Episode Transcript
[00:00:13] Speaker A: Gets a little too far here. He's gonna have to try and get himself out. Let me go. Tillery and the rest of the shots of fire. Zion is just killing the next. Zion can eat it single handedly win the game by game by game by game by should be.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Oh my God. Stupid.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: Passes through and manages to the table with Messiah tanking it up. I do not believe he just believe.
I cannot understand this game.
Unicorns of love. It wasn't a mutant. The Nexus hello and welcome to episode 555 of the League Rundown. It's the 2025 LEC split two week one review and LTA split two week one preview. This episode is lovingly entitled Best of Ones. Best of threes. You best get your MSI tickets. I'm your host Kangas and I am joined by one esteemed co host Today we got the Skeleton crew but you know he's joining us. We got Bickle.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: In order to ensure that I'm announced first, I've eliminated all competition and have.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: It be known because nobody else is here to get offended by it. Bickle is my favorite. So there we go. Perfect. Everyone's. There's a lot of different schedule stuff going on right now, so it was difficult to get everyone together for one night. So Bickle and I we're just sending it to cover all the LEC Week 1 news and preview some lta. But you best believe everybody wants to be here. They just are unable to tonight. So. But ye let's get into news. First and foremost lta fantasy is live. Bickle, let's go. Have you been following this story at all?
[00:02:17] Speaker B: I have not seen too much. I've seen that it was announced that there is a new format that marks saying, hey, invite me to your leagues.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: Yes, so what? I've not toyed around with it too much, but I already got tagged in the community. Discord and I already had planned to make a league anyway. It seems like we have a league built for the community already and I just have to join it. But I want to kind of mess around with that first before confirming. But it looks like Mini Quant already has one built for us which is really really cool. So I'm gonna hop in there if I can, but then also try and get one going for LTA and try and convince all the casters there to hop in a league together as well. But if we don't have one for the community, we will soon. I think we already do. But again I don't. I haven't like peeked around in it too much. I don't really know how this new system works. I'm just happy to have Fantasy back because it's such a fun. Enjoy the game. Did you play back in like 2016, 2017 when they had the initial like Riot sponsored one or like the Riot website one?
[00:03:18] Speaker B: I did not.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: Oh, you missed a glory age. So you only play with a sleeper app one then?
[00:03:24] Speaker B: Yes, correct.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: Yep, that one. Boo Boo. You know, not.
You can't really do anything. The cool thing about the old one is that you could do.
It was NA and EU because it was just NA LCs, EU LCs at the time. So it was all players in both leagues and you actually were incentivized to like trade out people from your roster more often, as opposed to the sleeper one where you just kind of set your lineup and that was it. The entire time is boring. Okay. But this time around it's gonna be a different format. From my understanding, you have to set a new lineup every single week. Players will cost a certain amount to draft each week and their cost will go up and down based on their performances in the split. So if they're getting a lot of points, they're going to cost more money. If they're not getting a lot of points, they're going to be cheap.
And then you can buy your roster based on strength of schedule and you know who you think is going to be able to pop off against which opponents, which I think is really cool.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: Yeah, that's neat.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: It just gives reason to play the app because like the. The past one, you just draft and you do nothing. You just stare at your roster like, I hope this week.
Yeah. So that's cool. I'm excited for it. We have some LPL updates that Mazel will catch us up on at some point. Pickle, do you know any of the LCK updates going on though?
[00:04:48] Speaker B: They have just started up their spring season for rounds one and two. The first two games just happened. Gen G2 owed Hanma Life DRX2 OD the freaks so nothing too chaotic. You could say it's surprising that Homo Life the winners of first stand got two owed.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: But it's Genji.
[00:05:09] Speaker B: They're a great.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: You got it. It is first Stand. Well done.
All right. Cool. Cool. Well, we'll keep following on lck at least standings going forward. I know it's tough to talk about every single game that happens over there in such a short amount of time, but at least we can see kind of who the favorites are going into the international events. Speaking of favorites going into international events. We have a couple of potential roster swaps happening. Or maybe not swaps, more like additions. From what I'm hearing in the lta, our last representative internationally, Team Liquid, big, big rumors going around that they have been actively trying out Junglers. I know it probably doesn't surprise anybody. Umti has been the underperformer on this roster for a bit now and it was questionable if they would make a change already after winter split or split one. Rather.
I'm hearing that they have been trying out. Unknown if they have signed anybody or what they plan to do, but it's looking like there could be a six man roster unless they drop Umpty from contract.
Do you have an opinion on this one, Bickel? Do you feel like Team Liquid should be making a change? Because everybody, I feel like, has they're on one side or the other. I'm curious to hear where you're at.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: I don't think it can harm you. He has unfortunately been the weak point of that roster going on approximately nearly a year now.
So it can't hurt to at least try and get another guy in, see if there's any synergy and if not, a. You still got Umpty.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And I will say this is all rumors. None of this has been confirmed, but I am hearing that they have tried out two different junglers that they are interested in. Whether that means right now or that they're just like how they have two junglers that impressed them in tryouts. I'm just hearing that from how the tryouts went, there are two names that were on their list of being potentials and one of them.
Yeah, this is one of those ones. I. I don't know if I want to just drop the leak or not, but I just teased it. Yuji's one of them. I'm hearing that Yuji is one of the Junglers that Team Liquid is looking at, so that would be.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: That is not surprising in the slightest, right?
