League Rundown - Episode 567: OH CANADA! OUR HOME AND NATIVE LAND!

[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. Oh my God. Stupid 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 567 of the League Rundown. This is your 2025 MSI preview. And this episode is lovingly entitled oh Canada. Our home and native land. And I am your host, Kangas, joined by three esteemed co hosts. Up first to rate my lyrical performance, Mr. Mazel Piel. [00:01:29] Speaker B: 10 out of 10 wouldn't change a single thing. Just like NA's performance at MSI. [00:01:34] Speaker A: Bab, your PayPal payment is on the way. [00:01:38] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. [00:01:38] Speaker A: Up next as well, also to rate the patriotic performance, we have Canadian rmc. [00:01:45] Speaker C: Hey, elbows up, Kangas. Welcome. Welcome to Canada. If you want to make it your home in native land, come for it, man. [00:01:52] Speaker A: Wait. Elbows up. I don't understand what elbows up mean. [00:01:55] Speaker C: Okay, never mind. I revoke your Canadian cision. Get back down there. Get back. [00:01:58] Speaker A: You know, I. I stumbled right at the finish line. Man. I should have just said nothing. We also have joining us to rate the timbre of my voice. Yanni, you know how to do. [00:02:09] Speaker D: We're gonna get into this really early. It's how many stars I'd give this episode ahead of time. Five out of five, baby. [00:02:17] Speaker A: Hell yeah. Now we don't have to do the plug at the end of the episode. [00:02:19] Speaker D: I'm kind of. I'm kind of glad that RMC revoked your Canadian citizenship because you know, there's a chance that after that you go to Vancouver and not come back. [00:02:29] Speaker C: True, True. [00:02:32] Speaker B: Really? I kind of wish that for him. [00:02:34] Speaker A: Auditioning for the role, but you know, we won't talk about geopolitical. [00:02:43] Speaker D: I do not want to delve any further. I didn't even want to go that far but. [00:02:47] Speaker A: Well, let's talk about some League of Legends news that from around the world that's the global. [00:02:51] Speaker D: The only thing NA is worse at than politics. [00:02:54] Speaker A: A League of Legends first bit was a bit of roster news. Does not involve North America. It is over in the lec. BDS has acquired Bukata from SK Gaming. So interesting pickup. They're not sure who SK is going to be replacing with, but saw that news drop a couple of days ago. So best of luck to Bukata on his move over there. I didn't see any other roster changes. Did anybody else pick up any that I missed out on? We covered a lot last week. [00:03:25] Speaker D: So. Yeah. Okay. 113 is out of BDS. [00:03:33] Speaker C: I. [00:03:34] Speaker A: We might have seen that. No, that actually does sound like this was yesterday. [00:03:38] Speaker D: This was. [00:03:38] Speaker C: Yes, it has to be if Bukata is going to the PDF. [00:03:41] Speaker A: Yes. [00:03:41] Speaker D: Well, this does mean that. No, but this is official. Like he went on Twitter. 113 is like due to unfortunate circumstances. I'm looking for a team. [00:03:51] Speaker A: Okay. And reminder that Bukata was one of the new players coming into SK because they replaced their jungler Isma before and they brought in Bukata and Kadui. I was very excited for both of them. I was rooting for sk. They had a couple of kind of cool upsets. So already it seems like BDS is interested in at least one of those players again. Who knows what happens with sk because Closer is also off the market. He just got signed to a TCL team, so it's not like actually crazy, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So who knows what SK decides to do. What other junglers are able to get their little fingers on Other variety news. Any Game Changers fans in the chat? [00:04:32] Speaker D: Oh, yes. Yes. I was gonna say, I hope we don't forget the Game Changers. Very exciting to see their. Their women's scene is fantastic over in. In Europe and I'm excited to actually get a chance to watch them a little bit more because they'll have a bit of a bigger platform. It's well deserved. [00:04:50] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's really cool. Make sure to Google search. Game Changers Rising. That's the EMEA Game Changers tournament that's gonna be happening. And they had a whole primer. I didn't put down enough of the information from the primer. I just wanted to plug it to make sure that everyone goes checks it out. But that should be happening. I think it's. I think it's like over the summer if I remember correctly. But again, don't quote me on that one. Just go check out the Primer article. And I honestly think that's it for news. You know, I made a whole big of dudes. I think that was two topics. Am I missing anything? I feel like I'm missing something real quick. [00:05:26] Speaker D: If you need some time to think. I do. Have the timeline pulled up, please. [00:05:30] Speaker A: Yes. [00:05:30] Speaker D: On the primary. So the open qualifier will be in August. Do not know the exact date. The Group stage will be the second, third and fourth week of September. The playoffs will be October 10th to 12th and 14th to 15th, and the grand final will be October 30th live on stage at Paris Games Week. Which I think is very cool because this is, this is really big because this is official Riot Tournament. And it's going to be at something that, like, we're finally starting to branch out of tournaments again and not just being stuck in the right ecosystem. Like think back to the days where they would be at Dreamhack or even Pack. [00:06:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:11] Speaker D: Which I really, I think is really sorely missed. I hope this, I hope this goes very well because this could be an indication that Riot might be opening up the tournament structure once again in the future. Just, just as me speculating, but I think it's an exciting prospect. [00:06:25] Speaker A: Well, Riot's mentioned that so many times recently. They're like, oh yeah, we're loosening up on that type of regulation. But then they're very particular about with this is a perfect type of tournament to test the waters with from Riot side to kind of like feel from business sense. How are they like partnering with these but also given a really cool platform. So yeah, more like end of summer into fall. That's going to be like world season then. So that'll be fun to follow this tournament alongside it. Other fun things. MSI pickems are now live. You can check out the LoL Esports website to grab those, but also shout out to community member Mr. Emperor from the community Discord, who created the league rundown community pickems on that site. So I already posted it. Mr. Emperor posted it in the MSI channel in our community Discord. I posted it again in the Fantasy Channel in the Discord just in case anybody missed it. But if you're not in the Discord, you can find a link to that in the description wherever you are listening along. Also, if you want to support the podcast, we have a Patreon. We have a merch store. Thank you for everybody who has helped support the podcast. All right, with that said, it's time to talk msi. It still feels a little odd to be saying that. June 24, which is the day that we're recording this, we are almost in July and we're starting up msi. The the whole three split schedule is really messing with my brain right now. But hey, it does not change my excitement for this event. I love international events and I especially love things that aren't first stand that one. But we at least get two teams for Every region and it's best of fives fearless for everything here can be very exciting. Yanni, give me the little preview here as well as everybody else in case they were not able to catch the official league primer, the little esports primer of what the format looks like, what are we expecting, what's the timeline like and what are the different stages of MSI? [00:08:19] Speaker D: Right. So MSI is going to stretch from the 27th of June till the 12th of July. So we got what? That's three weeks, right? Ish. [00:08:31] Speaker A: One, two. Yeah, very about three weeks. [00:08:33] Speaker D: Yes, it is. So we have 10 teams, two from Korea, two from EMEA, two from APAC, two from China and two from the Americas. Stage one is going to be the play in stage where four teams are going to participate in a double elimination bracket. The top two teams will advance to stage two. And the cool thing about MSI is every single match is best of five. Fearless. This is going to be probably the coolest tournament format we're ever going to get because it's also double elimination too. So this is like peak what everybody's been looking for and I really hope it's going to deliver. Right now in the play in stage we're going to have as we're going to talk about get more into depth a little bit later. G2 gaming blg inferior in there. Then the top two teams are going to get out and then they're going to get into the bracket stage where it's going to be eight teams participating, double elimination bracket, all matches, best of five. The winner auto qualifies to the world championship, which I think is awesome. [00:09:30] Speaker A: Yeah. But as long as they also make it to playoffs of their region. So like theoretically they bomb out in summer and they don't make playoffs, then they don't get the guaranteed world spot. [00:09:40] Speaker D: They just need to make playoffs. [00:09:42] Speaker A: They just need to make playoffs. [00:09:43] Speaker D: Shouldn't be too hard. And then the second best region will get an additional seed for their region. So you know, helping out their boys. [00:09:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean so that part was the same from last year, I believe. But what's really cool this time is just looking at the bracket not filled out, man, there's going to be a lot of best of five games. Dude, I am all of them so excited for this. [00:10:06] Speaker B: And it's such a quick turnaround. [00:10:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:10:09] Speaker A: 14 best of fives for the bracket stage plus five best of fives I believe for play in. So that's 19 total best of fives across three weeks. That's going to be Some fun. League of Legends, baby. Cannot wait for that. But with that said, we got to talk about the teams and who kind of we expect to do well. We expect to bomb out, set the