League Rundown - Episode 548: Captain Americas: A Brave New Region

[00:00:11] Speaker A: The amazing gets hit. [00:00:12] Speaker B: Kimmy kids a little too far here. [00:00:14] Speaker A: He's gonna have to try and get himself out. Living up Hillary and the rest of. [00:00:16] Speaker B: The shots of fire. [00:00:17] Speaker A: Zion is just killing the next. Zion can eat it single handedly win the game by game by game by game by. Oh my God. Stupid. Marches through and manages to the table with Messiah tanking it up. I do not believe he just leave. What? I cannot understand this game. Unicorns of love. It wasn't a mutant. They're Nexus. Hello and welcome to episode 548 of the League Rundown. This is your 2025 LTA America's week one preview. And this episode is lovingly entitled Captain America's a Brave New Region. I'm your host Kangas and I'm joined by two esteemed co hosts. Up first we have Mr. Mazelpl. [00:01:26] Speaker C: I hate that that title but hello. [00:01:29] Speaker A: I was proud of that. [00:01:30] Speaker C: You also never responded to me about what we're making plans. Go see the movie. [00:01:34] Speaker A: So you know, I'll text you back after the pod. Do we want to make plans now? We can make plans now during the. [00:01:41] Speaker C: During the intro. Yeah, let's make plans right now. [00:01:44] Speaker A: All right. We'll look at Friday on the calendar. But for now we also have joining us very special guest because we are entering into the Americas portion of lta. That's where the north and the south have intra regional competition to see who goes to firsthand. So who better to join us than one of the unofficial English casters fluent in Portuguese and english. We have Enrique 4y4. Welcome 4y4 to the pod. [00:02:12] Speaker B: Thank you guys for having me. I am excited to be here. Talk some LTA south. Not. I'm looking forward to the games because I've made peace with myself at this point that you know, the only way to go from here is up. After a disastrous showing, a Twitter meltdown inducing showing from our Brazilian teams in Split 1. The only way we can go from here is up. So yeah, really excited about the games this weekend. [00:02:36] Speaker A: Happy you mentioned that to start off because one of the first things that people might notice if they look at the top four teams is that there's only two Brazilian teams. Two of the LLA teams actually took seed one and two. So we'll talk a little bit about that as well as what to expect from them going forward. We'll also recap of course the final week of LTA north. But before then we always have our global news. So let's get into it. First of all, there's Been a time update, a time change for the America's portion. I'm calling it the Americas portion. Technically it's just called LTA 20, 25 split one playoffs. That's boring. I think America is a little cooler. But it got updated. It was originally 1pm Pacific time, but then it's. It's not in Pacific time zone. [00:03:25] Speaker C: It's. [00:03:26] Speaker A: It's in Brazil in the Sao Paulo studio. So they're gonna. They changed the time zone to fit the local audience much better to 11:00am Pacific Time, which will allow the people that are actually in the stadium to stick around and enjoy the show and going home at like midnight. So I think that's a really cool change. Enrique, what was the fan perception? Because I know that you're a little more in tune with that from the. The southern fan side. [00:03:50] Speaker B: Yeah, they. They were not stoked, I think, to use a technical term about that. Yeah, yeah. Because, I mean, because like you said, I mean, it's one thing if you're just asking like the, you know, people to stay up and watch. You can watch on your phone as you're laying in bed, blah, blah, blah. But like, if you want the full Brazil experience, which everyone does, north and south, you know, the head honchos, the suits that make the money to make the decisions, they want the full Brazilian atmosphere. And it's not like it's on a weeknight or anything, but you want people to be able to go there and not worry about getting home, you know, at a ridiculous hour. It's exactly what you said. So people, yeah, Brazilian Twitter flipped out, but Riot, to their credit, promptly responded. So fair play. Yes. [00:04:26] Speaker A: And I know that from the Riot side, it's. This is kind of like maybe not tinfoil hat theory, but it seems like they, for the most part, try and so plan the schedule so that when LEC ends, they can have those viewers go to lta. [00:04:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:42] Speaker A: And because LEC heads up, has changed their schedule to be a little later, they. That's why it was going to be a later start time for lta. But I think it's the better decision to say yes, viewership globally on the stream will take a hit. But at least we're going to have, you know, the people that are hosting the country, you should plan it around them. I think that's the better thing to do. So. Yep. Speaking of, a lot of people probably would have noticed by now, last week we talked about lec. I misread the schedule. Did not realize LEC playoffs were starting this coming weekend. So if you want to get all of our thoughts on that and you haven't yet heard last weekend's episode. Check that out because that's where we did the full LEC rundown. Today we're just going to be talking about lta but before that we're also going to talk about lpl. Mazel. It's your time. Give us the LPL time. It's miselle pl time everybody. We got to have like a little jingle to play on my soundboard. [00:05:33] Speaker C: It's melpl time. Skibidi boop. Anyways, so we are getting through the final week before playoffs. We only have four more days as of today's recording. Unfortunately most of the matches are pretty much not important, which is unfortunate. But it's a lot of the final lead ins to the playoffs. Which first and second seed matters a lot because first seed gets double elimination. Second seed is immediately in their elimination match in the playoffs. So the only group that has not been decided fully in terms of what positions they will be are group A and group D. So that's group A that has top esports and LGD still looking for position in the playoffs. Anyone's legend already has their first seed locked. And then group D is the group of death. With Nip, ig, RNG and FPX all still in the running going into the final days of their group. There's two more series for that group itself so that one should be fun. Nip starts it off tonight actually as of recording. So obviously the day a little bit later. But it should be fun because playoffs are going to be really, really tight and we actually finally get to see some of the top teams against some of the top teams. Instead of these lower rung games. [00:07:00] Speaker A: People can go back and watch the vod. [00:07:02] Speaker C: Yeah, there you go. They hear this on LPL English. [00:07:06] Speaker A: Exactly. LPL Underscore English. Is that also the name of the Twitch account? [00:07:10] Speaker C: The twitch account is LPL_English and the Twitter account is LPL English. [00:07:16] Speaker A: There we go. [00:07:17] Speaker C: Or the opposite way. Opposite. [00:07:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I was gonna say I know the Twitter's underscore but on Twitch it's just LPL English. [00:07:24] Speaker C: The other way around. Yep. Cool, cool, cool. [00:07:26] Speaker A: Make sure that you go support it. Everybody also shout out the LoL Esports Twitter account. Rift. One of your clips. [00:07:33] Speaker C: Yeah, they did it. [00:07:35] Speaker A: Great call by the way. I loved you were the play by play for that one. [00:07:38] Speaker C: You're having a great time. That was hell of a wild. [00:07:43] Speaker A: It's crazy Baron. So down to one health. [00:07:46] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:07:46] Speaker A: Oh my Goodness. One day they'll fix that. All right, well, thank you for the LPL update. Other fun news that happened, there was a social post that went out detailing some more of the NACL updates. The Tier two for North America. Mazel. Full disclosure. I skimmed it very briefly. It didn't seem like there was a lot of changes, but can you highlight some of the information that's in there? [00:08:10] Speaker C: Well, we won't be starting until the final week of March, so hang in there, friends. It's gonna be a while, but we will have three OQ teams joining us all the way there. The OQs will be starting up the second week of March. Okay. Should be a lot of fun, especially with a little bit of an announcement that we got going today in the scene with doublelift creating his UNK squad and getting all the old retired guys out. And yeah, the names are gonna go insane. Thankfully, we're in the creator era of League of Legends right now. But we do also have Pulse taking one of the spots in NaCl, which should be a lot of fun. They've been garnering a lot of attention over these last two years or so, trying to make waves in the Tier three scene. Moving up now to the Tier two scene. So I know some of the management people have some good heads on their shoulders, so hopefully we can can see some good player development through Pulse. But these next couple months gonna be super important. We finally get T2 in North America, which, you know, maybe some