaker D: So if we have two, two O's, I mean, we'll be done before the super bowl for sure.
[00:47:58] Speaker A: All right, cross your fingers, everybody. Let's hope that that is the case. I mostly just want to watch the halftime show. We were talking about that. Exactly part of the episode, but first series, Team Liquid versus Shopify Rebellion. Everybody here thinks it's Team Liquid despite them looking shaky this past weekend.
And I am the only one that even has Shopify Rebellion picking up a game.
[00:48:20] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:48:21] Speaker A: Kind of surprised to see that. Leo, do you agree? Do you still think it's Team Liquid heavily favored like, like 20 favorite or do you think 2 1.
[00:48:26] Speaker D: I can see. I can see Shopify taking a game.
I don't know, like, spawns in Australia. And everyone knows that Spawns Belt is what got them their performance last year. And Swifter's Belt just ain't up to speed yet. I mean. I mean, I'm messing around.
[00:48:45] Speaker C: Just have the wrist mechanics down.
[00:48:50] Speaker D: Yeah, he doesn't have that flick of the wrist that you really need as a coach. But yeah, I'd say TL T1 the one in SR being like. I'd say a 50. 50% chance.
[00:49:01] Speaker A: The only like way I see Shopify, Rebellion winning this series, this is all also how I think they would win a game. But one of the series is if Contracts just has one of those days again. Contracts at his peak can be the best jungler in Naomi and Umpty has been struggling heavily.
If we see the same Umpty and we see the version of Contracts that we know he can be, that's how Shopify, I think can actually legitimately win this series. But I don't think that that is as likely as the alternative, which is Team Liquid just is a better core across the board and they've been playing together for two years now.
They should be able to get this. Fly vs. Dignitas is also happening. This is a game that I'll be casting, so tune in for that as well.
We have Fly Quests across the board. Everyone has two hours except for Mazel, who's got a 2:1 Mazel. How do you think Dignitas is able to pick up a win a game win at least.
[00:49:57] Speaker B: Man, I can't have them going out to zero Serdy It Jacks or something and he just goes to town. He gets one game and he actually shows up and it gives him good progress to go into the next split. That's. That's my Hopium. That's my Hopium.
[00:50:14] Speaker A: I like it more like Opium.
[00:50:16] Speaker D: What the hell, bruh?
[00:50:19] Speaker A: I gotta say this is a really cool narrative as well because this is Serdi and Shaden who are on FlyQuest challengers and now they're playing up against Bwipo and inspired. Who were the people that they're playing directly behind? I know Serdian, Bwipo have had a pretty fun relationship in the past as well, like interacting with each other and scrims and on stream and such. So I think that's gonna be a really fun match for that reason as well. But there you have it. That is LTA North Week two review and week three preview. It's only games on Sunday reminder you do not have to wake up on Saturday to watch them. If you're over in eu, you do not have to stay up late to watch them. Just do your thing on Sunday and that'll be it because then it's over to Brazil the following week. Oh, also there will be another best of one seating match between the winners on Sunday. So we'll have two best of threes and then the seating decider. Who do we think gets? Since it's all unanimous, TL and Fly Quest, who do we think is third seed? Who we think is fourth. I would go Fly Quest. Third tl Fourth flight.
[00:51:26] Speaker D: Sure.
[00:51:26] Speaker A: Leo? Yeah, okay. Fly tl. Fly tl.
[00:51:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's Fly tl.
[00:51:31] Speaker A: Okay, cool. Well, there you have it.
