League Rundown - Episode 592: Lost Ratones

[00:00:12] Speaker A: Gets hit. [00:00:12] Speaker B: 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. [00:00:26] Speaker A: Should be. [00:00:27] Speaker B: 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. Foreign hello and Welcome to episode 592 of the League Rundown. This is your 2026 LEC Week 1 review and LCS Week 1 preview. This episode is lovingly entitled Lost Ratons. I'm your host Kangas and I'm joined by three esteemed co hosts. Up first, fresh out of the can, we got Badger. [00:01:27] Speaker C: You know, this is, this is a weird week because there are players that played in LEC that, you know, we went over the sheet, we looked at the doc and I'm like, who the is Hazel? Just, just. [00:01:40] Speaker B: It's actually Hazel. [00:01:43] Speaker C: You know what? My bad. [00:01:45] Speaker B: Otherwise people will start calling Mael Maisel and that. You know, he doesn't get upset by it, but I get upset for him. What was that? [00:01:52] Speaker A: I was going to say he's on this episode. [00:01:54] Speaker B: He's not on this episode. Unfortunately, Mr. Mizelpl will not be here. But you did hear his voice. Yanni, also LPL representative, will be joining us. How's it going, Yanni? [00:02:03] Speaker A: You know what? It's going pretty well. Had a the day at work today. You know, I had to go into the office today. It was cold in the morning. New Jersey is in a cold snap right now and it's very, very stinky. [00:02:16] Speaker B: You know what we call that in Minnesota? [00:02:18] Speaker A: A regular day at the office. [00:02:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Or welp, yeah. Also joining us, our third co host. We have once again for the first time this year back on the pod. Welcome back, rmc. Happy to have you. [00:02:35] Speaker D: Happy New Year, Gu. [00:02:38] Speaker B: Happy New Year. All right, so this is where you have to fill us in. What were you doing during the break? We already talked about it ourselves. But how was your holiday? [00:02:46] Speaker D: I was just playing riftbound non stop. [00:02:48] Speaker B: Pretty much respect. What, what deck are you on right now? [00:02:53] Speaker D: Right now? I'm messing around with Len a little bit in preparation for set two. [00:02:57] Speaker C: Ooh. [00:02:59] Speaker B: Okay. I have to show you a. A cursed decklist that I created. I am lovingly calling Kraken Hunter Turbo. It is really bad, but it' funny. It's Very funny. [00:03:11] Speaker C: Oh yeah, that. [00:03:11] Speaker D: That's. I'm down for that. I. I started the Victor deck because that was viable and cheap. And then I went through, you know, the. I went to a volear dazing Aurora deck to bring to Houston. And I was not the 6 of Vol Bear, unfortunately. [00:03:23] Speaker A: And then I went. [00:03:25] Speaker D: Oh, what did I do next? Oh, then I was playing with Ahri for a little bit and then I tried master the Aurora before it kind of caught on and then decided it was too good and therefore stopped playing it. And then I'm playing with Lee Sin right now. [00:03:36] Speaker C: Okay, I'm gonna be honest. When you said that deck name, all I could think of was like a hot mulligan like song title. Honestly, when you're just like cracking Slayer Turbo and I'm just like. [00:03:48] Speaker B: That does sound like a baller ass music like song name though. Kraken Hunter Turbo. I gotta remember that. That's the name of a band. Actually, that's the name of my next band. [00:03:57] Speaker C: That's. That's your band? That's your band. [00:03:59] Speaker B: Guys, you want to start a band? [00:04:00] Speaker A: Were you in a band before? [00:04:02] Speaker B: No, I don't know why I said next as if I had one before. But you didn't have to call me out on that. If we could just glazed fast. [00:04:10] Speaker A: Well, no, I was curious. I just. You know, there's a lot of casters have musical backgrounds, so I just wasn't sure. [00:04:15] Speaker B: True, true. All right, I call dibs on vocals. Badger. What? What are you playing in the band? [00:04:20] Speaker C: I. I played the drums when I was younger. [00:04:22] Speaker B: Okay. Rmc. What are you playing? [00:04:23] Speaker D: Probably keyboard, I guess. [00:04:25] Speaker B: Oh, Yanni, what are you playing? [00:04:27] Speaker A: I guess I gotta play guitar then because otherwise we won't be a guitarist. [00:04:31] Speaker B: I'll play backup guitar for you. I can be like the rundown singer that also like hits chords. I'll just play a couple chords for you. [00:04:37] Speaker A: Wait, what if you. What if you also played like bass while you were singing? Right, because we also need a bassist. Unless you want to handle. If you want to handle. If you want to handle guitar and vocals, I can. I can move the bass. [00:04:51] Speaker B: I can be the guy that feels like I'm. I'm just like taking all the spotlight though. Well, you did. [00:04:56] Speaker A: You did have first pick and you said vocals, so you already. [00:04:59] Speaker D: You were the guy who came up with. [00:05:01] Speaker B: You know, I can learn the funk. I can do. I can learn the funks. [00:05:08] Speaker A: My cleans are solid and I can actually scream a little bit. [00:05:11] Speaker B: Okay, you know what? You do vocals. I'll do. I'll do guitar. Then I'll be the guitar. [00:05:14] Speaker C: We're also a great start, everyone. [00:05:16] Speaker B: Okay, cool. That's the band Kraken Hunter Turbo. You can check out our latest single coming out on your podcast listening platforms later. Actually, next episode probably just gonna be a recording session of ours, but for this episode we do have some news to get into, so let's cover the global news before covering LCS and LEC proper up. We teased this last week on the episode. Unfortunately we can confirm now the roster issues. The visa issues were very real. Rumors say that six out of eight LCS teams are reportedly experiencing visa issues ahead of the season start. A couple confirmations already. Dignitas have Mobility and Breezy, two Tier two players. Breezy has had some stints. I believe he's gotten some stage time at Stage Tier one, but they're going to be replacing FBI and Ignar and DSG have Kizno added to their contract database. Most likely going to be replacing Kryra, although I don't believe we've had like a confirmation from the team themselves yet. But then rumors are again, six out of eight teams are having issues. Yanni, I want to get your thoughts on this one first here, specifically around like Mobility Breezy, because these are two developing players coming in and that's like the silver lining is that because of these issues that we have with visas, a lot of these tier 2 NA players, specifically players that are already in the US are getting some shots. [00:06:33] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, it feels bittersweet, right? Because I've been following these players for a long time, specifically Mobility. He's played in Sea Law a lot and it is nice to see him finally get a, a really nice shot here. But coming at the expense of some players who are trying to come over here and play and represent North America does feel very bad. But you know, I am excited for Mobility to get his chance. Hopefully he's able to make the most of it. He said a couple of opportunities when, you know they were, they were given to him. I know that he was on EG Challengers for a little bit in 2023 when he was mostly just like a tier three player and a collegiate player. He got his first shot in Tier 2 looked pretty good. So I'm expecting a similar situation to this where, you know he's going to get his cup of coffee here and you know, hopefully be able to show up and turn some heads. [00:07:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that it's, it's a good opportunity. Again, it's a tough situation for the players that aren't able to make it. It's not great for EPI and ig, but hey, you never know, maybe we will get a success story out of this by a player popping off. So I'm trying to think on the positive, but the negative truth that we have to accept. Badger, I'd love to get your thoughts on this one. It's just, what do you think the quality of games is gonna be like this weekend? [00:07:51] Speaker C: I wouldn't cancel your weekend plans to set time. I mean set time to decide to watch lcs. Like don't get me wrong, but like, don't expect, you know, World Finals level of play maybe for like the. [00:08:03] Speaker B: Which we were expecting going into this. [00:08:05] Speaker C: Obviously. Obviously. I'm pretty sure. I. I mean, if Shopify Rebellion doesn't win Worlds this year, then I. I will be severely depressed for the rest of my lifetime. Obviously. [00:08:16] Speaker A: Reasonable. [00:08:17] Speaker B: Well, obviously. Yeah. I think Shopify are the clear front runners too. I gotta say, we have a lot of Shopify Rebellion faith on this podcast. I'm happy to hear people around me have similar faith. Everyone else I talk to thinks that I'm completely delusional and I think that's hilarious. That like different echo chambers or like little bubbles of faith going around. [00:08:36] Speaker C: That'd be your patriots on the analyst desk at A1 Riot Games. [00:08:42] Speaker B: Okay, you know what? Yeah, let's just out myself when I. When we were having our first meeting, I said Shopify Rebellion are my number one team. I. Some people laughed. There are a few people that guffawed. [00:08:53] Speaker A: Wow. [00:08:54] Speaker B: At the statement. [00:08:55] Speaker C: Oh, they guffawed at it. [00:08:56] Speaker B: Oh, oh. [00:08:57] Speaker C: They are not believers. They're not believers, but stray. You kangas hold the faith strong, brother. Don't let them. [00:09:03] Speaker B: Oh, I will, I will. [00:09:04] Speaker C: Don't let them persuade you from the light. [00:09:06] Speaker B: This was my ammunition against them. I. When they like chuckled, I just said, hey, where did everyone rank 100 Thieves last year? I was the only one that had them in my top three across all three splits. [00:09:19] Speaker A: I'm offended that they laughed at you because that means they laughed at me. [00:09:23] Speaker B: I know, right? And that. You know what? And some one of them even said, I bet you Yanni has the same thought. And I was like, that's crazy that they. That they just like outed you like that. [00:09:32] Speaker A: Crazy that you know who I am. [00:09:34] Speaker B: What the hell? [00:09:34] Speaker C: Wild. [00:09:35] Speaker A: That's wild. [00:09:38] Speaker B: But yeah, that's unfortunately a news story that we won't be able to really cover too closely, like for updates. Just because I'm imagining a lot of the Updates will be coming out after this episode's already been recorded in terms of who's replacing whom going into opening weekend. But hopefully by next week when we record, we'll have some more confirmed players that have been able to get their visas approved to make it into the country. But I, I will say I think the, the worst case scenario which prepare for, maybe it happens is that a lot of these players