[00:07:26] Speaker A: I. We've already said his name like 30 times on this podcast, so. And this is all rumor. You never know if this is true or not. But I don't believe roster lock happens anymore. I think it used to be Wednesdays before the split started. I think it might just be like the day before now. I don't remember, so don't quote me on that. But there's a chance because we're recording this on Wednesday, there's a chance that roster lock does still exist tonight and that you'll know by the time you're actually listening to this podcast. Unless, Bickle, you have more information on.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: That, I got nothing for you.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I know that there used to be like a big roster lock a day and then like news outlets would cover it, but I feel like that was an older era of, of League of Legends content.
But Bickle, this is one that you were surprised by when I added it to the list because it doesn't.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I hadn't heard about this.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: There's another rumored six man roster. I kind of wish you hadn't looked because then I could have said guess which team? Is this a team you would have expected to see a six man roster for?
[00:08:29] Speaker B: In all honesty, this is the team I not least guessed. I think it would have been like my second to last guess.
I think the only team I would have guessed less than that would have been Cloud nine.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, I think that that's also very unlikely for that to happen. Well, let the people know. What is the rumor, Bickle?
[00:08:50] Speaker B: The rumor is that Fly Quest is looking at starting up a six man roster, bringing in another top laner to join Whipp there. The rumor is he's Turkish.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: Yes, rumor is a top laner from eu.
I don't, I haven't heard any names. All I heard was that they were trying out top laners and that there was a Turkish player that they were very interested in.
Now it's all conjecture at that point what this means for Bwipo, because everything I've heard in the context of them is it is more of a pure six man roster as opposed to like trying to replace a player. So maybe they're looking at Bwipo's champ pool thinking, okay, he plays a lot of champs, but we, we only want him to focus on certain ones or Whipo, this might be buffers last year competing and maybe he wants to train in somebody else to replace him. Like there's a lot of things this could be, but we have to wait and see when flag was locks that in. I haven't seen any posts about this, but my source is telling me that it's pretty much a done deal. So really if that isn't the case, then that is my. That's very funny because my source is somebody that like has flip flop at the weight beat, somebody that I trust, don't trust, they're going to flip right back to don't trust them. But as of right now, I actually do kind of put weight behind this.
[00:10:10] Speaker B: So I'm just so curious as to which Turkish top laner could Be because if you're talking about from the tcl, the only notable top leader that is Turkish in the tcl, the place top is armored and I would be shocked if that's the direction Fly Quest go.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: That would be crazy. Hey, they're going to grab a lot from gx. I'm telling you. That's. That's their one. That's their guy. I think he's so good. For sure.
Either way, both of those are crazy because this is something that we rarely ever see going from spring split to summer, let alone from top teams. Yes, there is an additional split so they have a little more time to get a T player on the same page. But you know, this is big moves for two of the top teams in the league if they turn out to be true. So I guess I figured it out.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: Oh yeah, they're not going to go with a Turkish top laner. They're going to go with a Swedish top laner. This up and coming guy, just one EU Masters, you may have heard of him.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: They're getting the boss, the bows. Hey, better than TF Blade. Okay, I honestly, I would take the bows.
They're gonna, they're gonna play. So it's a six man roster. They're gonna play Bwipo every game until they need a Scion and then they put the mouse and just hope that Cyan doesn't get banned.
All right, well that's all the news that we have for right now for this week. Let us know if we missed anything in the community Discord. You can find a link in the description wherever you are listening and also check out the fantasy tab in there, the fantasy chat.
Because we should have fantasy. Whether it's already live or not. It should be going by the time actually hearing this. So just make sure that you join in. And you know, I'm actually gonna go to Fantasy Leagues Community chat, I think. Oh, it's Mighty Kiko that put it together.
So I think we already have something set up by Mighty Kiko. There is a link in there. So make sure to click that one and then we'll get the community fantasy going and then that'll be fun because we can do like weekly updates if we have one for our own community.
Another pro for this new version of Fantasy.
Are you gonna do a pickle? Are you, are you gonna draft a team?
[00:12:23] Speaker B: I will probably be in there drafting a team.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: Hell yeah. The only downside is that we can't do like a draft show for the pod anymore because I was like, oh, once a player's picked. No one else can pick him. I'm pretty sure this one. Like you can just pick anybody. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: My track record with Fantasy has been very hit or miss. I have either one or ended up nearly dead last.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: I always suffered from just trying to pick up all CLG players and were gone from the league. I would just try and pick up like XCLG players. And notably XCLG players don't really do well.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: Except for that one time the Energy won the league somehow. That time you did pretty good.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: Well, that was when they were still CLG players. In my heart. In my heart they still were. Yeah. All right. Well, anyway, that's it for News Reminder. If you want to support the podcast, you can do so either through our Patreon or through our merch store, league-rundown-shop.fourth wall.com thank you to everybody who already does. But with that being said, it's time to hop into the past week's games as well as bring our attention to LTA going forward. I am so annoyed though, every time that LTA and LEC do not line up and then we have these super long intros like why is this week two of LEC but a week one of lta? Come on guys, let's just get on the same schedule.
Mini rant over. We had LEC games that happened this weekend and in the new format of how we cover Bickle, we're going to go through the order of who's first to who's last and just kind of COVID Spark notes how their week went and then cover our favorite series to watch that we recommend everybody check out. So in order, I'll let you get started. Who's at the top of the lec after week one?
[00:14:11] Speaker B: You know you got some expected teams up there. G2K Corp, they're up there. One and Heretics had a relatively easy start, so there's no surprise there. Vitality also doing well. They got to face Rogue. That's not too bad.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: Bds.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: We knew that would happen. They only had to play sk. I mean, not sk. BDS only had to play Rogue. They're a terrible team. And sk.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: SK is also terrible. Right?
