League Rundown - Episode 593: “WTF 2 pentas??

[00:00:13] Speaker A: Gets a little too far here, he's gonna have to try and get himself out. [00:00:15] Speaker B: Let me go. [00:00:16] Speaker A: 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 593 of the League Rundown. This is your 2026 LEC Week 2 review and LCS Week 1 review. This episode is lovingly entitled WTF 2 Pentas. I'm your host Kangas and I'm joined by three esteemed co hosts. Up first we have fresh out of the can, badger. [00:01:26] Speaker C: Now which WTF2 pentas are we talking about? [00:01:32] Speaker A: Wait, that's a good point. We. It's not too late to change it. We could say WTF. [00:01:37] Speaker C: WTF 4 pentas. [00:01:40] Speaker A: Technically, you know, we'll workshop it. We'll workshop it and then maybe the title will be different than what I just introduced it as. But either way it'll be appropriate for the information that actually the information will reflect what actually happened this past weekend. Also, you heard some of the voices we have joining us and the big Bickle Pickle. [00:01:57] Speaker D: Oh God, that is going to live on now forever. [00:02:02] Speaker C: On that sound so hard under the bus. [00:02:06] Speaker D: Kangas has decided that if he goes down, he's taking Badger and I with him. [00:02:10] Speaker A: I was just being honest that my opinion was swayed by people whose opinions I trust. And maybe that trust was a little betrayed based on this past week. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. We all go down together. But yes, I did name drop both of you as my reason on broadcast for believing in Shopify, Rebellion and Zinni. We'll get to that later. We have joining us rmc. What's up man? [00:02:32] Speaker B: The one person who shouldn't be dragged out with the rest of you. I voted fly. [00:02:36] Speaker A: You did. But at this point the the podcast collectively believes in Shopify. So I'm sorry dude, you're stuck with us. I'll name drop you next when I do the the segment this weekend where we we have to give a formal defense. I'll. I'll make sure to say rmc. [00:02:53] Speaker B: I'm voting Shopify this week. [00:02:55] Speaker C: I know. [00:02:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, you know what? I'll say that our our opinions do not reflect rmcs. Although he did predict Shopify this Week. There we go. We'll summarize it that way. We had a lot of news to talk about this week. There were some great games overall between LEC and lcs. I can't wait to get into those. But before that, couple of global news, one big roster news update. I am hearing rumors, little birdies are talking around the scene that Dignitas's visa issues are getting sorted. So either by this weekend or next weekend, they'll have the roster and the coaching staff together. Not sure exactly which weekend it will be or if these are necessarily true. They are just rumors that I'm hearing. But it's looking like Dignitas is getting through their visa issues. And they have. They've received good News from the U.S. government Immigration Services saying that the visas are moving along at least and they didn't get like completely shut down. So that's good news. Whenever they get their roster together, they look really rough with the E Subs bot Lane this past weekend. And also no coach, by the way. It was just the gm, Jonathan, up on stage with them. Yeah. So hopefully that can help them out in the rest of their season. And that was the only thing I saw for roster news. Did anybody else catch anything that I'm missing or is that all that we have for that? So far, I didn't see anything confirmed, at least from any of the other teams other than, I guess, dsg. Unfortunately, it's looking like Kizno will be here for another week. They were not able to get Kry approved this past week. So strap in, everybody. We still do have some visa issues on the NA side. Going once, going twice. All right. No other rumors that we've heard going around. Otherwise, shout out to anybody who joined the league. Rundown Fantasy League. I totally forgot to tabulate who is in the lead. Thankfully, I do have it bookmarked on my fancy Dancy Firefox tab here. Does everyone use Firefox? Was everybody use. Let's fill time while I go figure this out. [00:04:54] Speaker C: I use Firefox as well. [00:04:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I use Chrome and Firefox. [00:04:59] Speaker C: I think I forgot to join the Fantasy. The. The Rundown. [00:05:03] Speaker B: Oh, they changed it. They changed it so that now if you join Midway, it adds like if you did. If you're in some other league, they will take your week from. [00:05:12] Speaker C: Oh. [00:05:12] Speaker A: Oh, that's nice. I like that a lot, actually. That's cool. [00:05:15] Speaker D: That's helpful. [00:05:16] Speaker A: All right, you know what? You know what? Let me share with you right now, Badger. You should be able to join in then. And so currently top three, shout out to a Lamau with 171 points. That's more than anybody on the internal LCS broadcast team had, by the way. So you're ahead of our stats guy and Azale, who are currently leading that league team curse for 163 points. And then CLG Antarctica at 144 points. I'm also realizing that fourth place is just clever. Name placeholder. So shout out to them. I'm rounding out in the top five. Duffy's right below me and it goes down from there. But shout out everybody who joined in on the community. It's not too late. You can join in. Still, at least I'm not last. Oh, wait, where are you right now? Oh, nickel. You are 10th of second to last. Yep. Jin Air Glad Plains. What do you want to explain your name? What's going on? [00:06:10] Speaker D: Glad Plains. Badger gets me the glide plane. [00:06:14] Speaker A: The Glad Plane, I guess. You know what? We'll just keep that as an internal little joke between you two. You know, secrets aren't fun, guys. [00:06:21] Speaker D: Anyway, we were an LCK team that was very terrible. For a long time, they were the generic green wings, and any time that they actually won, they had a little airplane that showed up with a smile on their face. They were the Glad Planes. Yeah. [00:06:31] Speaker B: Wasn't it another GBA documentary? Like a video he put out? [00:06:35] Speaker D: Like, oh, was it almost a decade ago? [00:06:38] Speaker A: Oh, my God. Don't. Please don't. Dude, I. I thought about this. There's a segment that might run if we get the assets for it this weekend. Just like making you feel old just because it's fun to do that these days. But like, we got a FlyQuest versus DSG versus against each other, and they're both the youngest average age rosters. If you take the average of everybody on the team, it's like 20 years old. So we're gonna do a bit of like, here's notable things that are older than the average age of the players in this matchup. And it's like the Xbox 360 and like, my Chemical Romance is welcome to the Black Parade. [00:07:13] Speaker C: It's like. [00:07:13] Speaker A: Oh, my God. [00:07:14] Speaker C: Okay, So I scored 143 points in week one, so that would comfortably put me just. [00:07:20] Speaker A: You're top three, I think. [00:07:21] Speaker C: No. [00:07:22] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:07:23] Speaker C: Just top three. [00:07:24] Speaker A: Unfortunate. [00:07:25] Speaker C: I know. [00:07:26] Speaker A: Well, shout out everybody who has joined us, you know. Yeah. Zinny. Hey. Not the first time. Hopefully will be the last. Hopefully we'll be the last. [00:07:35] Speaker C: Thrown under the bus for it. [00:07:36] Speaker D: This week we're staking this podcast's reputation. [00:07:39] Speaker B: On him and the big Bickle pickle. [00:07:41] Speaker A: Exactly. So let's talk about the the global updates elsewhere. We have, you know, we were talking about lck Glad planes. Let's keep it going there. Badger, give me the LCK update. What are the spark notes? Big story lines going on over there. [00:07:54] Speaker C: Yeah. So TLDR at this point gen G, T1 and group Aaron are four and oh the rest of the group doesn't matter really. On the other side it's very close. D plus is at the top of the group 3 and 1. Then you've got Fex Hanwha KTL tied at 2 and 2 and then DRX is 1 and 3. But now we've moved into the best of five stage of the LCK Cup. So that's early last stage of. Well no because there's this and then there's actual like other rounds too. [00:08:23] Speaker D: But best of five stage asterisk. This is the best of five stage that rounds out the group stage before becoming the best of five stage of the bracket stage. [00:08:32] Speaker B: Yes. [00:08:33] Speaker A: Well I'm happy it's not confusing. [00:08:35] Speaker C: So. So for the rest of the week DRX played bro last night and 132 we get DNS versus fear X. Please, please, for the love of God, please play Daystar one game. I'm begging for it at this point. And then it's Nangjin versus KT on Friday. Saturday morning it's T1 versus Dom1 hype. And then Sunday is Hanma versus Gen G double hype. So we get best of fives of all of those before we resume with other best of fives later in the week. [00:09:06] Speaker A: So just again as you know what, just happy it's not confusing. [00:09:11] Speaker C: That's about the basketball scene where they explain the playoffs and if you don't, if you know, you know if you don't I will send the episode in the host chat and we'll put it these best together. The visual bit on an audio on an audio medium. [00:09:28] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah, yeah that sounds good. I'll load it up on my soundboard and click play and we can all just listen together. Lpl. We don't have any of the LPL regular members on this podcast but Bickle you volunteered to give us at least the rundown. So what's going on in the lpl? [00:09:42] Speaker D: Yep. So top group group Ascend where they are partway in really close. We got three teams together at four and two between anyone's legends Bilibili Gaming and JD Gaming. Weibo in the middle at three and three before Top Esports and IG rounding out at two and a lot of good games that have been going on. To check back on group