never get their visas approved and we have a very different looking LCS roster landscape than we anticipated going into the year. But that's what's going on in the US right now in North American region. Rmc, since we have you on, I would love to hear. We don't do this that often now that we've separated north from south for lta. That is in the past. But you still are covering CB lol, right? On the English broadcast. So can you update me what's going on down in cb lol, because we have not been paying too much attention but I'm sure that there's been a lot of shakeups down there as well. [00:10:41] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean it feels like typical of most regions. The first couple of weeks are kind of crazy and CB Law did start last weekend, same as the lec. So it's only the LCS which is kind of behind everybody else. I feel the name is fitting. Lost returns. We've got a team down south called Los Grandes. They just surprised everybody by going 2:0 this last weekend including taking out VKS Vivocade Stars, the current reigning champion. So they're off to a roaring start. [00:11:08] Speaker C: What? [00:11:09] Speaker B: Yeah, it's crazy. [00:11:11] Speaker A: Vivocade. [00:11:11] Speaker B: How similar is their roster? Because I know they, they don't have Trymby anymore. [00:11:14] Speaker D: Yeah. So it's the same except they swapped out Kai Wing in for Trimby. So top eight worlds player is now in playing for BKS as a support and they lost their first game. [00:11:25] Speaker B: What? [00:11:26] Speaker D: That's when. The first game. Yeah. So that, that was the big upset of the weekend. For those of you all who know me might know that I'm a big pain fan. Pain went 03 over the weekend. They are oh deep in the crapper. They lost their ad carry Titan. [00:11:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we, we. Yeah, I think we actually forgot to cover that last week. [00:11:44] Speaker C: Yeah, we chose not to talk about it. [00:11:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, we acknowledge. [00:11:48] Speaker B: But you might have more context for everybody. Rmc. So, so how would you like to describe the situation? We. We weren't fully confident what was going. We didn't talk about it. [00:11:58] Speaker D: The team that, you know, Trimby went to, what they Call it shitty, shifty, something like that. That's a good. That's a good description for what happened to T. To Titan. So a lot of problems going on right now. He suspended indefinitely. If you're interested in finding out, you can just google it. It'll pop up, but it's kind of situation. [00:12:15] Speaker A: That's all we need to know. [00:12:17] Speaker D: Yeah. So Pain's in the gutter right now while they're trying to figure things out. Furia Fury doing really well. They three out their weekend, so they're looking kind of good. Red candidates are columbling as they continue doing so they went to an O. Yeah. [00:12:31] Speaker B: So I love that name. [00:12:32] Speaker D: Yeah. The south is doing pretty well in general. We are feeling the loss of Griffin though, unfortunately for Loud. But the new jungler who came in for him, youngjae from Korea, formerly kt. [00:12:46] Speaker C: Wait, Young J is the what? [00:12:48] Speaker D: Yep, yep. Youngjay came over. [00:12:50] Speaker B: He. [00:12:51] Speaker D: He had a interesting start like to the weekend and he. He feels kind of Griffin esque the way he's playing. So pretty happy with that. Bull came over too, by the way. He's playing for Loud. Bull from. [00:13:00] Speaker C: Wait, no. [00:13:01] Speaker D: Okay, okay. Brian Challengers. The guy who beat KT and flexed in the lck. Oh yeah, last year. That guy. He's the ad carry for Loud right now. So Loud is a really. Yep. [00:13:14] Speaker C: Okay. Yeah, you know, I. Maybe I have to start watching Loud, I guess. [00:13:19] Speaker B: All right, keep it on your. On your radar then. Any other big stories in CB Lull or is that most of it? [00:13:25] Speaker D: That's most of it. We just had some upsets. Like this is mostly Pain and Kate losing randomly. [00:13:31] Speaker B: Awesome. Well, hey, you got at least one new fan and Badger now of one of those teams. [00:13:36] Speaker C: Now I have to watch Loud games too. [00:13:38] Speaker B: There's so many games. You're welcome, Badger. That you have so much League of Legends to cheer on in your life. That's a good thing. Let's get around. Get around the rest of the world though. LPL update. Yanni, can you update us? How. Well, first off, how did your cast go? Which last week you outed yourself on the podcast as realizing you didn't even know the format of the teams that you were covering. [00:14:01] Speaker A: This is true. So had to cover JDG and ig. It was an absolute banger. Rookie stole the show because he stole Baron. He, you know, like stole the team fight. He stole the game. It was. It was so great. [00:14:20] Speaker B: So hell yeah. [00:14:22] Speaker A: And then I had to cast lng. Omg. That was like absolutely terrible. No, no, seriously. Omg. We we are going into week two, they're owing one and we are saying they are getting a mulligan. They are getting a riftbound mulligan. But anyway to. To kind of break down things in the lpl. I know that Mazelle had mentioned there was three groups so I'm just gonna kind of touch on things that have been going on. BLG currently sitting at four. No surprise. You know, BLG looks like they're back to their 2024 form with Shun in the jungle. Viper is finally. I think he had his really his first good game very recently actually against IG today. You know, otherwise he'd been okay. But the team looks like it's got a full direction now. Their early aggressiveness is really starting to show and they are playing together very well. JDG currently sitting at 2 and 1. It still feels like Junja and Hong Kyu aren't really in sync with rest of the team quite yet. And Junja and Honqyu, they're not playing that well as a duo themselves right now. I wonder how much of that is Hong Kong just kind of adjusting to the level of mid laners because group ascent is Shanks, Knight, Rookie Cream, Xiaohu and then Honkyu. Like that's a very tough group to be in anyone's legend. Currently sitting at 2 and 2. Team seems just a little inconsistent right now. Their macro play leaving a little bit to be desired. Shanks and Flandra not playing as well as they were last year. But again things still early. The other team to really take note of is this Weibo gaming squad that was like a redeem team type deal with Zika in the top lane, JJ in the jungle, Xiaohu in the mid lane, Elk and Erha in the bottom side. And you know they're. They're sitting at 1 and 3 right now after winning their first series. Things have been bad. Xiaohu is inting games away. Like he. He'll have some games where he's playing really well but he's on four or five different occasions has single handedly lost Weibo gaming games because he's made a critical error at a very very poor time. I'm starting to get very concerned about his level of play. He was very mid last year and I think maybe our goat is washed for good. Quick notes for these other groups team we who had their jungler monkey be the most exciting part of the team last year. Currently sitting at 2 and oh and group Persever very unconvincing wins. They've been down in gold at 20 minutes in every single game including down 4 and 5k in two games. But they are 4.0in games played. EDG who is also a very exciting team who brought an upgrade in leave at the AD carry position is currently sitting at 02 right now. They look hapless down in group nirvana. We expect LNG to be the best team in there. It's sheer croco bulldog 1x and in missing know when you bring in guys like croco Bulldog and then missing from jdg, you know that that same missing to a team in group nirvana against three other teams that aren't as good, you expect them to do well. That's the team that we expect to be good out of group nirvana. So that is the LPL rundown for what has happened through 11 3rd week so far. [00:17:43] Speaker B: Beautiful. Only note I have for we you mentioned their jungler monkey. I just google search. We need to bring back the retired mid laner Luffy who played for three months in 2018 for a team called King of future in China. [00:18:02] Speaker A: What we really need is him playing against Tarzan again because now you got to figure out who's the actual king of the jungle. [00:18:07] Speaker B: Oh wait, that's good too. That's. Oh. I believe Tarzan canonically is a human, not a monkey, but it still would be fun. [00:18:15] Speaker A: King of the jungle. [00:18:18] Speaker B: But like is a monkey. I don't think that's a. It's a lion. That's the king of the jungle. Right. [00:18:23] Speaker A: They're not really in the jungle though. They're like in the grasslands fair. [00:18:29] Speaker B: I'm just going by Colloquial Saints but thank you for the LPL update regardless, Yachty. [00:18:34] Speaker A: Yeah, no problem. [00:18:35] Speaker B: LCK up. LCA K update. Badger. Any big things happening over in the LCK right now? [00:18:40] Speaker C: Yeah, a couple of big things happened this week. The, you know, first week of games. You know, just. Just a couple of teams sitting at 20 series wise. Jen G, T1, Dom1, BNK, Fex, all are sitting at 2o in this point and O2. Let's see. We got the team formerly known as. Okay, bro. The DN Poopers, DRX and Hanwa Life Esports is 0 and 2. [00:19:11] Speaker D: Yeah, they are Y. They lost an auction. [00:19:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:15] Speaker B: That's a bummer. That's a bummer. Scouts back, baby. [00:19:17] Speaker C: They got two owed by or they got two one by by T1 and then they got two by Nong Shim Red Force. Not a very expected result with King and Scout and Lehend and Sponge and T hen. Yeah, not a great Start for the Guma experiment outside of T1 yeah other notable things fearx210 including beating nongshim who beat Hanwha and then I mean they beat they beat okay bro so like. [00:19:54] Speaker D: Okay bro is trolling they took role okay bro after they struck after he. [00:19:58] Speaker C: Struck out Brazil the team formerly know it known as Fred at Brion might actually be the worst team in life. Yeah the oh actually I don't know about the LCK LPL but like they are probably the worst team in the the the LCK right now but unfortunately Vikla has been playing most of the games for for Fear Ex so Daystar my Daystar my boy has not made an appearance yet but team is super underrated a team to look out for going forward. But let's see games for next week that are interesting World Finals rematch T1 vs KT Damwon vs Gen G is going to be on Saturday. That's a pretty good one too. And then we'll see if Hanwha continues the losing streak against okay bro and the Poopers. So if they go two and oh again this week, smash the glass, get the insurance money going and maybe just maybe they'll be able to salvage the rest of the there's no way they. [00:21:10] Speaker D: Lose against okay sure if they lose. [00:21:13] Speaker C: To if they lose to Fred it or