League Rundown - Episode 566: The LTA North gets to send one representative to MSI

[00:00:12] Speaker A: Gets hit Kimmy kids 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. Oh my God. Stupid Passes through and manages to the table with Messiah tanking it up. I do not believe he just believe. [00:00:42] Speaker B: I cannot understand this game. [00:00:46] Speaker A: Unicorns of Love it wasn't a mutant. The Nexus. [00:01:03] Speaker C: Foreign. [00:01:10] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to episode 566 of the League Rundown. This is your 2025 LTA split two finals review and this episode is lovingly entitled the LTA North Gets to Send One Representative to MSI. I am your host Gigas. Forgot that was the title of the episode going into it just immediately we're addressing it. I have joining me to esteemed co hosts. Up first, Mr. Misel. Yo. [00:01:36] Speaker C: Hello. Excited to be here. Excited to have the vibes that we have going in. [00:01:42] Speaker A: It's a good start already. We also have joining us. I still have not come up with a catchphrase for you. Your introduction, it's yachty. Let's go. [00:01:50] Speaker B: This week's catchphrase can be Got injured at a company kickball game. [00:01:55] Speaker A: Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah, you like sprained your ankle or something? [00:01:58] Speaker B: No, I, I strained my calf actually is what ended up happening. It was, it was pretty unfortunate and you know, it didn't even happen on what I what I thought it, it would have happened on. So the first play of the game, you know those really, really shitty baseball fields where it's like the grass is like an inch higher than the infield sometimes because the grass isn't cut. I had to make a catch around there and it ended up being like a, like a falling catch. And you know, I got up and I was like, yeah, everything's fine. Like I didn't even get hurt on that. But later in the game I went to go like cut in a direction and then realized, yeah, you know, I don't have to go after that ball. Somebody else got it. And that's when, that's when the calf started not feeling so good. In between games, in between games I went, I stretched it out, you know, and did everything I could to make sure it was nice and loose. Drank some water, drank some Gatorade, walked around, stretched it out. And then my first at bat in the second game, I even made a play in the infield in the second game, first at bat in the second Game went to go kick the ball. Oh, immediate. Immediately caught that calf, was hobbling around, got back in the batter's box, had to call time, and I need. I need a. I need a replacement. I need an injury replacement. And, yeah, it kind of stunk. And then I. I kind of hobbled around chatting with my co workers, and then I. And then I left early and drove to the office because I had to work the entire day after that. [00:03:22] Speaker A: Oh, no, wait, when was it? How many days ago? [00:03:25] Speaker B: This was on Thursday. [00:03:27] Speaker A: Oh, so you haven't had even a week to recover then? [00:03:29] Speaker B: Oh, I'm all good now. Like. Or like today, walking around. There was, like, a little bit of soreness, but, like, I can actually, like, walk normally now and everything. Everything's all good. [00:03:38] Speaker A: All right, well, hang in there, man. Well, either way, that is, you know, we'll. We'll give you updates on Yanni's health going forward. Yanni, the kickball. That's actually. [00:03:53] Speaker C: Yes. [00:03:54] Speaker B: It's really funny because I did forget to mention my team won the championship. We made a lower bracket. [00:03:59] Speaker C: Let's go. [00:03:59] Speaker B: We lost. [00:04:00] Speaker A: That's. [00:04:00] Speaker B: You know, we lost our first game. We lost our first game. And then they did it for. In the middle of game two when I got hurt, they were like, we got to do it for Yanni. And then they did. [00:04:10] Speaker A: Worth putting your body on the line. [00:04:12] Speaker B: I mean, we are. We are. Oh, and one. When I play a full game. [00:04:17] Speaker A: Well, this week's episode is gonna be only one series to talk about, because all we had was the LTA north finals for split two. But before that, we do have some global news to get into. So kicking things off here, Mr. Mizelle, pl. What happened in the LPL because those finals happened this weekend as well. [00:04:37] Speaker C: Well, well, well. We find ourselves in a crazy position, don't we, Yani? We find ourselves in a wild place. [00:04:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:46] Speaker C: It is a place where pandas rule the kingdom. And you might be thinking Kung Fu Panda. No, it's a different World of Warcraft. [00:04:53] Speaker B: Mists of Pandaria. [00:04:55] Speaker C: No, not those either. It's called anyone's Legend. Tarzan leading the charge with his Zed in the final game. His first time ever playing Zed in his career on stage. Smashes absolutely dumpsters, the entirety of BLG to claim anyone's Legends first championship. His first title after seven attempts. This was his seventh try at a championship, and he makes good on it as great. [00:05:28] Speaker B: Seven times the charm. [00:05:29] Speaker C: Yeah. Seven times the charm. Not only that, Shanks earns his first title as an up and Coming mid Laner Flandra is back in action after all these years. Heartfelt pose South Oazu it is actually incredible. Hope was crying on stage because he hadn't even known close this to the playoffs at any form. It felt like for so long since he won the title jdg. It was an incredible moment. Kyle, obviously the support, probably the best support in the OPL at the moment. It was an incredible moment. [00:06:04] Speaker B: It is so awesome. [00:06:06] Speaker A: Love that for them. I think that's really cool. And so that means that who are the two MSI representatives coming in from lpl? [00:06:13] Speaker C: Anyone's Legend and blg. [00:06:16] Speaker A: There we go. And I believe BLG is going into. [00:06:19] Speaker B: The during the play ins. [00:06:21] Speaker A: The play ins which is the first weekend where four teams will compete for the last two spots in the bracket. We know those assume expectations as BLG makes it. [00:06:32] Speaker C: Yeah, I think you would think so. [00:06:33] Speaker B: I mean it's BLG, G2, Furia and GAM. So it's probably going to be BLG and G2. [00:06:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's expectation. Maybe GAM can do some damage. We'll talk more about that next week on the POD when we do our MSI preview. But I think that's really cool that at least anyone's legend was able to pick up a title. Now I know that in the north lta north it's not a championship because we only have one championship at the end of the year now it's a split win. Like you get a, a win for that split and yes, you get a trophy and stuff like that but technically it's not like a championship. Is it the same in the lpl? Do you, do you know what like the verbiage is that they're they use. [00:07:11] Speaker C: I mean Ben came out and said that it didn't count. So yeah, I guess probably the same didn't. [00:07:16] Speaker B: I'm sorry Bin said it didn't count. The guy who lost like yeah, of course it doesn't count bro. They gave him a. Did they not give Al a sick ass trophy? Yeah, yeah. Like I don't know bro. If I got a trophy and the guy who lost said it doesn't count. It definitely counts in my mind. [00:07:34] Speaker A: I think it counts for most of the fans as well. It's like one of those technicalities I think. [00:07:39] Speaker B: Are we gonna take that away from Tarzan by the way? Like no, we can't take. [00:07:43] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, no, I think, I think it's real stupid. [00:07:46] Speaker A: No, yeah, I, I For the record I do hear like why as a You know, member of the broadcast. I don't want to speak too much on it, but it does feel really weird that we can't say they're champions, but it's. Yeah, thank. Thank the LEC for doing the three split thing. [00:08:03] Speaker C: I mean, hey, I'm just gonna say Cage will said everything we need to say and if you haven't seen that. [00:08:08] Speaker B: Video, go, yeah, go see it. Go look at it, Go watch it. [00:08:11] Speaker C: He says everything that we need. [00:08:13] Speaker B: He's spitting