League Rundown - Episode 594: The rebellion is non-refundable

[00:00:12] Speaker A: Gets hit. Kimmy kids 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. Foreign hello and welcome to episode 594 of the League Rundown. This is your 2026 LEC Week 3 review and LCS Week 2 review. This episode is lovingly entitled the Rebellion is non refundable. I'm joined by three esteemed co hosts. Up first we have Mr. Mazel Piel who just so happens to be in physical proximity to me as we speak. [00:01:31] Speaker B: The video medium or video jokes in an audio medium have never hit an all time high. This will be the greatest thing ever. [00:01:38] Speaker A: Now we can do ones just between us. [00:01:40] Speaker B: Nobody will ever. [00:01:41] Speaker A: Whenever. Whenever Jamada speaks, we can just look at each other. [00:01:44] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I think that's important. I think that's important. Glad to be here. It's going to be fun. We're getting so far already into the first split. [00:01:52] Speaker A: It's crazy. We're already in February. Speaking of, I already name dropped him. We have joining us Jamata from all the way over in the eu. [00:01:58] Speaker C: Hello. I've been reinvited to this place again. I don't know why they keep having me, but here I am. [00:02:04] Speaker A: Well, the secret Jamata is that our LEC takes are generally trash. [00:02:12] Speaker D: Takes were fine. [00:02:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Actually shout out Yanni. Who does have the highest prediction percentage rate so far on the pod at 61%. I think this has to be an all time low for us. As an average on the pod though, it's been a nightmare with best of Ones. But you heard his name and you also heard his voice. Welcome, Yanni. [00:02:31] Speaker D: Hey, what's going on? Listen, it's because my dad's from Greece and you know they're part of Europe. So that's. That's why I'm able to have this crazy high rate of prediction. This is also why I chill for emperors. Vladi, Lebron. [00:02:46] Speaker A: I was gonna say a big fanatic fan. Big, big rock. [00:02:49] Speaker D: Of course I always smell what that guy's cooking. [00:02:54] Speaker A: Wait, the rock? [00:02:55] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:02:55] Speaker A: Oh, oh yeah. [00:02:58] Speaker C: Right couple. [00:02:59] Speaker A: I was like that brother's not Greek. But sure, I guess if we could just Claim him. [00:03:03] Speaker D: How do I know? [00:03:04] Speaker A: You know what? I suppose I just. I know he's Samoan because he's part of the no line here. [00:03:11] Speaker C: It's a drop. [00:03:13] Speaker B: You're going farther and farther from the. [00:03:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Now I'm trying to think of, like, the. The history between. Oh, yeah, it's fine. [00:03:20] Speaker D: Can confirm the rocket, the rock, the act. Dwayne Johnson is knocker. [00:03:24] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:25] Speaker A: Okay. [00:03:25] Speaker B: Was it Triple? [00:03:26] Speaker A: But there are many rocks in. Oh, yes. [00:03:28] Speaker D: I have seen photos. [00:03:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I've seen. [00:03:31] Speaker B: Dude, his first name was Insane. [00:03:33] Speaker A: Who? [00:03:33] Speaker B: First and last name. Triple. Triple H. No, the. Wait, what's his name? Triple. [00:03:37] Speaker A: Oh, Midland. [00:03:39] Speaker B: Oh, you're making me second guess myself. [00:03:41] Speaker A: Ozzy. [00:03:41] Speaker B: Yeah. No, he was. [00:03:43] Speaker D: No, no, I know you're thinking of. It's not triple. It's somebody else. [00:03:45] Speaker B: No, it's triple, Right? Oh, yeah. I'm thinking of somebody different. Who am I thinking about? [00:03:49] Speaker D: There was. [00:03:51] Speaker B: He went to go play in Turkey. [00:03:52] Speaker A: I'm really happy we're taking this time. [00:03:53] Speaker B: Yeah, Absolutely. Yeah. All right. [00:03:57] Speaker A: My brain's thinking Shazuki, but that's the Italian style. [00:03:59] Speaker B: Yeah, close. I literally had so many conversations with them and made so much content around him, that's. I cannot remember his name. [00:04:06] Speaker A: I know, but you're right. We did have one. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. You keep thinking about it, and we're gonna go on with the episode again. Me and Mizzle have made so much eye contact already this episode. [00:04:16] Speaker B: I can't wait. [00:04:17] Speaker A: Mizell. It works nearby. For anybody wondering, hey, why are they in the same place? He works nearby. So if he's working half days, which hopefully he will work majority half days on Tuesdays when we record, then he can just come over to my place and we can do recordings together. So that's why you haven't been able to make it the last couple of weeks. Thank you for being able to make it today. Some roster news to kick things off. Two things were confirmed in the LCS this past week. One was Dignitas have FBI and Ignar, they played this past weekend. They were screaming with them for a couple of days, two days to be exact, before the weekend. So shout out to FBI for getting them in. And also DSG announced that Kryra, their jungler, that is meant to be the starter coming in from Canada and the Tier 2 system, is going to be playing this next weekend. Shout out Kizno, who was an emergency sub and played like a game of scrims with them leading into the first week. And then I talked to him, he said, oh, Yeah, I played one game with the team this last week also. He got no experience with them. [00:05:16] Speaker B: He's got a future though. [00:05:17] Speaker A: He does. He actually looked pretty good. You did point out you found his name is pretty. Pretty. [00:05:22] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know why I thought triple but pretty. [00:05:24] Speaker A: You know, same number of syllables. [00:05:25] Speaker B: Sure, sure. Ca. I do really like Kizno. I think it obviously has a lot of growing room, but I'm so excited to see cry. Right? [00:05:34] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:05:34] Speaker C: I. [00:05:35] Speaker B: Although he only literally got like one split and a half in tier two, I still think this guy has a lot going for him. And every team that he has been on has been like shaped around his play and he's willing to go with more aggressive, like more confident picks. And I don't know how that'll translate, at least in the lcs, but I'm excited to see him try. [00:05:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I. It's one of those players that when you're able to see somebody in like a Scouting Combine in 2023, and then they impress you there, and then they have the drive to keep grinding and make it to an NACL team, you're like, okay, that's already showing something special. And then now he's made the jump to LCS as well. [00:06:14] Speaker B: And he's French. Well, French Canadian. [00:06:16] Speaker A: Canadian. Do you. Do you claim that? [00:06:18] Speaker B: No. [00:06:18] Speaker A: Okay. [00:06:19] Speaker B: But he has an accent, which is cool. [00:06:21] Speaker A: It's just fun facts. That's the LCS roster news. I didn't see anything. El. Does anybody else in the call? Did I miss any LEC roster shakeups or roster news? [00:06:32] Speaker C: Nope. There has nothing to any movement anywhere. [00:06:37] Speaker B: Cool. [00:06:38] Speaker A: Awesome. Love to hear teams, at least for now, committing to rosters, but I mean, some seasons are already. [00:06:45] Speaker D: We'll see how long Nuke lasts. [00:06:48] Speaker A: Like. Well, the half life is. Is pretty, pretty long. That was a science joke out there. I'm pretty sure. I don't know if it made sense, but I'm trying. [00:07:00] Speaker C: All the chemists