kind of pace for the teams to beat and whatnot. So I want to start with some of the experts that we have in the call right now because we have Mr. Mazelpl along with Yanni who covers LPL, English unofficial. So give me a, give me in the audience a quick primer for the lpl. You have the first seed, anyone's legend, second seed, blg. The way I want to kind of structure this is if we're considering Gen G as like the peak right now. I know it's kind of weird to say that when we're starting with lpl, but in general, from what I'm hearing from everybody, Gen G is kind of the expected peak of msi. Where do you think that anyone's legend and BLG kind of stack up against them in terms of being able to topple or take that top spot? If they're 10 out of 10, where do anyone's legends and BLG then rank? So mazel take it away. Where do you want to start with Yanni? [00:11:21] Speaker B: Who do you feel more comfortable talking about? Which, which team? Oh, easily anyone's legend because well, I'll take BLG then. I think BLG are not going to be the bright star that everybody maybe expects from the name from the last couple of years. I think that's our big narrative going into it as well is this is not the same team that was able to take T1 all the way to 5 and have have those crazy moments. Beituan is a facilitator, is a role player within the team and if you remember from the jungle woes from last year especially, that's what really cemented Wei as a permanent piece for a while for BLG was just being able to play around their solo laners. If we're comparing them in a number value, which I'm not going to lie, I don't like that much. I think I'd put them probably around a 6 or a 7 comparatively to gen G. I think on the day if they get are given clutch moments, they will clutch it out and that's incredible because you can always rely on on Knight and especially Elk now more so than Ben. But they are a team that struggles to really get off the ground running sometimes and then they will lose focus on what their win conditions are and a little bit of that comes from the kind of combination of Beituan not really being a carry himself and trying to play around his solo lanes, which doesn't always work out. But if they perform on the day, they can take down anybody. It's a team that, like, if they are on the right moment, in the right patch and have the right prep, they can be very, very strong. Especially with how Knight has been playing and Elk has been playing, and those are the two you really need to watch for if you're going to root for blg. [00:12:56] Speaker A: It's crazy to think just how recently though they were towards the top of the world and in terms of performance. [00:13:01] Speaker B: But it is their third MSI in a row performance, and they only are matched by T1 of all teams in the entire world for MSI appearances in a row. Yeah. Yeah, three in a row. [00:13:16] Speaker A: That's cool. And hopefully they don't have to face off against them again. Although, wait, actually, do I have that reverse. Was it BLG that beat T1 a bunch of times in at MSI, or were they the ones getting beat up by T1? [00:13:30] Speaker B: Well, BLG1 last year, so. [00:13:34] Speaker A: Okay, so I think that they're the ones that were beaten up on T1 then. Either way, my memory should never be trusted. So whenever I start rambling like that, I want everyone to tell me to shut up. Yeah, you have anyone's legend, so give me the kind of the expectations for them. [00:13:48] Speaker D: So anyone's legend. It's been such a great story, right? This is a team that, you know, coming into the year was seen as like a. A ragtag kind of group. You know, with. With Flandra, Tarzan, Shanks, Hope, and Kyle, everybody's like, oh, you know, Tarzan's an international or, you know, an international joker. Hasn't gotten as domestic yet. You know, Flandra is. Is an old man. Can't cut it anymore. And then you got Shanks, Hope and Kyle, and everybody's like, whoa. Hope is played at a high level at, you know, a couple years ago at one point in time. Right. But this team maybe not expected to do too much. And then they. They immediately started just lighting the world on fire. And Coach Tabe got these guys into shape. I think this team is definitely in contention to win the entire thing. No, I do not think they're as good as Gen G. If I had to rank them on a scale of 1 to 10, I think it'd probably put anyone's legend at about an 8, maybe an 8.5. But they have the potential to have 10 gameplay. I think Their champion pools are so deep, it's ridiculous. These guys can play pretty much anything from top all the way down to support. And I think that's going to be really impactful in this format because we know that Tabe likes to cook a little bit. So this is the team that's probably going to be the most fun team to watch. And if you're not somebody who watches the LPL regularly and you have to kind of pick and choose what games of MSI you're going to actually sit down and watch in real time and which ones you're going to catch the highlights for, I think anyone's legend is a team that you should catch every game alive as it happens. [00:15:19] Speaker A: All right. I like that endorsement. That sounds very, very exciting for them. Now, what do you think their chances are of being able to, like, perform at this msi? Are. Are they, like, gonna be competing up there with Gen G in terms of power, or are they going to be more like, okay, we, we can make it to the finals competing with, like, T1 and BLG and other teams there? [00:15:39] Speaker D: I think they'll be competing with Team One. I think the one thing that's going to hurt them a lot is some international experience or lack thereof. This is the first MSI for everybody on the squad and first international for a couple of these members, Shanks and Kyle especially. So that. That's where my worries are. But, you know, the way the team is kind of set up where, you know, you've got Flandre and Tarzan who do so much for the team in and out of game, I think Tabe can keep these guys on the even keel. I think that their peak is probably losing to Gen G. If everything is as expected, I definitely think these guys can play Team One and beat them. I don't necessarily think. I'm not trying to say that they absolutely will because there are a lot of speculation that LCK is just stronger than LPL this year. And I'm really hoping that anyone's legend can really show that, you know, maybe, maybe, just maybe, we need to start respecting the LPL internationally again and that they can, you know, go toe to toe with some of the best LCK teams. [00:16:39] Speaker C: I think it's a great meta for them, too. For anyone's legend in particular, it's always. [00:16:43] Speaker D: A good meta for them. Man. They could play whatever the hell they want. [00:16:46] Speaker C: Yeah, but more so than usual because I think the. The strength LCK teams, I think a lot part of it is also just how they approach the meta and Slower games. But in the current meta, it feels like every game eventually resolves in team fights. And I feel like anyone's legends, their team fighting might be as a unit 5 might actually be the best in this tournament. Like Gen G's got really good individual players. But watching anyone's legend and Gen G fight, like I think Gen G approaches the fights a bit more measured, but it still feels very individualistic to me. Like Chovy being in Trovy, you know, a massive advantage topside. Keen getting a massive branch of topside for me, Canyon, you know, having a massive CS lead. Whereas anyone's legend feels like even when it's even they just punch out of nowhere for their. For the team fights. Like they just. Yeah, they're just really good at it. So I could actually see them tripping up the LCK teams if the LCK teams opt into skirmishing and team fighting more than usual and don't slow the pace down like they do in the LCK usually. [00:17:46] Speaker A: Wow. RMC having more faith than anyone's legend of the lpi. [00:17:50] Speaker C: I'm not saying they're better than Judgy. I'm just saying they've got a shot. [00:17:56] Speaker B: I. I actually give Al a 9 out of 10 to fight off against Genji. I think their style matches up really well. [00:18:03] Speaker A: Yeah, hell yeah. That's what I want to hear because I agree with the sentiment that like we want more competition across the world. And so far LPL is the only team region that's been able to step up to LCK ever. And it's been a minute since they have like really crossed that finish line and proven the themselves better. Outside of MSI, which MSI really is the region or the. The tournament for this region? I guess if you put it that way. [00:18:26] Speaker B: The biggest thing for AL is they're a prep team. So if their read is good on the meta, they will be really good because they'll be very comfortable and how they want to play the game. Their macro and like team fight setup is also really, really good. Second to none in the. In the league itself, obviously. But it's just the thing about the LPL teams which I feel like is always the case every international is just like what version of the team do we get? [00:18:50] Speaker D: Top esports. [00:18:51] Speaker A: Whoo. [00:18:51] Speaker C: But there needs to be a caveat on that miselle because like lpl, their macro is really good in the lpl. But LPL is also just so fast paced. Like when I'm watching I feel like it's like fight replay. Woody. Woody. Like 12 minute woody batter into another fight. It's constant fighting. It's really good fun to watch. [00:19:13] Speaker A: But I'm sure that's partly why Yanni says check out Al's games live if you're gonna check out them. [00:19:19] Speaker B: So for sure, for sure, they are not, do not miss them. [00:19:22] Speaker A: Seems like LPL is going to be a fun region to watch and a competitive region to watch going into this msi. Let's move down the list. I'm actually gonna save LCK for last just because they're kind of like the, the heavy favorites expected to do well here. So LEC movie star Koi and G2 are the teams representing the LEC at this MSI. General vibe check from everybody. Do we think that Koi is the better team between these two to represent LEC internationally? Even though they're the, they're the first seed, they beat G2 regionally. Do we think that they are the better team to represent LEC internationally? Let's go down the line. Mazel. [00:20:04] Speaker B: Yes. Because my boy JoJo. [00:20:06] Speaker