Well, that is it for LTA north discussion. Now it's time to hop across the pond and discuss the LEC and run through the standings. At the end of the split one they are wrapped for the regular season. It's a very short one. It's only three weeks. It is a single round robin, best of ones. And now we're into the playoff portion. We've already said goodbye to two teams again. We are going to do a little spark notes version of this because a lot of the games just aren't quite up to the snuff. Specifically when it is involving the teams that are no longer going to be advancing onto playoffs. But then we'll be doing deeper dives once we get into playoffs about which teams we think are going to have that shot of representing EU at first. Stand up first though, Fnatic. Fantastic weekend for them. A3.0 clean as they are 81 in sole possession of first place and that first heat going into playoffs. And I gotta say one of the more consistent weekends that we've seen from fnatic. We've seen them 30 already but this one, it really was just like smooth curves. Every single one of them was just. Yeah, this is despite like a couple of hiccups here and there, this is exactly what you want to see out of the first seed. Team gx, KC and SK were not able to give up much of a competition, especially the KC C1 being the surprise upset really did get the better of Kalist who has been kind of the breakout star so far of the first split over in the lec. So I think as much as a lot of people were expecting Fnatic to fall off, I kind of thought that they might fall off too. They managed to hold on and still take first seed. Not faltering at the end. So props to them. Really, really cool stuff. But I do think that their game versus Casey is going to be one of my games to watch for the weekend. If you only got time for one.
I really like that one a lot. Casey put up a fight, but Fnatic was still able to smooth it out at the end.
But Casey, speaking of Badger, how'd they look? Because they won against Vitality.
[00:53:39] Speaker C: They, they won the first half of the French Derby and then we, we, we could stop there. They only played one game this weekend, right? It's Here everyone else played three games, but they only played one. I.
[00:53:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:58] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:53:59] Speaker A: So they. Let's address the elephant in the room. They lost to bds.
[00:54:03] Speaker C: They lost. Which basically is not good.
[00:54:09] Speaker A: Yeah, BDS is one of those teams where they had a good first week, but then it wasn't like it was only good because they got a 2:1. But I didn't think that they showed a lot of promise other than just ice. Like ice is kind of the team in my mind. And I didn't think that they would be able to beat a team like Casey, especially when you have Kalista as the AD carry down in that bot lane.
[00:54:31] Speaker C: And Nuke had a really good performance too, in that game too. And it kind of just shows that maybe Vladi isn't ready for the occasion. I feel like.
Excuse me, if you look up and down at the rest of the roster, like that team is in. A team is stacked across the board with big names. I mean, Connor coming over from Korea, that's a. That's a. That's a player that I didn't expect to still see in the LEC after last season. But just having Clis come in and maybe. I mean, I mean it's really hard to do like to like fantasy book like roster swaps when we're not even to playoffs yet at this point. But like, maybe Vladi needs a little bit of a. Either kick in the ass or something.
[00:55:21] Speaker A: I think kick in the butt. I would not get rid of Vladdy. Vladi in the first weekend looked like the best mid laner in the league. And I know that that's saying a lot. But just like that performance was so strong. He petered out a bit. But I. I still think that his. His potential is there. And I don't drop him just because of.
[00:55:40] Speaker C: Right. Two games in a row. Right.
[00:55:42] Speaker A: But. But I. I hear the concern. I do. I do hear the concern.
[00:55:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:55:47] Speaker A: But yeah. Rough weekend for Casey. The old Kaiba core not staying winning. They are still tied for second and I believe technically they are just second seed. I. I think. Or maybe I actually don't remember how the seating worked at the end. I think. I think they technically were second seed due to like the head to heads and such because the other teams at 6 and 3 right now it's a tie with two others. Up first is G2 and. Oh boy, I'm sad Bickle's not here, man. Bickle has believed in this team and has voted for them, predicted for them to win every single game, every single week. And they Had a rough start, but they did get the 30 finally. So G2 a little bit back here. Easy strength to schedule. It was rogue team Heretics and I guess Koi is a good opponent for them to go up against, but. But they look pretty solid in all those. Speaking of, Koi also is one of those teams at 6 and 3, but they had a rough weekend losing to team heretics, G2 and Rob. Man, what is it with these teams that were like pushing for the top, just struggling at the finish? Casey and Koi both looked solid, baby. That is Europe. I guess at the end of the day.
[00:56:52] Speaker C: One team region. Let's go.
[00:56:54] Speaker B: One team region. That team is fnatic.
[00:56:56] Speaker D: We're like zero team region now. Let's go.
[00:56:59] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:57:03] Speaker A: Zinger again. Yeah, we. I think we already established that Leo gets a pay raise every time he dunks on lec. Ah, yeah, I forgot about that.