of the teams would have really liked to potentially have some replacements going into their splits. So now they will. [00:09:21] Speaker A: Exactly. So just to recap that for folks that are maybe only watch LEC lta NACL is of course a relegation league. So you can promote up and you can also lose your spot and promote down. That's a weird way to put that. You can move up or down in the league depending on how well you do. And the OQS is something that's happening. Open qualifiers, a fun little tournament. That's where doublelift has gotten a team to sign up. Some other creator teams are coming in. That's gonna be a really exciting thing to track because there's three spots opened up at the bottom of the NaCl, if you want to think of it that way, because other teams and orgs have just left the NaCl. Like, yeah, we're just gonna give up our spot. One team was able to sell to this organization called Pulse, which has been garnering a lot of support from the community as a tier 2 organization. Really fun stuff happening there. Thank you mizel for that update. And if you want to update us on other things happening around the world in League of Legends, make sure to join the community Discord. You can find the link in the description wherever you are listening along. If we missed anything or you want to give your thoughts on stuff that we've already talked about, make sure to throw it in there. Also, shout out to everybody who supports us on Patreon as well as through our merch store league rundown shop.forthwith wall.com Enrique, if you could choose to have a mug with our logo on it, a cap with our logo on it, or a mouse pad with our logo on it, which would you like? [00:10:44] Speaker B: Ooh, assuming they're all the same price. I think I. I think a mug. [00:10:50] Speaker A: For me, a mug. [00:10:51] Speaker B: I'm a solid choice. I'm a big mug mug guy. Cuz I've got, I've got a lot of like dad hats. So that was a tough choice for me. But I think like, you know, if this podcast were go to like video form, right. Shameless plug. Shameless branding. Right. And a lot of, a lot of podcasts are in league in video form, right. So you just kind of drop that in there very, very. Not so subtly. [00:11:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Well, see, we're holding the line. We are podcast purists. Podcasting is for the audio medium and especially funny when you make visual gags alongside it. We're known for doing that as well. But that's it for global news. Let's hop into LTA because we had a couple of games that happened this past weekend as well as games to look to this coming weekend. This last weekend we were still in the Riot Games arena in Los Angeles, California. Now no longer in the Howling Abyss, which is what they call the closet that they have to play in when VCT is playing. It was live in the arena. It was a lot of fun. Fans did show up and the teams also, for the most part, showed up. We had two matches. First up was Team Look Good versus Shopify and then we had FlyQuest versus Dig Team Liquid versus Shopify. Mazal, I'm gonna have you start off with this one, then I'll take the next one. Enrique, just throw your thoughts in when. When they come up here. But Team look at Shopify, Mazel. What were your initial thoughts and did it go how you expected? Well, that's a long side. [00:12:20] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't know. I feel like the games were a little bit closer in some regard than the scoreline says. But overall I think I was More proud that TL looked more like themselves. I still think Umpty got away with murder in some of those places. And, like, I do not know what's going on. I know he went on Twitter and he was saying, you know, like, don't let one game, one series define you, whatever. But my God, my bro. So I think there's some things that are going really well for them. I think Bot Lane still looks damn good, and I'm really happy that's happening for tl. Not as clean as I wanted it to be. Not as much of a spark from Shopify that I maybe wanted. And I think the nature of Contracts and Palafox came to a head yet again. I know we literally had that same conversation, like, last week or whatever, but it happened again where you're getting, like, the 5050 value of these guys a lot of the time, and it just feels really bad. [00:13:14] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. I think that also Fudge, like, there was just a couple plays where, like, I'm really scratching my head thinking, how does a pro team mess this up? Like, you get a pick bot Lane and you. There's a teleport being channeled to the turret. It's a Talia, and you're like, 100 health. You'd walk up to the waves to try and shove it in. It's like, okay, I guess nobody saw the teepee. Like, we're just not doing that. Or, like, then he has a chance to go all in and kill the Talia later, but then he backs off because they don't see the jungler, but, like, the jungler just passed over a war. It's like, okay, so clearly he's not paying attention. The team's not communicating where junglers are just like, man, Fudge was not on page as everyone else. It was really tough to see 4x4. Were you able to catch that series and do you have any thoughts on it? [00:14:02] Speaker B: No, I just caught the. The. The Skarner Alt of Destiny from Umpty. [00:14:06] Speaker A: Yep. [00:14:08] Speaker C: The greatest play of all time. [00:14:10] Speaker B: That was good. [00:14:10] Speaker C: That was special because I love it because Apa is, like, so hard trying to save his team from his own teammate. Like, doesn't matter because Pop Blossom still activates while you're midair. [00:14:23] Speaker A: That was in the tiebreaker with Fly Quest, not the Shopify game. But, yes, that was a very funny moment. One of the sillier things to happen in the. In the day. But yeah, I. I agree with you, Mizel. Overall, Shopify just. We didn't see that spark that we know they're some there, there's a chance that they could grab it, and they just haven't yet. Shopify was my dark horse of, like, if they pop off, they're gonna be a scary team, but they just never popped off. Yeah, that's a sad truth. Team Liquid took it to zero and the next series was also two zero, but this one, I think, was a pretty close two zero. Dignitas put up a surprising. [00:15:01] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:15:01] Speaker A: Against Fly Quest, man. Fly Quest was, like, really ahead game one, but Dignitas pushed them to the limit by just, like, not letting them end the game and being like, no, we actually can win fights. 30 had an insane otacon fight, and then it kind of got Dignitas back into it at least, like, closely evening up the game. And then they were able to just delay the end. Fly Quest were still the better team in the later game. Team fights, but then game two as well. That one we had a blind pick. Garen for Bwipo. Serdy locks in Camille and then still loses the lane, man. [00:15:38] Speaker C: Yeah, it looked real bad too. I still. I still think he had some good moments in the series itself, but, man, some of those plays and, like, the solo kill. [00:15:47] Speaker A: Yeah, like, it's. It's one of the classics. I don't know if you caught this. This clip did kind of pop off in Enrique, but The BUPO's level five on Garen and, like, he's dinged, like. [00:15:59] Speaker B: Right when he was about to die, basically. [00:16:01] Speaker A: Yep. [00:16:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:02] Speaker A: He's using Conquer to like or not conquer judgment to clear the wave, the spin to win ability, and then hits level six and just. [00:16:12] Speaker B: That was hot. Oh, that was hot. [00:16:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that was a fun moment. So I think that, like, I still have hopes for Serdi, but I think for an overall sample size of what the community got to see of him, I think we saw. I don't know if you agree with this, Mizel. I actually think we saw a fairly accurate representation of what I expected, which is there's moments of greatness and he can pop off, but he will also make little mistakes like that, and it can be punished. And if he falls behind, he can still make plays even without resources. Like the Casante game, even that Camille game. Like, he's behind, but he's still doing stuff in the game. Like, it's not like he's. [00:16:52] Speaker C: I think a lot of this comes with experience. Right. I think that's just gonna. Gonna happen in these kinds of situations. [00:16:59] Speaker A: But I'm happy that he never just got completely shut out and just was A non factor in games. Even the games he like started terribly. It's like, okay, he still did stuff later in the game and like didn't just completely lose heart and you know, keel over. So. And then Kaney as well is really impressed with as the mid laner for Dignitas. I think Tomo Kaney were kind of more the standout performers on that roster. Would love to see more of them, man, but unfortunately we will not because you know, two series loss, you're out. Now we're going to Brazil. FlyQuest on the other hand, dude, Masu horror. Holy. [00:17:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:17:34] Speaker A: Masu is the maybe the like most clutch player that we have inspired as well. Inspired. Masu together just like carried that series in a way they didn't have to carry