A: Yeah, RMC. [00:20:09] Speaker C: Welcome home, JoJo. Yeah. I think MCO is the better international rep, But I think G2's G2 could punch above their weight. They're like the T1 of Europe, you know, where it's like they just inevitable. [00:20:22] Speaker A: Right? They're always there. [00:20:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:20:24] Speaker A: All right, Yanni. [00:20:25] Speaker D: Okay, so I have to, I have to ask a preface question. Are we talking on paper, are we talking like knowing the tournament format and everything? [00:20:33] Speaker A: Because knowing tournament format and knowing you just like expectations. [00:20:37] Speaker D: Yeah. Knowing tournament format, I actually favor G2 just a little bit. I know that Schooman and Labrov have struggled a little bit and they've been a little underwhelming and the means been inconsistent. I think that Furia and GAM are going, you know, they're obviously going to play against gam. I think they're going to beat Gambling. I'm sorry. They're playing against Furia. I think they're gonna beat Furia and I think they're gonna lose to blg. So I think they're gonna end up playing against Fury and GAM. And I think that they're going to give G2 good games and give them a really good warm up. I, I mean, they might even lose the game. But I think that if G2 get into this group stage, which I think they should, they will be very, very loose and, and ready to play. And I think that. [00:21:19] Speaker A: Okay. [00:21:19] Speaker D: Yeah, I, I, they're close to both of them though. [00:21:24] Speaker A: I think both of these teams lack some international experience. So I'm just gonna give it to G2 for that. Like broken Blade Caps, Hansama is enough of a core that I think that they should be able to keep it together. Even if Schema and Lebrov have rough games, even if they the pressure gets to them, the amount of experience on the rest of G2 is just so much higher. So even though I think that Movie Starcoy were the better team on the day against G2, I I do have much higher G2 than I do have Koi going into this MSI. [00:21:53] Speaker C: So I guess to me, weirdly enough, the part that makes me a bit worried for G2 is actually their mid laner again. Part of it's their Jungler as well. I feel like Caps performed had one of his weaker performances in his career this playoffs I didn't feel like he was that good and I'm a little bit concerned if Jungle mid fall apart in this particular tournament where I feel like Jungle is the most stacked role. Skumon kind of feels like he might be one of the weakest junglers and then Caps if he's not performing that well either. Okay, I'm not going to say Mid is like completely stacked. I do think there's some weaker mid laners than Caps but the way he's been playing, he's not going to crack top four. [00:22:33] Speaker A: Yeah, you were mentioning before we went live that you think Jungle is like is the most stacked role at this tournament and like it's going to be really hard to compete with the caliber of Junglers and I think with that mindset, yes, Skumond will be at the lower level of power rankings for Junglers present and could could be a thorn on the side of G2. [00:22:53] Speaker C: Yeah, I think Eliot and Jojo are going to do much better than human Caps. Well, well, well. Assuming Caps and go like full faker mode and just like scaling up. [00:23:03] Speaker A: That's the thing about Caps is like he will have rough showings but then he will just turn it back on again. It's like it's consistency is not what he's known for. It's the heights that he's able to reach that he's known for and hitting them at the right times as well. Well, I, I. That being said, I don't really think that LEC is going to do that much damage at the msi. I know that's probably sacrilege considering what just happened at first stand and the fact that Casey was able to make it to the finals. That LEC technically They have won an MSI in the past. You know, shout out caps. I. I don't know. When I look at the LEC teams, I think that they're easily gonna, like, G2 should easily make it into the bracket stage. I could see either of them maybe making top. I. I don't know if anybody makes it into, like, the lower bracket finals to. To, like, make top three. May maybe a top four finish. [00:23:58] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:23:58] Speaker C: You know what? I'll go on a stretch, and I'll say, I think the LEC teams will make a top eight finish. [00:24:03] Speaker D: Nice. This is. This is bold. [00:24:05] Speaker A: I like the content that everyone signs up for. [00:24:08] Speaker D: That's a bit of a hot take, rmc. [00:24:10] Speaker C: I know, right? [00:24:12] Speaker A: Well, because I've already previewed a lot of LEC throughout the split, that's kind of why I'm approaching them a little differently. And I think that that naturally brings into LTA with our first seed. [00:24:22] Speaker C: Oh, do we want to score the OEC Talk. [00:24:24] Speaker A: What was that? [00:24:25] Speaker C: Do you want to score the OEC Teamsters? [00:24:28] Speaker A: Okay, Movie star Koi? I'm gonna give. I'm gonna give them a 6, maybe a 5, and G2 a 6. But the 5 seems so low. Like, just. Just conceptually for me. [00:24:43] Speaker D: Yeah, I agree. [00:24:46] Speaker A: Is that too low? What do we think? Do we move them up? [00:24:49] Speaker D: I was gonna. I personally, I was gonna give on. On paper, koi, six and a half, G26. If we're okay with doing halves. [00:24:59] Speaker C: Okay. [00:25:01] Speaker D: But I think that if my prediction comes to pass for what's gonna happen with G2 in this. In this play in stage, that you could easily. You could easily flip them. [00:25:11] Speaker C: Okay. Yeah, that's fair. [00:25:12] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:25:12] Speaker C: Again, I do think those two teams, like G2, being as variable as they are, they can definitely flip. I think five sounds about right to me. I mean, there are 10 teams, right. If we're saying Genji is a 10 and I. And it's hard for us to put, like, LAC as, like, top four, five actually sounds pretty much where that would be equivalent to. So. [00:25:32] Speaker A: And it's. It's tough again when. When we're basically just expecting Gen G to be the. The number one team, anyone's legend, and like T1, maybe BLG punching up there. Yes, LEC has done well historically, but I mean, LTA has also been. Or Ice LCS in the past has been like, gaining on the LEC in terms of international performances. A lot of that. I, to be fair, is luck of the. The group stage draw or not group stage, The. The bracket. Like, let's say Worlds for example, right? Like that energy run. That was a pretty fraudulent run. [00:26:07] Speaker C: Excuse me. [00:26:09] Speaker D: How dare you put down our Lord and saviors like that just because they. [00:26:13] Speaker C: Change from CLG to energy. [00:26:14] Speaker A: Can't guess really has entered. Sorry. Has n a beaten Eastern team in like a knockout game? I don't think we have. I think we've only qualified into like. [00:26:28] Speaker D: I don't want to talk about it. [00:26:29] Speaker A: Playoffs and stuff. By beating European teams and wild cards. [00:26:33] Speaker C: You'Re talking a lot of smack hangings. I need proof for what you're saying and no proof. [00:26:36] Speaker A: Oh, I mean I could check the league pedia but it's even worse for us because there's no wild cards anymore. There's technically no wild card regions. There's only five major regions. LCP consolidated everything together. [00:26:48] Speaker C: We are the wild card. [00:26:50] Speaker A: We are the wild card region now. Yeah, funny about that. So that brings us to Fly Quest. Let's talk about them Bwipo inspired quad. Masubuzio. The boys coming in here. I okay. And this is gonna be everyone in the discord. Everyone listening, especially the European fans are probably gonna be like this is insane bias, dude. I think this Fly Quest team, they can do some damage here, man. I like I would not be shocked if they made finals. I would be shocked if they won. But I think compared to the other teams, I. I think FlyQuest can do it. [00:27:28] Speaker C: I don't think that's hot take. I think they have the strongest Western team. I think they're better than Movie star call and G2. [00:27:34] Speaker A: Actually I agree. I rank them as 8 out of 10. [00:27:38] Speaker C: My problem is I don't trust FlyQuest to Teamfight. Like especially in the early game. We've seen some really bad early skirmishes from Fly Quests. It's like they're not counting the numbers. They keep taking like weird fights but they're not set up for it. Like pre 15 minutes, pre 20 minutes. Like late game team fight. Sure Masters is an absolute beast, but they often throw their leads early. And I think against the Asian teams, you give that lead and they will run over you. And when I say Eastern teams, I'm including the OCP here. Like you cannot be giving those sort of leads to oysters. Heck even to gam. But I think if flyQuest can get past the early game and towards late game, then do I see them top four like I. I don't see them beating Gen GT1 or Al, but maybe BOG Bog is choking a little bit late game like Elk's kind of tough one because Elk has that 1v5 potential. But I don't, I don't feel like we've seen it this split this year. [00:28:34] Speaker A: So you would that mean that you rank them below three other teams at the event? So you think Gen G, T1 and Al all beat fly Quest? [00:28:41] Speaker C: Yep. [00:28:43] Speaker A: So that would make it very hard for them to make finals then. [00:28:46] Speaker C: Yeah, it'd be possible if they kind of somehow matched up against like Bog or something and even then Stretch. [00:28:53] Speaker A: But yeah, it always feels like a curse when we say stuff like this though. Does this feel feel like the best team that we've sent to MSI? Because I think vibes wise, Team Liquid 2019 felt really good going in. [00:29:14] Speaker D: Felt, yeah. That Team Liquid Run was insane. You just ran into the buzz saw of G2 who you know, as it turned out was the second best team in the world that year. [00:29:24] Speaker A: Right, right. [00:29:24] Speaker D: You know, call it what you will. I think that, you know, I think that is, I think that's the peak and I don't think this FlyQuest team is going to be able to reach that peak because I just think that there are, you know, I, I don't