[00:57:11] Speaker C: Wait, we're getting paid? Not you, we're not.
We're no longer paid by Steve or Mark or anybody over there.
[00:57:22] Speaker B: Anybody.
[00:57:25] Speaker A: We're paid with mouse pets that you can find.
What do you think about Coy, though? I know it was a rough weekend, but I know in the past you've been a fan specifically because of JoJo. I still think he's looking good, but what do you think about like the rest of the roster around him? Oh, Yoya, I personally I don't think.
[00:57:45] Speaker B: He looks good in the first. In the first, like not this weekend, but the first week. I think he actually looked really good in the second week a little bit less, but. But I.
I don't know, man. I just feel like JoJo is not enough to get over the top lane and bot lane woes as well as like some of the miscommunication and like terms of like strategy. Early game with El Yoya, like Jojo's still damn good, man. Like I would still put him in one of the top conversations in the LEC mids right now at least. But I just think there's some kind of desync in how they want to play the game or like the thought process of like when decisions are made in the game. And I would like to see that cleaned up. And I think time does that right. And I think any team is going to need some time to mesh with JoJo because from what I know he's a little bit different, I guess, than most players. So I would like to see maybe some more time.
[00:58:41] Speaker A: It's one way to put it, I guess.
[00:58:43] Speaker B: I guess he's like strong opinioned Right. And so I think, and I think that fits in Europe, but I think he's, he's an American. Strong opinion. Right. Where it's a little bit different. I think it's going to take some time.
[00:58:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:58:56] Speaker A: Well, either way, they still have a chance to prove themselves as they are advancing to the playoffs. I mean, they had a rough final week, but they're still up there in that kind of clump for six and three, taking fourth seed, which means that notably, they're able to dodge a game against one of the top four teams in the first round. So very, very good for them.
Also, speaking of teams that had pretty good weekends, we have Vitality taking a 2 in one weekend. They're tied with GX at 5 and 4. Overall, GX did not have the best weekend as they were 1 and 2. They lost the vitality in also a pretty fun game. That's another one that you should check out if you only have time for one game this past weekend. Badger, what do we feel about gx? Let's start with them. Because the old gigantic X had, in my opinion, just such an inconsistent, like, impossible to read. Start to the split. I didn't know if I liked them or not. Noah and Jun looks crazy. Jackie's look good. But then again, week two happens, you're like, ah, do I like him? And then this week happens, you're like, ah, do I?
[00:59:58] Speaker C: I don't know. I, I, I, It's, I can't even describe how I feel about this team at this point because I'm just like, like, oh, man, I really like Noah and June. They're a great bot lane. But at the same time, you're like, ooh, watch their top liner, like.
[01:00:19] Speaker A: And it felt like validation. Week one where, like, Noah and June got so much flack from last year, and then they show up and just smash. You're like, hell, yeah. And it's like, oh. Then you're like, it's not gonna happen every time. Okay, so how, how in. In Leo official LTA north stats terms. Badger, how big of a belt does Gyodo need to get here? Because I think that that's what we're learning.
[01:00:42] Speaker C: He needs, like, he, so he needs like the old, like one of those old wrestling, like, championship belts maybe, like, not like the new, like, giant bulky ones, but, like, maybe one that's just like a little bit thicker. Just, just a little bit more emphasis on it, you know? Got a Gotta beat some sense into these young whipper schnappers sometimes.
What?
[01:01:10] Speaker A: Just, just for the Record, we on the podcast do not endorse.
[01:01:14] Speaker D: There you go.
[01:01:17] Speaker A: Make sure that that is communicated. But if a coach does choose to do it, we're just gonna talk about it, you know, because that's. That's what we do.
[01:01:25] Speaker C: Two players on that team that were born in 2004, I think I can call them young whippersnappers.
[01:01:30] Speaker B: I think so too.
[01:01:31] Speaker A: I think that's fair.