very hard. But like I think that they were the ones that did the most damage. There's like a full five minute stretch where Masu just doesn't flash and there's so many moments where I'm like, oh my God. Any other ad carry in the league would have flashed there instantly because like you don't have to but by holding it there's a chance that you get punished. And Mossy's just got nerves of steel, man. Like he just refuses to burn stuff unless he has to and it's really, really impressive. And then inspired on the vi, dude, like Mizzle, do you remember that moment around the otacon where he just stalls. [00:18:20] Speaker C: Like a full 60 seconds for the. [00:18:22] Speaker A: Rest of the team to spawn, doesn't die. They're able to like win the fight. And then later he like engages by the elder dragon fight and like ults through. I think it's through Apa and then hits Yan. So he like it's both the carries with one Ult like oh my God. [00:18:38] Speaker C: He was popping off and I think you still love to see that he can have those bright moments. Like I don't know if maybe this hasn't been like the brightest start of the season for him, but I think he's got such a fucking clutch factor. It's so crazy. [00:18:53] Speaker A: Fly Quests are firing on all cylinders. And it continued because of course they won this series. Two zero, close one. I think that there were moments Dignitas actually had me thinking that they could take it at least a game. But FlyQuest got it. But that meant that we had a tiebreaker game between Team Liquid and FlyQuest. We call it tiebreakers, we call it seeding matches, whatever you want to call it. It was a best of one to see who's third Seed, who's fourth seed going to Brazil. And Flyquest takes that one as well. And what a back and forth banger that one was. That's the one where Enrique is talking about it. We have Umtia Skarner. Like, I think he's going for. [00:19:30] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:19:31] Speaker A: I don't even remember. I think it's Arrow Mist. [00:19:33] Speaker B: He's going on somebody. And then like, yeah, he had to like, flash forward. He got. What was it he got. He got the Nico, right? [00:19:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. He, He. He pulls in a Nico pop, blossoming into his own team. And Apa has to ult away the Nico. But then it still knocks up everybody. That was crazy. We had Apa just swinging a miss multiple times trying to find these, like, shuffle plays where he's shifting sands in into the Emperor's Divide. It's just like one of them just goes the wrong direction, hits nobody. Another one, like, just misses because he's not close enough. Finally gets one, and I think he dies for it. So it's like a one for one. And like, watching the tape, she's like, man, you got three frontline Apa. Like, why are you primarily very engaged right now? But it was fun. That was maybe my favorite game. I also got to cast that one. Probably my favorite game I've gotten to cast in a long time just because of how crazy back and forth it was and all these, like, mistakes we're talking about from Team Liquid. It was still fairly close in Gold the entire game. So. Yeah. Ms. Elle, what. What are your thoughts after that in terms of, like, the best team in the region? Because I've heard some people saying that FlyQuest, even though their third seed is our best team going. What are your thoughts on that kind of whole debate? [00:20:49] Speaker C: I. I think that C9 is a little slept on. Even though I was gonna say later, interesting foreshadowing. And I still think from what I watched when I was going through Raz's VOD review and stuff, like, the level is just higher for the base of all seeds coming from the north. And I would like to see that emphasized in terms of, like, when we're listening to Spawn talk so heavily about we're an early game team, we're a fast team, we want to play fast. I want to see them play fast. I want to see them take things that are going to benefit them and kind of snowball the game. I want to see fly quests be able to manipulate the map like we've seen them do time and time again. So. So I think the ranking is fine, but I don't know, once we get there, it's going to be all different. [00:21:45] Speaker A: So yeah, it's time zone is going to change. They've just traveled in. They're the visiting away teams against what I imagine could be a hostile crowd that will be cheering greatly for their teams from the southern region. And so that brings us into our, you know, second part here of the episode which is we got teams and players and games happening this coming weekend. Enrique, that's why we brought you on. Happy to have you here to be our LTA south resident expert for this episode. I want to start off before we get even into the matchups, into predictions, into talking about what's ahead of us. Talk to me about your kind of confidence in the south teams and general level of play that people can expect from these teams that are being represented. [00:22:35] Speaker B: I think any sort of expectations for level of play with these. I'll speak for the Brazilian teams more because I have more of a sample size with these teams. I think that is a fool's errand just like because the the level of play what I, I legitimately thought and this is a little bit of just, you know, we've been doing this unofficial broadcast so I've seen pretty much every single game of this region since 2021. Going into like the end of last year I legitimately thought the level of play was getting a lot better. I thought the macro was getting better. I thought some of the coaching was starting to really stick. And then this split, it seems to have all gone out the window especially for some of our top teams. And it's unfortunate because when the top teams can get away with just relying on things like pre built synergy, just having more experience, just being able to out team fight you and just not and kind of and cut corners and skip steps along the way right when that yields more results that is not good for the region because the rest of the region just kind of has to sit there and take it. There was this ties in a little bit with some off the rift drama. By the way, if you are an RMC enjoyer, one, you should be two, this is going to be nothing like that. The there was some off the rift drama. Jose de Oto when he he's the jungler for Israel Astral. Obviously he was asked, you know, by an interviewer like look, you know, what do the Brazilian teams have to do to kind of like you know, kind of get to you guys level right now because you guys kind of kind of waxed us and he said, I don't think. I think the Brazilian teams are fine mechanically. I don't think they try that hard in scrims. And you're like, dude, we just got our, you know, what's beat by the Hermanos, right, The Manitos south of our borders. And now they're saying we don't even try. And like the. I going into this lta, this America's phase, my confidence is low. But if there's one glimpse of something that I'm holding on to, is that for pain and loud, and especially pain, honestly, because they are the defending champions and they are a better team than loud. I. I do believe that you just got your butts kicked on. On international television. Right? You. You're. The pride of your region is dangling by a thread right now. Wake up. Your Re. Your. Your fans are going to be there and sell out this arena every single day, no matter what. You owe it to them to not get turned over by 100 thieves. To not get turned over by cloud nine. But especially pain Gaming, I think there's so much pressure on them. And I think right now, if you're Asuras and Levyatan, you're kind of playing with house money. Because no one, and I mean no one, was expecting to be our one and two seeds. [00:24:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I had heard that from rmc, who's also one of the members of this broadcast and covers the LTA South Region, that, if I remember this correctly, Israelis Estrall is the guest team. Correct. [00:25:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:12] Speaker A: Which is like the provisional team. [00:25:14] Speaker B: Exactly. Which is hilarious because they're. Yes. So they'll have to be competing for the spot with tier 2, but I think that also informs some of their roster building. If I may real quick, because they went with. They went with known commodities. Right. They went with Jose de Odo, Snaker and Ackerman. If you have watched any International League of Legends and the play in Stage, you know those three names. Hell, if you've watched North American League of Legends, you remember Jose de Odo, right? Played on FlyQuest back in 2021. Whereas Leviathan, they knew that. Well, our spot is secured, so we're going to go with a more rookie heavy approach. Not. Not rookie heavy. I shouldn't say that. But a roster with less experience and with a roster where you're going to be speaking different languages as well. [00:25:49] Speaker A: And notably no imports on this roster. Every. Every player is either Brazilian or lla, which I guess technically like. Yeah, I think you get the one Brazilian and then the second Brazilian would count as oh, wait, no, no, no. It's the same as na. Yeah, they're not using an import slot here. [00:26:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. The. The joke on Twitter