think, I think maybe if they're performing well next year, next msi we could say something like that. [00:29:48] Speaker A: Okay, I, I think it's mostly recency bias because I have not felt good. I've been great an n a team going to MSI in of years. It's been a while since I felt like, oh, I'm excited for this team. I'm legitimately excited for FlyQuest going to MSI. And also they get the time zone buff because it's still same time zone. This is true. Vancouver. Yeah, don't this up guys. [00:30:14] Speaker C: I mean even the food culture is pretty similar. So like you don't have to adapt that way. Like just the culture in general, west coast culture is still pretty as it is. Yeah, I was just thinking about like the, the 2019 TL roster and I was like, wait, didn't they have to go through like play ins as well? [00:30:31] Speaker A: Did they? I actually don't remember. Let's swap spots with Furia then. If that's the buff that we need, then we got to go through the plans to make finals. Speaking of, Furia is the next one to talk about from the lta. The merging of the north and the south, the Americas combined. And this is the first international tournament that we will have representative from both conferences playing together. So Furia and thankfully we have RMC on the Cassidy rmc. You cover the English broadcast of LTA Sewell. So I would love to set you up. What can we expect out of Furia as they start their play ins journey? [00:31:11] Speaker C: So Furia is definitely number one in this tournament. One out of ten that is so the other regions, I think a lot of teams coming out are not super surprising. Furia was not expected to be the representative from LTA South. They actually, actually they three out the grand finals in arguably one of the biggest upsets we've seen this year in the LTA South. So it's a shocker. They were actually the youngest team or one of the two youngest teams in the LTA South. Their average age is 21 and a half years old. Like the youngest player is in MSI this year is going to be Hong Kyu. He's going to turn 18 during the tournament. [00:31:48] Speaker A: Whoa. [00:31:49] Speaker C: CFO is mid laner. Yep. But the Knicks two youngest players are Tatu and Ayu. [00:31:54] Speaker B: That's great. [00:31:54] Speaker C: From Furia. So average age, very, very young. Tatu is a rookie. This is his first year playing in tier one and he's popping up. This, this guy like okay, if you talk Brazil to the rest of the world, they might remember like Bruny, Mr. Bodgap. They might remember Titan. Yes, he's young across the stage. Tatu is like the Knicks titan. The next bruncy like this guy is going to be the next face of the LTA south and he just got accelerated this year. This is rookie year and he's already popping off. So very fun team to watch. He's got dance moves, literally stands up and dances sometimes when you know, know he pops off. So super fun team to watch. Brazilian culture. Love it. Their coach is Thinkard as well who we were talking a little bit before recording me and Kagas about, you know, think hard with the NRG top eight run, one of the better runs we've had in na. So they have all the makings of a big upset team, you know who can maybe punch up and get some wins. But that's what they are. Right? They are very punchy. They might upset teams but they are certainly not to be favored, normally speaking. And best of fives does make it a little bit tougher for them. They do have weird champles or not weird samples or deep champ pools. So I'm not so worried about the fearless aspect of things. [00:33:04] Speaker D: I do have a follow up question for you. So from what I've seen and what I've, what I've heard about this Furia roster, first of all, one thing that need to Be mentioned a full Brazilian roster, which I think is awesome. No imports or anything like that. [00:33:19] Speaker C: True. Yeah. [00:33:20] Speaker D: They, their top side is super aggressive, right? Like, like their top lane, jungle and mid lane. Like they play very aggressive. Do you think that this is like reminiscent of the, the, the GAM teams of old where they were like, seen as not really a team that could compete very well internationally, but a team that could surprise people and like take individual games off because of their sheer aggression. Because I think that on another note, I think Gamba's kind of shifted their playstyle and is now more of like a, a more of like a. Oh, you know, controlled plays the map well kind of team. Do you think this Furia team is kind of like one of the GAM teams of old? [00:33:57] Speaker C: So in terms of excitement, yes. In terms of playstyle, not really so like old cam they. It's not just like with old Gam, it was like Levi, you know, doing his own jungle thing. But also they had some very creative like early level, early game shenanigans that would often get leads or second set, other lanes, other teams behind and kind of screw up their game plan. Furia is not like crazy with their game plans. They actually have some of the better macro in LTA south, probably because they're. [00:34:28] Speaker D: Just gonna bleed out and lose every game then potentially. [00:34:31] Speaker C: Their top side is aggressive though. Gigo and Tatu are really funny. So apparently when Tatu likes to flash over walls to get some interesting gank. [00:34:38] Speaker D: I love that, by the way. [00:34:40] Speaker A: I just love the concept. [00:34:41] Speaker C: Very high risk, high reward. And part of the reason why was apparently when he joined the team, Gigo, his top laner, told him, hey Ro, if you want to get noticed, if you want to become the next big guy, you got to go for like, you know, those flashy plays for better or for worse. And I am personally convinced Kego told him that because Gigol likes to play very aggressively. He's like an all or nothing top laner. So he wants his jungle gang. So he's telling Tatu, come to my lane and we'll make highlight reels. To be fair, they did make highlight reels, but that works nt itself on the global stage. Hey, if it works, we have an. [00:35:13] Speaker D: It'll work. [00:35:13] Speaker B: One time I see Tatu, I like you. The, the. The only and probably ever America's challengers champion. [00:35:23] Speaker A: True. Yeah, I just realized that that is. [00:35:28] Speaker C: Man's won an international before. [00:35:30] Speaker D: Technically he's got international experience. [00:35:33] Speaker A: Man's beat Yuji. [00:35:38] Speaker D: That's like valid though. That's like Actually valid. [00:35:40] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:35:41] Speaker A: That's funny. Okay. [00:35:42] Speaker C: It's going to be a really fun team to. I hope it's fun to watch. And the best part for me about Furia is that they're. We've said this on the LGA itself broadcast quite a few times. Furia plays with house money because they weren't expected to do that. Well, this split, right. It's a whole bunch of young players. They thought that, okay, think I would need some time to grow this team. This was a dev team, not necessarily like a ready to go team. So them making msi like they're not coming in with any expectations. They're just here to try and. And cause as much chaos as possible. So I really think the first game against G2 or the first series against G2 is going to be super interesting because G2, as Janny pointed out, tends to have slow starts. And against a Fury with absolutely nothing to lose, it could just be chaos. Like absolute chaos to start things off. [00:36:25] Speaker A: High chance of explosive gameplay right there. If you're going to watch all of anyone's Legends games, also watch G2 versus Furia for sure. I mean that's going to be the beginning of plans as well. [00:36:35] Speaker B: So. [00:36:36] Speaker A: So not gonna be hard to miss that one. Okay, well that's lta. So wait, do we give a number to Fury? [00:36:42] Speaker C: Yeah, one. I'm sorry guys, I love you all, but realistically, like, no, I'm also. [00:36:48] Speaker D: I'm gonna give him a one. [00:36:49] Speaker A: We're gonna circle back to that when we cover our predictions for who's making it out of play ins. I'm just gonna table that point right there. Lcp, the league championship of the Pacific. I am gonna own up to something. I told everybody on the pod. I was like, I'll watch the finals and be able to give a preview of these teams and kind of talk what to expect. I did not do that. So I'm going in blind about the lcp. But luckily, rmc, you gave me a little rundown before going live here as to kind of expectations. A reminder that the CTBC Flying Oysters are the first seed coming in from the lcp. And they are the same roster that we just saw at the first stand, which had the kind of fun swap of the top lane. That was the big thing that I took away in fearless draft driver and rest. Having albeit get similar champ pools, but unique enough that they can, you know, play different things throughout the series, I think is really cool. And I think it showcased potentially the future of roster building in Tier one. League of Legends that if you can, if Fearless is here to stay long term, this seems like a pretty good idea to go for. So they're back and the only team returning from first stand as well. Every other team that was there is not going to be there for msi. Don't know as much about GAM Esports though. Now rmc, give me the rundown for gam. I know that kind of the usual subsects with like Levi, but what else can we expect out of them? [00:38:12] Speaker C: Well, it's. It's kind of funny because GAM technically is the team that we see more frequently at international events for the most part. But yeah, I think it's for gam. Kiah and Levi are sort of the returning members. Artemis was actually. I forgot which team Artemis was previously on. [00:38:32] Speaker D: Artemis was on Team Whales. [00:38:34] Speaker C: Whales, right. Yeah. So he did go to the Worlds 2024 as well, I guess. Yeah, he wasn't necessarily part of this roster. They've settled on Emo as their mid laner. Well, Emo played, I think more games in the playoffs, but he played most of them. [00:38:48] Speaker D: I think he only didn't play in three games. [00:38:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I saw Eris. He had a couple, but ERA seems to have been the mid laner from before playoffs started. [00:38:56] Speaker C: Yeah, they were trying out Eris a little bit like Aeris was playing the first split and then they