perseverance which is that middle group of you're not terrible but you're not great. Last season we sits atop 4 and 1 ThunderTalk really not doing well at 04. Well EDG and Nip are in the middle at 3 and 2 and 2 and 2 respective LNG leads group Nirvana as we do not belong down here with the rest of this trash on our way out at 40 LGD at 2 and 2 ultra prime 1 and 3 with OMG is also 1 and 3. Exciting games coming up are basically any game within group Ascend. So we have jdg Weibo tonight, BLG Top Esports, blg, ig, AL Top Esports. Those are your fun games to watch out for. [00:10:40] Speaker A: All right, well a couple to mark on your calendars if you have time and you would rather watch LPL over lck. And a reminder, you can catch all those games on the LPL unofficial English broadcast. Go follow their socials, go follow them on Twitch and YouTube if you have not already. They're doing fantastic work over there even if you're not gonna watch the games. It just helps to increase their numbers for subscribers on YouTube and like followers and socials and stuff like that. So really does go a long way for a fan created broadcast of a tier one region. But speaking of other tier one regions. Rmc, happy to have you back. Tell me what's going on in cb lol. Because you've still been covering the league down in the south. [00:11:18] Speaker B: Well, Brazil continues Braziling. It's just as chaotic as ever. At the top there is an undefeated defeated team. It is los, the guest team which kind of got from again. [00:11:27] Speaker A: Wait, this happened last summer, right? [00:11:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It was Leviaton and Istres Estral who kind of popped off last year in the first split and now Los is doing it again. But Los is a Brazilian team so they are 5 0, undefeated at the bottom. This one's the Shocker Pain Gaming which is supposed to be the super team coming in until Titan crap the bed. They are 05. They cannot find a win to save their literal lives. And so they're about to drop their younger AD carry player and they're going to bring in a Korean import from Nongshim Esports Academy Trigger. [00:12:00] Speaker A: Oh, that's tough. [00:12:01] Speaker B: Yep, they're bringing him in because they've got. Well, they've got this week to kind of survive because of the their format is like round robin into play in so everybody makes either playoffs or play ins and then play ins into playoffs so there's still a chance for pain. Oh interesting. And they are gambling on a Korean ad carry. The other big surprise was in the middle of the pack where Red and Vivo Cade Stars lost to Loud Loud came out of nowhere and they won some ridiculous games where they were down like 5 6,000 gold and then just came back in the late game so loud making a bit of a swing, a bit of a run for playoffs potentially. And that has caused the standings to be lowest in first place, Red in second place, Fury allowed and Cait in third place tied three to five the fifth. So top four makes it straight to playoffs, bottom four has to do play ins and now one of those three teams has to go to play ins which is really funny considering there's a huge gap between them and Fluxy W7M, Leviaton and pain Gaming. So yep, coming up this week they are doing like a mega week. So they'll be the round robin finishes Saturday, Sunday and then the play ins will start Monday Tuesday this week. So four straight days of cb. [00:13:07] Speaker A: Lol. [00:13:08] Speaker D: Wow. [00:13:10] Speaker A: That's actually like really soon. Okay, so it's like right after the the weekend ends they have their placements and that straight into this play ins. I thought we had the same format. That's actually the first I'm hearing of like this play ins format. [00:13:20] Speaker B: Yeah, no, the moment we broke from the LTA split like the formats immediately switched because CB log did round robin whereas we're doing modified Swiss up in the lcs. Right? [00:13:29] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, only for split one. Then we're back to round robin for splits two and three. All right, cool. Well thank you for the CB LOL update right there. If we missed anything either global news or specific regions that you wanted us to cover, let know in the community Discord. You can find a link in the description wherever you are listening and also shout out to anybody who supports the podcast through our Patreon or through our merch store. Helps make sure that these episodes get really high audio quality and helps us partake in different community events. Kind of like the LCS Duos event that just went on this past couple weeks leading up to the season start. So shout out everybody who supports a pod. With that being said, let's hop in to the week's news proper because we had a couple of banger games these past weekends between both regions and I got I will say pat ourselves on the back our LEC predictions All went up, every single one of us. Our predictions went higher than they were before. I that's a huge improvement for us. I went from 50% to 53%. Let's freaking go. [00:14:35] Speaker C: Above 50 at this point. That's all that matters right now. [00:14:38] Speaker A: We are all above 50. RMC, you, you've only had one week of games but you do have the lead at 67. Yanni tied you for week two predictions but he was a little lower for week one. So he's at 61. So it's incredible to RMC, the one who every week is like guys, I didn't watch the games. It just happens every time, you know. But that's the beauty of LEC is that you're probably better off predicting watching the games or having an opinion on them that that might actually make you better. [00:15:10] Speaker B: Yeah. So I'm the control. [00:15:11] Speaker D: Haven't watched the games and you still know as much as us as to who's good and who's not. [00:15:15] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. The control being the highest percentage by the way is the funniest potential like outcome. Lcs. We didn't do as good. RMC is also leading there. You went three and one notably because you avoided the trap which a lot of us fell into which is believing in Shopify Rebellion. Let's talk about what happened this past weekend. Before we get into every single matchup though, let's cover the standings for LCS. Bickle, would you mind running through all eight teams? Who's 1 and 0? Who's 01 to start off week one of LCS Lock In. Sure thing. [00:15:50] Speaker D: So we have a three way tie. Up the top with three teams winning their series in sweep form. That is Cloud 9, Fly Quest and Lion with Disguised being that team that won their series but not in a sweep at 2:1. Sentinels now at 0:1. But having took a game in their series sits there in fifth. And the bottom three teams, as totally expected are Dignitas with Shopify, Rebellion and Team Liquid. [00:16:19] Speaker A: Yeah, it's only one week of games but two of those names are not ones I expected to be in the 0 and 1 category to kick things off. So let's talk about how it happened. It all started on Saturday with C9 versus TL and then Sentinels versus DSG. RMC, I want to get your thoughts first here. C9, TL. This was the kind of marquee matchup. It was a great game to start the weekend on. Start LCS on a lot of people specifically on the LCS side had both these teams at the top of their power ranking. So what'd you feel about the games in the series? [00:16:51] Speaker B: I just found it hilarious that after the series, like, Thanos was saying that, oh, I lost my lane. Like, guys, I was struggling and I'm like watching. I don't understand why he said that. I thought that he was handling Morgan really, really well. Like, Morgan felt like he had to perform a little bit, but which I'm just saying we on this podcast expected that. [00:17:07] Speaker A: But yeah. So some of the things that we also gleamed. I believe it was the C9 podcast itself. We talked about it. It's fresh on my mind because the LCS story meeting just happened a couple hours before this podcast recording. Azale brought this point up, so you might see graphics about it this weekend. A little insight into kind of the story building here. But a Zale was impressed because he plays a lot of top lane and watching Morgan go even in CS as a Rumble, who was counterpicked by Aurora? Or was it Gwen? I don't remember. Does anybody remember offhand? I think it was Aurora, which is a counter pick. That is usually. If you look at global stats from last year and the first couple of weeks globally this year, there's a lot of matchups of Rumble into Aurora at tier one. And it's like average at Aurora is up like a thousand gold at 14 minutes. Like, it's a bad matchup for the Rumble if you get counter picked here. So the fact that he was even in gold and CS was actually, I think he was up in CS and like, just a little down in gold, but, like, would relatively even was very impressive from that standpoint on such a losing matchup. So Azale's gonna make a point about that of like being impressed with the Lanings phase. Maybe that's where Thanatos was coming from. Was like, I should have been able to smash him harder based on getting this big counter pick in one of the games. Okay. So I just want to add some context because that's fresh in my mind. But yeah, you, you. Overall, we're not impressed with Morgan. It sounds like. [00:18:32] Speaker B: No, I think Morgan performed exactly what I expected from him, which is he's. He's. He's. I'm trying to even say he's good, he's good, he's good, he's good. But like, he's not the guy who's gonna kind of tip you over the edge. The main point for me, though, was the mid lane. The APA Quid matchup was kind of funny. And the fact that Apa kind of won that one out. I think was actually a big reason why Cloud9 ended up winning as much as they did. [00:18:54] Speaker A: Brother. He crushed that. He solo killed Quid when Quid had Core JJ as Nami in his back pocket to throw out a w heel. And Quid's brain just broke. Like, what the hell was he doing? He just, like, walks up into three azir soldiers and just dies. It's like, what are we doing, dude? Like, my is my goat washed. Like, he was the best mid laner in the league, and now with a different jungler and a different team environment, he just looked lost. [00:19:21] Speaker B: Apa got in his head during the off season, man. [00:19:24] Speaker A: Maybe quit the whole time. Quid's like, why was Apa so willing to give me his spot? Why was he so welcoming him? Like, oh, you're gonna like team Liquid. Like, there's gotta be something wrong with. Was a psyop the whole time. Yeah. Oh, yep. [00:19:41] Speaker D: Blabber. Niddly. Question mark. [00:19:46] Speaker A: It worked. Question mark. [00:19:47] Speaker C: Like, okay, so it didn't. Okay, can I just say, recently won the game. That's. That's. That's the only, like, justification. Like, he somehow won the game. Like, that's just. I. It was so weird because, like, you. The match, like, the way that they picked it out, it was like, oh, okay, like, you know, just like classic, like, Nidalee pairings. Like, it's. Yeah, like, it's the classic Nidalee pairing, but then he just dies in his own jungle to. To roams. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, you're not supposed. This isn't this. What? And then about the time that C9 started to turn around, the game is when Nidalee starts to fall off. So you're just like, okay, like, how do we. How do we make this useful? And then you just. He just realizes, oh, wait, I can just build echoes on Nidalee and buff. My two late game hyper carries. So, like, good adaptation for blabber. But at the same time, like, our expectations for you were low but holy. [00:20:44] Speaker D: Okay, he played Nidalee like it was ivern. [00:20:47] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Kind of. [00:20:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:20:49] Speaker B: But Bickle Vajra, here's the thing. From a strategic point of view, it makes sense, right? You've got the Renekta Nidalee to get Yazir Sivir through the early game to the late game where they scale up. But what we need to understand was this entire first week had this. This entire series had nothing to do with strategy or tactics. This was all psyops. And mind games. So Labyrinth is very Nidoe. So they'd get a discord kitten to inspire Apa to perform better. [00:21:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I was gonna say what did the Nidalee do every time it went between jungles from bottom to top or top to bottom? He healed Apa while walking by. That's all. I genuinely hate that. [00:21:24] Speaker C: That's a proper justification for what I saw. [00:21:27] Speaker A: That's how Apa won. The midlane is he always had extra. He had barred W's and he had Nidalee healing him up. So he just would always be ahead in health on Quid. And I think it kind of mentally broke Quid and then Apa late game. Like I was not impressed with Vulcan's bard. I think he had a really rough bard game. There were multiple tempered fates that missed and more tempered fates that would hit and then he didn't land the binding out of it and he just like threw it out way too late or like mistimed it. So I think that Vulcan had a rough Bard game, but then Apa stepped up and was like primary engages here basically. Like he was just flying in and starting these fights off. And yeah, it's because he had like a pretty free laning phase from. From all the healing he got so unironically. I say it kind of as a meme, but I think it did make a difference just having this as you're always full health. [00:22:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:21] Speaker A: And so C9, I mean they were able to take it two zero, I'd say game one, team Liquid had a lead but C9 was able to come back. But then game two was a little more of like a C9 favored victory shout out to the C9 believers. I team Liquid was going to look a little better, but now in hindsight I am a little concerned for Quid's current form with Jose Deodo. They were the number one in the LCS or number two in LCS duos. I believe it was yon core JJ that got number one in LP earnings. But the looking back on Quid, he only was ever considered one of if not the best mid laner when he had river with him and Rivers. Play style as a jungler is very unique and I'm a. I'm. Now I'm not hitting the panic button, but I'm worried that we're gonna see a different looking Quid with a jungler switch up. Now that he doesn't have river in his pocket every time, he might not look as good. So does anybody want to talk me down from that ledge or do people agree like. Like, are there thoughts on that? The quid with Jose Deodoro is gonna be a much different quid than quid with River. [00:23:30] Speaker B: I mean, Jose Deodoro knows how to play series. [00:23:35] Speaker A: Jose Deodoro knows how to play Nidalee. All right, so we just have to pick niddle this team Liquid. [00:23:39] Speaker B: Yeah, they just need a supportive jungler. [00:23:44] Speaker A: Yo. [00:23:45] Speaker C: We get quit a discord kitten. [00:23:47] Speaker A: And that's how he goes now. [00:23:49] Speaker B: But he's learning from NBA. [00:23:50] Speaker D: Who's another hyper aggressive jungler that you. [00:23:53] Speaker C: Can Morgan play Jana top. Is that still a thing right now? [00:24:00] Speaker A: I could see it. But, hey, shout out to C9 and shout out to Apa. He won player of the week. He won, I believe, two player of the games in a row in both their wins. I think Apa had a standard performance this Talia. He also smashed Quid in game number two. So, yeah, I think well deserved to Apa. I'm excited to see him thriving in a new environment because I was always a fan of him. I mean, love him or hate him, he gets people talking. He was all chatting in the series, you know, like, all chatting ex d when, like, quid just walked up and died. That silly moment. [00:24:31] Speaker C: My favorite was Sven. The thing when they were in the pause and it's like, 42 seconds into the game, Sven viewed the entirety of Team Liquid and Apa. Yep. [00:24:45] Speaker B: That is hilarious. [00:24:47] Speaker A: Good stuff. [00:24:47] Speaker B: Also, when Jose Deodo was, like, reacting to Apa's comments and the AP's, like, I can see you and Jose just, like, it's fine. Like, yeah, he just spent a year in CV long. He's good. [00:24:58] Speaker A: Yeah. I feel like if anybody is gonna be, like, used to the smack dog, it would be a player. Like on the Griffin and Jose Deodo probably together, you know? All right, well, let's move on to the next series then. Sentinels versus DSG. Closer banger than I expected. I did have it 2:1 for Sentinels. On my predictions, most people were in agreement. Rmc, shout out to you. You. You actually believed in dsg. So I'm gonna throw it back to you, actually, to gloat a little bit here and talk about the. The boys. Dsg. Despite having Kizno as a sub coming into the jungle, they look pretty freaking good. [00:25:29] Speaker B: Okay. Not gonna lie. Remember my. My logic for this one. I just want to support it. [00:25:33] Speaker A: I don't. I. Oh, was that it? [00:25:36] Speaker B: I just want to support Gizno Saja and we're moving up and Lions as an LA player. So that's kind of why I picked this, guys. That said, I did think this was a close, gonna be a close series going to it. So I am glad it actually delivered. This is the only 2:1 series we had on the opening week. And man, yeah, Sajid is good. I think Sajid outperformed my initial expectations for him, considering this was his sort of debut. [00:25:59] Speaker A: And yeah, yeah, real quick, just because on the LCS side, we're trying to make sure we're all aligned. It's Sud emphasis on the Jed side and like a softer sub. So Sajed as opposed to the Sajid, which I I also, as an English speaker, we usually enunciate the first vowel. So like, that's something to get used to. [00:26:18] Speaker B: Sajid or any tier 2, tier 3 player. If you hear this, if mispronouncing your name through all of tier 2 and tier 3, please let us know. Like, as costers, our DMs are always open to y'. [00:26:29] Speaker A: All. [00:26:29] Speaker B: And I. It cheeses me off regularly that I'll ask players like, hey, is this pronounced how you pronounce your name? And they'll be like, yeah, like months later. Like, yeah, actually. [00:26:40] Speaker A: Yep, yep, yep. Don't worry. This was an issue all weekend coming as from NACL and talking with him directly. Like, I. I felt very confident and I thought that I communicated to the rest of the team. And then everybody at LCS said it differently and I'm like, all right, we gotta. We gotta like make sure we're aligned on this one. But anyway, yes, he had a pop off performance. Rookie 80 carry. We've talked about him a little bit here, but his history basically is he played on FlyQuest Challengers as the call up once Masu got promoted to LCS. Because Masu was the FlyQuest Challengers ad carry moved to LCS, Sajed replaced him him on FlyQuest Challengers in 2024. Then in 2025 he was playing for various different, like top ranks, Tier two teams. He won most valuable prospect in his time. Was that in spring or summer? I don't know if anybody remembers offhand. I think that was in spring. [00:27:33] Speaker B: Available spots too, I think. [00:27:37] Speaker A: Yes. Because spring was split one was Zamuto and then split two was suggested. Yes, yes, good call. But either way, really, really cool to see the same trajectory as a player like Masu. And spoilers, that's the matchup this coming weekend is it's Sajed versus Masu, which is really, really cool. But I just want to hype him up because like you could tell that game one there were a couple of nerves. He like Kaisa ults his first big play on the wrong side of Dragon Pit and then has to flash over to like confirm the kill. But other than like rough moments like that, which, you know, rookie nerves on the stage first time, really, really solid series. Very proud of him. So Armstrong, that you were also excited about him. Badger, Bickle, either of you, do you have like strong opinions on dsg, whether it's, you know, Sajed as a rookie coming in or just in general about the team. [00:28:26] Speaker D: I want to give some big props to Kisno for stepping in on a big stage when he wasn't even supposed