out there clapping very hard for that one. [00:07:03] Speaker D: Shout out. [00:07:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:06] Speaker D: Shout out to our singer. Yeah. [00:07:13] Speaker A: Other around the globe little bits of information. LPL update. Who would like to give it? Mr. Mizopiel or Yanni? I'll let you fight. [00:07:20] Speaker B: I'm down. [00:07:21] Speaker D: You can have it, bro. [00:07:21] Speaker A: You. [00:07:22] Speaker D: You just know this. You know this league inside now more than I do, man. [00:07:28] Speaker B: Jesus. So the biggest things is that we've already started having lock ins the next phase of lpl, which insanely enough is going to take place over three days. Playoff plans is coming up. That's going to be the early appetizer before playoffs. It's going to solidify who goes into playoffs. [00:07:48] Speaker A: I just love the concept of a playoffs play. [00:07:50] Speaker B: Yep. [00:07:50] Speaker A: Of a regular season. [00:07:53] Speaker B: Losers in that go down to group nirvana for split number two. Winners of that go into group ascend for split two and then also make it into playoffs. We've already had some lock ins in group ascend since we right now have three groups. Group ascend, al, BLG and JDG have all already made it into playoffs themselves. So they will not have to play on in plans. And they are also guaranteed for group ascend for split two because they did. [00:08:16] Speaker A: So well in group ascend. [00:08:17] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. Then IG unfortunately from the grab that group is already in the playoff plan. They've already been eliminated from making it to top four and getting that by Weibo and top esports are still in contention. If Waybo wins one more game in their last two series or one more series in their last two series, they will be the top four and they'll make it in the play or playoffs and top esports will go to the play ins in group. Perseverance doesn't really matter. But we is already. Everybody's going half of play ins. Yeah, everybody's always going. And then tt are stuck in the bottom half of playoff play ins. But we did have some eliminations. And although there was a lot of hubbub from LCK saying that their team was the first eliminated. We have that respect. It's us. Ultra prime had been already taken away from firsthand contention two days before HLE got eliminated. [00:09:07] Speaker A: Wow. They just didn't factor. [00:09:09] Speaker B: They just didn't care. And then we had this. Really? [00:09:13] Speaker A: If only there was a broadcast they could watch. [00:09:15] Speaker B: LEC watches us. Mickey watches us. [00:09:18] Speaker A: I saw that. [00:09:18] Speaker D: LCK watches us too. Hold on. [00:09:21] Speaker B: They do a faker. It was actually in one of the documentaries they have for paid fans for T1. We're in the background on. On. On their screens. [00:09:29] Speaker A: Wait. That's awesome. [00:09:30] Speaker B: Yeah, it's pretty cool. There was a fateful matchup between OMG and lgd. I really wanted LGD to win. I don't know. [00:09:37] Speaker A: Talk about them like the whole split of like the. The Nevada team that had a rebuild and we may be gonna make it. [00:09:41] Speaker D: High Chow. Hi. [00:09:44] Speaker B: He's apparently that guy against his old team. OMG won that series. So it knocked LGD out and they will not be invol playoff plan and they will also be knocked into split two for group nirvana. So that's the breakdown of the groups Right now there's like three days left in the split and a lot still to be decided in terms of who's going where. The biggest importance is the group ascend. Who's gonna be that last top 14 to just get the playoff by. [00:10:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:12] Speaker B: Okay. [00:10:12] Speaker D: It's really relevant for being in the bottom half of, you know, the bottom two teams in group ascendant. The top two teams in group perseverance, you get. You get a second life in the play in. [00:10:22] Speaker B: Yep. [00:10:22] Speaker D: You know that that's the big thing, especially for a team like Top esports who, you know their bot lane doesn't look very good and it seemed like IG who outside of mid jungle doesn't look very good because if they only had one life, I would be very concerned for either of those teams to maybe just find their way down into group nirvana for split two which the thought of as like 369 and and cream and potentially Jackie Love, would he be coming back and the thought of like way and and rookie being in group nirvana is like. [00:11:02] Speaker A: It's crazy, crazy, crazy. In other news. So thank you for the LPL update guys. Awesome to hear LCK update. Usually I give this to Bickle or Badger. Does anybody want to give the LC cap date? Otherwise I have the leaguepedia page pulled up and I t1 good. [00:11:16] Speaker B: Hle bad. [00:11:17] Speaker C: Yeah, GG I can fill in. [00:11:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Can you explain to me why HLE did not qualify? [00:11:25] Speaker B: I'm just gonna say if it comes down to where the information you're giving is exactly what I just said. I'm just gonna say I did your job for you. [00:11:31] Speaker C: Not quite. So basically they have the silly group Baron Elder thing. The best of threes have been giving, you know, the winner. They play against each other. Right. The groups are predetermined before the the season. I can't remember what seeding exactly it follows but it's something that makes sense to last year. And so pretty much because group Elder had less total points from series wins or series results, it meant that the last place team in group Elder would be eliminated. And that left Hanwha in a very awkward spot because they'd obviously lost to T1 and Gen G. Duh. We know they're good. But that that series lost to Nongshim put them in that very perilous position where against Gen G all they had to do was win one game singular out of a best of five. I think the time was under like 35 minutes which in this meta is very, very achievable. They threw A game and they pretty much caught ran the others. So they're out. And to then finish off on what Mazel said. Yeah, Gen G good. T1 good. But also BNK Ferrix and Genji has. [00:12:47] Speaker A: Not dropped a game, right? [00:12:48] Speaker C: Yeah, no, they are. [00:12:50] Speaker D: They're cooking. [00:12:51] Speaker B: It's just my brain hurts seeing that Hanwha have won two entire series and Brion has not even won a series. And they are the reality. [00:13:03] Speaker C: The reality of the situation is Hanwha right now are probably playing like the fifth to seventh team in the lck. [00:13:10] Speaker A: Right. [00:13:10] Speaker C: Obviously nowhere near the ceiling or the pedigree of the roster that they have. But that's. That's just where they're at. Unfortunately, the group system is very perilous and you know, other teams just performed better in their group. [00:13:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:28] Speaker C: And so crazy. All they had to do. Their fate was still in their hands. Right. No matter how you slice it, their fate was still in their hands by the time they they had to play Gen G in that best of five. Still couldn't get get the conditions over the over the line. [00:13:39] Speaker D: And you know what? [00:13:39] Speaker A: I also just think it's so funny having a best of five before playoffs start which will go back to best. That is so, I guess so weird. [00:13:48] Speaker D: That is very weird also, you know, for all the, you know, oh, Brion is 0 and 5 and you know, but make playoffs and how it didn't the end Supers are getting let off the hook too. Those guys were 1 and 4. This is, you know, this is crazy. [00:14:02] Speaker A: Don't you mean the DN poopers? [00:14:03] Speaker