facts. [00:08:15] Speaker A: I actually have not seen that one now that I'm hearing you talk about. So I. [00:08:18] Speaker C: Well, you should go watch, I guess. [00:08:20] Speaker A: Did he summarize the point? [00:08:23] Speaker C: He said this piece of format across the world. Pretty much, yeah. [00:08:26] Speaker A: There we go. And if Cage will listen. So that's. [00:08:31] Speaker C: Well, yeah, because he's tripling the viewership on every single stream over their main broadcast. So. [00:08:35] Speaker A: You know, it is insane how much. [00:08:37] Speaker C: Still, one of the worst decisions Riot Games and Esports has ever made was letting co streaming be free and open like it is. [00:08:45] Speaker A: Yeah. For anybody who disagrees with that statement from a fan, I understand why you enjoy it. Like if you just like Cage Roll or you think that it adds an extra layer of entertaining value because he can say things that the broadcast can't say. Like all that kind of stuff. From a viewer perspective, completely understand why you would enjoy it. But from a business perspective, yeah, business. [00:09:04] Speaker C: Decision wise, it was the worst. [00:09:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah. Okay, cool. So thank you for the LPL update there. We don't have an LCA K update, but I'll give you spark notes. Oh, do you have it? Okay, go for it. [00:09:18] Speaker B: Yeah. So only three things are certain in life, boys. It's death taxes and T1 clutching up big time. Right. Because what ended up happening was pretty insane. Right? So round three. We got our round three matches. Gen G versus HLE for the first slot to go to MSI. Right? And Hanwell Life up 2 0. They get reverse swept. They get reverse swept. They go reverse swept by Genji. Oh, it looked like they were gonna do it. And then they got reverse swept. They could not take out the kings. No worries. They get to play in the qualification match later. So then it was T1 versus KT. The telecom war. Right? And it lived up to the hype even though it only went four games. But it again. Death taxes, T1 clutching up. [00:10:09] Speaker A: Oh, you know, death taxes. That one is T1 versus KT. Like they just always. [00:10:14] Speaker B: Well, yeah, always. But I'm just saying, ever in life at T1 clutching up because you know, people were like, hey, you know, T1 not looking nearly as good as Gen G on Hanwell Life. And they got the chance to do it against homo Life and they. They stopped them. They three zeroed life, Hanwell Life, Doran one game away from making msi. And they proceeded to lose six straight games, including getting reverse swept and then regular swept, bro, that is mental damage to the max, bro. [00:10:47] Speaker C: Going in to this last little bit, four out of the five members of EDG's world championship roster were gonna make it to MSI. Only one of them made it and it was Fladra. [00:10:59] Speaker B: And it's. [00:10:59] Speaker C: But also, bro, the fact that Doran dipped Isaiah's in that series was so poetic, by far the funniest that happened this entire playoff. [00:11:10] Speaker B: So, so happy for him. So. So that does mean that Hanma life will be watching MSI from home. There will be no Golden Road this year. And I was saying this to Kangas and now I get to say this too. And on the podcast, I would like to present a new League of legends award for 2025 onward and called the Olden Road instead of the Golden Road. Basically, it's awarded the team that wins split two, split three, and then wins the international titles of MSI and Worlds. You know, so just ignore split. You just. You just drop one in first. That's still. That's still the Golden Road. But because nobody actually achieved the old Golden Road before, now we have the Olden Road. Mazel your thoughts. [00:11:55] Speaker C: Here, here. [00:11:57] Speaker A: I love it too. I think it's hilarious. I do like the Brain Worms one. [00:12:02] Speaker B: On that tweet, bro. The Brain Worms won on Brain Worms. [00:12:05] Speaker A: Absolutely. So the Golden Road got harder. But don't worry, the Olden Road is the one that we all know is the real one. That's to strive for. So a couple teams, I think you can still strive. [00:12:16] Speaker B: I think you should still strive for the true Golden Road. [00:12:17] Speaker C: Because now, you know, I think the Golden Road now should be never losing, never being down gold any game. [00:12:24] Speaker B: Oh, my God. [00:12:25] Speaker A: Oh, my. Well, I don't think that should be it. Until the actual Golden Road is. [00:12:29] Speaker C: No, no, no. We're already changing format. Every year we just change the format of the Golden Road. [00:12:34] Speaker A: Let's just change mvp. You know, one year, you only have. [00:12:38] Speaker B: To win one series, you're never down gold. You just like, you know what this means, right? The first guy to get mid CS is just like, yep, all right. No more Golden Road. Oh, yeah. Because in week four, game three of the third match of this best of three. [00:12:53] Speaker C: He forgets to step up. [00:12:55] Speaker B: You know, the opposing mid laner went and tagged you with first strike or something. [00:13:00] Speaker A: Yeah. So there's actually a very funny bit that Jet did on broadcast earlier in the split. You remember the two zero series between FlyQuest and C9 where FlyCoaster smashed them. So he had this little bit where he's like. So there's this concept of a major lead, which is When a team has 55 of the total gold in the game, that's considered statistically a major lead for a team. And there actually was, you know, a moment in that series where C9 had a major lead and he like went up and he hammed it up with the teleprompter or the telestrator. And it was like five seconds after Blabber took a crab. That's hilarious. And that was it. That was the only time they had to maintain the series. [00:13:39] Speaker B: And of course when Blabber takes a. [00:13:42] Speaker A: Crab, you know, just shift the gold posts, I think is the lesson here. Anytime you need a good narrative. But speaking of narratives and speaking of msi, there's actually only one team that attended first stand the first international event that will also be at MSI and that is CFO the Flying Oysters. No one else made it. Team Liquid did not. Hanwha did not. Top Esports did not. It's kind of crazy to think that. [00:14:10] Speaker B: Gets me moisture than an oyster thinking about it, baby. [00:14:13] Speaker A: Casey. Wow. [00:14:16] Speaker C: I was not expecting that. [00:14:18] Speaker A: I don't even know how to recover from that one. [00:14:19] Speaker C: But mental damage indeed. [00:14:22] Speaker A: Truly, truly. Speaking of mental damage, one other big piece of news. We're gonna spend some more time on news because first off, there's a lot of roster changes and just stuff to talk about, but also because you know, there's only the one series at the end. So sorry, if you usually like to just hear us talk about the games that happen, we're going to take a little bit more time with the news this time around. But Mental Damage, an entire team Mental boomed Mizel, a team dear to many NA players hearts. In fact, they even took on the moniker the team name of NA and. [00:14:54] Speaker C: They are no more, truly, you know, keeping their namesake. They were near an airport and they decided to take their flight. I will say I don't know if it was 100% because of the mental boom of losing and the way they did and the couple crash outs, the double ifs and speak ahead towards the end of the split. I don't know if that was why or if they were like, they realized. Because a lot of the realization for this team, you literally watch them have these realizations on stream of how much effort this team takes to be consistent, to be good. And they were not practicing. They practiced twice a week, and most of the time those got canceled. And so they. They. I think they, like, needed some time to, like, come back and think after the split if it was going to be something they vied for and if they wanted to take that spot up, because there is the LTA spot on the other side of the summer. And so I think it's a little bit of both. I think the team chemistry was just not great in the end, especially with the crash house that they did have. But I think it was just a culmination of them realizing