Right.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: Kangas, I think you have the wrong standings up here.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: Oh, my list is upside down.
[00:14:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:41] Speaker A: Oh my God. Sk's one and.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: Oh yeah, it says they're one and. Oh that they went two zero and they smacked Fnatic. That can't be right.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: Unfortunately for my predictions, it is. I almost had a 100% prediction this past weekend, but I don't think anybody saw this one coming. SK made two changes, Pickle. Not just one, two. One of them was pretty last minute. Also, they benched who we all thought was their best player. Brought in a new ad carry. They have a new jungler. And Bukata and Kadui, what a great showing for their first weekend. Man, that was impressive.
[00:15:20] Speaker B: Extremely impressive. I have to apologize to SK because I kind of flame the hell out of them for benching Rahel. But this shows why I do a podcast and other people run teams.
Because you know what? Kidney and Bakuda came in, they clicked and they were phenomenal. Game one, they absolutely ran over Fnatic in game two. Fnatic got a good lead, but come late, they just wiped them and ended the game like it was clean.
Yeah, Fnatic had a gold lead when they lost the game, but it was relatively clean by sk.
[00:16:07] Speaker A: I was just so impressed, specifically from Bukata. I feel like for a rookie jungler coming in, somebody who has not had this type of experience, it's just. It's great to see that they had a good debut because debuts in the LEC can be very hit or miss and we've seen a couple that have kind of floundered, definitely.
[00:16:32] Speaker B: And to be able to get that confidence onto two rookies is going to be really beneficial for SK going forward.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: Yeah. What does this mean though, for Fnatic? Like what? What happened, man?
[00:16:47] Speaker B: It means FNATIC needs to stop trying stuff like picking what's supposed to be an OP champion in Naafiri and just play what you're good at.
[00:16:57] Speaker A: That is important to note when you played.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: Yeah, it worked when you played standard against gx.
You place them, you smack them. Stop trying to be fancy and just get the wins.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: I think that was the first NAAFIRI that we saw make it through in LEC as well. We had seen it in lpl.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: It's been a very high prio champ, I believe.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: Yes, yes. Pretty good win rate. Just does disgusting stuff. If anybody doesn't know the Naafiri changes. She already has like the pack of dogs around her to help her dodge skill shots. But now she also her like w that like is the target on and then lunge at people ability. It makes you go invulnerable.
So say you're getting violated. Nope, it's gonna dodge that.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: That was only theory game of the weekend.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: What was that?
[00:17:50] Speaker B: That is our only Nafiri game of the weekend. Yeah, in the lec. It was banned in what?
[00:17:59] Speaker A: It didn't even look that great. Like, it was doing a little damage early, but, like, it just kind of fell apart. I think part of that can be the fact that it was Jace, Corki, and Rumble. So, like, champions that can all do a lot of damage to Nafiri before Nafiri gets on top of them.
But yeah, I think Resort also just didn't really understand the limits of the champion because you do still have to, like, you can't just blindly run into people, which we did see Razor Riser do a couple times.
[00:18:28] Speaker B: Just a couple times. The upset and Mickey continue to look really good.
But that top trio has their moments of issues, unfortunately.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Oscar Random was also getting a little bullied under that top turret. He was playing the Galio into the Rumble, which in a vacuum, really cool matchup. But then you have to play the lane respectfully enough because the Sejuani has the melee from Rumble to help you help get stacks. And Oscar Renan was just kind of like playing too far forward in lane a couple of times and was getting punished for it, so that was tough for sk.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: Also, shout out to jnx, Gen X, whatever you want to call them. Pulled out the Yasuo Top Game two as a counter to the gnar.
[00:19:14] Speaker A: Yes. Something that we have seen in the past. I haven't seen it in a while, though.
One of the classic counters looked okay. I will say he. He did take a while to come online, but once he did, he was kind of popping off.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: I said it was cool. I didn't say it was good.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: Hey, it does have a VI and a Rel to set it up, so. Yeah, not bad. Not bad. Yeah. Okay, so that was SK and a little bit of Fnatic's weekend as well. Surprise. The Fnatic one and one after that loss to SK will keep our eyes on sk. Don't. Don't get too excited too fast, everybody. But there's a chance that this team can actually do some damage in this league. We also had team heretics with a two zero There you were against Rogue. So, you know, can we take much from this, or does this just feel like everyone's just gonna beat up on Rogue? This place kind of feels like everyone's gonna beat up on Rogue.
[00:20:13] Speaker B: This split Game two is an example of what we expect to happen versus Rogue every series, which is you kind of just beat them up.
I was slightly concerned when they started to really fall behind in game one against Rogue, but it managed to come back.
Camilo brought out the speed demon Cho'gath Mid, which was really entertaining.
[00:20:39] Speaker A: To see the shurelyas plus movement boots plus the deadman's plate. It's so fun, man.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: Yep. And the counter to that that Rogue brought out was let's have move speed of our own as they got the mobility boots plus shurelyas on Adam playing the Aurora top.
People talk about Cherrilli.
He like the stats of how far he was ahead and how much he was doing for his team in game one were absurd. He ended the game eight one and four up one and a half K gold on his lane opponent and it just didn't matter.
[00:21:20] Speaker A: Well, they were winning the game until yeah, they pushed with the Baron and this was like a super late otacon take to. Right. Wasn't like otacon up past the Baron.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: I think so.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: But yeah, this is a game where they were winning until they weren't.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: It was a funky one. They just like they. They didn't get the otacon and then they lost a fight at dragon and then the game was over. It's like not even Elder Dragon. It wasn't even Dragon Soul. It was actually no, it was Dragon Soul. It was Dragon Soul. 14 heretics. They were behind in gold, but they were on Soul Point for a while. But then Rogue was able to keep them off of Seoul for. For like two dragons in a row just because of their massive gold lead. But then just took the one fight. It was like, okay, well it's over.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:22:04] Speaker A: Neat.