D: Yeah, they're definitely poopers right now, I think. [00:14:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:07] Speaker D: One of the. [00:14:07] Speaker A: They had one less game loss than Brion. One of the 5 and 10 versus. [00:14:11] Speaker D: 5, 11 out of these groups here that I see. I think we could all agree that group Baron is the stronger group because G, Gen G and T wants at the top right now. Is this the LCK saying that they believe that as an objective Baron Nasher is better than Elder Dragon? Discuss. [00:14:27] Speaker A: There's just no way that's true. Baron's actually like way weaker this year, this season than it was counterpoint seasons. [00:14:34] Speaker C: You don't see Elder ever getting this. Okay. I actually think people are overselling this, by the way, because I think. [00:14:38] Speaker A: Oh, you think so? [00:14:39] Speaker C: Yeah, I think Baron minions like Baron Siege Minions this year are like. I don't know. I don't know what they changed specifically, but they feel way more OP if you can just have a. Yeah, they. [00:14:49] Speaker B: Definitely feel way better. [00:14:51] Speaker C: I'm not Gonna lie. This is one of the few things I just didn't check the numbers on. But those siege minions, when they. When they set up for a tower, they chunk those. They chuck them down, they. They die. [00:15:01] Speaker B: I think it also has to do with how much damage we do to turrets now. I think Champion added on as well. [00:15:07] Speaker A: The Baron itself. I. I don't know the numbers on the. The wave empowered, like, how much they empower the cannons, but I know that Baron is harder to kill, it does more damage, and it's worth less gold. Yeah, those are. Those are three big reasons why Baron is not as, like, definitive of a game ender. I think, like, the gold worth of just the Baron itself went from. I think it was like, 3K last year. If your team just gets Baron, or maybe it's 2k. I forget exactly what it was because everyone gets real. [00:15:31] Speaker D: Yeah, it was 1.5. Now it's down to. Now it's down to 750. So that's why you're seeing these. [00:15:35] Speaker C: Down to about 800. [00:15:36] Speaker A: Yeah, they, like, cut it in half. [00:15:38] Speaker B: I still think, though, that Baron is easier to end a game with than Elder. If you have minions, that's just. [00:15:44] Speaker C: It's very contextual, I think. [00:15:45] Speaker A: Depends. [00:15:46] Speaker C: Yeah, definitely, like, compend them, but that. [00:15:50] Speaker A: That's not, you know, league relevant necessarily. So maybe we'll table that conversation for a future day, but there we go. That's the LPL LCK update. We don't have RMC to update us on cb, lol. So we'll. We'll just move along here. [00:16:02] Speaker B: It just doesn't matter. Yeah. You just walk away. [00:16:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I want to get into the proper episode itself. We're gonna start off with lec. We started off with LCS last week, so this time around, we're gonna hop across the pond to begin to Jamata's neighborhood. Probably not very close to where you live, actually, but, you know, still closer than we are. Lec. We had a couple of teams lock in playoff positions, and one team get locked out. Yanni real quick can run through the current standings and talk about the teams that have made it in already. I don't know if y. Yani, are you. Are you alive? [00:16:39] Speaker D: Oh, yeah, I'm here. Don't worry. I was. I was drinking some water. Sorry. [00:16:43] Speaker A: Okay. Understand. [00:16:44] Speaker D: Got to keep the pipes lubricated. So we got some teams locked in, and one team locked out from top to bottom. We got Carmine core sitting at 7 and 2 in first place, then Giant X and Navi tied for second. At six and three. And then we have four teams tied for fourth. Fnatic, G2, MCOI and Vitality all sitting at five and four then. And tied for eighth with Team Heretics is the rats. Los Ratones at four and five right now on the inside of a playoff spot. We'll see if they can hold it. And then two teams tied for 10th and shifters in SK gaming. And then last but. And yes least sadly, Casey Blue at 1 and 8, they have been eliminated. They did get their win before Los Rotones got hot because honestly if this they had played Los Rotonas later, we might be looking at a team that would have went out in 10. [00:17:36] Speaker B: You can. Oh no. [00:17:38] Speaker A: Yeah, bummer. See so KC Blue is the only team locked out of playoffs. Casey proper is the top of the the standing. So we got a little Casey sandwich happening in the LEC right now. [00:17:49] Speaker B: I thought the exact same thing. [00:17:50] Speaker A: Yep. Casey are joint. Well okay. [00:17:52] Speaker D: But it's. [00:17:52] Speaker A: It's always an awkward thing where it's like is it a sandwich if it's name after the bread? Because that they technically would be the bread. We're not getting into that. GX and Navi are all the bottom. [00:18:00] Speaker D: Of that bun must be soggy as hell. [00:18:03] Speaker B: Yeah, bro, French bread doesn't get that soggy. Come on. [00:18:06] Speaker A: Yeah, but look at how many ingredients there are in between them. [00:18:09] Speaker B: I dry ingredients. [00:18:10] Speaker A: Oh, these. Oh it is lec. All right. Anyways, since we have jamada here, Jama, I'm going to toss it over to you next. There were a lot of games. The way we've been running the 18 best of ones every week is rather than going through every game, we're just going to talk about the highlights. So in particular, what games stood out to you that you wanted to kind of present to the class here and recommend people check out if they have not had time to watch LEC yet. Yeah, sure. [00:18:35] Speaker C: So I mean first off, just in general, I think if you're watching LEC versus you should just be watching every LR game. Yep. One they played, you know, the pretty much considered before season started. Number one, two, three team. Like there's two teams in this example. I'm saying like everyone would have predicted in top three in MKOI and G2 and the mad Lads only went and beat them both. So I guess spoiler. But you know, if you're here and you haven't watched those games, go watch them and just watch how it happens. Because I think there's more magic in how it happens as opposed to even knowing the result, they did play Navi. Navi did completely smash them. So that did. [00:19:17] Speaker A: That was embarrassing, man. [00:19:18] Speaker C: It did bring. [00:19:19] Speaker A: That was the one. I predicted LR to win, by the way, the entire predictions. I said lr, lose, lose. Okay, they can maybe beat na'. Vi. What the other two are. [00:19:28] Speaker C: Not to go too deep into the. Into the matchup, but it is one of those matchups for me where I've been one. I've been very big on na' VI in general. I think that drafting has been one of their strongest suits, and prep in general has also looked like something that they're very, very comfortable with going into any given matchup so far. So I expected them to have a much better time into LR, at least from a prep and draft perspective than MCOI. Maybe not so much G2, because actually, usually I respect G2 a lot with their prep. Not necessarily it was the execution on their drafts, but definitely their prep. But into into LR, I didn't really see it. And Emcoy. I mean, McOid, we decided to blind K' Sante into baws. Just a very strange set of occurrences for the weekend. But the LR games, always very, very fun to watch. The other highlights for me would be the. The SKGX game. That game was incredibly, incredibly fun. And then other than that, I would say final one just to kind of give you, I suppose, five to chew on. [00:20:32] Speaker A: I love it. [00:20:33] Speaker C: Casey F. Casey F. Was all right. If