kind of brought Emo back. So it seems like they settled back on Emo again. I don't know. [00:39:05] Speaker A: Okay. [00:39:06] Speaker C: What they're kind of trying to figure. [00:39:08] Speaker A: Out, it's not like swapping between mid laners. Kind of like oysters or swapping between top laners. Like where we're probably for all of msi. [00:39:15] Speaker C: Yeah, that's kind of what I'm expecting. And Elio, their support was there prior as well. So it's kind of like the bot mid which has changed up. They are still mostly, I feel like a top jungle team like Levi and Kaya are still like the. The more stable parts of this roster. The Artemis and. And Emo can certainly carry as well. And that actually did become a point during the grand finals when they were trying to shut down Hong Kyu because Hong Kyo is a big carry player. Gam, it's funny because Jani was talking about how like GAM has settled down a little bit. They're not as crazy as they used to be, but they're. They're still more likely to pick like off meta things. They have a weird, unholy priority on Nocturne for some weird Reason. [00:39:55] Speaker A: Yes, it's Levi. Of course they do. [00:39:58] Speaker D: I mean, yeah, this team, this team is much more coordinated than they used to be. They like rely lot on team fighting now and went through being like a more coordinated team than. Than everybody else, which is why was like, hey, I think they've settled down a little bit from being absolutely, you know, crazy doing some wild that we've seen in the past. [00:40:16] Speaker C: Yeah. But it still relies a lot on Ginger. Oh, nothing Levi. Part of me, I feel like getting action rolling one way or another with the scaries. So big driver. Yep. Yeah. So I think gaming, if people underestimate their team fighting, they're going to be in trouble. And like we said, the meta right now does favor team fighting a lot. And that's why I was like not confident that FlyQuest might do that that well against the LCP teams necessarily. Like I think Fly Quest can win but it'll be a bit of a struggle. Unfortunately they ran into Flying Oysters in the grand finals and if we're talking team fighting, I feel like Flying Oysters are probably the best in the OCP at it. Like they're very organized. Their front to back is absolutely cracked and amazing. Doggo has always been a massive team fight style player. Hongq now gives them that element of carry in the mid LA also even. [00:41:01] Speaker B: With his locked cam. [00:41:03] Speaker C: Oh true. [00:41:03] Speaker D: I forgot about that lock cam. Doggo baby. [00:41:05] Speaker B: I knew we've had this revelation like every year that Doggo makes it to the international. He's, he's, he's a locked cambro. [00:41:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:41:13] Speaker A: Like that's crazy to be. [00:41:14] Speaker C: Yeah. Hongq's element of assassination is actually huge for this team and I think has really unlocked it. Hongq is very young and very, very skilled but having Junja and the Jungle man is just unfair in the ocp. Junja owns the APAC right region. Always has, always will y right now. And yeah, I think the, the jungle for both these are massive. And then driver Rest, I haven't figured out why they're rotating them. Like I thought rest was like the carry top laner but drivers been playing things like or and Driver used to be like a team fight top laner but Driver's been playing things like Yorick so I don't really understand how they're deciding who plays but they. It's kind of working out like they're still. Both of them are still very, very good about things do so. Yeah, I think they don't know. [00:41:57] Speaker A: Maybe it's like our opponent, if we don't know, can't know. [00:42:01] Speaker D: I think that maybe it's just like so like Driver is usually a tank specialist. I think it's maybe that he just understands that of like split push more with York and play York in a team comp. Because we see all these teams picking Yorick and generally not doing very well with it unironically enough. One of the teams that's so good with York is like anyone's legend. Flandreau really understands how to play the champion in and pilot it. I think that if you have a player that really understands how to pilot it, it's very valuable based on like what these guys play. I imagine Driver is probably going to be in a series for like the first two or three games. And once you start getting into like game four and five, they'll probably swap to rest because he's got the wider pool of effective champions. Whereas like drivers like the Yorick and then mostly Tanks from there. [00:42:48] Speaker C: Yeah, that's what I thought too. But then they whipped all the like the Gragas stop for Driver in game four against Gam and I was like, huh? [00:42:55] Speaker D: I. It's not necessarily a tank. You know, it is something that. But it also could be a tank. Maybe it's just because. Yeah, I think, I think it's more so that he understood because he's a tank player. He understands how to play like a neutralizing lane very well. Which whenever you take Gragas, you're immediately neutralizing their top laner. So maybe that's, that's an aspect of it too. Because like being a quote unquote tank specialist doesn't just mean you're playing like, like you know, Scion or Gallio or, or and things like that. It does mean you get to go and play some neutralizing matchups that aren't exactly quote unquote true Tanks or champions. You could build tanky like the Gragas. So I, I think that makes a lot of sense. You won't. I don't think we're going to see a scenario where Driver is going to like Jace or something like that. You know, it's something that's always going to be like, ah, yes, this makes sense. [00:43:44] Speaker C: Well, but Driver did whip out like a Jax. I remember in their qualifying match against Talon. [00:43:49] Speaker D: Did he build a tank though? [00:43:51] Speaker C: No, he didn't. He went with. [00:43:52] Speaker D: Oh, okay, so he went full Trinity. [00:43:54] Speaker C: Force into Sun Sky. [00:43:57] Speaker A: Well, I, Regardless of like the, the reasoning behind the top lane swaps, I still think it's fun to see and it's a cool concept. So we'll keep our eyes on it for MSI to see how CTBC decides to implement driver and rest on the roster going into their best of fives because that team is going straight into the bracket stage. GAM is going to be the one that has to play in the play. It's tough to rank these teams because I don't have a lot of information on them, but I know that Flying Oysters did, you know, unfortunately, better than N A at and technically they're good. [00:44:33] Speaker C: We need to stop looking down on them. Like, genuinely. [00:44:35] Speaker D: No, I think. I think that's. I think that's awesome. I hate that. I hate that as NA fans, we have egg on our face. Right? Like. But I think this is generally. I. I think this is very good for the game. Game. I think it's very, very good for the game to have a team like Flying Oysters be very exciting. I'm gonna be the one to put my first. My first rating out here for these teams. I got the Flying Oysters as a five, and maybe that's selling them a little short. [00:45:00] Speaker C: Okay. [00:45:01] Speaker A: Oh, okay, okay. [00:45:02] Speaker C: I. I have them higher. I have them as a seven and I actually want to watch them go against blg. [00:45:07] Speaker A: Whoa. [00:45:08] Speaker D: Okay. [00:45:09] Speaker C: Whoa. [00:45:09] Speaker A: That's higher than either the LEC teams. [00:45:12] Speaker C: Yep. [00:45:13] Speaker D: That's higher than. I got Fly Quest too. I think I. I kind of have the power of LEC and fly quest at like 6 blg at like 7. [00:45:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:45:23] Speaker D: But. Okay, I respect it. I think that's. I think that's, you know, I think that's valid. I think that the meta was, I think, the reason why I'm underrating Oysters a little bit. I really didn't like the first stand meta for competitive. I think it threw a lot of things on its head and I think it strongly benefited the Flying Oysters because of their six man roster. I thought they were really ahead of the curve. I think they're going to lose a lot of that curve because of how the meta has changed. Because I think a lot of top laners at first stand were just really, really bad because, you know, we have that immediate meta shift right where it's like, okay, well, now you're no longer, like, playing tanks all the time. [00:46:02] Speaker C: You know, actually, can we go on a slight tangent here or. [00:46:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll give you a minute because we're already going a little long in lcp. [00:46:10] Speaker C: Okay. No, not so much the lcp, just about the top lane. Is it me or is the top lane kind of weak for msi? [00:46:17] Speaker D: Player wise. [00:46:18] Speaker C: Yeah. Like, I feel like out of all the roles, of all the lanes, top lane feels like the weakest to me. [00:46:25] Speaker A: You can disrespect Doran like that after what he just did. [00:46:28] Speaker C: Doran and ke, like, the two lck top laners are good. And I'm looking everywhere else. I'm like, bin's not been gonna do. [00:46:35] Speaker A: My boy Merwin like that. What the hell, man? He's gonna pull. [00:46:39] Speaker C: I am gonna do. I am gonna do that. I don't like Mer. [00:46:43] Speaker D: Okay. I don't think top is necessarily. I don't know if weakest is the right word, but plagued with consistency issues is probably the best way to describe all of the top laners in. In this msi. I think their consistency, they've got the consistency of baby, honestly. [00:47:06] Speaker C: Wait, so if you're saying that they're not the worst line yachty, then what do you say? [00:47:11] Speaker A: That's a colorful language. [00:47:13] Speaker D: I'm not saying. I'm not saying they're bad. I'm just saying that, like, you know, we. We've seen games where, like, you know, the best. The way I have to describe a guy like Bipo is that, like, BWIPO can absolutely win you a game and he can lose you a game, and sometimes he does both in the same game, unfortunately. [00:47:27] Speaker A: Same for Merwin. [00:47:29] Speaker D: Yes. Same for Ben. You know, same for Doran. Right. Even though he's kind of. He's. She straightened it up later. [00:47:37] Speaker B: I'd put it less of an imbalance, but I would say it's still definitely