was if you go. If you go in rever in order of. In reverse order of the. The seeds. If you go 4, 3, 2, 1. For the LatAm south teams, the number. Number of Brazilians on each team goes lower and lower and lower. [00:26:20] Speaker A: That's pretty funny, man. [00:26:22] Speaker C: Yeah, that's actually so funny. [00:26:24] Speaker A: I like that. [00:26:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Gaming. One of their. One of their Koreans. Wiser. He is a. He. He's like Core JJ now. He is now a, A. His residency is Brazil because he's been here so long. [00:26:36] Speaker A: Hey, I like it. So. So Pain then has four technically, if Wiser counts. And then Loud are there three? I only see two for Loud. [00:26:46] Speaker B: Loud have two. But because like you said, you get two import slots. Right? So that's whiz and wiz and Root. But Winsome, born in North America even though he is Korean. Right. That's how Cloud 9, you know, snuck. [00:26:59] Speaker A: That one in there. [00:27:01] Speaker B: So he is an America's player. Right. And then you've got your other two. [00:27:07] Speaker A: Makes sense. And then Israel. Three Argentinians, I believe. [00:27:11] Speaker B: Yep, three Argentinians and two Koreans. Bertol. Yes, that Birdle and Mirror. [00:27:16] Speaker C: That's so crazy, by the way. [00:27:18] Speaker B: I know, I know. Man, the names that pop up in lla. Oh, it's. It's like. It's like League of Legends. Mad Libs. It's the greatest. [00:27:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Did Bertol play in lpl? [00:27:28] Speaker B: He did for a bit, right? He had sometime in LCK and sometime in lpl. [00:27:31] Speaker A: Yeah, he did. Crazy. Well, we'll get your thoughts on him as a player then maybe from anything you remember from his time, Mizel. But for now, let's go through the matchups as they're gonna happen because then I think we'll every all this conversation will naturally flow then as to our opinions of the teams and expectations for them. The schedule will look like Hundred Thieves versus Pain. Pain Gaming is the fourth seed. 100 Thieves is the first seed from their respective regions. And that's of course gonna continue throughout. Fourth place, first, second place, third. Then third place, second, fourth place first. And then we have FlyQuest versus Leviathan. Now, hundred Thieves, you know the roster already. I'll run through it real quick here. Sniper, River Quid, FBI. Ayla. Same roster as last year. FBI is the only change coming into this year, so I guess not. Same. Almost the same from last year. FBI is the only change, just like you said. [00:28:24] Speaker C: All the same roster. [00:28:25] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, I just immediately contradicted myself. Well, because I was getting excited because I was about to say Pain Gaming the same roster from last year and technically I believe this is a correct statement. This is the longest concurrent roster globally in tier one play. [00:28:42] Speaker B: Yes, I did see that stat. Yeah, it was pain and what, TL were tied, right? [00:28:47] Speaker A: No, I don't think TL's tied. I think pain's in sole possession. TL might be like right behind them. It might be close. But either way, Payne, they've had this roster for a long time. This is the same roster it was at Worlds, which notably they made it out of the play in stage at Worlds and actually made it to the Swiss stage. [00:29:04] Speaker C: So let's go. [00:29:06] Speaker B: And bottom lane 2v2 killed Guma and Carria and we will take. [00:29:10] Speaker A: Yeah, they did. And let's go through the roster. Wiser, top lane, Karaoke or Karaoka in the jungle. Actually, you know what, Enrique, how about you go to the roster. [00:29:23] Speaker C: Instantly. [00:29:24] Speaker B: Yes, Wiser. And then we say Karyoke, but it is pronounced Karaoka. But it's literally just because like you say the letter K and the letter K in Portuguese is ka, so. Ah, yeah, so karaoke. Karaoke, Dinkero, Titan and Kuri again, if you want to put the, you know, the Brazilian pronunciations on it. Wiser, carioca, jinke, do, chitan, kuri. But Titan is also a word in, in English as well. But yeah, like I said, long, long running roster. Titan was that missing piece Pain Gaming before last split. And again, if RMC has told you all this Brazilian lore, I apologize for repeating it, but no, please, because this. [00:29:59] Speaker A: Is new for the audience at least. Yeah, perfect. [00:30:02] Speaker B: Then Pain Gaming before they won in 2024 split two, they got to five straight finals and lost all of them. And the last four they lost to Loud. It was Pain versus Loud in four straight finals, right? Every time Loud went to a national event, it was because they beat Pain Gaming. And every time the series got closer. 303-03-3132 and then finally they got over the hump. Pain Gaming got over the hump. And it was because of that man in the bottom lane right there, Titan. They had actually bvoy who is now on Shopify. He was their AD carry for a while there. And because he played in Brazil, then he went up to the LAC and then he kind of bounced around. Then he's back in Brazil. But B boy, he's a very kind of stable, you know, AD carry, right? Doesn't really make too many mistakes, or at least that's how he was. I could speak more to how I was in Brazil. Very stable, didn't really make any mistakes. But they didn't have a dude who had a killer instinct. And Titan is that guy. Titan is an immensely confidence based player. He talks a lot of smack online. In person. He's getting up out of his seat. He's hurling obscenities at other players, telling them to retire, telling them they're bad. And he's the guy who, you know, for lack of better term, he knows when to go forward. On ezreal. Right. And one tap you with a combo. And that was the final straw that Pain Gaming needed. And they finally slayed the boogeyman. That was loud. Which was, you know, kind of turning us into a one team region, which is not where you want to be. [00:31:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And notably at Worlds making it to the knockout stage. But the way they did it too, they pushed PSG to three games. PSG also qualified out. And then they beat R7, who notably beat 100 Thieves. And now they're against Hundred Thieves. So if Pain can be. [00:31:37] Speaker B: We might complete the circle and suck here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:31:41] Speaker A: 100 Thieves. And only one roster change has happened between both these teams. Does that mean Payne wins this? What do we think? [00:31:46] Speaker B: Oh, God. If you. If you would have asked me before this split. Yes. Now I don't think so. I was on a different podcast talking about this. I put the odds at 3070. [00:31:57] Speaker A: Oh, that's not very good odds. But still, it's okay, I guess. [00:32:02] Speaker C: Serviceable. [00:32:03] Speaker A: It's serviceable. But I think that also reflects our predictions here. Let's go through them. I have 100 thieves to one four. Y four. You have hundred thieves to one. And mazel, you have hundred thieves. Two. Zero. Ooh. 30%. 30 out of or 30 to 70. Whatever you said is basically the two to one. Right? I think we both agree that they're good for one game. Mazel has the 2. 1 confidence. 4x4. How do you think Payne picks up their win against Hundred Thieves? [00:32:29] Speaker B: They give. They give. They give Titan either Caitlin or Ezreal. So I think it will be in game two. I think they'll slam, you know, like, you know, something like, you know, Scarter or Malky or something will go off a board. B1. Payne will grab Caitlyn and whatever support they want to give to Curry. The Elise support, I think could work. It also scares the daylights out of me whenever he plays that champion because it's just been really hit and miss with the elite support as it kind of has been all over the world. But anyway, yeah, the. Yeah, but it's. It's gonna go through Titan and that's how they've won all their games. There was a game where in the series that Payne lost to. I want to say it was Leviathan when it. When they went out. Yeah, they. Titan got smashed in lane on Caitlyn, which if that happens, it's over. Right. GG re go next surrender at 15. He ended up getting a quadra kill in a game that they lost. So he is someone who, if Pain Gaming can get a lead through the bottom lane, they. They generally don't lose those games because the rest of the team is built around that Dinkato. He had an awful split. Split one. But he is someone who you stick on a control mage. You could throw him on kind of a yone if they try to go. Decide to go ap Jungle. [00:33:37] Speaker C: But. [00:33:37] Speaker B: But, you know, the rest of the team is literally just built to, you know, give Titan the ball, let him dribble around somebody and smash into the top corner. [00:33:45] Speaker A: Yeah. And there's a phrase that I've been told is said in Portuguese about him. There's not an exact English translation, but it's close. Like Titan Magic. What's the Portuguese phrase, though? [00:33:56] Speaker B: So, I mean, I don't know actually what you're referring to. I mean, they call him Chitanzada. That's kind of one of his nicknames. But there's. [00:34:02] Speaker A: I think that's it. Yeah. [00:34:03] Speaker B: Yeah. There's another certain sort of phrase that he. He goes with that he says on his streams a lot that it's Iseki. What is it? It's like. And he says it really quickly to the point where it's gotten shortened to Shiske daily and that. [00:34:22] Speaker A: That's it. Yep. [00:34:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. [00:34:23] Speaker A: It starts with a Z, right? [00:34:24] Speaker B: It starts with an X, but yes. [00:34:26] Speaker A: Same. Sorry. [00:34:26] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it looks like a wifi password. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, that's the Shiska Delhi. [00:34:31] Speaker A: It's. [00:34:31] Speaker C: It's. [00:34:31] Speaker B: Yeah, it's basically like, you know, know, talk, get hit. Sorry if I'm not on the swear. [00:34:36] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:34:36] Speaker B: Cool. [00:34:37] Speaker A: Cool. Well, that's way cooler than Titan Magic. But I do like Titan Magic. I was told that, like, there isn't an exact translation, but, like, that would be kind of close in English is basically just. That's what you say when Titan pulls it out of his ass and just wins the game for you. [00:34:49] Speaker B: Yep. [00:34:49] Speaker A: Which is pretty cool. I do like that it's. It's fun to have little, you know, things named after you. So that's how I also have the one win happening there. Also. I think that if that happens, it's also going to be kind combined with 100 thieves having a unique take on a draft. Hundred Thieves have tried a lot of different things with their champs. [00:35:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:35:09] Speaker B: So Diplomatic Angus. [00:35:11] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, I'm trying to not flame too much, but Hundred Thieves, they try a lot of different champions. They are, I believe, tied with the most unique picks with Team Liquid of all teams, but only one, only Ayla has duplicated a single champ. Everybody else has played six unique champions across their six games, which I think is. Is awesome in fearless, but it does make it a little harder to like, define an exact style. So maybe they like just stumble over draft and then Titan's able to pop off and then that's that. So that's how I have it. Mizell, you're confident in the two. Oh. Why do you think Hundred Thieves is going to be so dominant in this first series? [00:35:48] Speaker C: Dude, I don't know, man. They just got. They got the gumption, they got the. The aura, they got whatever you want. I. I just feel like they're riding such a high of momentum and especially because they're really carefree. I mean, we all know the Hunter Thieves is kind of out of it after this, right? So, like, I think a lot of the players are playing very carefree and I just. Something in me feels like we need to go full circle. When Hunter Thieves came into the league, they were such a hot comet and like, literally the reason why we have like a lot of premier vlog content for a lot of teams. A lot of the reason why we got a lot of personalization from a lot of the teams as well was because of that original 100 Thieves roster. And it just would be so fitting for it to go full circle and then to be the premier team from NA one last time. [00:36:40] Speaker A: That'd be awesome if they could truly live up to first seat because their first seed, man, like, they beat everybody to get here. It's crazy. So, yeah, I do like that as well. I think pain's good for one, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a 2.0as well. Let's talk about the next one though, because FlyQuest versus Leon is happening next 4x4. Let's just do the same flow here. Talk about Leon and their roster. Go. Let's kind of run through it and then talk about the highlight players to keep Our eyes on. [00:37:09] Speaker B: Yeah, Leon it is. From the top lane down, Zvi Scary Cody CEO and Pro Delta. Pro Delta is CEO or excuse me. Well, Jungle support scaring Pro Delta. They are the two Brazilians on this team. Prozelta is a reigning mvp. Actually I don't know about reigning, but he's a former mvp. I don't know if his last one before, but he's a very good young support player. He was actually funnily enough if you want to tie it, if you want against more CB LOL lore Pain Gaming. They. When they brought Titan over right. As kind of their last missing piece. Pro Delta was actually the support on Pain Gaming and Titan. He was on Red Kid's at the time and he said all right, I'll go over to Pain Gaming. I'll save you, but I'm not playing with Pro Delta. I want a Korean support court. And Payne said, Pain said, all right, bye Pro Delta. And they chucked him off to the wayside. Yeah. And you know, Payne won. So history is written by the victors and whatnot. But poor Delta did win an mvp. He. He got to the finals with Vivocade stars. So you know, it all worked out okay for him and now he's. He's a two seed and Payne is well, not Zothvi in the top lane. I. I called him wi fi password as well because I had no idea who this dude was. But he has turned out to be just a very kind of serviceable, you know, stable top laner. But the guys you want to watch out for really are Cody and CEO. And Cody especially because he took a hot steamy dump on our mid laners heads. He was unbelievable. He just embarrassed us and CEO in the bottom lane. He's a good solid ad carry but I think really it's the mid jungle for Levitan scary. He's very stable. I worry a little bit if they get to a best of five know walk before you can run. Yes. But if they get to a best of five, I worry that his champion pool might be tested in ways that you know, would not. Would be suboptimal because he is kind of like you're. You're umpty in his best form which is. Don't get too cute. Don't play viego. Play Maokai Sejuani VI Wukong. You know, Zinja like just the. The tank and spank sort of junglers. Very kind of, you know, easy to play junglers and. But scary. He would get. He would get called up from Academy whenever a C below Roster was on fire and they call him the Fireman Ubombedu. And he would come up and he would just be like, all right, everybody calm the F down. Let's just go back to basics. I'm going to play Maokai and then I'm going to play Sejuani and we're going to win some games. And that's exactly what would happen. But now he's like a legitimately good player. I still think he's like, he's become a better version of himself. CEO in the bottom lane. I think he, if nothing else, has bought into the vibes of the LTA South. He went on a podcast after they beat Pain Gaming. He went on a podcast and basically. Basically called Titan Trash. He's like, he's not very good. I don't like, you know, like, look, Latam players, we aren't very good, but these Brazilian players aren't very good either. Like, this guy's overrated. And he was. Yeah, he got up out of his chair, he was talking. Talking a lot of noise. They call him La Vibora. La Vibora, which means the Viper because he is like the Latam Viper. Like the AD carry who plays on Hanmo now. [00:39:57] Speaker C: Nice. [00:39:57] Speaker A: And I hear that Cody's called the Latino Faker. Is that correct? [00:40:02] Speaker B: They. I think I have heard that as well. I don't know that 100%, but that sounds familiar. That sounds right. [00:40:06] Speaker A: I heard that reference. Latino Faker. Latino Viper is boys. [00:40:11] Speaker B: So please don't embarrass yourself against Fly Quest, Faker and Viper. [00:40:15] Speaker A: Right. But I've also heard Cody has some really crazy stats, like globally for tier one players. He's like number one in a bunch of crazy stats just because of how much he has taken as you. You said, I think steaming hot on all the other mid laners. [00:40:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:32] Speaker A: In the region. So, yeah, I'm very excited for this matchup because of course, Fly Quest, if you're living under a rock. The roster of BWIPO inspired Quad Masubu, same as last year. Quad has been one of, if not the best mid laners in North America this split. And I think that he's such a rock that even if Cody is styling and Quad gets any level behind, I think Quad can still like kind of bounce back even if he's not ahead in a game. And I. I think that's gonna be a very fun matchup regardless of how it goes though, because, like, there's so much excitement around Cody as his hype mid laner. [00:41:11] Speaker C: I think. Yeah, go for it specifically I. I think it's most. For the NA teams at least it's a mentality thing. I think their mechanics are fine but I think it's not getting lost and the sauce and stuff like that. Whereas like it'd be really cool if we got to see some of the LTA south just like over perform their mechanics and actually push the edges of a lot of the north teams. [00:41:33] Speaker A: That would be. And I think that's how upsets could happen is that you know, NA teams start to play to. They buy into the fight, fight, fight mentality of the south teams and then it's just a bloodbath. And in those types of situations, you know, that's where the south teams could thrive and actually, you know, pick up wins. So we'll see if that actually happens. I still have a 20 for FlyQuest as well as 4Y4. Mazel. You actually have a 21 for FlyQuest. [00:42:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:42:04] Speaker A: Let's hear that then. Why do you think FlyQuest drops again? Why do you