And even. Even their win this, like, past weekend versus BDS was less clean than I'd want it to be. They gave an opportunity for BDS to get back in. But I will say I do like some of the creative draft choices, like holding the Gragas flex and then throwing it support. Pretty fun. It's been a while since I've seen a Gragas support, so shout out to Giant X for creativity.
And now it's down to consistency. Let's see if they can pull that back in their favor.
And the rest of the teams, there's only two others that made it into the playoff picture. At the end of the day, it was BDS sneaking in. We already talked a little bit about them. And then Team Heretics really sneaking it just like, barely. Like, oh, they had the tiptoe. They didn't want to wake up anybody.
Mom and dad were asleep and they wanted, do we really need a playoff.
[01:02:27] Speaker C: Team in this region? Like, let's be honest for a second.
[01:02:31] Speaker A: But you know the crazy thing, because we do have to talk about one specific game, is the fact that team Eridicks was able to take down Koi because God damn, why? Why did they win this game, man? It doesn't even make. Coy was winning for pretty much the entire time. And then suddenly Shea was like, nope. Lilia is gonna just have his pop off moment and flack it. Despite getting kind of just crushed as the Draven was able to have like that one big fight at the end of the game and that's all it took. It was just like one Baron into. Oh, we got a Dragon and do. Oh, we don't really have any Dragon stacking. Let's just go in the game. It's like, cool.
[01:03:11] Speaker C: All right, see you.
[01:03:12] Speaker B: Thanks.
[01:03:12] Speaker A: See you next time.
That was a weird way to end the game.
But yeah, then that's the top eight. That's the eight teams going into playoffs and two teams that we will not see for the rest of split one, that is SK and Rogue. We don't have to talk about how their weekends went because we won't be talking about them going forward. SK just went one and two. They beat Rogue, which I usually. I love the games. I almost always include one of them in my games to watch for the weekend. Don't watch this game.
[01:03:44] Speaker C: Don't. Whatever you do, really bad, avoid it like the plague.
[01:03:49] Speaker A: It's not like fun bad, it's just bad. So do not recommend SK vs Rogue. Other than that, their schedules were pretty tough. SK maybe had a chance against BDS. You could have argued.
I think I for a meme put that they were gonna beat bds and then I lost prediction points for that. Which, by the way, I did update prediction. I don't know if anybody saw that on the document. Shout out to mazel for. Currently first place for LEC predictions with 70%.
But notably, that is.
[01:04:16] Speaker B: I did also not predict one week, but, you know.
[01:04:19] Speaker A: Yes, yes. That is only two week predictions. Only myself and Bickle have 100% predictions inputted and Bickle's beating me in that regard. But God, prediction rates are bad across the board. Guys, we got to get these numbers.
LEC is hard to predict, man, but yeah, that is gonna do it for the LEC review. Now let's talk about the preview. Playoffs are coming up next weekend. Make sure to tune in up first. We have a best of three, by the way. First best of threes for LEC for the split because all best of ones in the regular split. We have FNATIC versus Team Heretics to kick things off. And we all have FNATIC across the board. 2. Oh, yeah. This would be a huge upset if Team Heretics takes it. I don't see that happening.
[01:05:05] Speaker C: Game. It'll be a huge upset.
[01:05:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. So let's talk about the next one because that one Maybe is closer. G2 versus GX.
I actually have GX picking up a game because again, I just. I think Noah and June have the potential to fire on all cylinders and actually get that win, but not enough to take down G2, who seems to be hitting their stride. Now.
[01:05:27] Speaker C: Is. Is LEC playoffs fearless or they.
[01:05:30] Speaker A: It will be fearless.
[01:05:31] Speaker C: Yes. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Never mind. G220 then. I was thinking about maybe switching.
[01:05:37] Speaker A: Okay, okay. But wait, why. Why do you think that that changes it to a confirmed 2o then?
[01:05:43] Speaker C: I think Champ hole issues that GX could potentially have could come into play. I mean, Cops plays everything. Broken Blade plays everything. Hansama just. Hansama can just pull out Draven whenever he feels like it if it's unbanned and just. Just whip around. Noah and June, we have seen a.