not Casey F, you could make an argument for a Vitality G2 as well. So technically 6. There you go. There. Your games. Those are definitely some of the more fun games to watch in the week. [00:20:48] Speaker A: Which game did EASMA get his pentakill in? Because I feel like that's cool. Getting a pentakill as a jungler does not happen very often. I think it happened only two other times in the history. [00:20:57] Speaker C: Yeah, it was a resolution resort. No, no, sorry, not resort. It was the top lane of. [00:21:04] Speaker A: I know. It's inspired. [00:21:05] Speaker C: Yeah, inspired. [00:21:06] Speaker A: That's it. [00:21:06] Speaker C: Inspired is one. Yike is the other. [00:21:09] Speaker A: There we go. [00:21:10] Speaker C: I just can't remember what game Yike did it in, to be honest with you. I just know. I just know that. I just know that he did it. [00:21:19] Speaker A: Well, I think I. I want to say it might have been GX Navi that. [00:21:23] Speaker C: Oh, for Isma. Oh, yeah, it was. It was GX Navi. But I was always thinking about Yike got the Pena. But yeah, that was the game from Isma. Really cool to see that happen just because. Yeah, like Kangs Mentioned in it very rarely happens for Jungler. [00:21:37] Speaker A: Very rarely. Yike did have another cool performance. So it wasn't a pentakill but it was an insane gold lead. Right? I think it was versus shifters. You have like an 8.6k if I remember correctly. Individual gold lead the team at a 20k. Goldie. They got over 20k by the time they took the negatives. I have never seen that big of a goal differential in a pro game before. [00:21:59] Speaker B: So come over to the LPL sometime. Oh boy. [00:22:02] Speaker D: There was one in the. [00:22:03] Speaker B: The. [00:22:03] Speaker A: In the jungle the other day. [00:22:06] Speaker D: Poor, poor Juhan. Got his pockets ran like last week or something like that. It was bad. He was like 070 or something like that. [00:22:17] Speaker A: Yeah, well first time I had seen one in any pro game. Maybe I need to watch still. [00:22:22] Speaker B: It doesn't happen that often. Yeah, nearly. It's crazy. [00:22:25] Speaker A: Which does lead me to an interesting point because you might have noticed that was a 20k gold lead lead record breaking jungle gold gap record breaking number of pentakills so far. Because not only did he's gonna get one. Ice got one as well. Again. [00:22:40] Speaker B: Again. [00:22:40] Speaker C: He's like his third. [00:22:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Third of this split. I'm gonna. It looks for a toad is suddenly beating G2 guys. Somebody has to say it. I think LEC is match fixing. I think that's the only. [00:22:53] Speaker B: That's why we brought Jamada on because we're putting him on the stand right now. [00:22:58] Speaker A: Defend your. Your. [00:22:59] Speaker D: Your. [00:22:59] Speaker A: Your region. What's going on with this match fixing and how do we get in on this money? Because I need to start. I need to start learning who's gonna win. [00:23:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:07] Speaker C: Well, I will say I am starting to lose a little bit of faith in. In shifters as a whole. Like the fact, the fact. The fact that they let ice go I think is. Is really criminal. [00:23:17] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:23:18] Speaker C: I'm sure there must have been. You know it could be any list of reasons. [00:23:21] Speaker A: Right. [00:23:21] Speaker C: Maybe just contract negotiations don't go positively. We don't know like we're not inside the room to understand. But I don't know if I'm shifters like one of my main priorities as GM in the off season is. Is keeping a hold of ice. And I understand like at the end of the day they landed on paddock. [00:23:36] Speaker A: Right. [00:23:38] Speaker C: But I. I'm always done all right. He's done all right. [00:23:41] Speaker A: You know. [00:23:42] Speaker C: But I. I feel like ice to me he's. He's a proven a known quantity to the Lec and you're always taking a big risk when you. You Know, you shift around players like this, and I feel like Ice and Trimby would have probably complemented each other a little bit more than I've seen so far. Trimbian Paddock. Compliment each other. That said, as for the rest of the match, fisting, fixing. Exactly. With the 20K gold lead. [00:24:12] Speaker A: Right. [00:24:13] Speaker B: Like, a lot of stuff. [00:24:15] Speaker C: That's what I'm saying. [00:24:16] Speaker A: That's a lot of money. [00:24:17] Speaker C: Yeah. I don't know. I, I, it's, it's just a very weird time to be an LEC fan. I think the best of ones are really taking their toll on a teams too, because, you know, it's hard to get a gauge on how good teams really are when they're playing. [00:24:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:34] Speaker C: 3 what could be very random result, best ones a week. It also, like, heavily limits your ability to practice as well throughout the week. It's something that I think people kind of forget. [00:24:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:46] Speaker A: Like, how do scrim blocks work in lc? Renowned. Have you talked to any teams? Are they only screaming best of ones? [00:24:51] Speaker C: No. [00:24:51] Speaker D: No. [00:24:51] Speaker C: I mean, they'll probably. They'll probably still scrim. [00:24:54] Speaker B: They'll do like three or four block. [00:24:55] Speaker C: Yeah, like, they'll, they'll probably. They'll probably do like, traditional, like three or five block. Just. No. Fearless. [00:25:01] Speaker A: Right. [00:25:01] Speaker C: If I had to wager a guess, there's, there's a chance they do. They do do fearless, but maybe it's. [00:25:06] Speaker A: Like, because we're gonna be fearless in the best ofs, like, once playoffs start. So you don't want to, like, ignore that practice is. [00:25:11] Speaker B: We need to stop best of Ones. We do need to stop. [00:25:15] Speaker C: We do need to stop. [00:25:16] Speaker B: LEC is the only one left. [00:25:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I, I don't exactly. Well, I could tell you, but I don't know if it's safe for this podcast. Oh, well, it's speculation. [00:25:25] Speaker A: That's up to you. [00:25:26] Speaker C: Speculation. I mean, guys, let's just be honest. LR in the league, do you want any LEC broadcast day without LRPlay? [00:25:32] Speaker B: Like, you know, like, it's gonna find a loophole. [00:25:37] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. The 11 team and best of one's kind of done does give you that. Unfortunately, they. They have a pretty damn good chance of making its playoffs. So. Yeah, there's. There's that, bro. [00:25:49] Speaker B: It's just everyone versus lr. Everybody just plays and they have to see. [00:25:55] Speaker A: They're like. We were trying to milk them for all the viewership because we didn't think they were going to make it, but now that they're gonna make it. Yeah. [00:25:59] Speaker B: Put them on every single game. [00:26:02] Speaker A: Yeah. No, I mean, that's a good point. And. And speaking of, they have had a great effect on viewership across the board for lec. So shout out to Los Ratons, especially their match ve G2. That hit like normal season game highs that I have not seen since probably 2017, 2018 in like the golden era of. Of esports. It's insane. Do we know what the final viewership number was for that? I heard 300k, but I don't know for sure. [00:26:29] Speaker C: It was with the other co streams factored in. It was, I think just barely. North of 500k, I want to say. When I say barely, I mean like, like, you know, 505, 000 views, like peak. Something like that. [00:26:44] Speaker B: That's crazy. [00:26:45] Speaker A: Okay. That's well above anything I've seen for a domestic league