think Levitan picks one up? [00:42:08] Speaker C: You said it earlier in the bullshittery. It's because whipo will become overzealous. Yeah, they will lose a game. [00:42:18] Speaker A: BWIPO does sometimes have BWIPO moments, doesn't he? [00:42:22] Speaker C: But I think the thing is it's not whenever he has bipo moments. Like just because one player, especially a top laner is having like some bad decision making. Like we've seen top laners. Have they completely turned games around even if they've been making bad decisions all game. Right. It's like a breakdown of the whole team whenever he breaks down. Right. So like I think it's. That's what I really want to watch out for. [00:42:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that that's a good call out that the team looks worse when BWIPO is having rough games and that could be the catalyst. Yes, we're talking about mid lane but like if WHIP was falling behind and I was saying quad can still hold it down but if both are falling behind then it's going to be way harder. So yeah, let's see if Leviton's able to prove us wrong though. That's day one of the Americas portion. That will start on 11am Pacific Time reminder between Hundred Thieves and Pain and then Levyaton Fly Quest whenever that first series ends. But kind of expected to be around 3pm if it can go to three games for the first series. Day two, same time on Sunday the 16th it's C9 versus allowed. And then Iseris Estrall who we are just going to be calling Istral from now on. Versus Team Liquid. There's too many syllables, man. In Istra. What are they doing? C9 versus Loud. To start things off though, C9's roster, Thanatos Blabber, Loki, Sven and Vulcan and 4x4. What is Loud's roster? [00:43:50] Speaker B: It is a name that might be familiar to you n a tier 1 and tier 2 enjoyers. It is Robo Wiz, not Croc Titones. Yes, that one from 2014. Kaboom Alliance. You know this is for Kaboom. That the same guy. He was 17 then. He's 27 now. Now he is still very good at League of Legends Root and Winsome. Yes. That wins some from Cloud 9/FlyQuest. So yeah, Winsome. He is kind of the. The. The X factor but not in a good way for Loud right now. [00:44:19] Speaker A: He. [00:44:20] Speaker B: He has taken some time to. To. To. To get bedded in to this team. But he has had. He's shown moments of like, okay, that's the winsome we remember from like his high points in na. Like he's had some really, really good snap. Rel engages his game sense seems to be good, but it doesn't seem to be joined up with the rest of the gang. He'll get caught out kind of, you know, looking for wards, you know, what are you doing in that tribe brush? Winsome is something I found myself saying a lot this past weekend. Whiz. So okay, if you remember in I think it was 2023 MSI Loud's jungler at the time Croc when we played against G2, he forgot to buy a jungle item and that kind of went viral. [00:45:00] Speaker A: Oh yeah. [00:45:01] Speaker B: So he's gone. He's doing his Korean military service. Wiz taking his place. He is a former CB LOL champion as well. Won the the COVID cup as we call it the 2020 split one championship and he is again very, very stable. Sort of like scary just like again. Don't. Don't put this dude on Diego. Don't put him on Zyra Zara. He's actually okay on but like don't put him on Viego. Just put him on Malka Sejuani and everything will be okay. Tenones. He struggled a lot last year in an ad mid meta but now he's back on his control mages. His Aurora is very good and he's, you know, he's got a deep champion pool. Just make sure it doesn't revolve around right clicking the other champions because then it seems noted seems to go sideways for him. But one guy who is very good at right clicking champions is Roots. And I, I genuinely believe this. And you, you guys heard my pessimism around the rest of you know what the heck's going on in LTA South. So believe me when I say this Root, if he hits the heights he can he is a top 480 carry of these eight teams. [00:45:53] Speaker A: Oh he is okay. [00:45:54] Speaker B: He is that good mechanically. He is unbelievable. He, he is someone who can absolutely win you games by himself. And kind of with loud they have the biggest variance in terms of what I can what I'm expecting from them. They could come out and just lay an absolute egg. Robo, I could see him just getting his salad tossed by Thanatos. Honestly I think tenones will be stable. I think the bot lane again rudely steady, winsome could be hit or miss. Wiz is going to be very very steady but I don't know if he's gonna, you know, he's not an amazing jungler. He's good, he's very good. 6, 7 out of 10 every, every game but this series is going to be an absolute rock fight. I have if you told me any of the results 202-112-02 I'd be like oh yeah, okay, sure. None of it surprised me. [00:46:34] Speaker A: Oh I love that. Because I'll give you a little heads up. All of our predictions are slightly different from each other if not very different from each other. Ms. Al, let's get your thoughts though. [00:46:44] Speaker C: I man I'm actually really interested in terms of like the level of macro that we're going to see. Yeah, because again that, that's like always my biggest gripe I feel like. But I don't know man, I think the way that there's always something to be playing towards might actually benefit LTA south because of the way that the, the spawns of objectives and things like that now. So I'm really curious. I think, I think it's going to be a little bit of a toss. [00:47:15] Speaker A: Up I think a little bit as well. And for anybody who's not aware Root played for a very long time in LCK junior Green Wings Sandbox gaming Live sandbox then. But he's been on loud for like two years now. Yeah, a little over two years. [00:47:30] Speaker B: Yeah. I've heard see Bruncy the bot gap kid at Worlds 2022 basically off that Loud were like hey, we're ready to offer you a, you know, a new contract. And he was like wow, someone else is going to give Me a bigger bag though. And to be fair, he was right. So he went. He got a bigger bag. You love and went elsewhere. But then they got Root so it all worked out. [00:47:50] Speaker A: Based. Based. Yeah, Root. I've heard and I don't know if you've heard the same thing or if this is just people kind of blowing smoke. I've heard that general perception is that he is the highest impact import that Brazil's ever had. That like he success rate in terms of what he's been able to accomplish and like do in the region. He's accomplished much more than what other imports have been able to do. Is that true? Does that hold weight? [00:48:16] Speaker B: I think factually, if it's not like actually true, you could point. You maybe could have pointed someone else's action. Oh well, he had, you know, more titles in fewer splits or whatever. But like Root has. I think he's won cb. Lol. Every. Every single split he's been. Except for one. Except for the most recent one where Payne one. [00:48:29] Speaker A: Yeah, you were talking about the Loud Payne rivalry. He was on Loud for all of that. [00:48:32] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like they like Brunswick was there, right? The rookie ad carry. And then, you know, he, he went and got his bag elsewhere. Elsewhere. No championships didn't finish higher than third any other season. But hey, go get your bag, King. But Root. Yeah, no, he was on that junior Green Wings roster in 20, whatever 18 or 19 that went 1 in 17 that had like 15 players on it. He was a part of that. Which is hilarious. And yeah, no, but he, he. I do agree with you, Kankas. I mean and also just like in terms of like he. I can remember one bad game by him legitimately every single time Loud lose. It is not his fault. Like never. He's so consistent. He's so consistent. That's. And, and like we have talked about on and off air in kinder and not as kind terms. Consistency is not what lta south is exactly making a name for themselves. And Root is. Is the exception of that rule. Like if you go to my man's like Leaguepedia page, he looks like a baby faced assassin. And that is essentially how he carries himself 24 7. No emotion, coming here to do a job, you know, Give me the bag, give me the gun. Pow, pow. All right, let's go home. [00:49:36] Speaker A: That's what you want from your age though. [00:49:37] Speaker B: Yeah. No, it's sick. And they, they all love him. Yeah. There's a, the, the. The. The second. The second biggest religion in, in Brazil, it's behind Catholicism is Ruchismo rutism. [00:49:47] Speaker A: Oh, really? [00:49:48] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. [00:49:50] Speaker A: Okay. You know what? I'm not gonna fact check you on that one. I'm just gonna choose to believe. I love. [00:49:53] Speaker B: It's more fun that way. [00:49:54] Speaker A: All right, well, let's talk about predictions then. I still, you know, we've been hyping up rue. We've been hyping up Loud. I'm excited. I still got C9 2 0. [00:50:04] Speaker C: Oh no. [00:50:07] Speaker B: I've got the. I've got the C9. I've got the C9. 