Which I still think is concerning for Rogue because oh my God. Even when they have like this massive of a lead, they will just punt a game that should have been theirs done and dusted. So tough to see. And I mean it didn't get better for Rogue because they also played bds. So let's just talk about BDS too, since that's the other Rogue opponent. This one was a little closer. I mean Rogue was able to pick up a game at least, but bds, dude, Ice. Ice, baby. Man, like this guy. It's just kind of crazy.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Turns out ice is still the strongest point of bds. And yeah, it's concerning the fact that they lost the game to Rogue though.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: It is. I think I. I think that first game, I don't know that that was a little bit of like. I think Rell is a good pick right now. I don't like her above Alistair. And so if your opponent gets the Alistar and you have to go for the Rell, I think it's really tough if that's like your only form of engage, which they didn't need to have that. They also had the Maokai and the k'sante. I think that they could have opted for a different support over the rel, but Perus just kept throwing himself in and dying over and over again.
[00:23:21] Speaker B: It looks like they managed to get the jitters out of the way though, because games two and three, nothing to really concern themselves.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. But again, I didn't see like a huge spark from BDS other than game two 113 having a pop off Nidalee game and then ice throughout the series. I think looks really good too. I guess it was kind of cool to see them pull out the Nidalee. Jace, this is a composition that is really scary when you're staring down specifically like a vi because neither one of those champs can like stop the VI from just getting on top of the Nidalee, but if you can play spacing correctly. My God, that's oppressive. Poke between those two.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: Yeah. So bds, we're unconvinced of how powerful they look right now. They did just beat up Rogue and they also dropped a game to Rogue.
But you know what? A win's a win, baby. Oh, wins a win. And at the end of the day, we kind of expect this team to be middle, lower middle to pack anyway. At least that was my expectation.
Team that we don't have low expectations for and in fact have pretty high expectations for. Talk about Carmine Core, the team the reigning champions right now also sitting at 1 and 0 in the series. Core, they dropped a game too, though.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: They did. And in all honesty, they nearly dropped two because they probably should have lost that game against Koi. And if it weren't for some interesting decisions, let's just put it that way.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: You don't like Merwin's anti top Lane? Come on.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: No comment.
[00:25:10] Speaker A: Dude, Merwin's my favorite freaking player in the lec. Man. This guy's great.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: He keeps whatever he feels like.
[00:25:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, I mean Casey still looked good on their wins. They lost the one to Koi where Supa just kind of got out of control.
And even though they had kind of a a disengage bot Lane, it didn't matter because Super Alvaro were still just able to have a a do nothing early game and then pop the off late game.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: And yeah, the Ash Renata feels really good in Lane versus the Kaiser Nautilus. But once you're out of Lane it gets a little harder because they're not as try to mark flanks from the the Aurora and then you're also having to try and disengage off of the big nautilus engages if you do, you know, the Xin Zhao serving out his ultimate. So the team can't follow up as well. You know, it can be tough, let alone when Yike is kind of getting caught out of position as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean we see this happen occasionally with Yike where he's like just trying to find engages and then he just doesn't have the right follow up. Theoretically, this team should be able to follow up. They also have alongside the disengage bot lane, the and bessa top lane with the Akali mid.
Well, yeah, he still just kept going in.
But look at Merwin's build. Dude. What? You can just build anything on Aurora. He's got that like magic resist shred item. I always forget the name of it.
[00:26:45] Speaker B: That's a good question.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: Something curse I want to say.
[00:26:49] Speaker B: I don't know the letters curse.
[00:26:52] Speaker A: I think it's blood letters curse there. That sounds right. It does. You know, gives health and then AP and every damage you do to them shreds magic resist. So pretty good on Aurora too. Yeah, yeah.
[00:27:05] Speaker B: Works double dot.
[00:27:08] Speaker A: I always build that one on brand and Arams. That's the only time I ever pick it up.
But KC in their return game from first stand representing EU reigning champions. Did this feel like a reigning champion performance?
[00:27:26] Speaker B: I think they're fine. You always have that pseudo hangover coming back from an international event where everybody else has gotten some time to rest and you've kind of been going straight, especially since Casey went to the finals.
McCoy is a good team. It's okay to drop a game.
They won in the end. They're fine.
[00:27:51] Speaker A: I. I think I agree. I with all everything you just said. The slight hangover from international event. This is also against a pretty good team like Koi. I don't think is a slouch. Koi can take games if not series off of the top teams. And they did take a game. But props to Casey for at least bringing it back in that game three. You're right that Koi probably should have won that one. Jojo was pretty fed and they did have a slight gold lead. Actually not even slight. It was like a 5k gold lead I want to say around there.
And Casey had to fight their way back in, but they did it and they were able to pick up the win.
Speaking of winning, G2 also picked up a win in their first day. But just like Casey, baby, they dropped a game also to Coy dude. Coy had such a crazy strength of schedule. By the way. Poor Koi Poor went out. Man, this team should not be 02. Like you look at who they're around in the standings right now and it's only one week. They're by Rogue and Giant X. They are way better than Rogan. Giant X, man, they had likely the.
[00:28:58] Speaker B: Hardest possible schedule having to play two games and it was against G2 and K Corp. Yep. Like, I don't think you can get worse than that.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: I think that that is Fnatic would be up there, but they just dropped sk, so who knows? Yeah.