DNS first off yikes. Second off yikes. [00:21:24] Speaker B: I think he plays in Europe actually. I'm pretty sure. [00:21:26] Speaker C: Yeah yeah you're right. He does play in Europe. Thank you. Thank you for informing me of that. It was not we gotta send Kanavi. [00:21:32] Speaker A: Back to the LPL at this rate. [00:21:36] Speaker C: Might get sent back to LPL at this rate. Yeah not not a great start for a team that was has world title aspirations. But I mean T1 look good Genji look good Domin look good. [00:21:51] Speaker B: Well you know speaking of teams that maybe have world's aspirations had a rough start here. I think that happened in other regions as well. Segue time to talk about Ellie before that though. Thank you everybody for the global updates around the world. Awesome. We had three different people to cover or pay attention to three different leagues. Reminder though that if we missed any topics that you wanted us to cover, you can let us know in the community. Discord Shout out to everybody who's already signed up for Rundown Fantasy as well. Fantasy leagues are going live. You can draft your teams now. And I created the league Rundown Fantasy Group so the link for that will also be in the Discord descriptor. The link to the Discord under the chat that says fantasy. So go join that, draft your team and let's see who has the highest score from the rundown community. Also thank you everybody who supports us on Patreon and our merch shop. Links to both of those descriptions or links to both of those are also in the description where you are listening. But now remember that segue that I said right before all of that. Let's talk about it. Lec we actually got some games this past weekend. Finally the drought is over. We can watch watch League of Legends and then talk about it. And notably one favorite did not have a great week one, but maybe a little bit of a hindsight 20 20. They have had slow starts in the past and brought it back. But before we get into all of that, Yanni, can you run through the current standings after week one of the LEC3 Best of Ones were played across every team. So everyone should have the equal number of games played. [00:23:33] Speaker A: Absolutely. So on day three, the undefeated DRE ended for a team to go completely undefeated through the season as MCOI were the last team standing going into their fourth game. So the current standings are at 2 and 1. There's a lot of them. We have Fnatic, we have Giant X, we have Carmine Core, we have Movie Star Koi, we have Navi, we have the Shifters and we have Team vitality sitting at 1 and 2. We have G2 Esports, we have KC Blue, we have SK Gaming and we got Team Heretics. And then at Owen 3 we got Lost. [00:24:13] Speaker B: Ortonas unfortunately could not pick up a win.03 is a rough start for the STREAM Dream Team, but I mean again, you look at how they're winning in tier two versus how they played their games here in tier one and maybe not as surprising once you actually see the tape, the one that is very surprising. G2 at 1 and 2. And what gets more surprising is when you see who they actually played against and lost against. There were too many games that happened this past weekend to cover all of them. So we're just gonna focus on some of the highlights. And one of those Highlights is how G2 played, or rather how poorly they played. They lost to MCOI and they also lost to G gx. Neither one of these were kind of anticipated. I have faith in gx but just the way they played it out, not exactly how I. You know what it would want a team to be G2 Badger. I want to get your thoughts here. First, just G2 overall. What do you chalk up their their rough week one opening to? [00:25:20] Speaker C: Did. Did somebody like Body Swap Lebrov and Mickey X going into this week. I swear, I just feel like that's what I. I'm. I like, like, especially the Koi game, I was just like, who. What. What are we doing? Like, genuinely, what are we doing? I mean, kind of unorthodox draft actually kind of coming out from the side of Koi maybe caught them off guard too. It just felt like Broken Blade was invisible the entire time. They lost a jungle chase. I mean, I did not expect that one, but I guess SK also pulled. [00:25:54] Speaker B: It out this weekend, so maybe it's. [00:25:56] Speaker A: It's insane. It's insane. [00:25:57] Speaker B: It's been coming in. [00:25:58] Speaker C: Okay, is Meta now. I was wondering. I'm just like, is it good? Because, I mean, Skuon played it later in the week and it just seemed like it was really good at this point. Anybody use, like, tier lethality items just seems to be really strong at this point. But I don't know, it just feels like this is like, okay, are we just overreacting because this feels like it's always the G2 at the beginning of the year or like the beginning of the split when they. When they come out in the first week and they go one and two and they have some pretty rough showings, but they have like, one good game, which is the G2SK game at the end of the week with the G2 just actually beating up on people. That was actually pulling at that point. Like, genuinely, like, half the SK roster should just go back into the retirement home after that game. But, like, maybe that's the game that gets their confidence back. [00:26:52] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, that's the game. Mickey X. [00:26:54] Speaker B: Right. [00:26:54] Speaker D: But also. [00:26:55] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Oh, you're right. [00:26:57] Speaker B: Know. [00:26:58] Speaker C: Just leav. Just he. The spirits of Mickey X, like, left his body in a. Like a weird ritual before the game. They were like the practice room, and it's like, here, have a Red Bull or like, something like that. And then, like, the next thing you know, he's just got like, like, the spirit of Mickey X has flown and departed upon the other soul. And I. I mean, it's just early season. G2, they. They play very risky. Somebody was asking me about, like, he put, like, together like, a parlay for the week, and he's just like, you know, I'm just like, G2 over. [00:27:34] Speaker B: G2 over. Koi. G2 over. [00:27:36] Speaker C: And I'm like, dude, it's best of ones. You don't bet on G2 and best of ones. Especially early in the season. [00:27:41] Speaker B: Yeah, early, like. Yeah, yeah. [00:27:42] Speaker C: You cannot trust this team at all. Like they got. They had a decent showing against Giant X. Like not as good, but like it was the bad game, the all right game and then the good game. [00:27:55] Speaker B: Basically they should have won versus GX. But RMC, oh no. [00:27:59] Speaker D: Just historically, this is G2, right? Last year they did the same thing. They start their first split was like 1, 2 and then the year before that I think they were like 2 and 1 or something like that. But there was like a split in there where they went one and two to start. Like this is just prototypical G2. I'm at this point I'm convinced they don't really scrim properly in the off season and they just like kind of come in cold and they just warm up in the split. So yeah, the, the losses, it's weird, but also it's kind of not. So G2 will still be G2 at the end of things. [00:28:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I think that definitely you can say that for the Midlander Caps as well. We got immediately craps TPing in to Melee range of Jojo. Just like they even said on broadcast. Jojo said this like when they would listen to the player cops. He's like, oh, he's pulled a Larson. It was a crazy statement. Like on the cast they were talking about the anal. Talked about. Then we heard Jojo's an like oh my God. Larson just caught three strays in like one sequence. But yeah, there, there were a couple moments like that. [00:28:57] Speaker D: Yanni, what. [00:28:58] Speaker B: What are your thoughts again? We're putting a lot of time in the G2 but this they were like again reigning champions and I think it's notable to talk when there's upsets there. [00:29:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean It's. It's week one of the year. Not even just, you know, the first split of of Europe. Like it's G2. I'm not really hitting the panic button yet, but you know, it is totally sad to see my Greek goat Labrov take some else. [00:29:30] Speaker B: But shout out to GX for actually mounting the comeback. They had a weird, weird weekend where they had to mount multiple comebacks and kind of shaky situations. But shout out to Noah and, and lot for. For having like big moments versus G2 in that. Did you also cool to see that they are trying at least like unique things in draft. They pulled out the Anivia again which we did see at Worlds and it was buffed ahead of world. It seems like Caps is still a fan of that. So maybe we see more and more creativity coming in from G2 but hopefully they get their legs under them because this is like they're not in any danger of like not making it to playoffs. I would say there's a lot of worse teams out there but it is just like a little concerning to see a couple losses. Strength of schedule should be pretty fine going forward. This though, other games to watch. What were the other big ones? Oh the SK upset over Fnatic. Dude, I had zero faith in this SK roster. They were in D tier. We had them above Casey Blue and Navi which now realizing I guess lost for tones should have been a little further down there but oh quick aside pat on the back though. Our bottom four from the tier list we made are actually the bottom four outside of SK who heavily or sorry outside of Navi who I think heavily overperformed but otherw the the bottom four are actually pretty spot on. But Yanni, I want to hear your thoughts now on the just SK versus Fnatic and what happened with that upset because that was another one where it's like Fnatic we weren't super hot on but SK we were very low on. [00:31:04] Speaker A: Yeah you know I thought Fnatic's early game was they generally had the right idea. They just want to go after YOPA in the bot lane playing Varus, get some dives on like set them behind. But the problem is every time Fnatic went to dive it ended up being a one and every time SK went to go make a play in the early game it was clean. These Fnatic plays for some reason somebody would get either picked off immediately or like SK was ready for it or somebody would make a mistake or somebody would linger a little bit too long after it happened. SK didn't have that problem. I thought Skeens had a really good game. It's unlike it seemed like in the early game he was always in the right place at the right time. Job was veris later on in the game became very strong. He played some of these fights really really well, hitting a lot of well placed arrows, doing a lot of damage and this cannon pick two out of wonder like actually ended up playing really really well into fanatics as the game went on. So honestly it was you know a little bit of comp if a little bit of outplay from SK and a little bit of sloppiness from Fnatic and that's why sk1 yeah you look at. [00:32:13] Speaker B: The comp from Fnatic