to be part of this team and kind of just outplaying Hambock. [00:28:37] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I would say for the second half of the series, yes, I'm in agreement. Game one, his pantheon, a little rough. He was. [00:28:47] Speaker D: It was a bit rough. I'll give him some grace as the learning curve. But even then Humbock wasn't doing much. [00:28:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And Kis got a lead and then threw it. Which was the concerning part is like he on the kiana was like ahead and then just died like four times in a row is crazy. [00:29:03] Speaker C: He was going for like this solo queue like, hey, watch this like tick tock moment and. And just was. And then it was like, no, you're. You're playing against coordinated people. My guy. Like you can't, you can't do that here. So it looks. It looked a little rough. I still believe in him, you know, all of my LCK challengers players that I, that I clearly have all the faith in the world in, you know, to the point that Kangas will throw me under the bus under podcast and. [00:29:32] Speaker A: I do it again. [00:29:33] Speaker C: Hey, do it again. No, but I think, I think call me also had a really good performance in these games, I think. I mean Castle, Castle looks fantastic in, you know, in counter matchups and in weak side matchups like the Scion vs Mordekaiser game. He still was able to have an impact on the game. Just, you know, pun intended. [00:29:57] Speaker A: He was against Impact, but yeah, that's. [00:29:59] Speaker C: The pun fully intended. My guy. Come on. [00:30:02] Speaker A: Well, ironically, Impact had almost zero impact. [00:30:05] Speaker C: Zero Impact is actually kind of worrying for the state going forward. [00:30:10] Speaker A: I would say go. Going into the weekend, the question on my mind was like, which version of Impact will we get? Is it going to be MVP level impact from 2024 or is it going to be 2025 impact? Which was like A dud. His worst year ever recorded and I would say it was somewhere in between. It wasn't the worst we've seen but he didn't do that much. I would honestly say Dark Wings was the bigger contributor. Dark Wings and Huhi were the biggest contributors to their one game win. Win. Dark Wings on the Azir had a couple of really clutch plays catching out Sajed to. To like win the that game and then who he had like the game winning engage onto Sajed as Alistair. But then the next games, the two of them looked way worse. Like Dark Wings had one good game. [00:30:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:54] Speaker A: And then the rest were really rough. [00:30:55] Speaker D: I think Rahel was pretty solid for. [00:30:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:59] Speaker C: Rahel in games one and two looked really good. And then. [00:31:02] Speaker D: Yeah, he was trying his best game too too. [00:31:05] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:31:06] Speaker B: Yeah. I. I don't know. Like that's my problem with call me a little bit is. Yes. Call me looked really good but part of me is just wondering how much of that was Dark Wings like just really struggling. I. [00:31:14] Speaker A: He felt. [00:31:15] Speaker B: No I didn't. I've never really thought of Darklings as having huge champion pool issues, but that series felt a bit like it. [00:31:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:31:23] Speaker A: He got banned out I believe two or maybe three champions going into game two. So there were only two fearless bands already. Then it was like Syndra Orianna taken away. He plays Cassiopeia and gets dunked up. Yeah. [00:31:34] Speaker B: But they rise Ori themselves. So it's like yeah, this is a team issue at this point. [00:31:41] Speaker A: Yep. That was tough to see. And we know his ears clean. We know Dark Wings. [00:31:46] Speaker C: Was it one of those games it's. [00:31:47] Speaker A: So hard to tell with like. [00:31:49] Speaker C: Because I can't just be like oh well they were blue side. Why didn't they just be one or yeah. [00:31:53] Speaker D: Guys first pick. [00:31:56] Speaker C: Okay. [00:31:56] Speaker A: I don't remember. [00:31:57] Speaker D: I think Disguised had first pick on red side which made Sentinels. And then in second phase DSG to ban out the pool further banned out Victor Syndra. [00:32:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:12] Speaker D: Which forced him onto the Casio. [00:32:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:14] Speaker A: Once his Azir is gone, his Victor is probably his next most played at competitive level. So that one makes a lot of sense. But if you just take away more control mages from him, he's going to struggle. We saw even last year hit him was. I believe it was Dark Wings that pulled out the Malzahar at one point. [00:32:28] Speaker D: And like yes, that was. [00:32:29] Speaker A: We got excited about it didn't work out. So he. He's developing a certain reputation of like. [00:32:34] Speaker C: It just feels weird like yeah. If, if, if this is an Issue going forward if they don't have a priority. Because I mean we've seen solo lanes taken in like the 1, 2 phase, like in the eastern regions. I mean like the west is doing it as well. Like, especially if like it's. If Aer is his best champ and then Victor's like his second best. Why aren't you taking that Victor on R3 doing the two bands to protect it? Just based on what you think call me might be playing in that situation and then just making sure that your mid laner has a comfort pick. Especially after he had a really good like game in game one or what? I mean he had a, he, he had a game winning performance in game one. [00:33:11] Speaker A: Yeah, he stabilized. He had rough moments, but he had a couple high impact like carry moments. Moments. [00:33:17] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like if you're, if you're putting yourself into this position where you have, you know, your jungler had a little bit rough of a game one and like your mid laner can be there to support him at that point, like, why aren't you prioritizing your resources back onto your mid laner potentially just so that they're able to have a situation where it's like, okay, like mid to late game, I got it. Like, you guys get me there, I can get us across the finish line. Like that's that, that instinct. I mean, what Dark Wings is also, what in his second split technically did he play? He played the entirety of summer, right? [00:33:49] Speaker D: Like he played all of summer. [00:33:51] Speaker A: Yeah, he played all of summer for dsg. Okay, so he's still technically like he wouldn't qualify for Rookie of the Year because our rules are a little stingy on that of like, oh, if you've played a split at tier one, you're not a rookie, even though Rookie of the Year is for the year. So like if you play one split in winter split, that doesn't disqualify. [00:34:11] Speaker C: So like I think it's still young in his career. So like still young. [00:34:15] Speaker A: He still is in his rookie calendar year even though he can't qualify for Rookie of the Year, which I think is oversight and should be changed on our end. But that's not that. That's way above my pay grade. I'm still considering him a rookie just because he's in his second ever split. It's kind of like the APA effect where like APA played a summer and then, you know, he comes back the next year. It's like, yeah, he technically went to Worlds, but like, still he's a rookie Right. So room to grow. Hopefully he can solve his champool issues. But DSG was able to take it. Shout out to Kizno for e subbing in for Cryra, who again, my. The birdies are saying that Cryra is not going to be in anytime soon. Hopefully it will still be at some point to split though. But Kizno, not too shabby, call me, I think has shown great mechanical prowess. And then their bot lane was much better than I expected. So Jed had a pop off series that leads us to day number two with Fly Quest versus Shopify, Rebellion and Badger. I'm gonna let you be the one to defend yourself here. What happened, man? What happened to Shopify? [00:35:24] Speaker C: Rookie jitters. You know, even though four of the five members on this team are the same. Four or five. Four or five on the line. [00:35:33] Speaker A: I was gonna say. I don't know how strong I think. [00:35:35] Speaker C: No, no, no. It's not really. That's not really a good argument at this point. It just feels like. I don't know, I just feel like the way that I. Okay, so Poke Varys might be good, but I'm just not really a huge fan of it in this meta right now. Just based on the fact that like Enchanter supports, there's, you know, top, top Lane, Tanks can get to level 20 and then it's just really hard to kill them at that point. And it just, I don't know, I just, I did not like either one of the. But the like drafts coming out of Shopify, I'm going to be honest, like, too like, I just feel like they, they didn't give themselves any favors in draft. They didn't, you know, set themselves up for success. They just seemed like they were one step behind this team. I mean Quad had a rough game like game one, but like the rest of his team was able to carry him. I mean Bossu just had the performance of, you know, domestic Masu at this point. [00:36:32] Speaker D: Masu showed why people pick J. [00:36:36] Speaker C: Yes, 100%. He was, he was frying on Jin in game one. And I mean he had a really good. They had a good Aphelios Thresh game, Game two. And Zinni looked like a player who hasn't played Tier one League of Legends before. And he's coming into a team that needed an upgrade in mid lane and they were relying on it and they're like, oh, we've got this, you know, strong carry coming in. We've got this player that's coming up that's like coming through the system and we're so excited for him. And then like he just felt like he needed to make the play. Like there is so many times in game one where I watched him shuffle like look for a shuffle on his ear get one person have two people flash out and then he immediately died afterwards. And then like all of the the team's