it was a lot harder than they thought it was going to be, which sucks, because, I mean, that could have been a spot for a team that was actually developing throughout that split and coming into summer to actually be good. It does make the promos, the qualifications that are coming up this week even more interesting, but it does suck. And I enjoyed having the Airport in the league. I just wish they were able to stick it out. [00:16:19] Speaker A: Yeah, it's one of those things where I was excited for the potential of what Near Airport would. Would bring. And, you know, on the bright side, they did bring more viewership. Like, it was a narrative that other people paid attention to. Like, I know still. Or personalities like Medios. Right. Like, he would talk about the New York Airport games and he would watch those games, which meant that he would tangentially see NACL games. So they did bring eyes to the league that otherwise would not have been conversations about the league, that would not have been happening. But then that, like you said, the downside is they took up a spot, and if they weren't serious about competing and serious about trying to make it to the LTA or, like, you know, I just improve. [00:17:02] Speaker C: It's such a slap in the face for them to. And I know, whatever. Like, I think there's two sides of this as well. This is just how I see it. But, like, how did you not know it was going to take a lot of effort to make? Like, I just. You guys were all pro players. [00:17:17] Speaker A: You all did. [00:17:18] Speaker B: They thought tier two wasn't that good. They. They thought tier two was not that good. [00:17:23] Speaker C: That's what it is, the realization. And I'm just sitting here like you. Like, I love you guys so much, but, like, you could have thought this through a little bit more. [00:17:33] Speaker B: Doublelift thought he was probably Going to roll over every bot lane in the league, bro. Like. [00:17:39] Speaker C: And in the end, Sushi was wanted more than doublelift, which is hilarious. [00:17:43] Speaker B: Yeah, he played, played. [00:17:44] Speaker C: I think they win. I think they win, actually. I think, I think they, or at least they make it to finals if Sushi plays the whole playoffs. [00:17:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it would have been so amazing too, because. [00:17:54] Speaker C: No, but Sushi, yes, Sushi is a. [00:17:56] Speaker B: Really talented player and just putting him around, all of these other really good players just make him shine even more. I would have loved to see him get more games with. With near Airport, but hopefully this means that a team is willing to. To go and take the flyer on him because, you know, he is. He is quite good and really deserves it. [00:18:14] Speaker A: But yeah, it means there's a couple of free agents on the loose now, players like Pobel, like Spica that might still have a competitive drive in them. There's a chance that LTA teams would be interested, so you never know. Keep your eyes on a lot of the Reddit posts and the Sheep Esport articles this offseason because it's. It's gearing up to be a crazy offseason and we already have a lot of other confirmed or at least like Sheep Esports confirmed, you know, rumors that have gone around here. So let's get through some of those next because starting in na, you know, if we're talking about relevant teams that are looking for stuff already, we see that, you know, Dignitas is making moves. They dropped 30 after two splits of giving a shot for this rookie coming in here, he's unfortunately the one that gets blamed for the shortcomings and it's photon coming in. So they're taking the Korean challenge here. Korean bet. I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of thoughts on this one, so I want to hear from both of you. Let's hear from Mizel first because this is. This is gut wrenching for fans developing players in na. [00:19:20] Speaker C: I mean, if you didn't see Rafa's post, you should go w or go check it out. Rafa cat at Rafa cast on Twitter. But it is just pathetic that leadership can try to build any honest connection and then rip it out themselves every single time. It's literally like a copy and paste emotional feeling every time they've announced the player that they feel like can be a cornerstone and then literally less than six months later, they're kicking their players and developing a new cornerstone player. I think bakery is just. If you hear this bakery, I'm sorry, I've never Met you but I think you're a joke and I think that everything that's come badly for Dignitas and a lot of the stuff from the upper management that's been decided that makes this team so shit over the last three years comes from the top. And it really sucks to see that what was true development for a rookie player that can be a phase of the league that we saw development throughout the entire split and the culminated in Dignitas actual playoff placement. And then you still go through with this. I think it's just mind numbingly stupid. [00:20:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:28] Speaker C: Sorry about you. It's so cringe. [00:20:32] Speaker A: I don't know actually. Yanni, let's get your thoughts. I'm going to throw out a narrative point here. [00:20:37] Speaker B: So I got a bit of, I got a bit of a rant, I. [00:20:39] Speaker A: Got a bit of a. Oh, okay. [00:20:41] Speaker B: All right. [00:20:41] Speaker A: All right, strap in everybody. [00:20:42] Speaker B: Some of Serdes last games that he played in the split were some of his best. Think of his Aatrox game in the playoffs where he just went absolutely buck wild and was a large reason why Dignitas won that, that game and by extension the match that he's playing quite well. We have seen that you need to give rookie players more time. Not every single one's gonna hit the ground running immediately. He was not bad by any stretch of the imagination. Are you expecting Photon to carry you? Is Photon going to really move the needle for Dignitas? I don't think the answer to that is yes. And what really bothers me the most is the fact that everybody could see this coming from a mile away. And I saw this coming from multiple miles away. Would you like to know why I saw this coming from multiple miles away? [00:21:32] Speaker A: Why'd you see this coming from multiple miles away? [00:21:35] Speaker B: Johnny, do you know who owns Dignitas? [00:21:39] Speaker A: I actually don't. Offhand, no. [00:21:41] Speaker B: Mazel. Do you know who owns Dignitas? [00:21:43] Speaker C: I don't think so. [00:21:44] Speaker B: The Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment Group. Now I have a personal hatred of the Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment Group and I'll tell you why. The Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment Group owns a couple of different teams. The New Jersey Devils of the NHL, they own the Watts Washington Commanders. Josh Harris is the one of the co owners of Harris Blitzer Sports Entertainment. He owns the Commanders. You want to know who else the Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment Group owns? They own the Philadelphia 76ers. The Philadelphia 76ers, they've owned the 76ers since essentially the process 76ers right. The Philadelphia 76ers are my favorite basketball team and they have been the most mismanaged basketball team in the NBA since they were owned by the Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment Group. This team has been awful. Their managerial decisions have been awful. The people he's put in charge have been awful and shit. I don't even care if Josh Harris has had his fingers on, on Dignitas or he's made any of the decisions for Dignitas management. I still blame that guy for it. And that's how I knew that Dignitas was never going to be a great organization. Once I found out, once they got owned by the Sixers, I was like, that is awesome because I love the Sixers. But I knew from that moment on that Dignitas was never going to be able to make the decisions necessary to be a top organization. And this decision right here, I looked at it and I laughed and I said, this is such a Josh Harris move. A Josh Harris own team move. That's exactly what this is. Guys, I literally am not surprised by this in the slightest. It was just. I don't know, dude. I, I just