then. Yeah, because back in the day I remember, yeah, like 250k for like TSMC9 or TSMC LG. Like big, big LCS matches and maybe like Fnatic G2 over in. In Europe. But that's crazy. And a lot of that is from Cadre himself. Miselle, you were telling me like a different story of Cage roll viewership. Eclipse. [00:27:05] Speaker B: It was that just Regular LCK For LCK, it was the T1. I forget which T1 match the matchups. He had 100,000 viewers in the original broadcast, had 25 or even less. It was like 23,000. That was the first time I'd ever seen K viewership get quadruple. [00:27:22] Speaker A: Whatever broadcast he was watching, I've seen him get double. [00:27:24] Speaker B: But it's just last year it was triple. Triple was the milestone. I was like, holy crap. He's got triple the amount of viewership that LCK or LEC has a lot of time. And then now it's quadruple. It's just getting more and more, bro. [00:27:35] Speaker A: Can we just convince him to watch lcs Be like, look, man, you really want to watch. [00:27:40] Speaker B: Just watch all the league all day. [00:27:42] Speaker A: You just want to watch inspired and saint really bad. [00:27:45] Speaker D: Click. [00:27:47] Speaker A: But yeah, shout out LAC viewership. It's. It's good to celebrate that. Would love to have some more of that in na. But of course that doesn't detract from how positive. At least a business development team can spin that for future LEC deals. Hopefully. So with that being said, week four is right around the corner. Thankfully, this coming week we only have two days of six best of ones, meaning 12 total games. There will not be games on Monday and this is the end of the round robin. And then that will go into the top eight playoff bracket, which offhand, I don't exactly remember what that bracket is gonna look like. Let me. Let me see if I can pull that up here on League pd since I have the page up. So the lower bracket, the losers bracket is just bottom four. They just immediately go in there and then the top. [00:28:39] Speaker C: This is for LEC you're talking about, right? [00:28:41] Speaker A: For lec. Yeah. [00:28:43] Speaker C: This is. [00:28:43] Speaker A: Wait, this doesn't really make sense. [00:28:44] Speaker C: It's a. Everyone starts in the upper bracket. [00:28:48] Speaker A: That would make more sense. Okay. Yes, yes. Because top eight will make it in. They immediately. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I. I just saw losers bracket and I'm always used to team starting down there, but that makes more sense that everyone gets two lives. That's actually kind of cool. I do like that. That's pretty clean with eight total teams. So we'll see who's able to make it. Because it is very contentious for playoff implications. Jamat, I know that we usually just kind of recommend people what matches should they keep their eyes on for this coming week. And you, you gave your opinion on a couple of them because a lot of them have playoff implications. [00:29:19] Speaker B: Right. [00:29:19] Speaker C: So I'll be honest, pretty much all of them have simplications. I think the mo, like if I was to round it down to maybe like three games, like, like the absolute most important games, Vitaly, mcoi and then subsequently the day after na' vi mkoi, just because MCOI have very, very bad head to heads with teams, they need to have good head to heads with for this player scenario. So they can avoid that obviously, if they just win. [00:29:47] Speaker A: Yeah. There's still a world McOid doesn't make it. Right. [00:29:50] Speaker C: There is a very weird world where MCOI doesn't make it if they lose, like both their games. LR pick up a win and then also SK pick up a win stuff. Not sk. Heretics picks up a win stuff starts to get really, really wonky. Luckily for them, the fact that a lot of the like kind of teams that could give them trouble are Sat3, which basically SK and shifters, they're chilling in that regard. But again, just simply because they have bad head to heads with a lot of these teams that. That ended up being in the bottom half. [00:30:27] Speaker A: Right. [00:30:27] Speaker C: Again, Shiftus is one, Heretics is another. That's very problematic. And Heretics again is like the main one. Fortunately for mkoi, that weekend for Heretics or this weekend for Heretics looks like it is FNATIC into kc. So these are teams that they should theoretically lose against. That said, Fnatic look incredibly inconsistent. [00:30:53] Speaker A: Just beat mcoh to be polite. [00:30:56] Speaker C: Fnatic look very, very inconsistent. And Casey are never too far away from throwing a game a lot of the time. So, you know, they've been liable is what we'll say. Especially last year was a very big habit of it domestically. [00:31:12] Speaker A: Sure, sure. And even like the teams that theoretically could get knocked out immediately, like if shifters are sk, I'm pretty sure if either of them lose a game, then they should just be out. But Shifters has Casey blue on day one. [00:31:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:31:28] Speaker A: And like SK has Los Ratons, which also look, I mean, they haven't get wins, but like, they could also just drop a game. So there's a world that, like, we're waiting until that Sunday to finalize a lot of these. [00:31:40] Speaker C: Nemesis is going to put lead up through the floor. [00:31:45] Speaker B: Oh, my God. [00:31:46] Speaker C: On Saturday. It's gonna be bad. [00:31:48] Speaker A: I wouldn't mind watching that. That actually. [00:31:50] Speaker C: Yeah, we'll see. I think the main thing for SK there is just that their prep has to be good. Like, I, I think that drafting versus LR is very, very simple. And for whatever reason, teams are just. I, I, Yeah. I think that reaction. [00:32:04] Speaker A: Don't let them scale. [00:32:04] Speaker C: That reaction should give you everything that you need to know. [00:32:06] Speaker D: Like, I, I don't know precisely why I picked SK to win. [00:32:10] Speaker C: Okay. Okay, sure. I don't think it will happen, but I can, I can believe it. [00:32:16] Speaker A: Hey, just give me Wonder versus baus. That's gonna be cinema, dude. I can't wait for, for that matchup. I hope that Wonder plays Scion. I hope they leave it unbanned and then Wonder just locks it in. That would be peak. Although it's probably bad to play sign into a sign one trick. Also, he might. He might know he's just gonna play kled. All right, well, there we have it. That is our coming week. You have a couple of recommendations for games. Also Fnatic G2, I'm just gonna throw that out at the very end here because Fnatic G2, that's EL. That's like a huge one. [00:32:48] Speaker C: And I'll also toss. [00:32:48] Speaker A: Also with some playoff implications. [00:32:50] Speaker C: I'll toss in one extra on top of that. Technically, at the end of day one, it's kcgx. They are first and second place. Right. [00:32:59] Speaker A: All of us having KC across the board. Wait, that's kind of crazy that there's no gx. You know what? Screw it. I'll throw GX in there. I feel like they deserve some more respect. [00:33:07] Speaker C: Yeah, it's it's first, first, second. It should be good. Should good emphasis on. On the should also. [00:33:16] Speaker A: I'm just gonna pat ourselves on the back. I think overall, our tier list that we made going into the season, there's a couple outliers, but I think we did a good job. Like Casey Koi gx, we have at the top, we do have Navi and Rogue tier, which is the one awkward part is that they've definitely overperformed our expectations. But like sk, Casey, Blue team, Heretics towards the bottom, Lo Sir Tones overperformed, but like everybody else is in that suit. So, yeah, I think overall we have a couple outliers. Like G2 doing worse than expected. Navi doing much better than expected. But I think