there. [00:47:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I think I see the point if we're talking about, like, positions that we're in, but that's enough for that side tangent, because I want to get back into the number one region real quick, though. Number for GAM Esports. Do we have anything, any faith in them? Are they also down there in the dump games? [00:47:59] Speaker C: Kinda like. I have them low four for reputation before. I'll give them like a four. Yeah, they. [00:48:05] Speaker D: I mean, they. They took the Flying Oysters to five games. [00:48:07] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:48:08] Speaker D: And like, we've. We've settled on the fact that the Flying Oysters are pretty solid. [00:48:13] Speaker C: Yep. [00:48:13] Speaker A: Yeah, we give them a Four for Worlds 2018. That's what we give them for. [00:48:18] Speaker D: Oh, that's crazy. We're not giving them a four for the fact that they. They literally took the flying oysters to five in the region. [00:48:26] Speaker A: That wasn't World 2018. What world was it that they, like, had the big Nocturne. [00:48:30] Speaker D: You're living in the past okay, well. [00:48:32] Speaker A: You know, clearly, again, reminder to not trust my memory. [00:48:35] Speaker B: This is. [00:48:36] Speaker A: I'm just really hammering that point in. [00:48:37] Speaker D: That is iconic, though, that Nocturne. That Levi Nocturne is iconic. [00:48:41] Speaker A: That will live in my brain for the rest of my time. In League of Legends Esports, lcp, though, we have one team that we think can represent the region well or the. The newly kind of formed region well, and one team that can struggle on their way through the plane. Fans, now let's get into the big daddies, the final region to talk about lck. And who do we have representing the lck, but the most dominant team of the year that has not dropped a single series technically in the. In the split because they're like, LCK cup doesn't count towards their year. They just said that was a four fun tournament to go into the first stand. So technically, Genji, undefeated in series so far this year. [00:49:29] Speaker B: Yeah. And NA is undefeated in international appearances. [00:49:33] Speaker A: Are we? [00:49:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, we're using the same logic, right? We can just make whatever we want. [00:49:40] Speaker A: You're saying firsthand doesn't count. And so this year, yeah, we can. [00:49:43] Speaker B: Just make whatever we want for us. [00:49:45] Speaker A: I vibe with that. I vibe with that. [00:49:46] Speaker B: I mean, if LCK can do it. [00:49:49] Speaker A: Let'S just throw it out ourselves, too. But. So Gen G representing and then T1, the most historied, you know, org in the all of League of Legends right now. Faker's back on the international stage. The guy does it again after a crazy run through their playoffs. Let's start with T1 because they're, of course, the kind of historic team as well as the one that we didn't expect to be here. Everyone was telling me it was hle Again, I don't watch a lot of lck. I know Badge is not here to kind of break down all the narratives right now, but it was hle. Hle. Hle. That's what I was hearing, hearing. And then suddenly, out of nowhere with the steel chair comes Doran and just. [00:50:31] Speaker D: It's not even the steel chair, bro. They got stunned. They got stone cold stunnered by Gen G. And then T1 saw it and just did it again. [00:50:42] Speaker A: Oh, it's like, so. No, no, no. You know what that is? Gen G stunnered them and then RKO out of nowhere. [00:50:49] Speaker D: No, the. Not the RKO out of nowhere. Oh, my goodness. [00:50:53] Speaker C: I mean, at least against Gen G, HLE was competitive. Like, they took it to game five. [00:50:59] Speaker D: Yeah. Well, here's the thing, all right? I actually have a. I have an interesting question to pose. This is a more philosophical question. How competitive can a reverse sweep be? [00:51:10] Speaker A: Very competitive. [00:51:11] Speaker D: Are you sure about that? Because that literally goes from a team going up 2:0 to a team losing like the next three matches. Like how competitive can that actually be? It's not like you're going back and forth and trading games. It's just like, oh, we won the first two. Oh, we got swept in the last three. Like typically that's not very competitive. [00:51:30] Speaker C: Well, it depends. [00:51:31] Speaker A: The 12 games. [00:51:32] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Individually go as well. Like I remember that game. [00:51:36] Speaker D: I think that's a big factor. [00:51:37] Speaker C: Yeah. Game four of Genji versus Hanwha Life. I remember being a very, very close game. The vertical. [00:51:41] Speaker D: Oh, absolutely. [00:51:43] Speaker C: Was not huge at any given point. So. [00:51:45] Speaker D: But then, but then it was bad. [00:51:48] Speaker C: Game five was bad. Okay. [00:51:50] Speaker D: Game three wasn't that great either. [00:51:52] Speaker C: Yeah, but I'm not trying to. [00:51:54] Speaker D: I'm not trying to like demean reverse because I think they're awesome. [00:51:57] Speaker C: But I also think that game 200 Life Storm Genji. Right. So like, to me, how competitive the. The series is doesn't isn't always reflected in the final score. I've seen three O's would be incredible. [00:52:07] Speaker D: I, I agree. Which is why I'm saying that like not. No, I think, I think reverse sweeps are more often than not non competitive than they are competitive. [00:52:17] Speaker A: I don't know if that was down to like the team that's. Especially in a fearless drafting system that's in disabled to draft better. I. The reverse sweeps really does come down to solving the puzzle of the other team in my mind. But then that alone is not enough. You do have to watch the games and learn the story of each individual game which, you know, obviously Gen G was able to get that win. It was a reverse sweep. Could have been them versus T1 for the final spot, but instead of T1 versus T1 smacked them. So T1's here again. I don't know what to rank this team, but it's hard to rank them lower than like an 8 just based on historical precedents. Right. Like, I think they're an eight one's back. [00:52:57] Speaker D: Yeah, I think they're innate. Guma's playing some of his best league that he has in a while and has really quieted the haters. It's crazy to see how far this team's come. Right. Because you had the. You're swapping off with Guma and Smash and they were like, oh gooma Guma and fearless. Can't you know he's A liability in Fearless. And then you had Adorin who wasn't playing well. And then after he died, the Krug, something just snapped. Something inside me just snapped. I didn't care anymore. I didn't care about being then Zeus. I didn't care about anything. You know, he went through his whole Vegeta speech and. And has gone Super Saiyan on these guys. I think they're still an eight. I think they're. I think they're currently on the level of anyone's legend. I do think that T1 can very quickly not notch themselves up to a 9, but I do not think they can touch Gen G. I don't think anybody can right now until proven otherwise. [00:53:53] Speaker A: And they're the boogeyman, which is why I've wanted to hammer that in. I don't know if anyone's counted along. I would guesstimate I'm around 8 times saying that Gen G are the best team at msi because I'm just trying my best to curse the man. Like the favorite coming in. Right. Like clearly Gen G is going to the bed and this is FlyQuest's time to sweep in and get an international win for na. [00:54:14] Speaker D: But hey, if they. What if they run into Fly Quest, you know, then maybe they. You give them a little bit of ptsd. It's like, oh man, Fly Quest. [00:54:22] Speaker A: They almost knocked us out time last worlds. [00:54:25] Speaker D: You know, Fly Quest is going to be looking for revenge. [00:54:27] Speaker A: Be like, I didn't hear no bell in another world. One thing to notice that regions cannot have a team on the same side of the bracket. It's not one Giant bracket like Leaguepedia will make you think. It's technically like two sides that then converge on each other from the the upper bracket and then. Or I don't know how I'm trying to explain this. All I know is that like we would not be able to get like a LCK versus LCK team up until the upper bracket finals. [00:54:57] Speaker C: Yeah. They're just trying to separate the same region as far as they can in the brackets. [00:55:01] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. So whether you think about them as like opposing sides of the bracket or like a top and the bottom half of the the upper bracket, we would not get like a T1 Gen G rematch because they also matched up against each other the last worlds. T1 took that one three one. They would not match up against each other until an upper brackets finals. Or if one of them gets knocked down below early or. Or both of them or somewhere they could meet other places. But like upper bracket finals would be the most likely outcome. So Gen G is the 10 out of 10 T1 8 or a 9. That is expectations for the teams coming in. But there's two teams that we will say goodbye to before the bracket stage starts because play ins is one weekend. It's five best of fives and it's four teams fighting for the last two spots. Let's throw our predictions for who's gonna win it or not win it but make it out of the play in stage. I have BLG and then G2. 