So currently, yes. Have to agree. It's Casey and it's G2 as the heavy hitters. And G2, they did hit pretty heavy. Game one was a shellacking, dude.
[00:29:27] Speaker B: Oh my God.
They.
[00:29:31] Speaker A: They only had two deaths as a team. Broken Blade and Lebrov both went down. Nobody else died.
It was a 28 minute game, 2840 or something like that. So it was not the fastest we've seen, but still pretty fast and almost like 100% objective control rate from G2. They got nearly everything.
So that was like, oh my God. G2 are on it. CAPS is on it. Game two happens. And what's that I see in the top lane? Pickle.
[00:30:03] Speaker B: That's a set.
[00:30:06] Speaker A: That's a set. Interesting. Into Mbessa, which I will give credit for trying to cook. You know, if you. If you see Mbesa picked and you're like, okay, what are the counters? I understand in a vacuum why you think SETT might be the answer to Embessa. She can't really do anything. She can't really move the set. But the problem is then you're playing sett and Bessa is basically set, but has a way better Ult and way better. Well, okay, arguably better Ult and way more mobility in fights. And Merwin was just able to style on him and also do fine in the one field. So I feel like everything was bad for G2.
[00:30:46] Speaker B: Of course the reason Broken Blade is onset is because mkoy in the first round of bands banned the Warwick, his normal counter to M. Bessa.
[00:30:55] Speaker A: That's a good point actually. And even the Poppy as well. So like they really tried to cover the bases. Then the second round of bands, it's Renekton and Cassante. So it's like, yeah, there's not a lot of picks here. It really did feel like G2 put themselves in a corner with like, okay, what's even available for Broken Blade at this point?
Again, I like the Concept of the set did not work out, but it's fine. They bounce back pretty dominantly in game three. And it felt almost the exact same as game one.
[00:31:25] Speaker B: Yeah, they're like, okay, trying things out. Game two, we're allowed to have a bad game. We're G2. We always around a little bit. Game three back on our horse, smacking around. Mundo Jungle, Mundo Jungle. Nico support game, set, match.
[00:31:41] Speaker A: And Lebrov looked great on the Nico. I will say I love him on some of these picks. Sometimes Lebro, like get Lebrov off of Nautilus, man, I don't want to see Lebron Nautilus or Lebrov rel. But if you give him something like a Nico, hell yeah. That's a little brav pick right there.
[00:31:57] Speaker B: He was feeling himself.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: He was definitely feeling himself. So G2 did pick up a win as well. And there's a lot of teams up here at the 1 and 0. So we've already talked about BDS, Casey, G2, Team Eritix and SK. There's a sixth team that is 1 in 0, but technically it's a tie in first place because only three of the teams went 2. 0 in their games. The team that we haven't talked about yet. Kind of a surprise here. Team Vitality. I had them. I predicted that they would win. I'm surprised that they picked up a two zero though over their opponents. So what do you think of Niski's debut as support Pickle? That was the big story.
[00:32:39] Speaker B: Yeah, it was the big story and it certainly was not the reason they won.
[00:32:44] Speaker A: Yeah, okay. All right, all right.
[00:32:46] Speaker B: He was, he was fine.
Like, you can tell he's still adjusting from being a mid laner to a support.
He has some moments here and there where you can see what the potential is, see what they're looking for. But the story of the series was Cedric in the mid lane who just looks like he came to play. The only player this weekend going deathless. Perfect kda.
His rise in game two was such a major impact play.
Also, shout out to neck Neko. We mentioned to Yasuo top earlier. Apparently we had two this weekend that I completely forgot about it.
[00:33:27] Speaker A: Yeah, it seems like it's coming back in. This one was not into NAR though. This one was into the Cassante.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:33:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Also I. I looked up a couple of fun Niski stats just because I was curious kind of what his first debut would be. And now keep in mind, this is two games. It's only one weekend. The stats will populate better throughout but notably, what did he accomplish in his debut game?
Very high kill participation is the answer here. I'm actually trying to find the stat I just had on my screen. Now it's gone. Here we go. He is currently leading the league at 90% kill participation. Zero kills, by the way. So he's not stealing any team kills, but he is absolutely present when the kills are happening. Now both of the games were kind of low action. I'll say game a little, a little higher. But yeah, like neither of these really took off until like the last five minutes of each one. Basically the five last five minutes were the only important part to watch for these, you can just check those out and you can see, yeah, Niski is finding the engages. He's there with the team. He's looking like he's trying to do what's right. But you're right in that it's mostly the story of the mid lane here. Shajak is just popping off. We're gonna say a different name every time for this player, by the way, because even on broadcast they say a different name every time.
[00:34:47] Speaker B: Yeah, we don't know how to pronounce Jack Snake.
[00:34:50] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And then Carsi in the the bot lane as well also I think had a pretty decent showing. But yeah, vitality it was against Giant X. So who knows how good they actually are.
But I think that you can keep your eyes on them and see maybe they can do some damage as well.
And look at that. We've talked about every team now. Just by talking about the teams that are undefeated, we also talked about all of their opponents. So that's Lec Bickle. I have my thoughts on what the most important series for everyone to watch this weekend are. If they only have time for one, maybe two series. But I want to hear yours first. What is your top must watch series from this past weekend?
[00:35:28] Speaker B: The correct answer is FNATIC versus sk.