DPS went went away. He was at the point where he didn't real. I like I mean I think he realized it but I think he was just trying too hard because they were kind of you know getting into a rough stage in the middle of the game. Like early game was going decently well for them. You know they as a comp they scale a little bit. Renekton falls off a little but just he was just trying to do too much SEOs on the bard like was was missing skill shots like missing alts missing cues missing and he was leaving. [00:38:00] Speaker A: B boy to die. Like there was that time Dragon where yeah gin ulting a B boy like sidesteps 2 gen ults to just sad be boy. It's like what are we doing? [00:38:09] Speaker C: Yeah. So like B boy was getting left out to try a ton. Like it just this renekton malphite like disrupting of the front line wasn't working really well because they were like splitting the front line up enough with with the azir. It just felt like they were playing the team fights like poor. I mean they did play the team fights poorly. Let's be honest for a second. Like it. It looks like a team that replaced their mid laner with a new mid laner that's never played in tier one before. And there's a language gap between teams. Like yeah they they'll scale like I I have faith in this team still. I mean like I mean on the other side Griffin looked really fucking good. [00:38:52] Speaker A: Let me tell you. Yep. Yep. [00:38:54] Speaker C: He. [00:38:55] Speaker A: I was going to go in on Zinni and talk about some of the bad stats but I actually like the positive side more here and that this was kind of either Shopify is good like I believed in them or Flyquest is good which is I think arguably better for the health of the league. [00:39:08] Speaker C: Yeah. Oh yeah. [00:39:09] Speaker A: They looked really good. [00:39:10] Speaker D: Dude, if you were to tell me one of these supports was a rookie, I would not have believed me after that. I would not have believed you after this game if you told me it was cryogen. [00:39:19] Speaker C: Cryogen looks really good. [00:39:22] Speaker A: Lethal on that. Holy shit. [00:39:25] Speaker B: I mean even the karma like the perma pressure he was applying was absolutely. [00:39:29] Speaker A: Yeah yeah. [00:39:30] Speaker B: Like he was. [00:39:31] Speaker C: He was showing his he was showing. God, he was showing his impact. Oh God, I need to figure out a difference. He was having having presence in the lane as a former Fly Quest support once said. So yeah. [00:39:46] Speaker B: And to me like this was kind of what I was hoping for when I saw Thinkard with this roster. Cuz thinkart did the same thing in Brazil with Furia where he took a a squad of like young players, really mechanically talented players and then forged them into something that went to MSI and kind of gave the West a bit of a scare. So FlyQuest was like okay, it's that but kind of the same, maybe arguably better. So I'm really happy that it happened. That was why I was kind of saying I think FlyQuest will take Shopify. And we saw it. They just out had Shopify. They were just better in the 1v1s, the 2v2s and by the time the 5v5s rolled around like Black Quest was always just so far ahead that Shopify didn't really have the wallet. Diff was just too big at that point. I'm loving the like this is very South American. So I'm actually absolutely loving this iteration of Flag was right now. [00:40:29] Speaker A: And Griffin did play down in South America, had a lot of experience in that type of style and what a performance dude. Like I I think this has got to be. We're going to talk about this as well spoil some spoilers for this coming weekend. But we're going to have a segments talking about all time best rookie debuts. We're talking wild Turtle like his debut. We're talking contracts, we're talking Danny like the the best debuts and we're going to rank Griffin to them because this is up there in terms of just how much he individually impacted the game states and that volley bear play where around the Baron like chases away the enemy Jungler solos them, has the AD carry like ults into the pit to confirm the kill in the Jungler then flashes back into his sky splitter to get the shield and then kills the AD carry. It was like oh my God. My God dude. Like that was some. It was mechanically impressive but it was also the type of thing where I'm like that's. That's confidence. That's a player that just is in the flow state and is just letting their mechanics play for them as opposed to a player that's overthinking and then gonna play the passive route and and be like no, we should just hit Baron. It's like no, kill the two people and then take the Baron. That's safer. [00:41:42] Speaker B: And the best part was flashy, but it made sense too. Like he, he like as a jungler usually like oh, the junglers to stay alive for the objective. No, he killed contracts but he was so low, it doesn't matter anyways. His best call is just to go on a rampage. And the fact that he finds another 1 for 2 trade at the end of it like that to me was just beautiful play from Griffin like that. That was why we wanted to keep him in Brazil. But he was too good for it. And I love the fact that I still get to watch him here in the lcs. [00:42:08] Speaker D: You want to talk about confidence, Dusk and dawn, Lethal tempo. Navori Quickblade. [00:42:14] Speaker B: Oh, he was doing that in Brazil. Yeah, he was running Navori volley in Brazil. That and his before everybody else picked up and Besta this year like he was doing it. [00:42:23] Speaker A: Dusk and Don Volley Bears broke. [00:42:24] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. [00:42:25] Speaker C: Yeah, it is. [00:42:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Great stuff from FlyQuest. Overall it is painful as a big Shopify believer to see this as the result. But that pain was quickly washed away from the hype of like hey, Griffin Cryogen looked really good in the air debuts here in lcs. Yep. Gakos also held his own. He died twice, I believe in the whole series playing tanks like primary front line both times. Even like quad and Masu I think looked better than they looked almost all of last year. Especially better than they looked at Worlds. I guess. You know, it's against Shopify as opposed to Worlds teams, but still like it, it feels like if this is the, the bar for FlyQuest and they can still get better. Oh my God, that's a terrifying team. But then there's still the question of like, well, maybe Shopify is not as good as we thought they were. Maybe this is just Fly Quest high rolling really hard. Who knows, right? [00:43:20] Speaker C: It's one week. Like yeah, you can't really take much from. I mean you can take a lot from the first week but like kind of, kind of, kind of Pump the jets. Let's. Let's see how the rest of this plays out at this point because there's. [00:43:32] Speaker A: Still, you know, Pump the jets. [00:43:35] Speaker C: What is it? [00:43:36] Speaker A: That's how the brakes. [00:43:38] Speaker C: Cool your jets. Whatever. [00:43:39] Speaker A: No, I like pump the jets. Pump the jets. [00:43:43] Speaker B: Let's go. [00:43:45] Speaker A: Cool your brakes. Pump the jets. There you go. [00:43:47] Speaker C: Listen, listen, it's. I would say it's week one of the the pod for us for this season too. But you know. [00:43:55] Speaker A: We'Ve got a few under our belt already. [00:43:56] Speaker C: We got a couple under the belt at this point. [00:43:58] Speaker A: Yeah. A couple. Wait now. Now we got to come up with a different belt one. A couple under the bootstraps already. Anyway. God, this one was a little depressing to watch. Yeah. What I learned from this series was lion took 10 minutes longer to win with a 10k gold lead than it should have taken. [00:44:21] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah. [00:44:22] Speaker A: Baron stole from Inspired in a really messy Baron setup. [00:44:27] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:44:27] Speaker A: And then game two was way closer than Dig had any reason to. To put it based on how Bot Lane was going. [00:44:35] Speaker C: Like I just, I. I was watching game two of the series and the yakety sacks like music was playing in the background the entire time. I'm watching it from like the 17 point, 17 minute point onwards. I'm just like, I. [00:44:52] Speaker A: Bless his heart. Dokla got gapped by Photon. [00:44:54] Speaker C: Yes. [00:44:56] Speaker A: Mid Lane Saint looked atrocious. He lost to Palafox. Palafox 1 laning phase against Saint 2. [00:45:04] Speaker C: Games in a row. [00:45:04] Speaker A: I would argue Saint still had a higher impact later game. But laning phase Palafox won. [00:45:09] Speaker B: Kali doesn't beat Orianna laning phase till you. You get an item and like level six. So sure, that's normal for game one. The second one though, there's no defense for that. Yeah, he just got right. [00:45:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:19] Speaker D: And I think game one gave Berserker a bit too much confidence. He was up like 50Cs on mobility and just doing unspeakable things to him. So game two, he's like, what can I get away with? [00:45:37] Speaker A: The 2v2 dive was crazy. Oh, dive in with the Lulu. God bless him. Yeah. So I, I think the takeaways from this is lion currently are the most fraudulent team with a win out of the two O's. Like I don't consider them up there with FlyQuest and C9. I think they probably are still better than guys at this point, but it might be closer than I would have expected. So we'll see what happens with the rest of next week's matchups. But I don't have a lot of faith in lion in their current form. Maybe they can get better. But it did not seem like Inspired and Saint were working well together. Dokla again was getting kind of crushed in the top lane. He had some. Some counter picks or like he was getting counterpicked like Photons. Kennen is a real. Like we saw this in Lec week one with Wonder Smashing. Yeah. Dokla got the Wonder treatment here from photo. [00:46:31] Speaker B: At least Inspired did gank his lanes. So that helped a lot. [00:46:35] Speaker