it was Renekton Wukong Alistairs so pretty good core front line. But that's three melee champs. Talia who's like pretty short range for. For a mage. And then Yara, which is like the only real range that they had. So Wonder, he had a field day on this. Ken and top lane 10, 1 and 5 absolutely popped off. [00:32:35] Speaker D: Yeah. And I think they spent too much attention to the bot lane and then they didn't help out the top side at all, so. Well, I don't know. I think that's. I think that's not in the. Not in the new season where Hexa Gunblade's back for. [00:32:49] Speaker B: I agree. And also not even just the first item spike, but the fact that Wonder in a range matchup is also able to take Ignite because he can just get TP through the quest. I mean, he. I. I was wondering how much top laners would be abusing this. I think Wonder showed exactly how you can abuse this. Is somebody blind? Pick something like a Renekton. You can pick a ranged matchup. The team wanted a little more AP in the comp anyway. And then you can just go full on, like, just make this Renekton hate his life. Yeah. [00:33:15] Speaker D: The Renekton needs to take a combat summoner to match that, like ghost or something. Something that can help match. Because if not, he just gets like between the Flash, the. The Run, the Ignite and the tech Gunblade, Renekton can't do anything on his own anymore, so he needs jungle pressure. But they were focused so hard on bottom, that Wunder just got a free top side. Skeens gets to just farm top and kind of accelerate himself that way. And then in the team fights that Kangas was talking about, they just didn't have an answer to Kennen. I feel like Vladi was supposed to be the answer to Kennen or maybe like loss spa. It was supposed to hit, by the way, but when your cannon's that fed, he just melts. Everybody going in, he gets one stun off and that's enough for the team to just follow up. [00:33:48] Speaker A: It's so hard. I think that if those plays from Fnatic were clean though, like, this could be a different game because, like, the point is to like get the Varus behind. So he's like completely irrelevant for this like mid game, right? Because. Because like Varus has a lot of that early to mid game strength, not only through his ultimate, but just from being able to deal raw damage when you pop his. His blight stacks. Right. And getting your Yunara head. So that way you can go, okay, cool. You know, has got some kills we can use. You know, Talia to bridge our mid game to, you know, ensure that are you not hitting your spike earlier and everything will be fine. But you know, it is a tough assignment anyway to try to cover for Renekton when they are in a, you know, melee versus range matchup against a combat summoner top laner. Like it's already very difficult. So like, like I, I think that like that could be some like sunk cost fallacy. [00:34:39] Speaker B: Right. [00:34:40] Speaker A: But I mean ultimately, you know, it we will never know because Fnatic didn't play out that early game cleanly. [00:34:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I think there, yeah, it could be a little bit of like hindsight or just you know, thinking because the early game went poorly for Fnatic on the bottom half of the map that oh, now it's easy to look at top side even more critically. Whereas if they had had a stronger bot side then it doesn't matter as much. I still do think think could have been played better for the top half of the map and I think it's shown that I've seen some teams prioritize Renekton and still think Renekton is very strong in the meta. I think it's very dangerous to blind pick that right now based on where top lane is at and how important getting XP is because what we saw Wander do is he just zones away and Renekton can't even like be in range to get the quest stuff like he was behind on the quest finished and if that happens and you're falling behind in CS and every other department, it just gets tougher for you. But one team, one matchup that the bot lane did go as planned and dives did work out was surprisingly shifters versus McOil. This is the final big upset of the weekend that I want to talk about because shout out to Jamada. Hopefully we can get him on again in the future here soon to to defend and kind of gloat. He had a lot of faith in the Shifters roster and I think well deserved. We were calling on the Shifters hitters maybe preemptively because they made quick work of McOil, one of the big dogs in a 26:41 game. 26 minutes, 41 seconds on the clock. And a lot of that being the bot side. The Varys and Nico just smashed Supa Alvaro on the Siver and the Nautilus. [00:36:22] Speaker C: Sneako champion just needs to like go away. I'm tired of seeing this. I'm not gonna lie. [00:36:30] Speaker D: I. I just believe that should be learned in Brazil, man, like that he learned from the best and brought it back. [00:36:34] Speaker B: Yeah. But they even removed the interaction where you can become the cannon minion and start tanking under turret and it's still like it doesn't matter. [00:36:41] Speaker C: That's like one of the like 12 things that she's really good at. Yeah. [00:36:46] Speaker D: Like oh, darn walking ward. Think ward with her clone, basically. [00:36:50] Speaker B: Yep. [00:36:50] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:36:51] Speaker B: And still just catch out anybody. Like Alvaro just had a not very fun time. Super was getting poked out because like Siver, theoretically, yeah, you can spell shield the tangle barbs. But I mean Trimby just wasn't even like looking for those necessarily. It was just spam arrows and blooming blows onto Siver and like super just could not lane and it was just disastrous every time. Like any moment Bukata gave down. It's like, oh God, good luck, dude. You try to survive on a turret and you have three damage. [00:37:20] Speaker C: Really exciting to see. Like meta is coming into this and being like, oh, you know, we got a little diversity. Like there's some enchanters, you know, but it's mostly engage and then we just see this game and I'm like, oh no, not this. Come on. [00:37:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Which to be, to be fair, I think that movie star Coy's drafted themselves into a bit of a back foot anyway. Like with Sivir Azir. Both of those champions fantastic at stalling out games in wave clear. But they got to get to those item spikes to actually do that. And shifters just did not let up the gas. They were just 100 to zero. It was like a probably five minutes I think until first blood. Something around there. But like once they got that lead, they just started running away with it and just every dragon, every objective, they just cleaned up the entire map and Koi just didn't have the time to scale that they wanted. They did have Rumble to play with topside with Ambessa Jungle. Has anyone seen Ambassador Jungle? This is my first time actually spotting. [00:38:14] Speaker D: Investor similar to Chase idea. She's pretty fast in the clear. [00:38:17] Speaker B: So. Okay, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I. I knew things like Mali Jungle was coming in. I. I know Rafa, one of my friends and LCS caster in the past had been playing a lot of Jace. I did not know about the Ambesa Jungle, so that took me by surprise. [00:38:30] Speaker D: Griffin was doing it last year already in CB Law. [00:38:33] Speaker B: Really? [00:38:33] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:38:34] Speaker B: Oh, interesting. [00:38:35] Speaker C: Yeah, you can. But it was just so good Top lane that like it just. [00:38:39] Speaker D: Yep. [00:38:39] Speaker C: If your top laner plays it like your top laner gets priority for the embessa. [00:38:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And you can. You can pick it early and Then get your opponent to pick something like the Aurora and be like, okay, we're going to pivot now to rumble and. And so Coy is able to utilize that in draft, but it still just didn't work out for them because of how fast shifters were able to play. So props to shifters, specifically their bot lane. Paddock and Trimby had an incredible showing and Trimby overall has just impressed me a lot. I wasn't sure where he'd be going back to lec, but I mean, he won LTA south, he made it to the LTA finals last year on Vivocade and I got to talk with him a little bit at the studio and he definitely impressed me in terms of like, like his views of the game. We got him on the analyst desk a few times in playoffs and he was very, very insightful on like map movements and you can see that in his play on Niko. It's like he's always in the right place at the right time and his engages were really clutch as well. [00:39:30] Speaker D: So yeah, his back was on point. But I'm also very impressed with Paduk because I wasn't sure what to expect from him necessarily. Especially I feel like a lot of the Korean like challenger imports sometimes struggle initially and I think Jim B. Is a really good support to have. Like, he's very experienced, so it works well with younger AD carries kind of moving to tier one for the first time. But Paddock's mechanics are actually really, really good. Even in the loss they had against Giantex. Like he was in the counter matchup where he's putting, I think Israel into Kai' Sa and I still thought he did really, really well initially and was like a really strong lane for the team. So yeah, I feel like this. It's not just Trimy's experience, but Paddock as well I think is a really good AD carry and somebody keeping up. [00:40:10] Speaker C: On all right is like Patek is like that Rahel tier of like hype coming out of LCK challengers that is finally getting a chance. But I mean, Rahel's doing well in na. It was just his like his EU stint wasn't as. As good and I was wondering how long the ramp up for him was going to be over there. [00:40:32] Speaker B: And even in eu, I don't think he had a bad split. [00:40:34] Speaker C: No, I think he just was on the worst team and yeah, he was just on the worst team and. [00:40:39] Speaker B: But he looked like arguably the best. Best part of the. The worst. [00:40:42] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:40:44] Speaker B: Credit where it's due, but yeah, so those were a lot of the big matches that I wanted to cover for this week just because again there's so many games. But we gotta talk about the upsets, we gotta talk about some of the fun stories. We already kind of hammered it home but unfortunately lost for tones. They just didn't really do much of anything like yeah Yanni, what do you think? I do. I think it's maybe worth it to talk about them because there was some hype around them from the fan perspective. What do you think the struggles are that lost return Ratons is facing right now? Going 0 and 3 to start off in arguably a fairly easy strength to schedule. They had Casey Blue as their day two opponent and like a pretty weak fanatic overall as their first opponent. [00:41:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean a lot of their issues are that