expectations for power rankings were relatively on point going into this so far. Obviously still room for movement with one more weekend of games. But with that said, that's LEC in a nutshell. Unless Yanni Mazzella, if anybody else, has any final points going once we didn't do our predictions. Yeah, there's just a lot of games. Okay. Yeah. I don't want to waste everyone's time just running through all of them. We're keeping track of the percentages, which, if you want to update on there, myself, Badger and mazel are at 56%. Yeah, baby, that's right for LEC. RMC is above us at 58%. Yanni's at 61%. Jamada will keep track of yours for this week. Sorry, Bickle, you're 52%. You're kind of dragging us down on the average right there. But notably, no one is negative. No one is under 50%, which is actually pretty big. Sometimes I do dip in there. I like to have fun with it. [00:34:42] Speaker B: For the cozies. [00:34:42] Speaker A: Yeah, just see what the water's like. Speaking of water, let's hop across the pond to LCS over in North America, where we have best of threes and a dramatically less amount of games played. Overall. I was looking at the numbers. We have this conversation every now and then. So far, LEC is at 54 games. LCK is at 71 games. LPL's at 121 games, everyone. Miselle, don't. Because you're looking right at it. It. But, Yanni, guess how many NA games in the LCS we have played total? [00:35:13] Speaker D: God. NA games. There's not a lot of them. There's like, I don't know, like, maybe 30ish. [00:35:22] Speaker A: Jamada. Take a guess how many LCS games have played so far this split. [00:35:25] Speaker C: Well, there's been eight series. Oh yeah, the math have been two O's so I'm gonna say maybe 21. 21 feels like you are both over the number. [00:35:37] Speaker A: It is 18. It is as close to minimum as possible. Well that as possible. Actually 16 would be the the lowest but it's still pretty close. It's still pretty close. So only 18 games. We are a week behind LEC and a couple weeks behind some of the other regions. So we have one week is what. [00:35:56] Speaker B: A max of 12 games? [00:35:59] Speaker A: Look man, I'm doing my best. [00:36:02] Speaker B: Wouldn't even make it to what LEC has played already. [00:36:04] Speaker A: Look man, we got shorted. I show up for three hours of work and I go home. It's a good time. It's a great time. We had a couple of S3 this past weekend. Mizelle, how about you run me through the current standings of how people are doing in the lcs? [00:36:19] Speaker B: All right. [00:36:20] Speaker A: Oh, I did not update this one actually. Sorry. So instead just tell me how this last weekend went. I, I, I realized in the document I did not give week two. [00:36:28] Speaker B: So we had C9 versus Lion ended up in a 2.0for C9. C9 Cement presenting themselves as one of two best teams in the LCS. In the lock in stage it's them and Fly Quest who are at both at 2.0. Although Cloud 9 hasn't lost a game and FlyQuest has lost one. [00:36:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:48] Speaker B: Then continuing in third place, we got Sentinels. We're able to get on the board one to one right now we had disguised at one to one which as well was an interesting development with Kizno. [00:37:00] Speaker A: As an A sub. Not bad. [00:37:01] Speaker B: Not too bad. T2 talent, baby. Lion is at 11 as well. So is Team Liquid. They did have a good bounce back for Team Liquid this year. This split or not split this weekend Dignitas and Shopify rebellion are still 02. And there might be something that maybe teed that off with the title of the episode, but also maybe somebody in this podcast who might have been backing the Rebels a little bit. But couple. [00:37:29] Speaker A: You know how we talk about V video bits and audio mediums a lot. Thankfully you can't see my tears right now. Shopify Rebellion greatly underperforming my expectations. Zinni in particular looked rough, but let's take it series by series because there's only four to talk about. So C9 versus Lion. This was a kind of built up to be a cool matchup because Blabber versus inspired, you know, like the jungle goats of North America who's going to win it. And guys, C9 are just the best team in the league right now, right? Like, holy crap, they look so strong. Apa in particular, I think is is really setting into the team way faster and way better than I expected. He's playing better than I thought he would on C9. And the synergy is better with blabber than I expected to have that chip. [00:38:15] Speaker B: On your shoulder will do a lot of work for you, man. I talking to him. I got to see him almost every day towards the end of his time with team Liquid. And there is nothing that'll make you grow into a stronger person faster than realizing you failed somewhere and giving. Being given another opportunity. And I think this guy's gonna be insane this year. [00:38:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Yanni, any. Any big thoughts on C9 Lion? I either. I mean, we can just glaze C9 to the end of the world. [00:38:41] Speaker B: I also have some. [00:38:42] Speaker A: Some kind of hot takes on lion right now. [00:38:46] Speaker D: Yeah, there's not really much more to say. I mean, these games did go very long, right? It's not like a Lion just got like absolutely dominated. In fact, when you take a look at like numbers, why is this series actually ended up up looking very close. [00:38:58] Speaker A: The. [00:38:58] Speaker D: The one thing that I'd like to see is Thanatos have a little bit more impact. Oh, he didn't really have a great series, but other than that, you know. [00:39:10] Speaker A: Do has usually been able to hold his own against the top. [00:39:13] Speaker D: I'm not saying that he's got to like whip Lane or anything like that. You know, we got to be doing a little bit more in these fights, brother. [00:39:22] Speaker A: Also, I feel that for me, the thing that is still dragging lion down a little bit is Saint. It's hard to say that. I think that like Berserker Isles, they. I'm give them another like week or two to kind of get their feet under them. I think they're looking fine. But Saint, in the high pressure moments, he just either is mechanically making mistakes or just getting caught out of position. And Dokala, also known for getting caught out of position in like mid to late game. And when both of those players, both your solo laners are getting picked before objective setups, before team fights can be kind of tough for the team to actually recover. It really feels like inspired trying to drag this team across the finish line. [00:40:01] Speaker B: Quick point on that as well. How long does inspired give this? I. I think inspired with this duty. He's like, oh, I get to choose. I'm so tired of these people that don't pay Attention like all Those videos for FlyQuest like the Passion he has had, the. The right ideas that he had but the wrong execution from a lot of his teammates and I feel like he's like giving this another opportunity. He's like I'm gonna get all the people I want to play with. I'm gonna try to get these guys and then they still fail and Dokla has to come in and top Blade and everything. Like I feel like he's just done with NA bro. [00:40:32] Speaker A: There's no way I, I think there's a. A decent chance. Like I would say it's non between 1% and 20 chance. I'm not gonna go too high but around 20 chance that within this year he like like just signed to a different team. Cuz if it doesn't work out for him, he's such a good player. Like you still just look at him individually and you see the single handedly winning games on the games and it's just. It's tough to see like a. A roster not being able to work around him. So again hopefully they turn it around. This lion roster spent big on a player like