A: That helped a lot. Yeah. But still it's just like this is Dignitas. This was a team that had two E subs in the bot lane and were still power ranked last by most people. It should have looked way easier for Lion. I don't think they could ask for an easier Week one opponent and game one was a smashing. They still lost Baron and Elder Dragon, but they won the Elder fight in the closed game anyway. But then game two was way closer than it had any right to be. So concerned for lion. But from Dignitas aside, again, I mean Photon's a bright light for me. I feel like he's a top laner that can actually really hang with this league right now. [00:47:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:47:13] Speaker B: Somebody say Photon please. [00:47:16] Speaker A: Right? I know. Please. Could you imagine like Photon on. Actually where would I want maybe TL TL Photon. That sounds. [00:47:23] Speaker C: You know, that's the name that I was thinking too. [00:47:25] Speaker A: But you know Sentinels would be kind of fun too instead of Impact. Yeah. Even dsg. Like no, shame on Castle. But like I feel like Photon would be an upgrade currently. But either way, that's all conjecture. The games went the way they went and I got a one out of four prediction rate. Let's talk about week two predictions. Speaking of our matchups, they were drawn at the end of the day on Sunday. So we did a little draw show on LCS and Lion drew C9, the team with the most dominant win in the 2:0 versus the team that had the least dominant win in the two O's. We all have C9 except for RMC and RMC. I'm gonna use a goddamn defend yourself. What the hell is this? You have Lion 2 one. What's happening? [00:48:15] Speaker B: There's one thing I've learned from this podcast. If all of you are voting one way. No, I'm kidding. So I believe that honestly based Dokla and Saint are players who tend to play up to their opponent's level. So that's why I said I didn't take anything from the Lion Dignitas game. So for me, I think when they actually face up against C9 we're going to see big Doakes show up because he's going to take that one much more seriously and I think Saint as well will pop off. I also feel like Berserker and Isles looked really, really good and so did. [00:48:41] Speaker D: Inspired Berserker revenge game. Question mark mark. [00:48:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, he's against C9. [00:48:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:48:45] Speaker B: Law of X is the thing. [00:48:46] Speaker A: Who was his support back in the day? Yeah, true. [00:48:49] Speaker B: But yeah, I I feel like Berserker owls look stronger than Svens Balkan. Again, week one potentially sight overreaction. I think Saint will be able to hold his own against APA and he won't be psyoped. So really it's just the top side I'm a little bit worried about but big jokes has shown up before so I'm going to take a swing on the outside chance of lion winning because I. I think they have it in them to be there and. And yeah, I think they'll take this one a lot more seriously. [00:49:13] Speaker A: Okay, well, fair enough. The rest of us still have C9. I just think C9 are that much better. All the Badger and Bickle aren't like super convinced they have C9.2 one. I got a clean two zero. I feel like from what we saw of C9 in. In week one, even if they're behind to lion, they were buying to TL and were able to come back. I don't think that lion have what it takes to close out games fast enough and they don't have the same team synergy to. To actually like set up objectives, push lanes cleanly with Baron buff. Like you watch what they're doing against Dig. Like even with Baron. Like their waves are hitting turrets at miss like a wrong timings. Like these are the fundamentals that like tier one teams should have locked down and lion just aren't showing that right now. So next up though is Sentinels versus Dig and there is not a Dig believer in the house. We all have Sentinels across the board. Badger, you do say Sentinels two one you got Dig picking up a game. How do you think Dig gets their win? [00:50:11] Speaker C: Sheer dumb luck. It's best of ones. [00:50:16] Speaker A: Is this reliant on FBI and Ignar, the rumors being true that they are here in plane? [00:50:23] Speaker C: Potentially. I mean I don't know how has the. How much scrim practice has this team had together together going in so mobility. [00:50:31] Speaker A: And Breezy had I talked to them ahead of the match. They had like four days of scrim practice going into this weekend basically. [00:50:38] Speaker C: Okay, so if they've had more practice with like FBI Ignar throughout the entirety of this, I feel like it's easier to click with those players than it would be to you know, have four. Have two players come in on your entirely new bot Lane come in on four days of practice against the team that was the most. One of the most hyped coming into this season with a new roster and everything. So the. The lights were too bright for him and something I can't. [00:51:08] Speaker A: I'm remember I'm gonna Do you one better I'm gonna do do you one better. Even with zero practice time I think FBI Ignar would be better than what we saw from ability Breezy. No shade unmobility Breezy. [00:51:21] Speaker C: I know it's I I'm saying that. [00:51:23] Speaker A: And then I'm immediately gonna throw serviceable. [00:51:25] Speaker C: Like they had good performances for the circ put in at this point. So. [00:51:32] Speaker A: Once we got out of laning phase in the 2v2 that was the most painful game I've like laning phase I've ever had to cast and the observers kept going back down there and me Toby were like oh we gotta get the outer yeah but it was that was the most one sided bot lane laning phase I think I've ever seen in my life at tier one one like I've never casted game again that was worse than that. Maybe an NACL I've done ones that are that bad but like oh that was. That was tough. So I think just surviving laning phase is going to be set up dignitas to to be better and FBI is a good carry so that that's kind of why I have them picking up a game because I agree two 1 Sentinels. Sentinels are the better team but dig if they get FBI ignore FBI is good for a one carry game. [00:52:21] Speaker B: I think if it's FBI Ignar I'd say two one but I'm assuming it's still mobility Breezy. [00:52:25] Speaker A: So yeah the jury's out on on which one it's going to be all right then Sunday we got Fly Quest versus DSG and then Shopify Rebellion versus tl. That second one pretty hype. The first one very young rosters which makes it exciting even if I think it might be a little more one sided. But actually now that I look at it we all have Fly but we all have two one so we think DSG is good for one game. Rmc, how do you see this series shaking out? [00:52:51] Speaker B: I I think it's gonna be a two I a put two one because I didn't want to want to support boys but okay. I I think. I think it's going to be a very mechanical game from what we saw from Fly Quest they just like smashed with straight mechanics. I think Kizno and Sad are going to want to be doing that as well. So Lion's also a very mechanical player. I I'm really wanting to watch the bot lane in the jungle like all these younger names coming in, newer names, rookies to to the lcs. I think it's going to be very, very spicy. I could see as well like this guy's just stealing a game or two or even two from VyQuest. If, if things spiral out of control, I think that's where the coaches need to step in a lot more. Think hard. He's dealt with young rosters before. I think he'll handle it better. You know, on the other hand, well, that's not fair. I mean he's done a lot. He's worked a lot with these players before as well. But yeah, I think a lot of it will be just trying to keep, keep the, the heads of the players in the game and not letting them kind of run. Run too rampant there. [00:53:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I feel like DSG the, the. The coolest story here is that Sajed is getting a chance to play against Masu in his second week. This is the guy that he played behind for a whole year that he's been kind of compared to at the NACL level for a while of like, ooh, is Sajed going to make the push like Masu made the push? Because it's hard. Jan was kind of the one that paved the way for players like Masu to find success. I guess even like Danny is kind of like Danny passed the baton to Yan who then joined with Masu on stage and now Sajed's here as well as he's like different generations of bot laners that have come into the league and, and had good showings and now Sajed gets to show what he can do against one of those guys. So I think that's it's the start of what could be a really cool wholesome rivalry here of these different generation players facing off against each other. But then still when you factor Gakkos and Griffin and we have the the same young guns on fly quest side. [00:54:43] Speaker B: I mean hasn't Kisno and has Kisno played Against Griffin before? [00:54:46] Speaker A: Interior 2 Tier 3 I am unaware of any time they would match up because Griffin actually didn't play a lot of tier two Tier three because he was over in Korea. Instead he took a slightly different route than most players. Most players like grinded the tier 3 tier twos and Griffin didn't really grind them. I believe he played in some but it was like more of filling in for teams like get things like Aegis League as opposed to playing an NACL pro. [00:55:11] Speaker B: Wasn't no organ no team before. [00:55:13] Speaker D: Right. [00:55:13] Speaker B: Like improving grounds. Oh, but I guess that's before Kismo because Kizno only showed up in our own 2023. [00:55:19] Speaker A: Yeah, Kismo's only been around for about like two years now. Or I guess technically like more than that. If you factor in things like Aegis League, but in like Collegiate, but in terms of NACL stuff like going for the the qualifier tournaments. [00:55:31] Speaker B: If anything that makes me more hyped to watch the two of them clash up. [00:55:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Again, both