[00:35:32] Speaker A: Absolutely. It is hard. Agree. I loved that series not only because we it was a surprise, but because of how SK was able to pull it off. It was scrappy, it was entertaining, the narrative was there. So check out SK vs Fnatic. I also gave a nod to G2 vs Koi just because I felt like that was still some pretty high level League of Legends and Koi, you know, even though they got kind of blown out twice, that second game at least is worth a watch. So check that one out.
Cool. Cool. That leads us to next week. We have seven more games. That's right, Lec. I think eventually we'll get down to six games a weekend. But for now, the first two weekends are at least seven. I'll have to check the schedule again to see when that changes, but Rogue vs Vitality kick things off. We both think it's Vitality 2o KC vs BDS. We both think it's KC2o Team Heretics vs G2, we both think is G2. I, however, have a spicy take here. You have two zero. I have two. One. And the reason for that is I think Lebrov cannot win three games in a row, or rather cannot have three good games in a row.
So I think you're gonna see a lot of two ones from G2 this split until Labrov picks it up and starts, you know, figuring out how to consistently perform on different champions in a fearless draft.
[00:36:55] Speaker B: I agree with you that G2 will not be able to have three clean game. Two clean games in a series, slash three clean games in a series. I do not believe that team Heretics is a good enough team to be able to count.
[00:37:11] Speaker A: So you don't think it matters?
[00:37:12] Speaker B: No, I think. I think Le Brav will absolutely have one of those funny games, but it will not matter.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: All right, all right, fair enough. Fair enough.
Okay. Well, we at least Both still think G2 is gonna take it. Next up for day two on Sunday, we have SK versus BDS. We disagree. You have BDS 2. 1. I have SK 2. 1. Would you like to go first, or would you like me to take this one? Pickle, you go ahead. All right. I'm just fully pilled, baby. Let's fucking go. It's SK all the way. They're gonna win. Lec. They got Bukata, Kadui. These two are crazy. Reekers got, like, insane. Kda J and X is there, and Loopy's there, too. I. I really just think that writing the momentum of a fnatic win, they can do a lot with. And again, I was very impressed with Kadui and Bakata's debut. I don't think that their opponent is really bringing much. Like BDS did not convince me in their wins as much as SK hard convinced me in there.
[00:38:18] Speaker B: That's entirely fair for me.
I don't want to be convinced after just one series. I'm trying to take into account how winter looked, and SK was really rough, and we had some question marks coming into the season about how those new additions would do. And part of me thinks it's just fanatic choking. So I need to see more from SK before I can put too much confidence into them.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: Okay, so you're gonna air more on.
[00:38:46] Speaker B: The side of err on the side of caution.
[00:38:49] Speaker A: Err on the side of caution. Potentially. It was more of Fanatic up than it was sk. Looking exceptional.
[00:38:56] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:38:57] Speaker A: Okay. I think it's fair enough. And BDS still, I mean, Nuke and Ice are a hell of a combo. 113 is not a bad jungler. So surprisingly, to say that right now, but like, he looked really good in his first game, so yeah, I could see a world BDS gets it, but I'm on the SK hype train. I think I already am. You know, conflicting with my own statement earlier where I said don't get too excited about them, but I'm excited.
Next up though is Fnatic versus kc. We both have KC taking this one. You have a clean two zero. I have a two one. The reason being, I think that kind of like what you're saying. A bit of last or this past weekend, I imagine, is Fnatic underperforming. If they come as full power Fnatic, they can absolutely take a game off of kc.
But I still think Casey is the better team right now. But you're not giving FNATIC a shot. How. Why not?
[00:39:47] Speaker B: I'm kind of down on Fnatic and have been for a long time. O I.
I just don't have faith in them, unfortunately.
[00:39:58] Speaker A: Yeah, ever since they dropped in the Split one playoffs, I'm gonna be honest.
[00:40:04] Speaker B: It'S been ever since they choked multiple finals against G2 while being up multiple K gold leads.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: Dude, that last year was insane. How many times that happened, like, actually crazy.
All right, well, either way, we both think it's KC taking it, so we'll see if we're right. Then to close off the weekend for lec, it's Rogue versus gx. We both have GX taking this to battle of the shitters, though. Can we just say that? Can we just.
Can we admit it?
[00:40:33] Speaker B: There's no way GX is that bad though, right? I mean, at least be better than Rogue.
[00:40:39] Speaker A: Rogue picked up a game last weekend. GX did not think about it. And also I really. I. I kind of actually want to change it to Rogue now. I'm gonna change it to Rogue because I'm reminded now that the only reason GX looked like they could do anything last split was because they had closer. And now they. That Isma's in. Oh, my God. That was a big downgrade. Like, they look so much worse. So I'm actually gonna. I'm gonna flip flop. I'm gonna say rogue 21. I think that GX. I'm. I don't even know if I'm gonna watch those games if I'm being honest with you. I'm gonna level with you right now, audience. Unless it's the type of like garb dump dumpster fire that's enjoyable to watch.
That could be one of those ones. It's like, yeah, you could just skip that one but another one that maybe skip, maybe don't. Team Heretics can they keep it going? They're up against M Koi to close out the week and we both believe in the Koi fish with a 20 swift victory.
There you have it. That's LEC predictions and this last week in review reminder. Check out Fnatic versus SK. Check out at least game two of G2 versus MCOI. The other two games are a little more stompy but I still think worth the watch. Especially if you're an EU fan and you like watching CAPS just dunk on JoJo because that happened a couple of times.
All right, that leads us to LTA across the pond here in North America. What's the T stand for in lta? That's right. The.