can't stand it. I cannot escape the poor decisions of Josh Harris in my life. [00:23:33] Speaker A: I love the impassioned speech, Yanni. I don't know if a management team or an ownership team has much to do with Bakery's decisions. [00:23:45] Speaker B: Bakery there. [00:23:45] Speaker A: It could. [00:23:46] Speaker B: Who put Bakery there? [00:23:48] Speaker A: I feel like Bakery was there before they bought Dignitas. He's been there. [00:23:51] Speaker C: Who kept him there? Question. It's a great question. I don't care who it was, if. [00:23:54] Speaker B: It was himself, it all comes back to Josh Harris and who this guy hired. It's literally a trickle down guys. [00:24:01] Speaker A: The, the buck ends at the top. I like that. I like that. Okay, well, decision aside, I do think as sad as it is for Serdi, there's an argument that this is good for the overall roster. Photon last that we really talked about him was when he was playing in the LEC. He played in 2023, 2024, he had a couple of good playoff runs. Like he was on that weird perks Vitality roster. And then he even got like second place in regular season with like the, the A support roster for Vitality. I mean never did like that much damage but he, he was decent enough. So I think that like it's just, it's not inspiring when, when we have this rookie top laner if there was. [00:24:46] Speaker C: Literal growth, tangible growth. [00:24:50] Speaker A: Yeah. So. And it's not like digging toss are in a position where they need to win right now either. It's not like they're disguised where it's like okay it sucks but you can kind of reason why they would do these shitty decisions for some of the younger players because they have to defend their spot at the end of the year. Like nah, dig can they got literally told me, yeah, no one's even, no offense, no one's even really cheering for these guys. Like what are we trying to do here? Maybe they're trying to get people to cheer by winning. That has been a strategy in the past. But I just, I see like having the the developmental roster making more sense for the lower tiered orgs in n because at least it gives a reason to talk about you. So that's tough. That sucks. Doesn't end there with top laners. There's one in LEC we'll talk about but first another one in LTA North. This is kind of the opposite story to the last one. This is a veteran getting replaced with a rookie. Licorice is out from lion and Zamudo is in. At least that is the rumor. Zamuto, if you haven't heard him, was the most recent winner of most valuable prospect for NaCl, which is pretty cool and puts him up there with players like Boosie Masu and most recently Yuji who just joined Team Liquid as other players that have won that award. But to be fair, I did not watch a lot of his tape this split. So mazel. What can people expect from a player like Zamudo and do you think that he's going to slot in well with Lion? [00:26:18] Speaker C: I'm always hesitant when you have such a quick trajectory upwards. I think we saw real big growth from him from last split. I mean he was our most improved player in summer of last year, which already showed like what he was learning and stuff at Maryville back then. But I think this year we saw a lot more personalization from him which meant like a lot more of his unique picks. He has a very interesting way of thinking of 1v1s in the top lane. He's the one that was kind of piloting the the kind of Lich Bane start Gwen into like full damage carry, which didn't always work out for him. He's really, really good in lane. He's gotten a lot better at finding his angles into team fights. But the way he thinks about top lane is really interesting. I think it provides a really unique angle and I think Niles has been very proud of a lot of the growth he's had they talked about it a lot during the split, but this year it was more so about putting the weight on his shoulders. Niles wanting to take more of a leadership role in a lot of ways because they had lost a lot of their leadership with Scarry, Jerry and Yuji leaving, which is really cool as a player. I just. It was a year like it. It just started like this year, right. This split. And because we didn't get our first split and we waited almost half the year to even start. Not as many games, although still, like a lot of games. It's just one of those things that, like, I think if he had another full year in NACL and then promoted, I think it'd be really nice. But that's not what happens in this day and age and you just have to be ready. So I'm a little hesitant. I think he was personally be on par or maybe a little bit less consistent than 30, which doesn't give me a lot of hopes. But I think he's got a really good head on his shoulders. If he can stay comfortable, I think that'll be the best place because when he's uncomfortable, he kind of shuts down a lot as a person. And so I think in a professional environment that can happen. But if he's nurtured and he finds a lot of success in that way, I think it's really good for him. [00:28:15] Speaker A: I feel like what he can do uniquely that. Not like a player like Serdi, I wouldn't trust as much to do. Zabudu's always had wacky picks. He's got his pocket champions that are not. Not like necessarily Bwipo level, but like. Because, like, nobody's Bwipo level, but it's like Bwipo light in a way. Like, he'll pull out Yorick, he'll pull out Urgot, he'll pull out, like, fun stuff that not everyone else is playing. Gary, right? Yeah. [00:28:43] Speaker C: Like Warwicks like that. [00:28:45] Speaker A: Yeah. So I think that's the type of stuff that could be exciting for a team like lion, because Saint already just is so much firepower in the mid lane that if you can just have either like a role player, top laner, or somebody who can like Red 5, pick a counter pick top lane and completely turn the draft on its head in a fearless drafting system, I think that Zemudo could be super useful for that. But unsure where Licorice is going to be going next. All right, that's the two NA teams here. Now let's hop over to eu. We have more rumors For Navi, the roster they're putting together they bought Rogue spot looks like Larson is still in and now it's looking like Hans some D nots Hansam A is going to be in for 80 carry and that means that Patrick the previous ad carry for Rogue probably not coming back if this rumor is true. I don't know much about Ham Samdi. Do either of you know anything about this player? Otherwise I'm just gonn look up his leakpedia and kind of go through the. [00:29:48] Speaker B: I mean I don't know too much about him but I have heard very very good things about his play in in ERLs and that this guy has been is definitely ready and that this is a well deserved call up. Okay, I do find the the most curious thing about this is do we now need to start calling him Hanam A so we can have Ham D? [00:30:13] Speaker A: I I vote yes. Personally I would love to call Hamsama Hamsam. [00:30:17] Speaker B: Is there any chance that we eventually see Han Sambi and Ham San C? [00:30:21] Speaker A: Well that would be the expectation, yes. But first they have to you know qualify in or get to know picked up by teams. So yeah. Hansam D had a couple of good performances. He played in like Korea for HLE mostly at their challenger roster and then up on the main roster for Split. Did not do well there but then went to LLA and had a couple of high finishing regular seasons as well as, you know, playoff runs but only for one year. [00:30:49] Speaker B: He was on that V5 roster. He was on that V5 Roster back in 2020. [00:30:56] Speaker A: Back in. I didn't even see that. [00:30:59] Speaker C: Yeah, that's hilarious. Yeah, that was the year before I joined. [00:31:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:04] Speaker A: He was also on TT Thunder 5th. [00:31:06] Speaker B: Place finish in Summer 2020. [00:31:09] Speaker A: Okay. Not too shabby. Not too shabby. Then most recently like you said, playing in The EMEAs for BK Rog Esports and then ICI Japon Corp Esports. What is it? What? That's not a thing. It's a French team. [00:31:28] Speaker C: What? [00:31:29] Speaker B: That's absolutely. [00:31:29] Speaker A: Your logo looks like a little octopus. What the hell is going on? [00:31:32] Speaker B: Dude? Of course it does. [00:31:35] Speaker A: I'm just confused. But that looks like the ad