2. Mazel agrees. BLG G2 Yanni agrees. BLGG 2 RMC. What did you. You ranked one team as a one. Remind me who it was. [00:56:04] Speaker C: Furious Fury number one. Let's go. [00:56:06] Speaker A: Oh, number one. Oh, maybe I misheard because you have BLG Furia. You have Furia upsetting G2 at some point here maybe twice. If they beat them then lose to BLG and then then maybe beat them again. Is it. Is this just pure fandom? [00:56:24] Speaker C: The first thing I learned when I started casting the LTA south back when it was still CV lol and their hashtag was cvlawdiff was y' all can keep the stats. Brazil will keep the magic. So I'm hoping for some fury of magic, right? [00:56:36] Speaker D: Hell yeah. [00:56:38] Speaker C: Because like I said they're punchy, they can trip up teams and I'm yeah part of it's a hope that comes out. That said I actually would have put as my second out. I think G2 is liable to stumble in the play. What's happening? [00:56:56] Speaker A: All right. So you really know faith in G2. That's crazy to think about but I still think BLG G2. Everyone else other than RMC agrees. Let us know if you agree in the community discord or if you want to give RMC some of your thoughts on future and the Brazilian magic. But with that said, it's time for to close out the episode because we've talked about all the regions expectations, we talked about the first weekend of games and kind of who we think is going to be making out of that playing stage. There's one thing that we do every year, every international event especially for play ins. This time we're going to open it up a little bit just because of the unique format of things. Mazel. I know you've been in one of these rmc. You might have been in one of these Yanni. I think it's your first first time. But it is the inaugural the traditional league rundown team logo tier list ahead of an international event. This has nothing to do with how good the teams are, nothing to do with expectations for how well they will place in the tournament. It is simply a tier list where we rank their team logos to see who has the best. What I would love for everyone to do to play along, Pull up Leaguepedia or Liquidpedia or whatever source you like to use. [00:58:10] Speaker D: Already ready, baby. [00:58:11] Speaker A: You can grab all the team logos and have them in front of you. I will also be sharing my screen so you can see the tier list maker that I've created. So the way that this works is we're gonna go in draft order so top to bottom and then back to the top. And we're gonna put a team logo somewhere on the tier list. S, A, B, C. Actually there's too many here. Let's just get rid of one of these. Can I get rid of one of these? Delete. We could probably get it SABC and then F. I can't change it. Can I change it? Yes, I can. Boom. F. Let's go. Now once we draft all of them on there, we're going to go through one more time and ever just to make sure that this is a democratic process because everyone gets to place then a couple logos somewhere that they want it on the tier list. What you can do after that, that is move one logo up or down one cannot be one that you placed. [00:59:08] Speaker D: Got it. [00:59:08] Speaker A: But you can move one up or down one. So say like I put Gen G in B tier but then Yanni disagrees. Once we put them all up there, Yanni can move them up or down one tier and everyone gets the chance to move one. That way it's a little more democratic and we can get a little more like hive mind view of, of what's going on here. [00:59:26] Speaker D: Love it. [00:59:27] Speaker A: So, for example, I will start first. I think in my honest, humble opinion. I freaking love pandas, dude. Anyone? Legend easily in A tier. It's close. [00:59:42] Speaker D: Do it. [00:59:43] Speaker C: Kangas up there. [00:59:43] Speaker A: Do it close. [00:59:44] Speaker D: I'm gonna let somebody else move kangas. Don't, don't. Don't make me move my. Don't make me burn my. My. Move up. [00:59:50] Speaker A: Hey, you can do it at the end. I'm putting them eight. [00:59:53] Speaker D: You clearly don't love pandas that much. [00:59:55] Speaker A: That their, their little logo of the panda with the hat on is incredible. [00:59:59] Speaker D: If you really love pandas, they've been. Esther. [01:00:01] Speaker A: The only thing holding it back for me is that it's, it's. I don't know if it gives like a classic Vibe. It gives a fun vibe and a funny vibe. [01:00:12] Speaker C: Pandas ain't classic. [01:00:13] Speaker D: Something. Something is cursed here. It looks like they're in a soup ladle. [01:00:18] Speaker A: It does kind of look like they're in a soup ladle. If you look at the logo, I think that's supposed to be its arm, though. [01:00:24] Speaker D: No, it. It. Yeah, it's supposed to be like a. Like, I guess a samurai sword along the back, I think. [01:00:31] Speaker A: But yeah, yeah, the. The samurai swords. [01:00:33] Speaker D: No, dude, I've never noticed that until now. [01:00:36] Speaker A: I'm dropping an A tier that up next in the call. Mazel. Mazelle. Where would you like to put any logo on the tier list? [01:00:42] Speaker B: I am gonna put Furia at S tier because I think it's a banger logo. [01:00:51] Speaker A: It is a sick logo. It's like a panther. Like, the side profile of panther. It looks like a. Like a traditional sports team logo. Like a NFL team or like. Like some kind of football team. Yeah, yeah. [01:01:03] Speaker C: It's like the black version of the Florida Panthers logo kind of. [01:01:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Actually, basically agreed, basically based, based decision. Okay, so drop in Furia in S tier. Our first placement in S tier. Rmc, you're up next. [01:01:15] Speaker C: I'm just so glad, by the way, that Loud isn't representing Brazil anymore. I hated that logo. [01:01:19] Speaker A: That one's so sucked. [01:01:21] Speaker C: Every time we did the logo racking, I was like, tab it. [01:01:23] Speaker A: Yeah, have it Loud. [01:01:25] Speaker C: Okay. I think I like the GAM logo. I've said this multiple times before, and they always make it to international events. I put them A tier. [01:01:35] Speaker A: A tier for gam. Okay, so this is like the solid. The Revolver Pistols overlapped with, like, the wings coming out behind a little helmet. [01:01:45] Speaker D: No, I just noticed it looks like a face. Does it? [01:01:49] Speaker A: Oh, wait, it kind of does. Oh, my God. [01:01:51] Speaker D: I just noticed that. [01:01:53] Speaker A: I'm never gonna be able to not see that now. [01:01:55] Speaker D: Oh, this is so much cooler. This is so much like. I thought it was good. Wait, this is so much cooler now. [01:01:59] Speaker A: Oh, all right. A tier for GAM for rmc. Yanni, you're up next. [01:02:04] Speaker D: All right, I'm gonna get so much. I mean, you know what? Now I'm making the base decision. Grab me T1. [01:02:11] Speaker A: Okay. [01:02:12] Speaker D: Straight neft tier. Boring. This is a boring. This is a boring logo. I like. I like. I love T1. I love T1. It's a boring ass logo. [01:02:24] Speaker A: It's boring, but F tier. [01:02:26] Speaker D: Okay, dude, it's a letter and a number. Like, come on. [01:02:32] Speaker A: But it's got all the fun lines on it. You know, it looks like A V instead of a T for some reason. Season. [01:02:39] Speaker D: Yeah. Okay, now. Now you're. You're starting to make my argument for me. [01:02:43] Speaker A: All right, all right. That's a little wild to me, but T1 logo in F tier. [01:02:49] Speaker D: Don't show this to any events. [01:02:52] Speaker A: T1 and F tier on his MSI. [01:02:54] Speaker D: Don't show this to. Actually, I put T1 in T tier in my official tier list. My official tier list was based on the first letter of each team's name. So anyone's legended up in A tier. [01:03:06] Speaker A: You know, that's a good one right there. [01:03:08] Speaker D: Yeah. Don't show this to invent whatever you do. Otherwise, this we're gonna get. Okay, we're not gonna get five. Five stars on this episode. [01:03:14] Speaker A: I'm gonna go next. I'm gonna do the based one, which is, in my opinion, actually, no, I think there's two that belong there. I'm gonna put CFO in F tier. [01:03:24] Speaker D: I don't know what. You're crazy. Not based. [01:03:27] Speaker A: Going on here. [01:03:28] Speaker D: Not. [01:03:28] Speaker A: Oh, and then it's got, like, a weird, like, overwatch looking symbol. This looks like a sticker. You would unlock block by getting, like, five headshots in the single game. No, like a halo, man. [01:03:40] Speaker D: Counter strike. [01:03:41] Speaker A: It looks like a counter strike sticker. Sure, that too. [01:03:45] Speaker C: Those sound like good things to me. [01:03:49] Speaker A: Do it for me. It does not do it for me. [01:03:51] Speaker D: Dude, I cannot believe we can only put this into sear tier now. That's crazy. [01:03:55] Speaker A: You would put it higher. [01:03:57] Speaker D: Yeah. This is like, at least A beats here. [01:04:00] Speaker A: Crazy. You're both crazy. All right, well, that's mine. Mizell, what you got? [01:04:03] Speaker C: Got? [01:04:07] Speaker B: I'm gonna take the McCoy logo and I'm gonna put it B tier. It's okay. [01:04:20] Speaker C: That's the other one. [01:04:21] Speaker A: I was gonna put an F tier. [01:04:23] Speaker D: What is controlling, you know? [01:04:27] Speaker A: Okay, explain to me what the MCOID logo is. What is this logo? Go. [01:04:32] Speaker C: It's got M and kong. [01:04:35] Speaker A: O. Okay. T1 has T&1 on it. What makes that F2? [01:04:41] Speaker C: It's got a V because T1 is a V and a one on it. [01:04:45] Speaker A: Okay, so the M koi. The problem I have with it, it's. It's like threefold one. The M font just bothers me. I just. I don't like the squiggly M. It's a little odd, though. Me. [01:04:57] Speaker D: Can I convince you? [01:04:59] Speaker A: What? [01:05:00] Speaker D: Can. Can I convince you that the K along with the squiggly M looks like a dude jumping? [01:05:09] Speaker A: Okay, it does, kind of. The K at least does. Maybe I Don't know. Just the. There's two different fonts going on. And the fact that it's, like, not correctly. Like, like, it's. It. The M is facing us, but the koi is like vertical pole is a little odd to me. I. I don't like it. B tier is interesting, but it sounds like I'm in the minority for all of them. [01:05:32] Speaker D: I would have put it. I would have put it in C tier personally. So I. I think, Hey, I think you and I within one. [01:05:38] Speaker A: But that's Miselle's opinion. [01:05:39] Speaker C: Thank you for your service. [01:05:44] Speaker A: Rmc, you're up next. [01:05:46] Speaker C: Did we, by the way, did we say we were gonna snake drop this? [01:05:51] Speaker A: No, we didn't. [01:05:52] Speaker C: Okay. Okay. Okay. [01:05:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Never, Definitely never said that for sure. [01:05:56] Speaker C: I'm going to stay positive. G2 and A. The samurai logo. [01:06:00] Speaker A: G2 and A tier. [01:06:01] Speaker C: Yep. I like the way they work there. [01:06:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I like that one a lot. I think the G2 is one of my favorite logos of all time in esports. [01:06:08] Speaker B: It. [01:06:08] Speaker A: It's classic. It's good. Yanni, thoughts on your next one? There's three left. Gen G, BLG and Fly Quest. [01:06:15] Speaker D: Let