2 1. I think loud will take a game just off chaos factor, but I think C9 are too strong. [00:50:14] Speaker A: But who is it coming in with a steel chair with the loud wind? Two 1. I love it first of all, but let's hear some of your thought process on it. [00:50:27] Speaker C: I don't have a lot of faith in solo lanes to be consistent, even though we have seen some good performances from Thanatos especially. But I. There's something off with the vibes with this team, man. I don't know what it is. Every time I see them in like an interview and stuff like that, sometimes they're vibing really well. But there's just something and it feels like a team that if one thing breaks the wrong way, it could go really badly. So I just. I don't know, I think it's just gonna be a breakdown day. I think C9 will come back in the series and like have. Have some good showings but. But I think they lose. [00:51:06] Speaker A: Okay. Two, one. See, they're good for a game. I think that the reason I'm confident in C9 is part of it, I think is that I'm trying to overcorrect for having them so low and such low expectations for them at the beginning of the split and they've really over performed my expectations. So now I'm like, oh wait, maybe they're really good. But part of it is just hearing blabber talk about like the difference in the mid lane and also Vulcan being on the same page with the rest of the team. It feels like this is a team that actually commits to plays together that oftentimes they're boring. And I'm like, oh, I don't like this play. It's the boring play of oh, let's just trade an objective or like let's just reset instead of fighting. But at least they're committing to things together. Whereas the last version of C9 it was like, like what the hell's happening? [00:51:54] Speaker B: Different page, very scattershot. [00:51:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So I think because of the volatility of the LLA or sorry, not LLA teams, the LTA south teams and everything that I've heard about them and just kind of like the lack of macro, you know, focus and more so about just brute fighting. C9 is a team that's willing to not fight. They'll just walk away from you and then play macro better. So I actually think that for that reason C9.2. Oh. [00:52:18] Speaker B: Is if I could real quick, Mizelle, I do think your. Your point about the solo lanes. I. I think you might have just like, you know, put the. The puzzle pieces together because I think, like. [00:52:30] Speaker C: Like, it's gonna be interesting. [00:52:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, rude is Mr. [00:52:33] Speaker C: Consistency. [00:52:34] Speaker B: But like 10 ons and robo between them have 13 CB LOL titles and a combined, like, 17 years of playing experience. Right. So if you're worried about, like, inconsistency for C9, you know, and like a bit of just. Just freshness. Right. This will be the. The most hostile stage they've. They've played in front of. Right. I don't know how routed the LCK Challenger studio gets to be fair. So, you know, I. I won't speak for that, but I. I think that could be something there. [00:52:57] Speaker A: It absolutely could. We haven't really talked about as much the crowd and how that's going to affect people. If anything, that might affect, like, 100 thieves, like, sniper being such a young player, like, maybe if the crowd's booing him and stuff, you never know. But. Okay, that's game one of day two. Now let's talk about game two of day two, because right after this, we have Isuris, Estrall or Istral. As I'm gonna call them. I. I said I was gonna call them that, and then I just didn't. Again, I'm just lying to you multiple times. This podcast. [00:53:27] Speaker C: Yeah, you are. [00:53:27] Speaker A: Istral versus Team Liquid. Team Liquid. The roster rundown. We have impact, umpti, apa, yawn and core JJ4Y4. Talk to us about Istral's roster lineup. [00:53:40] Speaker B: So Israel's Estro, we have. Oh, gosh, wrong one. There we go. All right. It is in fact Bertl. Yes, that Bertle. Jose Deodo. Yes, that one. Miru. He was at Worlds 2023 in MSI. 2023 with Rainbow 7. I did a tour in the LFL as well. Did he play N A tier 2 or am I making that up? [00:53:58] Speaker A: I. No, no, he never played. [00:54:00] Speaker B: I'm making up with someone else. Yeah, with Mirror. That's who it was. Mirror Slash. Yes, exactly. Bingo. Yeah. He was on for you last year. If you wondered what. What Mirror was up to recently. [00:54:11] Speaker A: I did hear about that, yeah. But Miru is the mid laner. What about the rest of the roster? [00:54:15] Speaker B: And then Snaker and Ackerman, which again, they are lla stalwarts. Right. Very, very experienced roster. And again, these guys are the guest teams. They're gonna have to fight for relegation. And you kind of saw the thinking here with the roster build was let's just get a ton of experience here. And the mid jungle, I mean the middling was my biggest question. I thought Mirror was going to be a flop. I didn't think he was going to adapt well to, you know, life in a new country, playing for a team that doesn't even, you know, have a home base there. Etc. But split One, he has come out firing. I look at the Jace in this one, you know, a little spoiler to my predictions, but like the. The blue side here. Right. The fact that they're going to start on, you know, they sort of start with side selection. I'm assuming they're going to pick blue side, actually. Oh, hold on for you guys. Is the patch going to be the same as it was last week? [00:54:58] Speaker A: The patch is 0.3. Yeah. Yeah. So it should be the same. [00:55:04] Speaker B: Okay, cool. So the Jace changes will not have come through just yet. I actually don't know if he's gonna nerf the buff. But besides the point, they. They can flex that kind of in. In a number of different spots and play him a number of different styles. Bruiser tank, lethality, top mid. So I think that could be a real weapon for them in draft. And again with Azura Estrall, just my takeaways from Split One, they just play like mistake for League of Legends, like again, like for the level because the lta south level isn't what, you know, lta north is. But they said they just didn't give any teams like a really a chance to get at them. Right. If you, you know, eat even the. The tiebreaker, the seating match, Leviathan just kind of ooga boogaed all over them and the score was 7 to 2 in 15 minutes. And then you look up. But it was one of those games where you look up and you go, oh my God, they're slaughtering. Oh, the gold lead is 1,000. Right. They're not actually that far ahead because the source, Astral just didn't allow them to whatever. Whatever advantage they got. They cross map with something. I think, I think Jose deodo and the immense champion pool that he has will be will be a boon to them. They can tailor make drafts around him and Snaker and Ackerman just very consistent brought million that have that have played with each other for a long long time. [00:56:06] Speaker A: That's really cool. I I will say that Jace change was they basically dropped all of his base damage numbers and buffed his 80 scaling numbers to compensate. So arguably he does more damage in the late game once you get a couple items. I don't know exactly what the mathematical break point is. [00:56:23] Speaker B: Sure. But I guess it's a take away from the tank, right? Yeah, exactly. You have to invest in. [00:56:27] Speaker A: Exactly. But yeah I still think that they are a strong team and that reflects in the predictions here. I so let's start with the a little bit of history here. Raz on the LTA north broadcast every single week has been flapping his lips saying all four NA teams are going to wake it through round one. There's not going to be a single south team represented after the quarterfinals because it's a single Elim tournament. There's no, there's no second life here. I said there's no chance and I have to back it up with my predictions now. If I'm picking one team to make it through, I'm going Istral 2. 1. So I actually I know Mizel you had loud as your one making it through. I think it's Istral 21 for myself and 4x4. You actually agree. You think that they can make it through as well. Mizel, you have team locker two. Zero more of a stomp. So we'll get your thoughts afterwards. 