inspired and are have aspirations of making worlds of winning a split. So we'll see if they're able. [00:41:11] Speaker D: I want Inspired to find himself in a very Chinese time of his life in 2027. [00:41:18] Speaker B: Yo, he would just LPL bro. He would save Weibo right now. [00:41:25] Speaker D: Good impact on a lot of teams. [00:41:26] Speaker B: I'm sure he could be. He could be on BLG right now if he wanted to. [00:41:30] Speaker A: I there there. I could count on two fingers the number of western players that I would maybe could make a jump to lpl and he is one of those. It's him and I might make a. [00:41:40] Speaker B: Post about or something. Dude, I think inspired on blg they might, they might could be the best team in the planet. [00:41:45] Speaker D: Dude that would be so sick. Dude that be so sick. [00:41:48] Speaker B: I think that team would be insane, bro. [00:41:52] Speaker C: You just want the team that Viper's on to just explode. Is that it? Like are you just. Is that. [00:41:58] Speaker D: Well here's. [00:41:59] Speaker C: Is that the angle that you're going for them? [00:42:00] Speaker D: If BLG doesn't get it done this year, they might just explode anyway. Who knows? I mean your top laner is already leaving the team and coming back four hours later. [00:42:10] Speaker B: Like think all he has to learn is Lila. And then they'll come. They'll come fighting it. They'll come just join him and fight and then that's all you tell his teammates. [00:42:20] Speaker D: Bonjour. [00:42:21] Speaker B: Come on Tell me Bin instead of doa. I would rather have those guys. [00:42:27] Speaker A: I mean I could Saint I come on and it's like it's just crazy to think about Saints and Knight actually have like funnily similar names in terms of like thematic anyway that the complete tangent. I feel like yeah players like Inspired are the. It's inspiring capture. The only western players I think ever could make a legitimate jump over and maybe have some kind of impact over in in like LPL lck. I don't know how likely that would be. I'm thinking more LEC probably would try and pick up Inspired but all I'm. [00:42:57] Speaker B: Saying CB LOL and just starts punching. [00:43:00] Speaker D: All I'm saying inspired. [00:43:06] Speaker A: I mean I take your word for that one. Next up in the series on Saturday for LCS. What Sentinels versus Dignitas. Sentinels got it done in a 20 fashion. This was Dignitas's first series with FBI and IGNAR in the bot lane and they're jet lags. [00:43:25] Speaker C: Like I know you're technically employed to to the LCS and like sometimes like I've been there. I've been there. Like I get it. [00:43:31] Speaker B: This is what we were waiting for. [00:43:34] Speaker C: I get it. Like you want to be a little bit politically correct. No man. Like this team blows that they after watching dsg, they might actually just be the worst team in the league. Like dick. Like I. I think DSG is better than this team and Shopify. [00:43:48] Speaker B: Bring back fervor Leona. Bring back fervor Leona. Ignar will be fine. [00:43:53] Speaker D: Josh Harris. Sell the team. [00:43:55] Speaker A: I still, I still to this day will defend my boy Photon though I think top lane is the only position that is actually doing its job on this team right now and like playing really well. Photon has not lost a laning phase yet. He's not won a game, but he has not lost individually. Even when the team is struggling. He will be like 2K ahead of his Lane opponent on Kante who solo kill to Renekton and is now like holding the line 1v3 while his team loses Dragon. It's like what the hell are we doing? [00:44:26] Speaker B: They did have drafting woes. Jonathan like stepped in for their first first series. [00:44:31] Speaker A: Yeah, this last series it was their assistant coach. [00:44:34] Speaker C: To find and just have a really nice conversation with Photon's agent. Like whoever it is, I just need. [00:44:40] Speaker A: To know get him back over to eu. Yeah, you want to get real bad. [00:44:44] Speaker C: Like I'm surprised he didn't land on Lion. Like he's the kind of player that I would have Expected. Like, obviously I know the import standard the way they did on lion, right? But I'm surprised that, you know, he or he just didn't end up on another like, like the Sentinels project. Obviously they went with Impact in the end, but like, Photon is. Is good hands. Like, same thing. Same thing also for. For tl, right? It's like tl. I think he would have been a good fit for this TL lineup. But they. They went. [00:45:12] Speaker B: Anybody? [00:45:13] Speaker D: I don't know. [00:45:13] Speaker C: It's just really strange. [00:45:16] Speaker A: I will say though, again, maybe it's just because I always get scheduled to Dig games. I'm gonna be casting dig vs shopify this next weekend also. I'm just like the Dignitas cast story, dude. The amount of like, narrative. Anyway, speaking to their gm, Jonathan, he says, yeah, we know we suck. But on the bright side, I do not see mental tilt in the players. He's like, everyone's still having fun and like, joking around. And we know that this is not an ideal situation for us with FBI and Ignar being here so late. So we've already had the conversation. Like, obviously we're going to try our absolute hardest, but. But, you know, if we lose, we lose and we're gonna try and scale to like split two. So they're kind of already in that mindset because one more series loss and they're out of playoff contention. [00:46:02] Speaker B: This next two teams, though, I feel like he. I don't know if it's. Whatever is happening, but I feel like he's just lost his edge that he. [00:46:11] Speaker A: The. [00:46:11] Speaker B: The slight edge that he. [00:46:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I was gonna say, like. [00:46:15] Speaker C: Yeah, I'd love a bit big on that. [00:46:18] Speaker A: What's like the wooden sword you spar with with. [00:46:20] Speaker C: Oh, the training. [00:46:22] Speaker A: The kendo stick. Yeah, I feel like he's still working with the kendo stick right now. Yeah, sorry, J. I cut you off. [00:46:32] Speaker C: I was just saying. I just. I've never really felt big on. Big on Xu, unfortunately. I don't know. He's. He's never really striked me as a player that's had like a bunch of hunger. He's never really. To me, he's not really, like, had a consistent play pattern where I've been like, oh, this guy. This guy's playing the jungle. Like he knows 100% what he's doing or he's playing to his own game plan. It always feels like he's kind of being pulled around. And I think, you know, that's not inherently always his fault, but I think it's a bigger sign of like obviously on DSG last year that is what it is. I think here on Dignitas this is the kind of team where it's like realistically man, Palafox is Palafox and you've got two good side lanes that you can play for and I feel like or like you know on paper there's at least one and it's just not happened so far. I think at the very least dropify the series he'll have a little bit more room to work with there. But even that I'm concerned for the mid lane matchup again. I know people are not big on Zinni but I'm concerned there. I think Contractz individually is still the kind of guy that's gonna, if you put him on engage champs he's gonna like he's gonna push the game. Like he's gonna advance the game if he feels like he can advance it. Right. So I think this is gonna be obviously naturally a very big test for them. This the elimination match effectively. [00:47:43] Speaker A: Yeah, but yeah, very. I will say though one other last thing for Dignitas is that Pal Box is doing slightly better than I expected. He's still not a like a top mid laner by any stretch but I have not seen him like get bodied in laning phase yet and that was the biggest issue Toss