me get blg. Gotta represent my favorite region. Region. Put that in F tier. [01:06:21] Speaker A: It's terrible. [01:06:22] Speaker D: It's so bad that Mizelle knows it's a base take. It's just three letters, bro. [01:06:29] Speaker A: And, like, I don't understand, like, the little pink line above the. [01:06:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:06:34] Speaker D: Colors. [01:06:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:36] Speaker D: They have these dope cotton candy jerseys that are really awesome. So I'm like, cool. I'm cool with the pink in their logo, but these guys got to revamp their logo at some point. I mean, like, when you are one of the most popular teams in China, like, you have to have a better logo. There is no way. I'm not trying to speak for the. The. The lpl Chinese speaking population, but there's no way these people actually like this logo. [01:06:58] Speaker A: Now what is going on with the B? I'm just now looking closer. Like, inside the B. It's not like there's a little. It's a thumbs up notch. I'm talking. [01:07:09] Speaker D: It's a thumbs up. [01:07:11] Speaker B: Let's just save that for later. Let's save it. [01:07:13] Speaker A: It is a thumbs up. Okay. [01:07:15] Speaker B: All right. [01:07:16] Speaker A: It. [01:07:16] Speaker B: Let's move forward. [01:07:18] Speaker A: We'll move forward. Coming back to me, I got Gen G and Fly Quest. Ooh. I'm gonna take Gen G and I'm gonna put them. Oh, I like this logo, but I don't know how much I like it. That's a problem. I'm feeling B tier, but I could be convinced of A. I'm gonna drop it B, because it is. But they're facing each other and there's some slight coloration difference which I think is cool. And it makes like a asymmetrical or not asymmetrical. A symmetrical. That's a word. An actual symmetrical, like, image, which I think is really cool. [01:07:52] Speaker D: Now can I can. Now I think B is proper for this, but I do want to point out that in the middle of the logo, it's a sword. Does this change anything? [01:08:02] Speaker A: Oh, that is. You look at the negative space. I never pay attention to negative space. Negative got a face on it. [01:08:10] Speaker D: Negative space is so important for logo those because teams will sneak things in there. [01:08:15] Speaker A: That is pretty cool. I will leave it as B because that's where I put it down. Final opinion here. Fly Quest. Where would you like to place them? [01:08:24] Speaker B: We'll put them at A. It's not bad. Like, it's kind of cool. It's unique. [01:08:30] Speaker C: It doesn't even have Fly Quest on it. [01:08:32] Speaker A: It's the leaf, which is. They're like. Like they're. They're all about the doing the green. So I like it. I. I can see it. I don't think that's egregious. I don't think that upsets. I do putting cfo. [01:08:45] Speaker C: It's not the one. [01:08:46] Speaker D: Yeah. This is viscerally upsetting me. We need to swap cfo. We need to swap CFO and Fly Quest, bro. [01:08:54] Speaker A: Okay, well, hey, maybe you guys can do some teamwork together. Okay, so let's start with. Well, let's just keep going it down. Rmc. I'll give you the first move. [01:09:04] Speaker C: I'm saving Private. Cfo, get CFO up there. [01:09:08] Speaker A: What? You move CFO from F tier to C tier now. They're the only team in ct. Actually, before we do that, the current rankings are Furia alone. And S A's got a lot. It's got anyone's legend, GAM G2 and. [01:09:20] Speaker D: Too crowded up there. [01:09:21] Speaker A: B tier has MCOI, which is ridiculous. [01:09:24] Speaker D: I agree. [01:09:25] Speaker A: CTR has nobody. F tier's got T1, CFO, BLG. So already RMC is moving CFO up to C tier. [01:09:31] Speaker C: Yep. [01:09:32] Speaker A: Yanni, what would you like to do? [01:09:33] Speaker D: I would like to move CFO up to BT tier. [01:09:36] Speaker C: Let's go. [01:09:38] Speaker A: Come on, guys. [01:09:40] Speaker D: I'm not moving it up any further. It's a B tier. It's B tier. It's solid. [01:09:45] Speaker A: Okay, okay, okay, My turn. [01:09:48] Speaker D: It's just flying Oyster on it, bro. [01:09:50] Speaker B: All right. We're moving BLG up to C tier because of that exact fact that you talked about. The thumbs up in the logo. It's cheer cheers to the faith is there is their actual model motto. And just because you guys don't know the team don't mean it ain't cool. First of all, thumbs up is actually an ode to their motto, so that's actually really neat. [01:10:13] Speaker A: I didn't know that. [01:10:13] Speaker D: That makes sense now. Okay. I think. I think this is. I think it's very valid. I apologize for putting it in C2. I did just notice the thumbs up after I had already put it there. [01:10:25] Speaker B: But, I mean, the logo still asks. But, you know, I actually. [01:10:29] Speaker D: I actually think CT is very appropriate. Thank you. [01:10:32] Speaker A: Okay, it is now my turn. I get the final say and. Oh, my God. [01:10:36] Speaker D: Hold on. I've got a question before you pick. [01:10:38] Speaker A: Okay. [01:10:39] Speaker D: Do we not. Do we not get two selections just like we had two drafts? [01:10:43] Speaker A: No, we only get one. [01:10:45] Speaker B: Get out of here. [01:10:48] Speaker A: Okay, so. But. But I'll take your opinion because I. Yanni, I feel like you want to move mcoy down just like I do. Is that what the one you would do? [01:10:56] Speaker C: No. [01:10:56] Speaker D: No. [01:10:56] Speaker B: You're not bending the rules. [01:10:59] Speaker D: So if I had to make some decisions here, here. Here would be my options. Al to S, gam to S. I, I, I'm flying. Or MC down to B or mcoid down to C if you know what. Gam to S or M, koi to C. Both of those work for me. [01:11:17] Speaker B: I'm getting this crazy feeling that we shouldn't break the rules. I don't know. [01:11:23] Speaker A: I was just asking for outside input. It's still my vote. And I will say I love you as a. As a human being and as a friend. Miselle, that was a trash egg. McCoy goes down to see. [01:11:35] Speaker D: And you know what? And you know what? After pointing out the BLG thumbs up and everything, there's no way BLG and MCO can be in the same tier. Bro. [01:11:46] Speaker A: Don'T. What? I think this is a terrible tier list, by the way. This has got to be one of the worst. [01:11:51] Speaker D: Hold on. I think this tier list is solid. I think we got a. A few miscues here, I think Crowded, I think. I think beats Here is. I think B tier is fine the way it is. Actually, you know what? I think we should. We should take a couple minutes, go down the line when see where people would make their decisions and what they would move. [01:12:12] Speaker A: It almost feels like a tier should just Be the S tier. I do agree Fly Quest could drop, like, probably one down. But I love G2 GAM and anyone's a legend. Okay, but looking at. I know I put AL and A tier, so that's a little silly. [01:12:27] Speaker C: I put GAM in A tier. I'm willing to move gam. [01:12:30] Speaker D: I'm starting to think that Furia S tier was maybe the wrong call. [01:12:33] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:12:36] Speaker A: We can't change the rules now. We have to publish this. Back it. We have to defend this. [01:12:41] Speaker B: Riot Games will be putting this on league of legends.com I think about it. [01:12:47] Speaker D: If I were to make some changes here. I'm just gonna say it. I would move MCOID down to F. I'd move flyquest down to C. I'd make it. I'd make another tier so I could move. So I could keep BLG in its own tier below B and above Fly Quest. And I'd move GAM up to S and probably call it a day. [01:13:10] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. Well, for everybody listening along, that has been trying to visualize this very visual thing in an audio format. Thank you for off. For being a good support about it. Second of all, we will post this to the community. Discord and Yani was mocking me the other day saying, why do we never tweet? And I said, and then we didn't bring that conversation up again. But this will go out on social media. [01:13:35] Speaker D: Actually, that's not what you said. What you said was, oh, man, I should really give you the password for Twitter, shouldn't I? And I said, I did say that. You never did. [01:13:42] Speaker A: Okay, well, we'll get you the password then Yani can just start tweeting for us. But this, this will be your first task. Tweeting out the tier list that we just made. How about that? [01:13:51] Speaker D: Hell, yeah. Absolutely. [01:13:52] Speaker A: Perfect. Thanks for tuning in, everybody. This is a tradition at this point. It used to be for just the play ins, then it kind of with the changes to all the international formats. This is just what we do now for all the teams here. But it's always fun to keep tradition alive. We've been doing this for years and years on the podcast now. Thank you guys for participating in this. Yanni, this is your first one. So happy to have you on. [01:14:14] Speaker D: Awesome. [01:14:14] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's. It's kind of a silly take on it. Right? But really what I want you to take away, everybody listening along is first off, a reminder. Something. Yanni, you mentioned something at the very beginning of the podcast. Do you happen to remember what it was? [01:14:29] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. You know, I think it had to do with how many stars you should rate this podcast. [01:14:35] Speaker A: No, it had to do with my singing performance. I know that it was. It was a five star. [01:14:41] Speaker D: I think I gave it a five out of five. [01:14:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Oh wait, that people could leave that for the podcast. Okay, five out of five. Review for the podcast when you're listening greatly helps us get noticed or thumbs up or however you do kangas will. [01:14:55] Speaker D: Serenade you to sleep. [01:14:56] Speaker A: I will. That didn't make it into the. Does that make it a bullshitter? The whole story of going over and kissing Mazelle on the forehead every night? [01:15:04] Speaker D: It did make it into the bullshitter. [01:15:05] Speaker A: I think it did. I think it did actually. Okay, so maybe some people catch that. Anyway, thank you for listening along everybody. We love you and we'll see you next time. [01:15:16] Speaker B: Bye Bye. [01:15:34] Speaker A: Sam Sa.