like they have a hard time dealing with global presence. Like in their fnatic game they, they really had a difficult time dealing with. Talia Baus is like getting solo killed. You know he gets solo killed again against kcb. He does make a nice roam to go get first blood for his team and that's great. But I don't know like the losing just gets picked at some really bad times. I mean the good news for this team is that like they are good enough that they are able to punish teams for overextension. They did punish KCB quite a bit bit in that game but I mean Tao up in the top lane just, just gave that work to to B. Like this guy was so incredibly fed and, and did so much for KCB and and I think that unfortunately we are seeing what I think a lot of people thought was going to happen. That B is just kind of the, the weak link of this team being a player that doesn't exactly have this competitive pedigree. Agree. [00:42:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think B is the easy one to point the finger at. Another one to add to the conversation would be Velia in the jungle. I really saw multiple times in the first two games which then I think I they overcorrected for game three. So I'll get into that in a bit. But in games one and two it's just like their jungler is just kind of on his own and the team's not really playing to him. So it's like oh, objectives are up. Vel is trying to set up and Reckless isn't there to help get vision with him and B isn't rotating down, he's staying in lane to push for a turret and Nemesis is like like on mid wave while Velya gets Caught in the jungle. And so like it's just like these simple setups for objectives. They're kind of messing up. And those are the types of things that maybe you don't get as punished for in Tier two but then in Tier one that's when you will start to get punished for that. But then again overcorrected a bit. For game three we saw Lost Ratons versus KC and shout out to Lost Ratons early game. At least this time they were able to kind of hang in there for longer. But it was the opposite. Where they were were like almost over grouping I would say like they were. They were spending too much time together around objectives. And then Casey were able to actually get more purchase in the game by playing side waves more often. And also was this the one that they. I think they tried to play Bard into Busio which I thought was really funny. I was like yes, you can't let him get it. So they got to pick it against it. [00:43:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I respect that. One other thing. Shout out reckless for his first game against against Fnatic going 000 on Braum. [00:44:00] Speaker B: I forgot about. [00:44:03] Speaker C: I was gonna mention that. [00:44:06] Speaker A: Sorry. From what I saw on Twitter it's like the fifth time ever in competitive league history that's tracked on Leaguepedia that that's happened where a player has gone 000. [00:44:16] Speaker B: That is actually insane. Oh my God. [00:44:18] Speaker A: Brother was out there doing cardio. [00:44:22] Speaker B: The weirdest part is dropping awards. [00:44:24] Speaker D: Usually 000 score lines if I recall correctly are mostly topless laners. So it's. [00:44:28] Speaker C: Yeah doubly weird. [00:44:30] Speaker A: It's really bad that it's out of your support. [00:44:31] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:44:32] Speaker B: That's awful. Especially Braum. Like you need to be in front of people dying so that they can live. [00:44:38] Speaker C: Yes. [00:44:38] Speaker A: Well correct me if I'm wrong because. [00:44:39] Speaker D: I didn't follow Lost returns that much when they were playing in the nlc. But from what I had heard they were mostly just smashing their individual matchups. [00:44:46] Speaker A: Yes. [00:44:46] Speaker B: Yeah. So it was not about team play. [00:44:49] Speaker D: Fair enough. Then. I feel like this is. This is kind of typical of what happens when they up a level and they can no longer smash their level lanes. They actually don't know how to play as a team yet. So they're used to having the advantages to play through. And now B Nemesis aren't winning their lanes. Crowny Reckless aren't just crushing and roaming. And now it's like okay, if we're not winning our lanes how do we move? And that's when Belia looks really exposed because your Junglers tie everybody together but none of your lanes are listening. Everybody's struggling individually. Where do you go? So yeah, Loki, yeah, he's going to look the worst on this team while his laners are doing this. So yeah, until they. And unfortunately I don't think there's something you can fix over like in a short span of time. Like it takes a while to figure out how to play together. [00:45:28] Speaker B: So yeah, yeah, especially with players that either don't have tier one experience or like reckless that are now playing in a new role at this level. So yeah, hopefully they turn it around. They're a fun team to follow. One other trend is league wide that I noticed. So there was a big change this offseason. We didn't talk about it too much, but the LEC broadcast talked about it a lot. Side selection rules have changed. So now the first team gets to decide if you win the coin toss. You decide do you want to go first or second in draft or do you want blue side or red side in the game? So most people would say I want first, first pick. And then the other team could be like, okay, well we'll take blue side then. Because historically blue side has had a weird. A notable win rate. Yeah, it's fake, but now it's. It's 18 games played all best of once and it's new early season, so a lot of stuff going on, but a substantial win rate for red side. Dude, out of 18 games there was a 65 win rate which is what? Like, I think maybe that's only 10 out of the 18 or 11 of the 18. But still it's notable enough. But outside of that, other stats like 1st Baron Nasher is even like 73 or something percent 1st Barons are picked up by red side. Every stat is favored, whether it's first Dragon, first Herald, first Tower, first Nash. Sure. And I've, I don't think I've ever seen that in my life where red side is actually favored. And I think a lot of it is just that we're learning either first pick is super important or just it really was the draft affecting it more than like the side of the map, which historically had been the explanation for me is like, oh, the Z axis. Like, you know, it's easier to see from the left to right factor in teams too. [00:47:17] Speaker A: Right. Like, you know, it's always kind of hard, hard. You know this is going to be data that's going to be really good by the end of the year. But I mean like obviously if the, the best thing in the League's going up against the worst team in the league. Right. And they're, you know, the best teams on red side. Like you are expecting them to win. [00:47:32] Speaker D: And it's curious too, because in the LPL and lck, blue side actually still has higher win rate, so. [00:47:36] Speaker B: Okay, that's good to know. Okay. Yeah, I hadn't checked all the other regions I was just looking at. Again, only 18 best of ones. The sample size is too small to take, like, far for, you know, findings from. [00:47:47] Speaker C: But you need to write an entire thesis on it at this point just because that's enough. [00:47:54] Speaker B: I mean, that is what we do with league stats. Usually you compare league stats to like, MLB baseball stats are ridiculous with how many games they play and, like, how much the stats actually matter. Oftentimes our stats don't actually matter because they're not a big enough sample size to really tell the story. But I just thought it was worth pointing out we'll keep our eyes on it going forward. If LEC maintains that trend, that'd be very interesting. Then come first stand. Like, what does that mean? If lck, it's still blue side, but LEC is red side now. Like, what's going on? So. [00:48:25] Speaker D: Yeah, that just tells me that at least he doesn't know how to drive. [00:48:29] Speaker B: Oh, God. Yeah. [00:48:33] Speaker D: I mean, to be fair, like, I feel like LC at least like a lot of the matchups, I look at their jobs, I'm like, well, the. The side I think is a better draft wins more often than not, so. [00:48:41] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. Well, with that said, then it's time to, you know, put a cap on last week's LEC games and talk about this coming week. Because again, we have 18 more games ahead of us. It's still a Saturday, Sunday, Monday schedule with six games a day. So just like last week, we're not going to take it to our time covering every single one. That's too many games. But what we will do is highlight some of the ones we think are a little more important. So, Badger, talk to me first about day one, one Saturday. What are the matchups? And in your opinion, what are the games that you think are going to be the most interesting to. To keep your eyes on for Saturday? [00:49:18] Speaker C: I mean, it's. It's shifters. Because I feel like they've earned the proper name at this point versus G2 and then McCoy fanatic. I think it's going to be a good one. I. I mean, yeah, you. You have like these other games that are like, like Los Rotes versus GX. That's all right. That's. [00:49:39] Speaker B: Yeah. I just feel like maybe it's a. [00:49:40] Speaker C: Banger but, but like for all the wrong reasons. It could potentially be a banger, but I think it's, I think it's definitely shifters, G2 just see if they can keep that momentum up and if G2 can come back after winning that last SK game at the end of last week, just to set themselves up for the rest of the road down the playoffs. And then McCoy getting a, I would say a good test against Fnatic, maybe. [00:50:06] Speaker B: I think this is going to be what like shows us if Fnatic actually has what it takes to compete. Because I have Fnatic as like a solid middle of the pack team right now. If they can do damage against McCoy, I think that gets me a little more excited about them even if they lose, if they can just like make it competitive. But I, I do agree that that's, it's, it'll be interesting to track like how dominant McOID look over a more middle of the pack version of fnatic, but definitely GR shifters G2 because shifters are looking better than I expected. G2 is looking worse than I expected, which makes that a more interesting matchup in my eyes. But yeah, the other ones were Lones, gx, Navi, KC Blue, Vitality, Team Heretics, and then sk KC rounding out Saturday. Yanni, talk to me about Sunday. What's going on with those games? What, what can people expect? And then what games? What matchups in particular are you looking forward to? Did we lose, Yanni? We might have lost Yanni. [00:50:59] Speaker A: Nope, I'm here. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. Vitality versus Shifters. We got SK versus Navi, Team Heretics versus Los Ratonas, McCoy versus KCB, Fnatic versus Giant X and then KC versus G2. I mean, those last two games of the day, Fnatic versus Giant X and KC versus G2 are going to be absolute bangers. If you're not of the faith of Team Heretics, I have them beating Vitality. But if you're not of the faith, then Perhaps Team Heretics vs Los Rotonas is going to be an interesting one because that might be one of the opportunities that Los Rotonas has to win. [00:51:38] Speaker B: A singular game, which already there's bets going around. I know Vetius and Jat, they have a new podcast out talking Leck, See, and they, they have a bet. Vettius does not think Los Ratonis is going to win a single game. He thinks they're going 0 and 11. Jad thinks that they can Win one game, so that'll be interesting to see. Can Los Rotores win a singular game in all of Winter Split. But yeah, I think similar things with the Fnatic and GX that I said. For shifters, G2 is like fanatics, looking kind of middle of the pack. GX is won a bunch of their games, but looked a little shaky doing it. So there's a chance, a high chance, that that's an entertaining game for sure. And it can really separate those two teams. Is like, which is the better of those closer to middle of the pack. And then KCG2 is always a banger, so keep your eyes on that. Rmc, you're it for Monday. Walk me through the teams that will be playing against each other and then any specific matchups that you think people should keep their eyes on. [00:52:38] Speaker D: Okay. For Monday madness, we've got SK up against KC Blue to start things off. Shifters vs Lost Rotonas, Vitality vs Fnatic team, Heretics vs G2, Navi vs KC and Mcoil vs GX. I'm gonna be honest, I think out of the entire sort of week, Monday kind of has the least interesting games, which maybe they're. Why they're. [00:53:00] Speaker B: That happened last week too. [00:53:01] Speaker D: Yeah. So I don't know if they're doing that in intentionally, but there are still, I think games with some value to it. Depending on how GX does in the. The sort of lead up to this gx, MCOID could be a very interesting one because GX right now, they're technically up there, top table two. One tied with Casey. [00:53:18] Speaker B: When I just look at the roster, I get excited. Like, I think this roster could be a top three team in the league. [00:53:24] Speaker D: Yeah, you got Noah and Jackie and stuff like that. But they're. I think Badger, you're the one who said earlier their wins are not convinced, convincing. So there's always that sort of asterisk. [00:53:33] Speaker A: On them right now. [00:53:34] Speaker D: And going up against McOil, even if they win on Saturday, Sunday, there could still be questions. I think mcoid, the ultimate test, if they win, if they beat mcoid at that point, it's kind of like, well, then how much doubt can we keep putting on Giant Tech? So I think, yeah, yeah, GX probably gx, mcoid probably the most interesting one to kind of keep an eye on in terms of that. I think SK KCB is the other one personally that I'm somewhat interested in. Not for all the opposite reasons, because I'm not sold on SK gaming. [00:54:02] Speaker B: So, yep, I am not sold on SK either. So if Casey Blue were to win a game against one of the tier one teams, because currently their only win is against Los Ratones, this is definitely one that they could win. You know what effort I'm gonna put? I'm gonna change. I had my predictions vsk. I'm gonna change it. I'm gonna say Casey Blue can beat sk. That'd be hilarious if they do. [00:54:23] Speaker D: I mean, I'd love to see you Keno pick up a win. [00:54:25] Speaker B: So, dude, after the LCS like, hype video where Griffin is like, oh, let's put these guys in the retirement home, that's gonna be Yukino against the SK roster. [00:54:34] Speaker A: Wait a minute, wait a minute. You think that KCB is gonna beat sk? [00:54:41] Speaker D: I think I want a better shot that they have. [00:54:44] Speaker A: Okay. [00:54:44] Speaker B: I think it is. Yeah. [00:54:45] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. I just. I. I just wanted to be. Make it clear because, like, I don't know, man. Like, they. [00:54:54] Speaker B: They beat. [00:54:54] Speaker A: They be Fnatic, and Fnatic is far better team. So, like. [00:54:58] Speaker B: Yeah, but they're not gonna give wonder counterpick Kenan into Renekton, and then I hope they, you know, not pick a. [00:55:04] Speaker D: Combat summer spell too, and, you know, probably gag. [00:55:07] Speaker B: So. [00:55:07] Speaker D: It's worth noting, though, that on the prediction sheet, only Kangas has changed to kcb. The rest of us are still saying. [00:55:12] Speaker A: Yeah, you might be. [00:55:13] Speaker C: I'm holding strong. [00:55:14] Speaker B: You might be. [00:55:15] Speaker A: You might be looking for next Sunday the. The first where they'll play against Team Heretics. [00:55:21] Speaker C: If. [00:55:21] Speaker B: If that might be. [00:55:23] Speaker A: That might be another shot, admittedly, also. [00:55:26] Speaker B: In case I somehow convinced anybody listening that KCB could win this and they want to change their own internal predictions. Arguably, you should not. I was a clean 9 and 9 last week with predictions 50 as a podcast, we did terrible. I think we were like 52%. Shout out Yanni for currently being in the lead with Mazz. [00:55:46] Speaker A: L. Yeah, listen to me. I went 10 and 8. You know better than 9 and 9. [00:55:50] Speaker D: You should follow my predictions. I haven't got a single one wrong yet for lbc. [00:55:53] Speaker A: True. [00:55:55] Speaker B: But now you're joining us. Now you're joining us. [00:55:57] Speaker C: We'll see. [00:55:57] Speaker A: Could you imagine if he just nails them all? Like, that'd be so crazy. [00:56:00] Speaker D: That'd be crazy. [00:56:01] Speaker B: That would be great. [00:56:02] Speaker D: No, historically, I have been the least accurate for LEC on this podcast, so. [00:56:06] Speaker B: I think you have, actually. [00:56:08] Speaker D: Yeah, historically. [00:56:09] Speaker B: Wait, let's look. You. Currently, I'm looking through. Oh, my God. I think you have the exact same predictions as I. Oh, no, I have gx. You have Fnatic on Sunday, and then I just changed to Casey Blue. So we only have two differences in all of our 18 predictions. Oh, I'm screwed. Yeah, that's not good for me. Or that's great for you. You know, I'm gonna think of it that way instead. But with that being said, that is it for lec. That's last weekend's games covered and next weekend's games previewed, or at least to the best that we can. Again, there's so many games. It would be here all day if we tried to talk about every single one. So we're just talking about the highlights. But now for lcs, we suddenly start talking about the North American region because we have our matchups and we have our teams mostly. Again, visa issues are going to make some of these matchups a little janky, I would say, specifically the Dignitas vs Lions one to close out the week. But before we get into that, there is Saturday's games to cover. So, Badger, talk to me about LCS Saturday. What are the two matchups that we have ahead of us? Us. [00:57:15] Speaker C: So Saturday we have. Can we. Can we call it El Classico in North America? At this point, it feels like they've earned the title. It's Cloud 9 versus TL is the opening game of Ellie or LCS. And then closing out Saturday is Newcomers Sentinels versus the team they took pretty much half the roster from of disguise. [00:57:42] Speaker B: Dude, the. The stories. We're gonna start with C9TL, but the stories of Sentinels and DSG and just like the tagline narratives that we can do on the show and that I plan to do because that's the one I'm gonna be casting on Saturday. Very, very fun, but I think it's worth more time to put towards C9TL, because that is. You said it. El Classico. At this point, these are two of the oldest standing orgs. Shout out Dig for being technically the oldest. But in terms of the good orgs that have been around for a while, these two have won titles against each. [00:58:10] Speaker C: Other a while there. [00:58:11] Speaker D: So. [00:58:11] Speaker C: So they. They could. They could. [00:58:13] Speaker B: They just. [00:58:14] Speaker C: They could trickle back in at some point. [00:58:15] Speaker B: But yeah, yeah, yeah, Exactly. But yeah, C9TL. Not only is this a banger matchup for just the orgs and the history, the weight that they carry in the region, but kind of expectations. I want to take a quick temperature check. Say I if you think that either C9 or TL or. How do I want to phrase this? Say I if you think both C9 and TL are in the top three best teams in N.A. no eyes. [00:58:48] Speaker C: Wow. [00:58:49] Speaker B: Whoa. [00:58:50] Speaker C: I don't think TL. I don't think TL deserves the title. [00:58:53] Speaker B: I thought that there would be at least two. Interesting. So that means that people think that either one or the other is not in the top three. I'm assuming people would have teams like maybe lion or Shopify up there. So let's talk about it then. Yanni, let's get your thoughts here. C9 versus TL. You have C9 taking it to one. You're joined by Bickle who put his predictions in and Badger who thinks the C9 2 0. Why do you think C9 will be able to take the series? [00:59:21] Speaker A: You know, the more I look at this Team Liquid roster, the more I realize that there are far more problems going on over there than there are this Cloud 9 roster. So let's break it down. Right. Okay. Core JJ did not have his best year in 2025. He has shown some steady decline, although he has still been good. But 2025 was, was not great and it was only slightly better than, than Impact. Maybe moderately better. But like I still thought he was. [00:59:54] Speaker B: I would say moderately better. [00:59:56] Speaker A: I still thought he was not playing up to his usual standard. [00:59:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a lower season for. [01:00:01] Speaker C: For, yeah, it was kind of rough. [01:00:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Jose Dioto is a fine jungler, but you are going up against the second best jungler in the LCS in Blabber, who has consistently been good domestically. I think that is going to be. [01:00:20] Speaker B: I mean if you're gonna, if you're gonna say core JJ's last year is going to discredit him for his average. That you have to say Blabbers last year discredits him for his average. Blabber's average is incredible. But Blabber had a stinky 2025. I don't think his 2025 was very good. [01:00:36] Speaker A: 2025 is still good though. Like it's, but it feels like you. [01:00:40] Speaker D: Haven'T seen Jose de Yoda's 2025. Because if you're looking at 2025, Jose Deodora was dragging the dead corpse of Israel or is pretty much like single handedly till Zamuto showed up to help him him out. [01:00:53] Speaker A: Yeah, what, what ended up happening over there? I mean like, like that that team sucked. [01:00:58] Speaker D: They only the wins they were scoring. Was Jose Deodo the old man taking his stick and beating the other team with it. [01:01:03] Speaker A: Congratulations. [01:01:05] Speaker D: It wasn't working. [01:01:06] Speaker A: I don't