I'm just going to keep hammering that in just because I hate that fact. But LTA is kicking off here. We have week one of split two. Bickle, we are back and I will be in the studio. Yeah, I'll be back in the studio. Casting. I have the second two games for each day so the second half of each day. So if you want to check out my casting, make sure to tune in. But let's go over our predictions now. Keep in mind, could be different rosters, could be some wacky things happening. This is all best of ones as well. So the predictions, it's not going to be for series, it's just for a straight up 1v1 makes it a little more variable. So I think our chances of high success rate here for predictions could be kind of low a little bit. But we'll see. Kicking things off here, Bickle. We got Team Liquid vs Fly Quest.
The El Classico. The not the last finals that we had but it feels like this is always the final finals and the the biggest rivalry that exists in North American League of Legends to this date. And we both are siding with the boys in Green Fly Quest taking the best of one series. Why do you have them taking it over Team Liquid?
[00:43:31] Speaker B: I think we mentioned. Well I mentioned this back. K Corp, you're coming off an international event and in Team Liquid's case you're coming off a really bad international event, then there's going to be some hangover. There's going to be some fallout from it and I think Fly Quest comes in Hungary after really falling short last split. So I think they come in Hungary and I think they take this game. But if both these teams are running six man rosters, everything's up in the air, right?
[00:44:00] Speaker A: These are the two that are rumored so we might get different player rosters than we did the last time we saw them, which would be wild and they don't have that much time to make that decision but we'll see what they decide to do. I also just think that Team Liquid is going to look way worse without a lane swap meta. They're going to have to take some time. I have faith that they will be good again but I don't think they're going to be one of the best teams right away. I put them fourth place in my power rankings just because we they didn't look great. They're going to have a little hangover and also lane swaps are gone so what the fuck are they going to do at this point they're going to have to refigure it how they want to play League of Legends and FlyQuest will not have to do that. So so FlyQuest all the way. Next up is Shopify Rebellion versus Dignitas. Oh a little disagreement here for us. I have Shopify, you have dig. The reason I'm going Shopify is that man I just eventually I'm gonna get rewarded for predicting them because contracts is gonna go on that hot streak that we all know he's capable of and Palifax is Demonte coaching him now so maybe he could get his ass back into gear and if you just keep betting on the them eventually eventually they will be good. They have to be good.
[00:45:12] Speaker B: Sooner or later it'll work.
[00:45:14] Speaker A: Right, right, right. Why do you got.
[00:45:20] Speaker B: I think Tomo has shown himself to be a really solid 80 carry with high peaks and I'm still really excited for Serdi and want it to work out so I really need Dig to win some games or else Serdes in trouble.
[00:45:33] Speaker A: True. Oh man, he had so much hype coming around him and he had an all right late rookie debut but the fact that like his most watched clip from this past split, his debut rookie split is getting solo killed by Bwipo's Garen is like oh that's an oof.
Yeah but definitely rooting for Serdy as well. Would love to see him pop Off. Up next we have 100 Thieves versus Cloud 9 and again we disagree. This is gonna be. And I'll just brace everybody for it. I might have to change my mind mind depending on you know how the teams do.
I am backing 100 thieves to the moon. I actually have them ranked first in my power rankings.
That's right. I have. I'm sorry against C9 first in my power rankings. And I'm gonna give you two reasons. Number one reason number one, we start the split. What, what format are we playing in Bickle? Is it. Is it fives? Best of threes?
[00:46:42] Speaker B: I think it's like best of sevens or something. No, it's best of ones.
[00:46:45] Speaker A: It's best of ones. And who was the king of best of ones? The over performer. The. The first excuse. The first excuse given for why hundred thieves over performed. What was it?
[00:46:58] Speaker B: It.
It's that they were best of one Merchants.
[00:47:02] Speaker A: Yeah, best of one merchants. If they were best of threes they would have lost all those series. But because it's best of ones, they took them all. They're going to start off on a hot streak this split. I think they're actually going to. They. There's a chance they could go undefeated. Like I legitimately think 100 thieves are that good of a team and if they get this the ball rolling they could just take first seed. Now going into best of threes they're going to have to figure out how the hell to win best of series because they still struggle more with that. But in best of I think this team is really good. Reason number two.
What was the, the, the. The big worry that everyone had for, for fearless with this team? Oh they had a certain young top laner. Oh but he, he only plays K'sante. Does he. Can he play anything else? Has he ever like read another champions abilities? Yeah, we squashed that narrative Pickle.
[00:47:55] Speaker B: Dude.
[00:47:56] Speaker A: Sniper is playing everything right now. Snipers actually I think defeated the allegations that he's a one trick and can play to the team and the team can play to him. And I'll even give a third reason. Even though Sniper I think is stepping up, he maybe outed something he shouldn't have live on broadcast and now we can talk about it because he said at first this could be River's last year of competitive.
Yeah, river has military service coming up and it's unknown when he will have to go and do that. It's looking at the end of this year so sometime after worlds and it's unsure if he will come back to pro Play after the fact, so they're going to be hungry. Sniper himself said that he is hungry to give River a title because he feels like river has been huge for his own development and he wants to pay it back by G G him a win.
[00:48:47] Speaker B: Oh, that's so sweet.
[00:48:49] Speaker A: Yeah. So for all those reasons, I'm back in 100 Thieves the split.
[00:48:53] Speaker B: You didn't even mention the fact that now the lane swaps are dead. 100 thieves will do better because carry tops are back.
[00:48:59] Speaker A: Theoretically, that's actually probably the most important argument. Thank you. Thank you. I'm working on the spiel because if you're watching a top of day for LT on Saturday, I'll be on the waiting room and nobody on the. The lounge right now. None of the other analysts know that I have 100 thieves in my first place power rankings. And I. I'm already preparing my impassioned speech defending it. So that's. That was my first run through.