[01:06:04] Speaker A: Weird Amount of Draven in the lec. It's been a more popular pick there than the past years. But Hansam is part of the reason for that. Koi versus BDS is happening the next day.
We all have Koi 2:1. Wow. I I it's so sad that 2:0 for Koi. But yes, we all think the BDS is at least good for one of them.
Miselle, this, I think the first time you predicted JoJo to lose a game, what happened?
[01:06:32] Speaker B: I, you know, got him winning the series. You got to take. Yeah, you got to take 1L bro to take it up.
[01:06:40] Speaker A: Okay. You know, fair enough.
[01:06:41] Speaker B: Also, with the track record of JoJo, let's be real, man.
At least one game out of three.
[01:06:49] Speaker D: One concept game for sure.
[01:06:51] Speaker A: True. Leo, do you have any thoughts on the lec? I just realized I wasn't asking you your predictions.
Do you think so far you agree with everybody? Do you have any spicy picks so far?
[01:07:01] Speaker D: I don't necessarily have spicy picks for this next week. I just have a general prediction of how the playoffs is going to go down.
[01:07:08] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Let's get that at the end. At the end, we'll close out with that one because we also have Casey versus Vitality and we have Casey across the board. Two zeros. Nobody believing in the old Vitality bot lane. Oof. But then it comes down to the winners predictions because the winners will go on and also play that same weekend we have. That would mean if we're all in agreement across the board, by the way, for predictions. So let's just keep that in mind. That's gonna go horribly wrong at some point.
[01:07:36] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[01:07:37] Speaker A: It always does. Anytime this happens, it's just a curse. So that means it's gonna be fnatic versus G2 though. The El Classico Fnatic got the better of them in the regular split. I think they're gonna do it again. Mizel agrees. Mizzle, I'm curious if you have the same reasoning as I do. I don't think it's because Fnatic is a better team right now. I think it's because Fnatic can only beat G2 when it doesn't matter. And because this is the upper bracket and G2 has a second life, G2 can then run the lower bracket and still win the split anyway.
That's probably so.
[01:08:07] Speaker B: My reasoning is even better than yours.
It's a one team region and that Fnatic is that one team and they're going to win it. So no logic between either of us, but passion and that's honestly what matters.
[01:08:20] Speaker A: Mine might not be logic, but it is. Is backed up by historical context, I'll give you that. So. But I guess yours is too fun. Yeah. One team. One team.
[01:08:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:08:30] Speaker A: All right. But we do have some dissenting here as. Oh, wait, I just realized. Badger, I don't think we got your predictions. And Badger, who do you think takes.
[01:08:39] Speaker C: Oh, I put it on Bickles Row. I. Because I'm smart, so.
[01:08:42] Speaker A: Okay, you know what? I think in my mind that's how I've been interpreted this whole time. And I only just realized. But I'm happy that I'm really good.
[01:08:48] Speaker C: At this, by the way. Oh, that's the.
[01:08:50] Speaker A: Combined, we have one functioning brain cell. Half of mine, half of yours. So you do have G2, 2 and 1. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:08:58] Speaker C: I. I've got. Actually, Wait, did I fill out. Hold on. Let me put Bickle's stuff back there and basically everything on.
[01:09:06] Speaker A: You can just copy his homework if you want.
Okay.
[01:09:09] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.
[01:09:10] Speaker A: So you see him with higher LEC prediction rate. Mr. 50% over here.
[01:09:15] Speaker C: Hey, listen, who's. Who's tied for first in Eltan, though?
[01:09:20] Speaker A: It's true. True. And I will say you are doing better than my all time worst. My all time worst LEC prediction was below 50%.
[01:09:28] Speaker C: That was also below 50%.
I just. I. I think that once we get to fear, since we're in Fearless and it's playoffs time, the pressure gets amped up a little bit. I think think that it's not gonna actually be down to, like. I mean, JoJo's gonna have a good series against Casey. Like, it's JoJo versus Vladdy. Like, you kind of expect it at that point, but once we get to like, looking at the rest of the map, it's like, oh, it's Callist versus God. Who's the. Oh, Supa.