know, bro. I, I, I think that if, I mean he wasn't even winning all of his games over there. Like, you know, I understand the rest of his team, I understand that he's dragging a ball and chain like his team was not, not very good. But I don't know, I have, I have some reservations here. I, I do think that Cloud9 have their own issues stemming from mid lane and, and even support at times. Like, I think that I have a very strong opinion that Vulcan has somehow only managed to make teams worse. And then he'll like play really, he'll go somewhere else, play really well. He'll go somewhere else, he'll play really well and the team will get steadily worse and worse and worse until he goes somewhere else, plays really well and the team gets worse and worse and worse. I don't know why it's just so convincing me because, because Vulcan, Vulcan is, is himself a pretty good player. But ultimately I think that they are going to, I think that APA and Vulcan are going to just play better than Jose Deodo and Core jj. Those are my X factors on either team in terms of turning the matchup. And that's why I think Cloud Knight is going to win. This is also why I think it's going to be a 2:1. [01:02:10] Speaker B: Okay. Okay, fair enough. And I, I, I, I wanted to hop in there because I noticed a point you had made. But I always love it when people are willing to defend their takes. So love the, love the different takes. [01:02:21] Speaker A: But I want to hear it. [01:02:22] Speaker B: Oh well, the one I just said of like the blabber versus Core jj, I think that if you're going to say one about one then you have to accept it for the other. But with that being said, Badger, you actually have a even more one sided for C9. So I want to hear your thoughts on C9 as well. [01:02:36] Speaker C: It's not, it's, it's partially C9. It's partially. Is all of TL there? [01:02:44] Speaker B: Oh, that's a good point. Actually, I believe one of their players is rumored to not be united as their top laner. Morgan. [01:02:52] Speaker C: Okay, I, I, you know, I, I just wasn't sure with you know, everything going on with all of his stuff. I didn't know if how, how much it was affecting tl. I mean if so if Quid and Yawn and well, I guess if quit and yawner There is a 2 one for me but should be there. [01:03:19] Speaker B: The only rumor going around is that top lane might not be in there in time. Jose Deodora should be. And with that being said, if, if Team Liquid Put Serdi in as a sub. I still think they beat C9. Yeah. [01:03:33] Speaker A: Oh, that's. [01:03:34] Speaker B: I'm gonna double down on that. [01:03:36] Speaker C: You know what? [01:03:36] Speaker B: I'll have my reasons. First, I'm gonna. [01:03:38] Speaker C: Honestly, because you said I. It's. I. You know, I kind of forgot this. The 30. [01:03:44] Speaker D: Okay. [01:03:46] Speaker B: Okay. [01:03:47] Speaker C: I watched Morgan play for years. At this point. There is. There is no world where he is a better player than 30. Like I'm gonna be 110 real 30. [01:04:00] Speaker B: Oh, not even Thanatos, the C9 side. [01:04:03] Speaker C: You're saying that the sub coming in. [01:04:05] Speaker B: That's awesome. [01:04:06] Speaker C: Yeah. Oh, no. Like, yeah, if. If it's. If it's Serdi, it's a two one for Teal. Okay. If they have the rest of the roster in Serde, it's too one for DL. [01:04:17] Speaker D: I'm. [01:04:18] Speaker B: I'm hearing even crazy things like players like Solo might even be like coming out because of how many roster issues are happening with some players that. That wasn't the. The rumor for tl. But yeah, it's just funny to see like all these players coming out out that like are notorious for being these like mercenaries. It's always top lane. It was solo in the past. Now it's like DOA and Serdi are the two top lane mercenaries that we have but do is already accounted for with lion leaves one up unavailable. Okay, well, our rmc, you and I are on the TL side and we're spending a lot of time on this. We'll spend less time on the other matchups just because I don't think. Well, maybe fly shopify in day two, but this is like the big marquee one. Do you have a strong reason for why you think TL wins? Cuz I. I have a pretty, pretty strong take. [01:05:02] Speaker A: I mean. [01:05:02] Speaker D: Okay, so first of all, I'm going to say my predictions for week one. I'm supporting a lot the South American players. So if you're coming from the south, fair enough. But genuinely, I actually do think Jose is a really good jungler who was just kind of capped by what was happening with his team last year. So him with quid and yawn. I'm very excited to see that core. [01:05:21] Speaker A: Kind of pop off. [01:05:21] Speaker D: I am not sold on Morgan. To be honest. I was actually thinking 921 because of Morgan. [01:05:27] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:05:28] Speaker B: Yep. [01:05:28] Speaker D: Thanatos could absolutely body him and just run rampage. [01:05:32] Speaker B: I. Yeah. I have not seen Morgan tape. I'm gonna watch some before this weekend. I'm not covering this game so it's not like an immediate necessity for me, but I do obviously want to see more of the player, but everything that I've heard from other people on this pod has been a little lower what I've heard from people outside of this pod. Again, it's so funny how information bubbles happen outside of this podcast. A lot of the LCS pundits are excited about Morgan and I'm sitting in that room thinking I have not heard the same things said about this player in this room that are being said in this room. [01:06:03] Speaker D: I don't think he's bad, I just don't think he's amazing. [01:06:06] Speaker B: Like I just, I think a lot of people think of him maybe in like terms of peaks that he's achieved as opposed to current form. I don't know how much of that factors in, but that he's not the the primary factor. For me. Regardless, I saw TL winning if it was Morgan. If it's 30, I still think they win either way. Here's my two fold reasoning. Number one, shout out again to David Shynock for running the LCS tag team event that was happening up until the 17th this past weekend. Number one and number two in the LCS tag team with a gigantic LP gap between them and the third place duo was in first place, Yon Core JJ and in second place place was Quid and Jose Deodo. Yep, those two, those four players are like four of the top ten on the challenger ladder right now and are just miles ahead of any other pro on the ladder. It's crazy how much they've been grinding. And on top of that, you look at C9 and they put out a content piece that went out earlier today. I watched it. It was about their Korean boot camp and like getting APA on the team with I will dominate. And I read into this stuff maybe more than it actually matters and you know, it could just be overblown in my head, but when I just see that team interact with each other and the way they're talking on camera about each other and then when they're on camera together, I'm not seeing a team that's going to have fun playing together. I see a team that is taking it really seriously and historically when NA teams take things really seriously doesn't go great. So I think that this C9 team is putting a lot of pressure on themselves and is not going to be this like fun vibe team. And I think that the moment pressure builds on a team like that, it can start to crack and I'm worried that that can happen with C9 this year. So for those two reasons, TL is gonna have a really solid start because of how much they've been grinding on the current patch. And then also, I just see C9. Even though I like APA as a player, I like the C9 players as players. I'm just worried about what I got from that video. And again, I'm reading a lot into one video. If you're C9 for fan, you don't need it at the panic button. This is just what. What I'm kind of seeing. But I have been very wrong about very many takes in the past. [01:08:24] Speaker D: But given how close this one is, I don't think there's any. [01:08:26] Speaker A: Don't forget APA Revenge game. [01:08:29] Speaker B: It is APA Revenge. He's up against his old org. [01:08:32] Speaker A: True. [01:08:32] Speaker B: He's gonna be very motivated, but that is TL versus C9. We were able to convince one person to change his prediction. I like that a lot. Next up is Sentinels versus dsg. We have Sentinels across the board except for rmc, who has dsg. I'm assuming because of the South American player lion in the sport. [01:08:48] Speaker D: Lions. Yeah. And also crier Krisno. Assuming Kisno is starting. Yeah. I kind of want to support the. The new guys a little bit. I'm gonna be honest. I agree. I think Sentinels are actually probably favored into this one. I just want to believe. [01:09:00] Speaker B: And Sentinels is another team that is rumored to have visa issues. I don't believe we've had anything confirmed for them yet, but Dark. [01:09:09] Speaker D: We're having visa issues. All Korea roster. [01:09:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:09:15] Speaker B: What's. [01:09:16] Speaker C: I don't know. [01:09:16] Speaker B: What's. I'm trying to think of like a Korean mid laner that we used to have that we don't have anymore. [01:09:21] Speaker C: Wow. [01:09:22] Speaker B: I feel like this should have been easier. Sure. Yeah. What's GBM up to? That's not where I was gonna go. [01:09:28] Speaker C: But that does work. [01:09:29] Speaker B: That does work. [01:09:30] Speaker D: Holy crap. [01:09:31] Speaker B: Yeah. That's great. [01:09:32] Speaker A: Do you remember the parody video Ganked by Mom has Got It Going On? [01:09:35] Speaker C: It's Got It Going On. Yeah. [01:09:36] Speaker A: No, I'm so glad. It's just the first thing that popped in my head. [01:09:41] Speaker B: I. I hate to say I've never seen that, but maybe keep moving on, though. [01:09:45] Speaker A: Wait, I have a quick fun fact fact. When Gank by mom came to na, when the rumor was that he's coming to na, my buddy took NRG Gank by Mom on the NA server. [01:09:56] Speaker B: Oh, that's so rude. Dude. What the hell? [01:09:59] Speaker A: And he didn't give it to him. He asked for it. He said no. [01:10:02] Speaker B: That's so mean. Oh, I'm disappointed in you by proxy. But next up on Sunday for lcs, we have two more best of threes. Fly Quest versus Shopify Rebellion and then lion versus Dignitas. That first one. Oh my God. Again, the hive mind of this podcast continues. We all have Shopify across the board. And let me tell you, that is not the same faith that a lot of people outside I've heard give. I've heard things. So in cases change anybody's opinion here. Before we get into like, why we think shopping Shopify will win, I have heard from sources that according to scrim results, Shopify scrims have been abysmal. [01:10:52] Speaker C: And we're talking great on stage 05 days. [01:10:55] Speaker B: Like, you know, five scrim block losing all five. And every team is apparently on them in scrims right now. But if you remember, that happened last year too, and then they were still able to like win the games that