[00:49:27] Speaker B: That's a. That's really solid. Some. Also the note is that being such a young player, Sniper really never got to experience the old generation of lane swaps. And so with those dead, he's kind of back now and can be this top lane carry player that's supposed to take over the league.
[00:49:44] Speaker A: Hell yeah. That's what I'm talking about.
[00:49:47] Speaker B: All right, I'd like contributor credit on this PowerPoint now.
[00:49:52] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. You know what? I'll give it to you. It's not gonna be a PowerPoint. It'll probably just be me getting mad at Jet and Raz for. For flaming me. And Emily's just gonna be laughing in the corner. That's typically.
Why do you have C9 taking this one?
[00:50:08] Speaker B: I think C9 showed a lot of potential strength in winter. When they were first starting up was still a younger roster with Thanatos and Loki. I think having had more time to kind of get together, group together, play more together, they will be more cohesive. And I think if those five individual pieces can come together, they have a very high potential.
[00:50:30] Speaker A: Okay. I could see it. And I will say this is all I. I gave mad disrespect to C9 last split with my power rankings, and they proved me the hell wrong. So there's a chance I'm just doing this again.
C9 are a good team. I really do think that they have what it takes to. To win this split too. But I'm just bagging 100 thieves right now. Lion vs. Disguised will close out day one. We both have lion taking it, but let's be honest. This is the bottom two teams from last split kicking things off to start. But on the bright side, one of them will have picked up a win because neither of them got a win last.
They got game wins but not a series win, I guess. So. You know, having a one in front of the zeros will feel good for them. Absolutely.
[00:51:15] Speaker B: One of these is coming in with a win.
[00:51:17] Speaker A: One of them has to. That's guaranteed.
Next up on Sunday, kicking things off, we have Cloud 9 versus Shopify Rebellion. We both have Cloud 9. I think just like last split, we're expecting a top four region, bottom four region for LTA. It's basically a team that could fly 100 Thieves, C9 in the top four half. Those are the teams that can actually like take the title. The bottom four less expecting. So this to me, even though Shopify is my like 5th place team, I still think there's that big of a gap between them and C9.
Team Liquid Hundred, though that one's a little more interesting and we disagree. I'm, I, I basically gave all my same reasons why I think 100 Thieves is going to take this one, but. Really, you think Team Liquid's better than A hundred Thieves?
[00:51:59] Speaker B: I honestly do. I think Team Liquid's still a very strong team. They literally just won the split split. And despite what you mentioned, honestly you had me really thinking about if I want to swipe it. Flip this with your talking up 100 Thieves bring up the fact that lane swaps are dead, you know, and okay.
[00:52:21] Speaker A: The lane stops being dead. Hurts no team more than Team Liquid and probably helps no team more than 100. These maybe like Dignitas would also be a big help or like lion because there's big language barriers. So just having more standard league is big, big. But like hundred things really benefits from.
We're doing it. Yes.
Hell yeah. I cannot wait for us to crash and burn together. Now do you want to change your C9 prediction?
[00:52:48] Speaker B: No, I'm keeping that C9. But I'll ride with you against Team Liquid.
[00:52:52] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. Then we have Fly Quest versus Disguised and both of us believe flyquest is taking that one. With Dignitas lion closing out the weekend and we both have Dig.
That one's I think gonna be a little close. I could see lion taking that one, but for now I'm gonna back dig. Either way. That's LTA week one. Maybe we'll see some new rosters, maybe we won't. Maybe all the rumors are insubstantiated and that's why you should never put too much stock in them. But either way, I'm excited for LTA to come back. It's gonna be a good time. It's gonna be a good time. I'm just realizing I get the 100 Thieves vs C9 series to keep. I mean, I knew that, but like, I. I get to defend my point in the broadcast too. Or Deflate instantly if C9 just pop.
[00:53:37] Speaker B: Off one way or the other.
[00:53:39] Speaker A: One way or the other, it will be entertaining. Speaking of entertaining, hopefully you were entertained listening along to this episode. Thank you so much everybody for tuning in. A reminder that you can join our community Discord through the link in the description, wherever you are listening. You can also support us through our Patreon or our merch store. And Bickle, if they really liked the episode and they'd like to help us get more notoriety and easier to find when people search league podcasts, how many stars should they leave us on the review?
[00:54:09] Speaker B: Well, what they should do is look at this episode number and realize there's only one number in it. They should pick that number. That would be five.
[00:54:17] Speaker A: There's a lot of fives in this number, actually, in this episode title. That's a good point. 5 stars would be perfect, everybody. It really does help us get noticed more. And if we're trying to keep this podcast rolling, let's try and grow it while we're at it. Thank you, Bickel, for coming out. I know it's only the two of us. This was, by the way, my first time Bickle and I were talking before going on. Duffy has talked about it. I know, like Optimus Tom back in the day had talked about it. Having like two man podcasts when they come up are really tough. This is my first time ever doing it. It. I thought that was pretty good, Bickle.
[00:54:50] Speaker B: I think we did a great job, Kangas.
[00:54:52] Speaker A: Let's pat ourselves on the back for that one.
[00:54:54] Speaker B: Damn straight.
[00:54:55] Speaker A: Thank you for coming on though. And next week we should have more of the regulars around, so make sure to tune in. But as always, if there's one thing to take away from this episode, it's this. We love you and we'll see you next time.
[00:55:09] Speaker B: Peace.
[00:55:11] Speaker A: Oh, yes, Daddy.
[00:55:13] Speaker B: It.