carry coming in. [00:31:42] Speaker B: What do they do? Actually that's. I wanted. I have. I'm really interested in this organization now and what they do. [00:31:47] Speaker A: I'm scared to look into it so I'm just gonna avoid it. I'm gonna move us on to the next roster change here in eu BDS is making a change as well. Relevant in the top lane is just that no longer relevant as he is dropped by the team and they're picking up Rooster coming in from HLE challenger so he's going to be basically what we saw a lot happen in NA this past year was mostly in the mid lane is where we had it. But even like past years we'd had a lot of top lane imports just taking a shot on a challenger top laner. Just see if if an LCK top laner can come in here. Doesn't have that, you know, necessary tier one experience but probably has the raw mechanics and hopefully champool to to level up the team because Irrelevant was struggling at times throughout the split so that one again it's tough to know if just picking up like a mechanically good player. I don't know much about him but I'm just kind of assuming if that's gonna fix everything on a team. But BDS did need some more firepower on the roster for sure. Okay now and now ICE has a has a buddy as well. So now with with if this guy can perform the top lane then that could be a one two punch combo for me. [00:33:03] Speaker B: Okay. [00:33:03] Speaker A: What else? What else? Anything else? No, I think that was it. That was it. CFO Yep, we already got that storyline near airport. Everything else completed. One final thing to say and by the way, if we did miss any other news stories, let us know in the community. Discord Speaking of the final news that I have for everybody is more of an admission I realized not even on Saturday day one of LTA playoffs finals. I realized on Sunday I forgot to set my fantasy roster. No and I had three Team Liquid players still on my roster with two Fly Quest players and I scored a total of 26.56 points. [00:33:50] Speaker C: Yikes. [00:33:52] Speaker A: So unfortunately last week it was Apollo, Pacific and myself all within 30 points of each other. I dropped into fifth place. No which I was still pretty happy I got a top five but I'm no longer a podium finish. So shout out to everybody in the community who outperformed me. Shout out specifically to Pacific. He was second place or they were second place pretty much all split and now take first place from Apollo who also dropped down a little bit didn't get that many points. I assume Apollo went for like the all Fly Quest strategy which a flyquest did not actually earn that many. I think C9 I'm assuming Apollo went or sorry Pacific went more C9 members because they would have scored more from the Shopify series. I was pretty fast. But then also shout out Korag for slipping into third place and taking my spot. I'LL get you next time Corag. I'll get you next time. But shout out to everybody in the community who played Fantasy week in and week out. I dropped out of the top hundred for the all of lta which I'm really sad about because I was in the top hundred and top hundred get surprised. But I believe I'm still in the top hundred of the Fly Quest specific one which I joined. So I was like, all right, I'll, I'll take that. But yeah, also if you want to support the pod, you can do so through the link in the description to our Patreon or to our merch shop down below. We appreciate everybody who does help support the pod but with all that said, that is all of the, you know, non game related things out of the way. We've covered them all, the list has been checked and now we can finally talk talk about the finals that just happened in LTA North. That's probably the longest we've ever taken stuff before getting in. But there's only one weekend to talk about two series. Things kicked off with C9 versus Shopify and oh my God, I believed a lot in Shopify, man. I really thought, I really thought they could do it. I was like, you know, clearly, clearly they have the magic on their team. They got the, the spark, they got the narrative buff. It was like all the energy and clg memories flooding back. Miselle. They, they did not look that good. [00:36:08] Speaker C: They did not. They did not. I don't know, it just seemed like a full disconnect of the team, maybe the pressure or anything getting to them. But I don't know. I mean, Fudge talked about it afterwards and didn't really have the greatest feelings. I mean game number one like he had said in the interview. I mean it felt better for them. Game two and three unfortunately did not. And it was a pretty fast series, which was a little bit unfortunate in the end with the kind of miracle story of Shopify Rebellion. But it did, it was fully one sided. It felt like in the end, not going to lie. [00:36:42] Speaker A: Swift 3. Oh, only one game went past 30 minutes. That was the first game which was the closest I expected that to be. Like the expect or like the, the, the barometer for the series. It's like, okay, we're gonna get like four, three, maybe four more of those. But then C9 just got cleaner and cleaner. I mean, shout out to C9. They looked really good. Vulcan pulled out his bard again, which I think is just becoming the Vulcan pick at this point. Love seeing him on that. They also showed, you know, great adaptivity in the draft for game three with this kind of like push and shove bot lane and then you know, kind of more melee centric top side of the map too. So I liked what they. They showed us like different looks to C9 that we had seen so far and they just completely dismantled Shopify in this series. Yanni, did you have any big takeaways from this one? I feel like there wasn't as much to talk about because it was just kind of clinical. [00:37:33] Speaker B: I got a big takeaway. Game 2 shout out n a talent contracts pallet fox and fudge. Fudge you count. Ever since they owe us into OSINT. Na shout out 0, 15 and 2 n a talent, baby. Let's go. [00:37:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that was, that was pain. [00:37:51] Speaker B: Your top side goes 0, 15 and 2. It's pretty hard to win. Poor V boys, B boys sitting down here like, oh man, this is terrible. 2, 3 and 0. He was blameless this game, that's for sure. [00:38:03] Speaker A: You know what, he made up for it in game three by being the problem though. B voice did not look good on the Callista. Yeah. Yeah. [00:38:12] Speaker B: Well, it's kind of hard to look good on Callista Renata going up against. [00:38:15] Speaker C: Ezreal car, but he was also making. It's a really bad decision. [00:38:18] Speaker B: Dude, listen, you're down too. You got to do something. [00:38:23] Speaker A: Well, I think the issue was that he wasn't being aggressive when he had teammates around and then once they all died, he would go back in. It's like, oh my God. You gotta either like commit with the play or like just get out and live. [00:38:37] Speaker B: I mean their team, their team had no good engage. They just drafted poorly in that last game, I think. [00:38:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it was basically contracts Trundle pillar. That was. Yeah man, you got it boss. Yeah, yeah. No need for cleanse for Sven. He could take barrier. [00:38:53] Speaker B: Israel had a great weekend. [00:38:56] Speaker A: Sven had a fantastic weekend even into the finals, which I. I mean I. I feel like we didn't talk that much about the semis, but at the end of the day it was C9 just crushing Shopify rebellion. So shout out to Shopify for having a deep run. It's further than I expected them to go, but we knew it was going to be okay. I say we knew. I did predict job if I to win it, but expectations where it's a two team region based on how things had gone in the group stages. C9 versus Fly Quest. The only teams to take games off each other in the knockout stage, like, or at least between them because C9 had three zeroed anybody that wasn't fly quest. Fly quest three zero to anybody that wasn't C9. Like this was the, the big matchup and oh my God, Sunday finals that delivered, man, I ranked that up there as one of, if not the best series that we've ever had for a finals. I, I know like CLG, TSM 2016 spring is the only other one that comes to mind in a Game five that like delivered that level of hype. I feel like we were treated to something special here because