very young, but technically two different generations of players. Yeah, yeah, that one is kind of my big one to watch just for the fun narratives there. But then Shopify Rebellion versus TL Bickel. Talk to me about srtl who we all think SR can take it still. But you are the lone holder out that Team Liquid will win this series. [00:55:59] Speaker D: So my concern is not in the mid lane. I think Zinni will be okay, but after watching that bot lane from Shopify I have some concerns. Especially against yon core JJ. [00:56:17] Speaker A: The landing phase didn't look great. SEOs looked a little lost be boy positioned. I I wouldn't even say he positioned poorly. It was just that he got kind of betrayed by his team a lot of times they weren't keeping him safe. And notably Team Liquid and Core JJ spends a lot of time to keep Yawn safe and protect him, allowing him to pop off. So that that's a valid concern. What do you think about top lane though, Morgan vs. Fudge? Do you have any any opinions there? [00:56:47] Speaker D: I don't think either of these top laners will be like gapping one another. I think it'll be kept close regardless. So that's why I kind of think that the bot do is going to be kind of the defining portion of the matchup. I think even if Fudge picks a laning heavy matchup or picks them to get a lead, I think Morgan can do what he did this past weekend and kind of neutralize that as well as he can. [00:57:13] Speaker A: Okay, fair enough. And it seems like that was Morgan's specialty. Almost like the impact style of oh, I'm not going to crush or like pop off necessarily, but I will hold the line. I will be the rock in the top lane that we need. Which feels very like Korean style of top lane. At least when we see Korean players come over to na outside of maybe like Huni, who's kind of the exception where he would pop off. Okay, cool. There you have it. That's three or rather four more best of threes coming up this following weekend and our opinions on it. But that is it for lcs. Time to hop across the podcast to the great wide world of Best of ones. We had 18 more best of ones. Oh, my God. Dude. Still, that's a great thing to just. [00:57:59] Speaker C: Read out loud or say out loud, isn't it? 18 best of ones. [00:58:03] Speaker A: 18 best of ones. So in. In traditional fashion, just because once we get into playoffs, we'll. We'll give more weight to each matchup. So if everybody's like, hey, I wanted to hear about, like, this one matchup and they didn't talk about it. Apologies. We're. We're really prioritizing like, the ones that stood out to us. Speaking of, I will admit this past weekend was very tough for me with LCS Week 1. And then also I full disclosure from Minnesota. There was a lot of stuff in the news and on my mind this weekend. I didn't catch any of the LEC games going on, so I will be leaning much on Bickle and Badger, who were able to catch some of them. So let's start with Badger. Talk me through game or day one of LEC that happened on Saturday. And just what game or game stood out to you that you think if people haven't watched, maybe they should check out and kind of like what the big story lines were? Because there was one big moment that I did catch on Saturday and was referenced in the title of this episode. [00:58:59] Speaker C: Yeah. So ice was, I guess, the big story. You know, the. The WTF2 pentas. [00:59:07] Speaker A: Ice the player, by the way, just ice the player. [00:59:10] Speaker C: A great time. [00:59:11] Speaker D: God, that's highly. [00:59:13] Speaker C: Yeah. At this point. Anyway, anyways, Team Heretics's ice on Aphelius was 1, 2 and 1 and finished the game 11, 2 and 1, and conveniently got a double pentakill in their game against Vitality. And everyone's like, whoa, this is insane. This is the first time this has happened in a while. And then two days later, Artemis on. [00:59:41] Speaker A: Gosh. [00:59:42] Speaker C: Is it. It did not prepare for this. [00:59:45] Speaker D: No, it was a G or S. I can't remember. [00:59:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:59:47] Speaker A: S. It was two on Silver, one on Jin. [00:59:49] Speaker D: Yes. [00:59:50] Speaker C: Two on Siv, one on Gym. So in a best of three over in the lcp, Artemis on. Gosh, what team does he play for at this point? Just beside the point. Got three penta kills and two games. What's that? [01:00:05] Speaker D: I think it's game. [01:00:06] Speaker C: Yeah. Gam. Yeah. [01:00:08] Speaker A: Gamma. [01:00:08] Speaker C: Yeah. So Gams AD got two. Two in the same game and then one in the next game. And everyone's like, oh, okay. Never like, holy cow, what a time. So other big storylines. [01:00:20] Speaker A: Today was pretty. [01:00:21] Speaker C: The day was pretty chalky, except Navi and KCB playing A kind of close game that didn't deserve to be as close as it should have been, just based on the standings between the teams. I mean, GX beat Los Ratones. The shifters lost to G2, and, you know, dominant or G2 beat shifters in dominant fashion. KC beat SK dominant fashion. And KOI had a really good game against Fnatic despite JoJo Pune's best attempts to attempt to throw the game every once in a while throughout it. [01:00:58] Speaker A: So it won't be a JoJo game without that. [01:00:59] Speaker C: It wouldn't be a JoJo game without it. Right. So, yeah. So that's day one, day two. [01:01:05] Speaker A: Also. Also, before you get into day two, I totally forgot that we didn't run through the the standings. I just jumped right into the the week. So let me do that real quick. And then you can continue with day two. In sole possession of first place in the LEC, it's KC at 5 and 1. Then a bit of a soup here at the 4 and 2 level with Fnatic, GX, MCOI and Navi all sharing that some of those more convincing than others. At the 3 and 3, it's G2 cloud climbing and clawing their way back up in the standings along with team Vitality. And then at 2 and 4, shifters, SK team Heretics and Los Ratons, who did pick up two wins this past weekend. And then sitting alone in last place, unfortunately, is KC Blue. So Casey, as an organization has made a sandwich of the lec. They are in first and they're in last. [01:01:56] Speaker C: Are you an LEC sandwich? [01:01:58] Speaker B: What? [01:01:59] Speaker A: Exactly. All right, there we go. So that's the standings now. You may continue to day two. [01:02:04] Speaker C: Yeah. So day two, kind of the same for the most part. Vitality takes care of shifters in game one. Gosh, it really takes all of my willpower to not say shitters. Navi has a good performance. Performance against sk. God. Aatrox Jungle is broken. What are we doing? Holy cow. Flashbacks to 2018 at this point. [01:02:27] Speaker A: Jungle. Oh, no. [01:02:28] Speaker C: Aatrox Jungle is popping up. [01:02:30] Speaker A: Yeah, dude, everything. [01:02:33] Speaker C: It's gonna get played in LCS this weekend. I already know it. Unless it gets banned. It's really good. And then Los Ratones beats hair. Los Ratoni speeds heritage, huh? Heretics versus Los Ratones. Very convincing game coming out of the rats. Nemesis has this insane rise. Performance. Actual or actualizer? Actuator. [01:03:03] Speaker A: Equalizer. [01:03:04] Speaker C: Actualizer. Whatever this item is. And it got buffed. Oh, Holy cow. You just click a button and it's just like getting a steroid to your mana, which is exactly what Rise loves, loves to have in these situations. Really good game. You know, Baus has baws moments. I think he's still been solo killed by every single top lane he has been. [01:03:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:25] Speaker C: Keeping the streak up at this point. Good job. Good job, man. I expect nothing less from you. But hey, Velia looked really, really comfortable in the the Sunday and Monday games starting to appear on the stage. You know, Nemesis is. Nemesis is leveling up crown. He's looking like old Crowny and Reckless is, you know, world champion reckless. So like, you know, this team's scaling and then we got the bully beat down. That was movie star Koi versus KCP. You know, 20K gold lead for movie star Koi in a 20A sub 26 minute game. [01:04:01] Speaker A: Gosh, that's sub 26 minutes. So, so Bickle. [01:04:05] Speaker C: 25 minutes 25 seconds and they were up. The the gold at the end of the game was 63.4k to 42.7k. [01:04:12] Speaker A: Oh my God. [01:04:14] Speaker C: Yukino went 5 and 8. Camilo went 064. Basically it was 0x and then like low assist number for everybody except Yukino and Prime. Prime got a kill. Yukino got five kills and that was pretty much the story of the game. [01:04:32] Speaker A: They got clapped. [01:04:36] Speaker C: So Fnatic took care of Gian X in the next game. You know, upset KDA upset no more. He's playing team fights really well. And you know, I, I do, I'm going to be honest. And Piros and Lospa on Fnatic are really starting to grow on me. I think they're actually really good players that are, you know, just scaling again. Rookies giving them more than one week before you colossally ruin their reputation and then. Or try and ruin their reputation. And then game six of the day is a Casey versus G2 game where K G2 plays Gallio mid Len top God. And I think Broken Blade wants that pick back because it was not working. Kids. A fantastic rise game. Kalist was looking really good. Kiss and Busio, oh my gosh. They're starting to gel. It's scary. They. This team's gonna be the best bot lane in the west. [01:05:38] Speaker D: We got to see another example of Atrox Jungle is broken. [01:05:42] Speaker C: Yep, Atrox Jungle is broken Rumble. Really good champion. You know that there was a really good champion. [01:05:49] Speaker D: When Lee Sin decides to just bash. [01:05:51] Speaker C: In front of an Rumble can just abuse it. It's really good. So I, I will admit there was a little bit of. It was 6040 Canada playing well and Broken Blade not playing well. So and then we get to gate. Gate date. That's. That's not all, folks. [01:06:11] Speaker A: Wow. We went on a journey right there. [01:06:14] Speaker C: Listen. [01:06:18] Speaker A: Bickle, what happened on day three? Day