it mattered. So it didn't. It really matter. [01:11:08] Speaker C: No way. We're doing the scrim dollars thing on week one. [01:11:12] Speaker B: Dude. It's so funny how much cuz scrim bucks never matter for stage games, but scrim bucks always matter in people's opinions of power rankings, which is just like a funny thing as never people have never gotten over. [01:11:25] Speaker D: Okay, so I'm actually kind of surprised that we're all like so high on Shopify Rebellion because honestly, I think Play quest is actually still pretty good. [01:11:32] Speaker C: That's why I have. [01:11:33] Speaker D: Why is everybody hesitating? Why are we so high? Like, why are we so down on play Quest? You know what? I'm going to change to fly for two reasons. [01:11:39] Speaker B: One, oh, okay. [01:11:40] Speaker D: Because I think the match is actually really, really close. Like I I. And secondly, I don't want to curse Shopify by accident by doing the all. [01:11:47] Speaker B: That's true. [01:11:48] Speaker C: Ah, yes. [01:11:49] Speaker D: So. [01:11:49] Speaker B: And now you can pull ahead if you're correct. Actually, now you almost have the complete opposite as bickles. [01:11:56] Speaker D: Okay. The thing is I'm going to support Support Fly Griffin's. Griffin's there. Griffin came up from Brazil. He was playing down there. We miss him. Cryogen rookie coming in as well. It's just a very young squad. I love the spot support that. So I don't mind supporting them. And if bvoy SEOs wins, I'm not gonna cry and revan, so, you know, I can take either. But I actually do think this is a very, very close matchup. And I thought this would be the one that splits us like Half and half. [01:12:21] Speaker B: So my take on it is that FlyQuest is going to be very good out the gate at high tempo gameplay. I think that they're going to be a very fast team. Based on Griffin's play style. Yeah. Based on how they had played when Geckos was in for the few games that they had last year year. But their inexperience is going to be their downfall. This is a team that's going to peak in split two, split three, be a world's competitive team to like be a top three in na. But I don't think that they're going to be there at the beginning. I think that they can play fast enough to get a win versus Shopify Rebellion. But the just experience on Shopify Rebellion is going to be so much higher that even if they're losing early games, they will win late games. So I still have SR21. [01:13:05] Speaker D: I'm gonna argue and this is, I'm just making this off the top of my head right now. Flying Quest is going to win because the meta favors fast right now. If you smash early hard enough if you win lane win games. [01:13:15] Speaker B: Snowballing is a bigger deal right now. That that is fair. [01:13:18] Speaker D: That is team stuff. [01:13:20] Speaker A: 5K gold leaves over in China. I don't know man. [01:13:23] Speaker D: This ain't China. [01:13:24] Speaker B: Okay. [01:13:25] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, I understand. You know, I, I, I just personally I think Shopify has the perfect amount of cooks in the kitchen. I talked about this last week when it comes to their like the players on there team like you've got your role players that are very, very good at being role players and then you've got your carries who are you know, obviously pvoy we've seen can be a very, very excellent carry. And Sydney, who you know, we expect will probably take some time to grow but should be able to easily step in that carry role. That's why I think you know it's a win. But I also got to support my, my, my former teammate Tanner Damonte. I, I played on a team with him back in the day, back in season 2004. Long before, long before, long before he was ever challenger or anything like that. When he was like do you think. [01:14:12] Speaker B: He'D recognize you if you shot him a DM right now? [01:14:14] Speaker A: So it's really funny. We follow each other and he has but he, what's really funny was when I saw him because he was doing media for, for LCS in 2024. I was with Shibi. When I saw him he, he recognized me as a caster and then when I said that a mutual friend said hello and he was like, wait, how do you know this person? And then when we started talking, he goes, oh my God. Wait, that's crazy that we've known they knew each other many, many years ago, which may as well be a lifetime ago, you know, which is really, really funny. He was not vocal at all and wouldn't talk to us, but he hard carried every game that we played because we were all, we were all D5 shooters and he was like D2, like low D1. He was quite good. [01:14:58] Speaker B: That's funny. Well, hey, Happy you got that little plug in there as well. Yanni's cool enough to have played with a pro before they went pro. [01:15:06] Speaker D: I'm not. Thank God. Griffin, Brazil loves you. I support you. [01:15:10] Speaker A: True. [01:15:11] Speaker B: I want to give Badger a moment here because you have Shopify Rebellion 2.0and I want specifically your thoughts on Zinni versus Quad because that's a pretty exciting mid lane matchup for Zinni in his debut in na. Quad has historically been like a top three in the, the splits that we've had all pro votes. So what do you think about that mid lane matchup? [01:15:30] Speaker C: I mean, I would love to see Zinnia just come out and smash and be the best mid laner in the LCS to start, but I have a feeling there's going to be growing, growing pains. I mean, he might be the worst player on his team this weekend, but he also might just smash the entirety of of Fly Quest at that point. I, I've been super hyped on this guy coming over. As soon as I figured out that like this was a possibility, I was like, oh, this team's going to be really good. Like this guy's just going to have to get some growth. You know, just have Shopify get him in, get him comfy in the environment, make sure that he's able to thrive at that point and I think he's going to be a fantastic player for this organization. It's a great pickup, but I don't know if, I don't know if week one is going to be the peak of Zinni that we'll see to start the season. [01:16:25] Speaker B: Okay, so you're not like immediately hot. [01:16:29] Speaker C: Expectations at this point, but I'm gonna be honest, if he comes out and he goes 10010 both games, 100Cs lead at like 20 minutes, I'm gonna be like, I called it, boys. [01:16:40] Speaker D: I love how Badger's like tempering expectations, but he's still going SR2O. [01:16:44] Speaker B: I know yeah, yeah. [01:16:46] Speaker C: He is all for best team in the region. Like come on. Wait. [01:16:50] Speaker D: So wait, Zinny's from the KT Challengers roll, sir. Right? [01:16:52] Speaker C: KT Challengers. Yep. [01:16:54] Speaker D: So that entire Challengers team got split then. Cuz Young J's in Brazil, Paddock is in lec. Their top laner still in Korea. And where did the support go? The support went somewhere too. [01:17:06] Speaker B: I remember us prepping who's on first. [01:17:10] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. [01:17:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:17:12] Speaker C: I mean it was so FearX and KT Challengers were the two best teams in Korean academy last year and both of those teams have basically been pillaged to the cores. Yeah, essentially. Oh. By both Korean teams and by western teams at this point. So. [01:17:32] Speaker D: Oh. The support way went to tcl. [01:17:35] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [01:17:36] Speaker C: Oh yeah. [01:17:37] Speaker B: They really did go all over the place. [01:17:38] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:17:39] Speaker B: All right, well, I. I don't want to get too in the weeds of that. Have one more matchup to cover here and then we can close out. [01:17:44] Speaker C: But do we really talk about the last one? [01:17:46] Speaker B: We do, unfortunately. So strapping, everybody. Lion versus Dig. This is one that I'm going to be casting myself. We all have Lion 2 across the board. Dig has already confirmed two substitutes coming in for arguably two of at least one of their best players. I would say an FBI. Not going to be there. [01:18:04] Speaker D: Yep. [01:18:05] Speaker B: Which means that the roster be Photon Xu, Palafox, Mobility Breezy. That is not a roster that I would put any stock into. Not for any fault of their own. I mean, it's also just the fact. [01:18:18] Speaker C: That ELO held for the. The time that it's gonna take for these boys to get their visas. [01:18:25] Speaker D: Well, so. [01:18:26] Speaker B: So it's also the fact they're against Lion. If this was Dig versus like a DSG or Sentinels, I'm like, okay, I think you could give them a game here. Maybe they win the series. But against lion with like inspired Saint, even if rumors are true and they're having some visa issues too, like, like just inspired Saint Dola alone is like enough to make me say, yeah, that's a strong core. It can win a game. Win a series, buddy. [01:18:49] Speaker D: Can you do me a favor when you're casting? [01:18:52] Speaker B: Depends on what the favor is. I'm not hype up. [01:18:55] Speaker D: I want you to hype up line as much as possible because I'm firmly of the belief in this game that you can't even cast a curse it if you tried. Oh, I want you to try best. [01:19:04] Speaker B: To cast or curse them. That would be funny. That's a good bit going into it. Be like, all right, Right. The only hope Dig have is if I really glaze lion right now. They're so good. Like, oh my God. Okay, I. I'll try. Maybe if I think Kobe's my co caster. If he's down for it, I'm down for it. But that's it for lcs. Unfortunately, we're not going to see a lot of the starting rosters that we expected, which means probably a lot of sloppy games. Hopefully it's not too bad. Hopefully the roster issues fix or get fixed very soon. And this is not a permanent thing that's going to be going on for Split One, but we won't know until we know. All we know is that we got some games ahead of us and some games that happened behind us and an episode completed. Thanks for listening, everybody. Thanks for being on the show, everybody. Yanni, actually, you know rmc, since you're back for the first time in a while, I'm gonna throw it to you. If somebody wanted to leave a review, how many stars would you recommend that they leave? [01:20:04] Speaker D: Leave one for each of us here on the podcast. Who predicted Line would be Dignitas? So that's Kangas, Badger, Bickle, Yanni and myself. [01:20:12] Speaker B: That is five, I believe that's. That's convenient because five stars, fantastic review. If you want to give us five star review or a thumbs up or whatever you can do on the platform, you're listening. Really helps us get noticed. And thank you everybody again for listening along. That's been it for another week of the league rundown. We'll see you next week week for week two of LEC and lcs. But most importantly, we love you and we'll see you next time. Bye bye Bye, everyone. [01:20:39] Speaker A: See you. [01:20:41] Speaker B: Oh, yes, Daddy.