4x4 let's first glaze Istral a little bit more and talk about how they can do it. You start and then I'll back you up. [00:57:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean look again I just think that they showed us the most consistent performances. And if you want to just talk matchup wise, the mid Jungle I think is a surprising point that I think can really be the straw that stirs the drink for this roster with the jungle position especially. And if you want to match that up into probably the rockiest part. Again if we're talking on form of TL's roster, you know so far in split one it is that mid Jungle. So the mirror I believe in him as someone who can't. Who could take advantages, you know, by himself. He's not like a. He's not like Cody level. I don't think gonna just like you know dominate a game but he's he's gonna do his job well. He's not gonna make any mistakes, or at least, you know, in split one, he didn't. And then he's just kind of gonna like, all right, you know, just, just like throw the tennis ball into the enemy jungle and Jose de Oro is gonna run in and he's gonna drag him behind him on the leash. [00:58:12] Speaker A: Okay. That's one way to put it. [00:58:14] Speaker C: I like it. [00:58:15] Speaker A: I the way that I see this series going, I think Team Liquid, pound for pound, could be considered the better team. They should be considered the better team. But the glaring weakness is that umpties just not looked good. And Apa, after this last weekend, also had a lot of oopsie moments and just rough decisions. If we're looking at Jose Deodo and Miru as a just better mid jungle duo, I think that they can prey on Ompty and apa, who have not been looking nearly as much as strong as they were last year's form. And even if bot lane is, you know, ahead for Team Liquid, even if Impact is this kind of stalwart rock in the top lane, I see the mid jungle being just too volatile for me to say that Team Liquid wins as cleanly. And I, I, even if they win the series, I don't think it's going to be a 2. [00:59:05] Speaker B: 0. [00:59:05] Speaker A: I, I, I think, I struggle to say that it would definitively be that unless they just lane swap every game because we have seen, I don't know. Enrique, do you have opinions on how good good as straw is in the lane swaps? Because that's the one thing that overall I was not impressed with the south teams. Whenever I saw tape on them in the lane swap situations, I was like, oh, these guys really struggle in this. [00:59:24] Speaker B: Oh, wait, did you see the. I think there's one game specifically you're talking about. Was it, was that the Scion Lilia game or was that two weekends ago for Red? [00:59:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it was the game with the cassante. I think it was a Pain vs Furia game and there was a cassante that just like, man, he just couldn't get to XP range. [00:59:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:46] Speaker A: And they sent support down to try and help him. And then he like walks up before support gets there and dies. It's like, what are we really rough stuff happening? Yeah. [00:59:54] Speaker B: Preventable mistakes. The late. No, the lane swaps haven't been kind to Brazil. But even then, like, we, because that was another thing is I, I noticed myself kind of as the year wore on last year because I pay the Most attention to LTA south with C below at the time. Like, I was like, how do these lane swaps. Swaps actually work? Because we just didn't see them a lot in the South. Like, we didn't buy into them. And I think, yeah, they could really bite us in the butt. Especially because TL were kind of the. The lane swap team. Right. That's how they got a lot of their advantages in 2024. Split 2 Now it's becoming a little less prevalent and clearly, you know, the rest of the league in the north has caught on to them. But I didn't even kind of think about that. Kangas. I. You know, again, it's Source Estrall. I trust their coaching staff. I trust their players. But this could be absolutely be a mismatch just because I don't know how much these players saw it. They didn't really see it in split one one. [01:00:33] Speaker A: Okay. So that is the concern. I still. I'll hold my prediction, but I was hoping more for you to be like, oh, they're the one team that got it. Because that I think is gonna be the biggest weakness. But Mizzell, now it's your time. You can talk us back down. You have Team Liquid to zero. So why are you so confident in the boys? [01:00:49] Speaker C: I think the time off is gonna be really good for them. I think the lead in. They always have a good transition to kind of playing abroad, and I do not think they're going to be satisfied with what they showed in LTA North. So I expect a little bit of a fire under their asses. At least I hope that's my biggest hope. [01:01:09] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. I mean, I would love to see Team Liquid take it. I would feel bad, though, if not a single south team made it out of round one. So that's why I have. [01:01:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I will say that there's. Yeah, the four of us. [01:01:22] Speaker A: Exactly. [01:01:22] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. The four of us all picked a team to go through, but, oh, man, we. [01:01:28] Speaker A: If we're gonna sacrifice one. After Umpty and Apa's performance this past weekend, I'm okay sacrificing them. It feels bad to say that about Apa. I'm a big fan, but I. I'm really excited for 100 Thieves and Fly Quest. And C9 just looked too good for me to like, completely count them out. So that's why I'm also going this way. But that's our thoughts, everybody. Let us know. Yours again in the community, Discord. You can find a dish, a link in the description wherever you are listening to this, but that's it. We have two more weekends of lta. Both will be in Brazil. The winners this weekend will be advancing. Then we have a semifinals on this following Saturday with the finals on that Sunday only. Finals will be best of five. And that will be a lot of people's first look at full fearless. Best of five. That's gonna be really cool. [01:02:17] Speaker B: Gonna be a slide for all the audience. [01:02:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm very excited for that too. We had, like, partial fearless. Best of fives. Best, but not. Not full fearless. I don't believe. Or am I just misreferencing that missile? Did we ever have full fearless in nacl? I think it was still. Yeah, no, no, yeah, it was full fearless, but it was the best of fives. We didn't have 50 or 40 champs banned. Plus the 10. [01:02:40] Speaker C: It was game four was three bands and game five was no bands. [01:02:43] Speaker A: Yeah. So. So this is the first time that we. If we go to game five for that finals, there are 50 champions taken off. And you guess what? How. How many champions remain? 120. There's still a lot of champions, but that's gonna be fun to watch. Hopefully we do go the full five games. Thank you, everybody for sticking with us, and thank you 4y4, for hopping on and chatting with us. It was great having you on. This is your chance to plug whatever you want to plug, man. If you want to do your unofficial English stream, make sure you get your socials in there. Whatever you want to say. [01:03:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, look, for me, you know, my socials are not as important. Follow the. So it's tasouth, not sul, right? Because that is the Spanish Portuguese word for it. That's in the official channel. But for us, it is LTA South. And we've got a link tree link in bio, that type of thing site. There you will find our Twitter, our YouTube, which has our podcast as well, our Spotify, which has our podcast as well. And then it's called Gringos Liberados, because the Brazilian equivalent of the dive was called. Called Tropas Liberadas. And that's like the. The thing that the announcer says when it says minions have spawned. So they just do like that little voice line and they drop into the podcast. And so we were like, all right, well, yeah, that's awesome. They gave the. They gave the gringos the ability to be liberado. So we're gonna get liberado on this podcast. Very, very unhinged takes. We had one of our takes go viral, which I'll tell you guys later. It's not important right now, but. Lt underscore South. We've also got a link to our community Discord in there. Honestly, that's our kind of most valuable asset, honestly, because we've got a community in there of people from literally all over the world that some of them have known about C below for a long time. Some of them have come to it. Just now we had a couple people from Captain Flowers most recent raid just join our community Discord now. They're like, you know, talking and learning about the lore and you know, all the shenanigans from kind of native Brazilians and stuff like that. But everyone's speaking English there. So if you can understand the words coming out of my mouth right now, you will understand the discourse in the Discord. [01:04:32] Speaker A: That is incredible. Make sure to check it out, everybody. More communities to engage with that love League of Legends just like you do. But again, seriously, thank you for coming on and giving your big brain insight into all the teams and the players. Mazel, of course. Thank you for coming on. As always, make sure to go support his project. Look at this. I got so many cool people around me. Mazel's got the unofficial LPL coverage. That's LPL underscore English on the socials as well as just LPL English on Twitch. Is that right? [01:05:03] Speaker C: Yep. [01:05:04] Speaker A: Perfect. Go check that out. Go support that if you can. [01:05:07] Speaker C: Our doing the interview went live today as of recording. So nice. Watch it. [01:05:13] Speaker A: Hell yeah, dude. That's a big interview. You've again some really cool interviews on the channel. That's great to see as well get. [01:05:20] Speaker C: Early access if you subscribe. [01:05:22] Speaker A: Hey, there you go. And you're also supporting a good cause, making sure that everyone gets access to all that cool content. So thank you everybody so much for tuning in. The only thing I will ask of you is if you could raise a hand. Look at the number of fingies that you have. As Mazel likes to remind me, I believe there should be five on there. If you could drop then five stars on a review wherever you were. Listening really helps us out get noticed as well as grow the podcast. But mostly what I want you to walk away with is this message. We love you and we'll see you next time. [01:05:57] Speaker C: Bye.