three was just not as bad either. [01:06:24] Speaker C: We had. We had. I'm trying to think Nidalee top out of Rooster and Shifters is Los Rotones. Which Los Rotones won a second game. Really silly right now saying. [01:06:39] Speaker A: Were they ahead? Like were they winning? [01:06:41] Speaker D: Shifters were breaking open the base. Shifters had a 9k gold lead. [01:06:45] Speaker A: Okay, was this the one I saw on socials that a player, an LAC player was crashing out after losing to shifters? I don't remember. Remember who Was it Nuke? No. Yeah, yeah, it was this one. [01:06:54] Speaker D: Nuke. Yes. Nuke was crashing out after losing to. Yeah, Lousy tones. Also, Crowny had some words to say that are probably not safe for broadcast. [01:07:07] Speaker A: I was about to ask can are you allowed to say them on this podcast? But that sounds like no. [01:07:13] Speaker D: Maybe Crowny has some feelings for his old team. [01:07:18] Speaker A: Ah, understandable. Yeah, we did get to see a. [01:07:22] Speaker D: Bows getting Solo killed. But also Bows coming back on the AP Gragas with some bombas. [01:07:28] Speaker C: Yeah, good old Slavic. What is it? Floppy Walrus or whatever. [01:07:35] Speaker D: Sloppy Walrus. [01:07:36] Speaker C: Sloppy Walrus level plays. There's that EUS player named Sloppy Walrus. [01:07:40] Speaker D: It's like he's a Gragas one trick. [01:07:43] Speaker C: He's the bomber guy. [01:07:45] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [01:07:47] Speaker C: Yeah, he had bomba level moments. Another great performance from Nemesis Crowning Reckless. You know the whole team is playing really. This team is like borderline going to make playoffs and versus like they actually have a chance at this point from. [01:08:01] Speaker A: It might be a little three to maybe playoffs. [01:08:04] Speaker C: Maybe three, maybe playoffs. [01:08:05] Speaker A: And then is it only the bottom two that don't make it to playoffs? [01:08:09] Speaker C: And I'm pretty sure KCB is. [01:08:11] Speaker D: Oh, KCB's Dawn. [01:08:13] Speaker C: KCB. Oh yeah. Game one. SK just steamrolled KCB. Surprise, surprise. Fanatic steamrolls vitality. G2 gets back on their winning ways and steamrolls Heretics. And then Casey has a strong performance against Navi. And then Giant X. At the end of the day, Elise support with Caitlyn. It's back. [01:08:37] Speaker A: Oh damn. [01:08:39] Speaker C: It's not really back. It was just a one time thing. It's just a really good like if. If you don't have like the Nico to pair with the Caitlyn like always. Excuse me. Elise is still a really good pick me when kind of ran it Eloyo was playing KDA Trundle. Yeah. [01:08:56] Speaker A: What was Super Alvaro playing into the. [01:08:58] Speaker C: Caitlyn Elise they played Yunara Lulu. [01:09:03] Speaker A: Oh, that's tough. I mean, I imagine that's still wrong. Yeah. [01:09:09] Speaker C: Noah just had a fantastic Caitlyn game. [01:09:12] Speaker A: Like God love, Noah is capable of dirty things. Yeah. [01:09:15] Speaker C: No. [01:09:16] Speaker D: Giant X beat MCOI beat G2, lose Team Heretics. [01:09:19] Speaker C: Yes. Yes. [01:09:21] Speaker A: Why not? Why not? [01:09:22] Speaker C: So that's your. That's your very fast 18 game rundown of the LEC. [01:09:28] Speaker A: That was fantastic. Thank you. I feel like I didn't even need to watch any of those games. [01:09:33] Speaker C: I would still. I would still watch the. The MCOID KCB game just to see the 20,000 gold lead because everyone was losing their minds as it was going on. It was wild. [01:09:44] Speaker A: That sounds crazy. Bickel, any other ones that you would recommend people watch? Seems like, yeah, Los Ratons versus anyone that they were able to beat. They were crazy. [01:09:53] Speaker D: Kcb, great comeback against Shifters. That was probably fun to watch. If you want to see some of why people love League of Legends, go watch Kaedral's reaction to them beating Team Heretics and getting their first win. It's just really heartwarming to see the emotion that he has to see his team finally take out that win. And if you want to watch a good game, also KCG2, you can't go wrong. [01:10:21] Speaker A: Okay, fair enough. Thank you guys for your recommendations and your breakdown. Again, I wasn't able to catch almost any LEC this weekend, but I will plan to watch much more coming into this next weekend. Speaking of, it's the last weekend that has three days worth of games. It's going to be Saturday, Sunday, Monday, but then the week four, the final week of the kind of regular season. Here will only be two days worth of games. So this is the last time we will have 18 games to cover. We have our predictions listed. We're not going to cover every single one of them. That would take too long. But what we will do is go day by day and give the games that we recommend you check out up first in day number one one on Saturday. It starts off with Team Heretics sk. But then the second game of the day, Navi versus gx is one that we recommend because it will kind of be bickle. I believe the way you put it was like it's a battle to determine the line gatekeeper. There we go. [01:11:15] Speaker D: It feels like there's. We know who the top three teams are at. It's not definitive, but Everybody knows it's MCO, Casey and G2. It feels like GX and Navi are playing for. Okay, who's that kind of fourth Fifth. That's like you're not as good as these top teams. But we're better than everybody else. [01:11:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is crazy to think about considering where we put Navia on our tier list. But yeah, they. They put themselves in that conversation. So we're going to keep talking about them if they're able to take on gx. [01:11:53] Speaker D: And we're has been phenomenal. He's been. [01:11:56] Speaker A: Yes. [01:11:57] Speaker D: The story for that team. [01:11:59] Speaker A: That is one name that I keep hearing repeated in terms of like the pop off performers in the LEC so far. So also Yukino is up there too. Even though they're only one in five, I'm hearing great. [01:12:09] Speaker D: He is showing that he deserves a spot in a tier one region. [01:12:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. That brings us to day number two though. Badger. Tell me what game you would recommend from day number two. [01:12:25] Speaker C: Day two, I would say actually Navity. Navi versus shifters. Wasn't I. That might be the only game that was actually clo. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably the only game that was actually somewhat close, you know. [01:12:41] Speaker A: Okay. [01:12:42] Speaker C: Patek had a decent performance. There was Swain and Zoe in this game. Like Swain. Zoe was the mid lane matchup. Like how often do you see that in a professional game? Just, you know, you're. [01:12:52] Speaker A: Oh, I feel like you're talking about last week. [01:12:55] Speaker D: You're talking last week. [01:12:59] Speaker B: Reading the future. Man. He knows what's coming up. [01:13:01] Speaker A: I know. I was like holy crap, what's happening here? [01:13:05] Speaker C: My bad. I'm just. [01:13:06] Speaker A: Yeah, you're looking at vitality shifters as opposed to shifters Navi. Which funnily enough is coming up here. But you know what? [01:13:14] Speaker C: Ton versus G2. You know what? [01:13:16] Speaker A: At the end of the day. [01:13:20] Speaker C: It we ball. You know what can cadre's can cagel's rat battalion. You know what? It's the reckless revenge game. [01:13:28] Speaker A: Think of it this way. Okay. Okay. [01:13:31] Speaker B: Are you willing to put your. Your predict the lost returns were. No. [01:13:37] Speaker C: God no. I'm picking G2 to win that game. But hey, you know, for the memes. [01:13:42] Speaker A: For the memes. Do that one. [01:13:44] Speaker D: If there's a top laner that will find a way not to solo kill Baus, it'll probably end up being Broken Blade because they play vitality before this. And Knock Knocko is going to do unthinkable things to Baws. So who knows what will happen with Broken Blade. [01:14:04] Speaker A: Well, all that leads into Monday, which unfortunately will be another rough Monday of games. It feels like they always save the bad matchups for Monday. The only one that we really were thinking about as a team was like maybe Navi Lost Ratons as well. So check out the Lost Ratons games this coming weekend. They've become more entertaining when now they're always picking up. They're always fun to watch at the very least. But that will do it for LEC Rundown as well as our kind of like prediction slash. Look forward to a segment here, which means that's going to be it for another episode of the League Rundown. Thank you so much everybody for tuning in yet again. Rmc. If people wanted to leave a review and help us out, get noticed more, how many stars? What do you recommend they leave on this episode's review? [01:14:49] Speaker B: Five stars, no notes. [01:14:54] Speaker A: True. Nothing about, you know, the number of Pentakills that we got across, you know, series. [01:15:01] Speaker C: You know what it was? [01:15:01] Speaker A: There were five. There were five. [01:15:03] Speaker B: Were there only five? I know there were two doubles and I was a bit like, I didn't want to say four and I wasn't sure if there was only five. [01:15:10] Speaker C: So two doubles and then there was another one in the. [01:15:12] Speaker A: I. You know what? I'm not confident, but if you can give us six out of five stars, I would take that too. So either way, it helps us get noticed. Thank you so much everybody who does leave reviews. Oh, rv, do you have something else? [01:15:23] Speaker B: At least five. That's. That's what we want for at least five. [01:15:26] Speaker A: There we go. At least five out of five would be preferred. And thank you so much everybody again for listening to another week. We got LEC and LCS action continuing next week. We cannot wait to talk to you about it. But most importantly, just remember this. We love you and we'll see you next time. Bye bye. Bye. [01:15:44] Speaker D: Peace. [01:15:46] Speaker B: And the big, big.