[01:10:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:10:07] Speaker C: I'm like, wait, who the fuck AD For? I can't remember who is AD Is at this point. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but usually.
[01:10:14] Speaker A: That'S a bad thing. Usually that's not considered a good thing.
[01:10:17] Speaker C: So. But we.
[01:10:19] Speaker A: So, so yeah, you. You have Casey to one. We all have Casey taking it. Oh, actually, no, we don't. Mazel. Still has Coy. You still believe?
[01:10:26] Speaker B: I do.
[01:10:27] Speaker A: In the winner's match here.
[01:10:30] Speaker C: Anyways.
[01:10:31] Speaker A: And again, it's just going to be the Jojo bias, right?
[01:10:35] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I do actually think that the team, when they're on one, they actually look pretty good And I think they can take it. I think it'll be with bumps and.
[01:10:44] Speaker A: Bruises, but RMC agrees with you as well. So shout out to RMC who's not able to make it this week. But that is the one. I think that's the last two are the only ones that we disagreed with on. Yeah, across the board. And it's basically just which of the good teams do you think is going to be better than the other good team? Because these are the. The best teams in Europe right now. So that'll do it. Leo, this is your time. The stage has been set. The teaser has been dropped. What is your LEC playoff prediction?
[01:11:14] Speaker D: Yeah, you know, you kind of gave it away. I mean, everyone's. I think it's a pretty common line of thinking that Fnatic's gonna win the matchup between Fnatic and G2 in the playoffs first, but then in the finals, G2 is gonna win. I mean, it's a tale as old as time. Fnatic just drops the ball every single time. I mean, back in 2024, spring, we had a similar setup of Fnatic, first seed, G2, third seed, Giant X, even sixth seed. But that doesn't really matter. It's just. Nothing ever happens. It's G2 going to first stand or first strike, whatever it is. I can't remember.
[01:11:53] Speaker C: First strike, first standing.
[01:11:56] Speaker A: Leo, this is our job.
[01:11:58] Speaker D: I'm getting fine. But yeah, I mean, death taxes G2 at international.
[01:12:04] Speaker B: It's just.
[01:12:05] Speaker D: I don't make the rules.
[01:12:08] Speaker A: Yeah, fair enough. All right, that's it for LEC predictions. We'll see if Leo stays true. We'll just keep that in mind. That that's just an overall split prediction for you, but for the rest of us, we'll keep track of percentages going forward. I had fun putting that together because I realized that we weren't doing that yet. This split, currently it's Mazel at 70 LEC prediction. And then me and Badger are tied for first for LTA North. But that's also like. There's barely been any matches.
We're both 6 and 2 in prediction rate for. For context.
But there we have it. Thank you, everybody for tuning in for another week episode. We'll be back next week again with LEC playoffs to talk about, as well as the final week of LTA north before getting into their kind of quasi playoffs, which is the second half of the split down in Brazil. Thank you everybody so much for tuning in. A reminder that if you could please give us a review. Mizel, how many stars? I always blank on this part. It's like I have momentum. I don't remember the number. How many stars is it?
[01:13:10] Speaker B: You know, I've been, I've been playing civilization. And when you're becoming more enlightened, you're, you're, you're growing, you're learning to be intrusive with your thoughts. You start looking at your hand, you start looking at your hand and there's, there's, there's five things that come off of your hand and their fingers and there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And I think that's how many you should put in terms of stars.
[01:13:36] Speaker D: That was incredible.
[01:13:38] Speaker A: Let your intrusive thoughts win and give us five star review, everybody, wherever you go.
[01:13:44] Speaker C: I'm so confused, but pop off king, I guess.
[01:13:47] Speaker A: Hey, no, I like it. It worked for me. I liked that one. But yeah, give us five star reviews wherever you are listening. It really does help us get noticed and we appreciate it if you got the time. But most importantly, a big reminder before you dip out of here and go about your day is that we love you and we'll see you next time.
[01:14:07] Speaker B: Bye.
[01:14:08] Speaker D: Bye.
[01:14:11] Speaker A: It.