these teams were just going at it all split and then they really just left it all on the range Rift for this five game banger. Yanni, I want to set you up to talk about it first here. Let's just go game by game. I mean we got to do this one justice. Let's go through the story of everything that happened. [00:40:22] Speaker B: So you know, it's kind of interesting. I don't really think there's a whole lot to talk about until you get to game three, right? Game one, that was like back and forth early for sure. Quad and Busio were just like diffing C9 in these fights. And eventually after I think the second big team fight that they had around an objective Flyquest really pulled away from the game from there, got some. [00:40:46] Speaker A: Well, Game one also had the heavy focus on Thanatos. Like inspired. They put him in ganking Thanatos over and over. It was like three different times. And they killed him two of the times. And Thanatos was just so far. [00:40:58] Speaker B: He was so piss useless, bro. I mean they did a great job keeping him down. And you know, overall I thought it was a great, a great team win for Fly Quest in a series that you start getting away from, from team wins and stuff like that and start looking at individual players. And in game two, Cloud 9 they were like, nah, nah, bro, nah. We did. You did that. That game won. No, no. They beat the tar out of Fly Quest. [00:41:23] Speaker A: It was 10.04on Ezreal. [00:41:26] Speaker B: This guy, literally insane. He played so well. I think it was. I, I, I. You know, he played the best out of anybody. I think Thanatos had a really great game in that game too. Loki had some really good moments. But like as Ven got that early lead, I mean they had like three kills. Like what? Around the ten minute mark he had two of them. Never looked back from there. Game three is where shit starts getting interesting. [00:41:49] Speaker A: Well, I also want to point out the game too, told me a little bit more about C9's draft strategy because it's basically banned for band. The same draft as game three versus Shopify. It's Yone Mid Ezreal Karma. Bob got Maokai Jungle and then Melee Top Lane. It was Galio versus the Rumble with Shopify but this time it was Ambessa versus the Aatrox. So like more of the Bruiser matchup up there. But like this was a draft and a composition that C9 loved to play and had played multiple times already. So it seemed like they were showing us some of their playbook and like okay, yeah, we, we're down one game. Let's, let's pull out the practice comp now. [00:42:24] Speaker B: You do have to pull out the playbook especially when there's only one slot at MSI and it's whoever's gonna win this series. Game three was crazy because they just boat race fly like it's 14 kills to one at 18 minutes. This game's looking like it's going to be non competitive. And yet 39 minutes later, the game finally ends at the 39 minute mark. Right? What the hell happened, dude? FlyQuest, for some reason they, they have great scaling on their team. You've got the rise, you've got the smolder. All you gotta do is not go down 14 kills to one in 18 minutes in order to win this game. And guess what? [00:43:06] Speaker A: Even when they were down 14:1, they were 2,000gold behind. It was insane. [00:43:12] Speaker B: I was like what? Yeah, they played the game really, really well past the 20 minute mark and into the 30 minute mark. I mean they, they minimized all their losses from then on. They were able to, you know, pick up cs, pick up some turrets, get kills and you know, I, I really love the way they played the rest of the game. Yeah, I think they made a couple of mistakes like past the 30 minute mark that ended up actually singing them in the end. But they gave themselves a chance to actually win that game from a what could have been completely unwittable situation. I mean if you take a look at the kill score, that's all you're looking at. You're only looking at the post game game. You're, you're. What I'm saying is not going to resonate with you. But if you actually watch that third game, you know, it's so crazy how FlyQuest was able to kind of pull themselves from a scenario of being down that far to actually make the game somewhat competitive. I don't really think a lot of great teams would be able to do that. Even in that scenario, sometimes you're just too far behind. [00:44:17] Speaker A: And. [00:44:17] Speaker B: And they. They at least gave it a good old college try. Now you take a look at Loki and Sven's stat lines and you might not think that, but they really did. [00:44:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Is this is one of those games that's a reminder that stats don't tell the whole story. They give you, you know, some context. But this one, I think the big moment that Fly Quest was out of the game was when they made the realm warp play bot side and try. I think it was Thanatos they were trying to collapse on. They were trying to collapse on somebody and they weren't able to kill them. F they all get wiped, basically. And I was like, that's the end of the game. But they were still fighting and making C9 sweat for every inch that C9 was taking, which props to them. But Zven on the senna was scaling crazy. Like they were just chunking out. [00:45:04] Speaker B: So far away, bro. [00:45:04] Speaker A: He bot Lane. Yeah. [00:45:06] Speaker B: It was ridiculous. I love how you said, you know, with. When stats don't tell the whole story, you know, they do tell some of the story. You can take a look at the score line and go, go. Something went very wrong here. Like you can. You can deduce that. And one thing I want to say is this reminded me of Infinity War. Spoilers ahead. For anybody who hasn't watched that by. [00:45:26] Speaker A: Now, what's a 10 year old movie. [00:45:28] Speaker B: Or an 8 year old when. When they're trying to stop Thanos from getting. Getting Vision Stone, right? And uh, and Captain America is like holding on to the gauntlet and trying to. Trying to stop Thanos. Thanos for finishing. Finishing it off. That was cloud nine, like trying to end the game. And Fly Quest was like, no, wait, wait, wait. [00:45:46] Speaker A: No, no, no. Just put Quad's face on Captain America. He's like, please, I just got a thousand kills shut down at Thanatos. The side don't in. Don't in team. And then Bipo's running in there like the dude. [00:45:58] Speaker B: This guy. Oh my God. [00:46:00] Speaker A: In the army just getting thrown aside. Bipo had a bad game. [00:46:03] Speaker B: I love. He had a bad series. I'm going to be honest. I love Whipo. But like Bwipo, you never know if Wibo's gonna hard carry a game and you never know if Wibo's gonna end a game. And sometimes he does both at the same time in a single game. It's crazy. [00:46:17] Speaker A: It's beautiful. Yeah. So that this was where C9 was up to 1. [00:46:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:24] Speaker A: At this point, it was like, they have the advantage. No one can reverse Sweep anybody but C9. They only need one more. Fly quest need two more and they. [00:46:31] Speaker B: Come out on fire. [00:46:31] Speaker A: Should be advantage. [00:46:32] Speaker B: They come out on fire in game four. They get like, get like the four minute mark. They're up four kills to one Y. Loki's got three kills. [00:46:40] Speaker A: Crazy. Level three scrap in the bot like river into. Into C9's jungle where they just like, Sven gets resets on Tristana, Loki gets a triple kill. [00:46:49] Speaker B: And you're like, it's over. Like, you're like, oh, man. Like, this is. This is crazy. It's. It's so bad. And you know, the Fly Quest does another nice job of stabilizing the game. They didn't manage to do it earlier in game four than they did in game three. Learning from their mistakes. We're learning. We're learning. And the third Dragon fight is where things go really, really well for them. It's a night. It's a 3k gold swing. And from there, it kind of looked like they were in the driver's seat. But then Bwipo doing Bwipo things, getting caught out, giving C9 more time, getting caught out again, this time near the baron. And then C9 says, Hold on, we're not gonna let you guys just walk away for free. And. And C9 ends up, I think, getting four kills. They get the Baron, they put themselves in a winning position. But it was Quad that stepped up in that last fight, hitting the three man seismic shove at the. At the Dragon. Oh, my goodness, bro. [00:47:43] Speaker A: Masu getting the quadra kill too. [00:47:46] Speaker B: That like a single. I love, I love when you see a player make a play like that that you just immediately know that's a game winner right there. As soon as you saw the seismic shove and the three members of C9 fly in the air, you knew Fly Quest is winning the game right here. [00:48:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, Mizell, I want to get your thoughts on this because Masu had the pop off moment too. Yes, it was Quad that set him up. But like Masu's quirky, it's not nowhere near like Danny level. I don't want to over hype it, but like, it really did feel like, okay, Masu is this rookie or not rookie anymore, but still young player that's stepping up and you know, having a huge carry performance in this finals. I know you're a big fan of him with me, so I think it is a beautiful moment just to see Masu. [00:48:29] Speaker C: I think that that's Fine. The Caitlyn bro. The Caitlin was dude I the spacing and stuff in a 50 minute game when if you overstep or use your 90 caliber net and don't have it up, you are screwed. It even showed he literally had nothing left. Sven knew it flashed on his face. With the fates call in that last game. That was like the moment that Everybody thought that Cloud 9 could actually turn it back around. And then they come. Then Fly Quest comes out with that crazy play on the back end of it. But like with how decided everything it felt like he was able to space so many times and so many times Thanatos thought he had an angle or thought he could at least overextend a little bit. And then Masu would just pelt him down. There were so many times that than Toast would get like triple trapped because he was putting traps in front of where he was trying to walk to. And then those little moments, even if he was like the one that got caught the end because they flashed on his face like the spacing in between a lot of those fights. I mean this guy's next level. [00:49:31] Speaker B: He played a star. [00:49:33] Speaker A: Five was beautiful, man. Put that in the Louvre. [00:49:36] Speaker B: If you blink, you can. You can see Danny for a second. You know if you. I saw Danny for a second there. Like you know that that's exactly what I. That's. That's exactly what I think of when I see young, young na players go and play and I blink and I see our players of old hold for just a second. You know we're back there and you go damn, that was impressive. And then you're brought right back to the moment, man. [00:50:01] Speaker A: It's make sure to not waste this talent. Fly Quest. [00:50:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:50:05] Speaker A: But I also want to go out there like a bigger picture here for game five. Game five and fearless. And what the does Fly Quest do? They draft. [00:50:13] Speaker B: I get wacky. They drop Elise. This is for Quest, bro. [00:50:18] Speaker A: And then Whipple goes Gragas full ap. Not even Tank Grogs. Like they don't have a front line. 47 minute games. They don't have a front line. Yes, it showed. They were just dying anytime they approached C9. So they in order to win the game they had to fucking double TP into C9's jungle. While C9 was on Elder Dragon. They get whip over the wall quad flashes while they back door win the old title. Fly Quest has won two titles, both of them. One was minions ending on the back door. A double TP like holy. [00:51:02] Speaker B: Expect I would be proud. That was and you know, you know what really pissed me off about the Fly Quest comp? Every single fight that they're like taking around an objective, they're like trying to pin the. And it's like, dude, you have no tanks. Yeah. [00:51:15] Speaker A: Like, Bipo would just get collapsed on by blabber. [00:51:19] Speaker B: They go, guys, we can just kill Bipo. He's full ap. And then Bipo dies. And it's like, oh, man, how did Bwipo die there? Like, bro. Just like, this is why I say, like, Bhopo will carry you a game or he will in the game away. And sometimes he does both of them. [00:51:36] Speaker A: At the same time unironically. Quad was the front line on Victor just because he built row up butt and had a seeker's arm guard. [00:51:44] Speaker B: This poor guy is just like, I don't know what to do, man. And everybody else is like shrugging their shoulders. Good luck, buddy. [00:51:51] Speaker A: Yeah, tank up the damage. But yeah, I mean, a beautiful way to end a beautiful series. This really did feel like the best two teams in the region giving everything they had. And I'm happy. I don't remember which one of you said it, but I'm happy that you said Sven had a great series. He gave a great interview at the end after a very tough loss, but. But still hopeful, still happy for his teammates. Like, and even in his own words, he's like, this. This is a pretty young roster with players like Loki and Thanatos. Yeah, like Blabber, Vulcan and him have been around, but like Thanatos's second year with a team, Loki's first. This was Loki's first finals and I think Loki played very well for it being his first finals. [00:52:29] Speaker B: Agreed. [00:52:30] Speaker A: And Tech, yeah, he's still a rookie. Like, Loki's for sure front runner for rookie of the year. [00:52:36] Speaker B: He was much better than I thought. Especially since. Since when he first came in, in his first, you know, first couple games with Cloud 9, I didn't think he really looked that great. And I was like, oh, man. Like, is this going to be. Because Cloud 9 has had really a revolving door in the mid lane ever since, like, you know, the. Ever since like Jensen left. Right. Like, it's been a long time since they've really had like a. A mid laner that's been around for a long, long time. Him. [00:53:05] Speaker A: And literally they have swapped their mid laner, I believe, every year for the past five years. Yeah, I think it was Jensen or maybe it was Perks. Maybe Perks was on for like a year and a split, but then got Replaced again. [00:53:18] Speaker B: That was the longest they've ever had. And, you know, some of them have been really, really good in spurts. Right. Like, one of the. One of the things I think of is like, MNS as an example, who came in and actually, like, pretty immediately was like, pretty good and then kind of fell off and then had all the. The stuff off the rift and eventually he ended up being gone and then it's like, all right, Loki kind of looked like, oh, man, he's going to be another mid laner that is maybe not going to pan out for Cloud 9. And, you know, sure that maybe that was an early overreaction and it ended up being an early overreaction out of me. He has played very, very well and I'm proud of this dude. You know what? He's showing up. It's a damn shame he's not going to get to go into an international because I want to see him again against some of the better, better mid laners in the world. [00:54:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I think. Oh, yeah, you go, Missile. [00:54:05] Speaker C: I. I just think it's hilarious that, like, I feel so bad to say this, but, like, Cloud 9 has been so screwed by format and issues outside of their control. I don't remember who tweeted about it, but the fact that they lost. They weren't able to go to MSI when they were the winning team because of COVID and then now because they. This, as Caedrel puts it, pos format, they can't go. And it's like, we. I'm sorry to La Se? Or. Lt's whatever. LTA SE. Cloud night smashes for Furia 10 times out of 10. I would much rather see Cloud Diet International than I would rather see Furia, which just feels really bad. [00:54:47] Speaker B: We can't get a single match between the two of them. Like, we can't just, just, you know, we. We can't just flip a coin. I mean, I don't know, bro. Like, we can't just flip a coin, determine which one of them is going is traveling to LA or which one is traveling to whoever they're playing over in, like, Brazil and then have them play one best of five to see. [00:55:09] Speaker C: Who out on an island. [00:55:11] Speaker B: Sure. Send them out of Gaspar, bro. [00:55:14] Speaker A: Like, yeah, let's get like a whole Yu Gi. Oh, Duelist Kingdom art going here. [00:55:17] Speaker B: Actually, no, no, let's not do that because. Because you saw my tweet from a couple weeks ago how Duelist Kingdom was the biggest Mickey Mouse tournament ever. We don't need any more Mickey Mouse Involved. [00:55:28] Speaker A: I mean, flipping a coin sounds pretty Mickey Mouse also. [00:55:31] Speaker B: No, it's a flip a coin to determine who's home and who's away, and then they play. [00:55:34] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:55:36] Speaker B: No, we're not flipping a coin to determine who goes on. I play card games. [00:55:39] Speaker C: That. [00:55:39] Speaker B: That gets you disqualified. [00:55:41] Speaker A: You know what? You know what? I'll just say let them play on Furious Earth Server. I. I'm so confident. [00:55:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I want to see. I want to see C9 in that hostile environment. You know, I want to see them. I want to see them cook. [00:55:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I. Yeah, it's. It's tough. It's tough that we only get to send the one team. C9's a very, very good team. And again, it was hard to hear is then he cares so much, but he was still so hopeful of, like, you know, summer's gonna be the same. Like, we'll. We'll make it in summer. [00:56:14] Speaker C: Right? [00:56:15] Speaker A: So. And not the same as in another loss, but same as in, like, he thinks it's top two between C9 and Fly Quest for Summer, and he's excited for. For, like, them to continue to grow and get better. There are a couple things that I wanted to. So in my head, if we only get to send one team, I would prefer to be FlyQuest. I have more faith in Fly Quest at international than this Cloud 9 roster. Not that I would be unhappy with Cloud 9 going, like, if they win, cool. Hell yeah, I'm gonna cheer for them. But, like, I'm. I'm a little happier. That's flyQuest. But narrative wise man, C9 winning would have felt so good. Because first off, it ends the drought. It's been a long time since they've won. 2023 was the last time. That's, you know, two years ago now. Second of all, there's a couple of fun, kind of just story beats like Loki. Let's take Loki. A year ago, this guy was playing in Challengers League. I believe it was for hle Challengers League Challenger. But one year later, he's going to an international tournament to play against Faker and Chovy. Could you imagine? [00:57:15] Speaker C: That's crazy. When you look at one year, it's like almost a year ago, Jojo was stuck in jail in North America. Now he's in EU and gets to go play International. It's crazy. [00:57:24] Speaker A: It's crazy. It's crazy. It's like, that would have been awesome for Loki. Another fun fact. We missed this as a broadcast narrative, but I wanted to bring it up in the the post series interview. Of C9.1. I'm going to remember it going into next summer finals. C9 has never won. Or rather not C9. Blabber has never won a title without Sven and Sven has never won a title without blabber. Zven was 80 carry for two of them and support for two of them, but they've never won without each other. They're both really, really good players, but they've never been able to get it done. And I was like, that was Ven's back. Like maybe this is the magic maybe going to happen. And then it did happen. I'm like, damn it. Narrative wise, it would have been cool. But like yeah. [00:58:08] Speaker B: Blabber and his crab, baby. [00:58:12] Speaker A: Svens the crab. [00:58:13] Speaker B: Yep. [00:58:15] Speaker A: In this, in this analogy. Oh, also fun fact. Neither of them has have won without Fudge. So maybe that's decid. They need to get Fudge back on the roster. [00:58:24] Speaker C: That's the real stat. You should have led with. [00:58:26] Speaker B: It wasn't the glue that held him together. He was was the Fudge that held him together. [00:58:30] Speaker A: He wasn't the glue. [00:58:31] Speaker C: He was the Fudge. Do be pretty thick. [00:58:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Yep. And Fudge also had a great split. So. But I mean so did Danzo. So who's to say? [00:58:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:58:41] Speaker A: Either way, I think that's my all time favorite game 5 in the modern era. [00:58:47] Speaker B: I have a question. [00:58:48] Speaker A: Only one that compares is CLG TSM game 5 where sticks a pops off entre. [00:58:53] Speaker B: Is this not the most n a final like fifth game that you've ever seen in your life? Like just take a look at the post game. 16 kills to 1647 minute match. Everybody's over 80k gold four dragons to three soul reverse sweep. You know, like two barons to one. Is this not like the most NA game ever? It's ugly. It's disgusting. It's objectively not great when it comes to like draft and stuff like that. [00:59:24] Speaker A: But like. [00:59:25] Speaker B: No, it's objectively not great. But it's. But it's. But it's so us. It's so entertaining. It's entertaining as heck. And then you just. And then it has the banger ending. Right. Like is this not the most NA game you've ever seen? [00:59:44] Speaker A: When you put it that way, it's. It's definitely up there. Yeah. But I think that adds to the excitement. It adds to the fun. It was a great weekend of great League of Legends if you avoid games 2 and 3 of Shopify vs C9. Other than the that every other game was awesome and a very, very fun weekend was super happy to be a part of it and super excited for MSI coming up. That's, that's all of the regions, every region is completed. We have every team that will be attending MSI already. And you know what? Next week we are going to talk more about it. We're going to go over all the, the teams and kind of what to expect about them. But for now I'll just run you through, through the teams that will be attending MSI in 2025. As a little preview from the LCK, it's Gen G and T1. From the LPL, it is anyone's Legend and BLG from LEC, it is going to be Movie Star Koi and G2. From LTA, that's North and south, it's FlyQuest and Furia. And then from LCP it is the CTBC Flying Oyster and GAM eSports. You'll hear all of our thoughts on those teams next week on the preview MSI episode. But MSI is pretty much right around the corner. It starts the weekend after. [01:01:02] Speaker B: I'm so excited. I'm ready to go. [01:01:03] Speaker A: The 27th to the 29th is the play ins. That's where again the four teams, BLG, G2, Furia and Game will fight for the last two spots in the bracket stage and then a double Elim bracket just all the way to crown an MSI winner. Pretty, pretty fast tournament. It's all going to be like basically a week and a half in total. Pretty crazy. Or maybe two weeks. Yeah, because it's, it's two weeks. [01:01:29] Speaker B: It better be two weeks or else I'm going to go to Vancouver for nothing in that second. [01:01:32] Speaker A: Actually technically there's, sorry, there's three weekends total. There's the play ins weekend and then two weekends of actual play, but only I think one break day the Sunday the 6th. There aren't any games. I'll be in Vancouver the 5th, 7th and 8th. So if you're going to be going at all, you're going say hi. Not. Not to work. I'm not working. I'm just going to watch. I was able to get tickets. [01:01:53] Speaker B: You gotta, you do, do you need, do you need this Airbnb. By the way, I have not followed. [01:01:58] Speaker A: Up with you about that and I will also openly admit I have not done any additional planning since the last time I admitted the last time. So we will begin planning at some point point here in the next couple of days. But that's going to do it for this week's episode. Thank you so much for tuning in, everybody. Mezelle, if people could leave a number of stars for a review, how many would you recommend? 5. 5. 5. [01:02:26] Speaker C: 5. [01:02:26] Speaker A: 5 stars. Yeah, absolutely. Leave 5 stars wherever you can or a thumbs up, whatever the review process is on the the medium through which. Great reference, by the way, really helps us out. That was a great reference. Yeah. Shout out to the the bullshittery episode there. But again, cheers everybody for listening along. That was a hell of a split. Too excited for MSI season right around the corner. And if you are excited as well, well, that just means we're excited together. And most importantly, we love you and we'll see you next time. [01:02:58] Speaker B: Bye. [01:02:58] Speaker C: Bye.