like I'm pretty. [00:48:00] Speaker B: Sure the one time I checked in on one of the games this weekend he like literally lost them. The game game. [00:48:06] Speaker A: Yeah, his rise alts were a little, little aggressive. I'm trying to remember. [00:48:13] Speaker B: I think he's a fraud, bro. [00:48:14] Speaker A: I, I, this is just in his defense, you can still believe that but he is performing better than we saw last year. I know it's only four games, it's only two. [00:48:22] Speaker B: The narrative man, he's gonna be facing again. [00:48:24] Speaker C: We have gone from, we have gone from the ninth circle of hell to the eighth circle of hell. That's, that's impressive. [00:48:29] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. [00:48:29] Speaker C: And actually pretty pretty apt if you know your circle's about now that I. [00:48:33] Speaker A: Think about it, it is hilarious. So you talk about I don't know the circles L but I'm happy that you found that funny. Speaking of the, the narrative though that you do make a good point. He's up against zeni and contracts and something I didn't realize until the GM Jonathan pointed it out to me at one point was this is Palafox his first time without contracts in four years. [00:48:51] Speaker B: Yep. [00:48:52] Speaker A: He's had the same jungler for four years and now we get to see what Both of them look like apart from each other. We'll get into Shopify's later spoilers. I think Palfox looks better without contracts and contracts looks way worse right now. But that's gonna be the second series of day two. First, let's talk about FlyQuest versus DSG because FlyQuest did pick up the series win here, but they dropped a game with Kizno in the jungle and Griffin had a bit of an oopsie game that time around. I still am very impressed with Griffin. [00:49:22] Speaker B: Overall, but we can Besta makes up for everything. Yeah, that. [00:49:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:26] Speaker B: His ambassador game literally made up for any failings. [00:49:28] Speaker A: But you see the height lows of a player like Griffin which is expected. I think that what we've ever seen from FlyQuest is what I was expecting is really, really pop off highlight real moments. The Volley Bear, the Ambesa. But then we also see moments where it's like okay, yeah, he also will be over aggressive and then die on the Volley Bear the next weekend in like a different series. So I'm still excited for Fly Quest. I think they're over performing. What I had them initially. I. I think I had them fifth place. I had them behind lions. [00:49:55] Speaker B: Yeah, Massu's looking good from. [00:49:57] Speaker A: Oh he's great man. [00:49:58] Speaker B: Like I think that guy is still looking cream of the crop. [00:50:02] Speaker D: Yeah, it's been super exciting to to watch them play. I will say though, you know, while they are two and oh we got to remember who they who they have played against. It hasn't exactly been the toughest competition yet. [00:50:16] Speaker A: Hey, Shopify Rebellion. [00:50:18] Speaker D: Shopify. And you, you've played against the skies. You know. Cloud 9 is the guy that brings the meta deck to the Yu Gi OH tournament and beats the the meta team, the meta decks. And flyQuest is the guy who plays. [00:50:30] Speaker A: Against like damn it. [00:50:32] Speaker D: I don't know. This is a good reversal quiz OTK or something like that. [00:50:37] Speaker A: And like no Shopify Rebellion or something. The Tier 3 brand new deck, full max rarity but it's still a deck. And then DSG are playing like three structure decks put together and are good enough that they still got to win with the it. That's a. That's a really good analogy. I like that one a lot. And Fly Quest will get their first real gibberish this coming weekend as they will be playing up against Fly Quest. But dsg, I still think they put themselves in a good position overall because I would have expected them with Kizno as the sub to be 0 and 2. I didn't even think they were going to win that first weekend and even getting a game on Fly Quest it's like yeah DSG not only just in you know position to to make playoffs but also like game win percentage. Even in their losses they're picking up game wins. They're getting swept either way. I'm very, very excited about players like. [00:51:26] Speaker B: Sajed to really step up versus so so fun that that was. [00:51:34] Speaker A: That was super exciting. Also Lions as a support I think looks so much more comfortable on this roster than he did last year on lion the team and really really liked specifically like his Bard and in the the Baron setup fight that was like a huge moment for them. Then Castle will come in playing Rex side top lane. Pretty exciting. See we have the other person picks occasionally in na. [00:51:57] Speaker B: The only other person with the card for that is Flandra. So yep. [00:52:01] Speaker A: Hell yeah. But yeah, flagwise they were expected to win this one. It was a little closer than I thought it would be. I'd fly two zero but shout out Kizno. Hopefully he gets scouted next week. DSG will have Kryra their intended starting jungler. That leads us to depression, man. [00:52:18] Speaker B: God, what are you talking about depression? Team Liquid baby. [00:52:21] Speaker A: Yeah, let's go. [00:52:23] Speaker B: Sure. [00:52:23] Speaker A: Let's start with celebrating them like that. I'll be doomer afterwards and talk about sharp fire rebellion but what do you like about Team Liquid Missile to to. [00:52:29] Speaker B: Kick this one off four pieces of the team. I'm still not a big fan. I still feel like not personally slighted but I still feel slighted for Morgan joining this team. Yeah, I don't think Jose Dioto had the most consistent performances but I think he definitely has a role on this team. But I still was very impressed by the other three. I think being able to see Quid a little bit more comfortable especially after another week being able to see Yan and Core JJ still doing a lot of things that they are known for and especially Jan's consistency. Still really awesome to see. [00:53:07] Speaker A: I yawn. Really impressed me specifically in game one. I mean Morgan just did his job of like zoning Zinnia to fight Suzanny Also pulled out Anivia in game one of Fearless which is really interesting. Into the the rise didn't like the how like late scaling he went with his build also Quid. I don't know if anybody caught this on broadcast. They caught it. Yeah, he actually bought a giant spell so then he had to go like double tier hit himself in the yeah he's like oh I'm an idiot. It's really funny. But Jan had a crazy outplay fight at like the very end on the bevoy and SEOs and I feel like yawn just in general is firing on all cylinders right now. And then game two, it was the Quid show dude on the the Orianna, his four man shockwave to just like one shot. Everybody around the dragon pit. Yeah. Quid. Quid was finding some dirty angles. [00:53:57] Speaker B: He built pretty nuts right now. [00:53:58] Speaker A: It was hilarious hearing Spawn because again, I was on the lounge during this series series and coaches will walk like in and out of the. The smoothie bar where we record those or film those. And Spawn was like pissed that Quid bought mejais. He was like, I have drilled it into my players. [00:54:16] Speaker D: Don't. [00:54:17] Speaker A: It's a bait. He's like, I love Quid. He's really good. He's in trouble. He's like, you know you're not supposed. [00:54:24] Speaker B: To buy this item. [00:54:25] Speaker A: So you could tell Quinn was just. [00:54:26] Speaker C: Having fun with it, you know, just being a goofball. [00:54:29] Speaker A: So that. That was great. But on the other side of the narrative. Oh, my God, dude. Shopify rebellion. Look lost between contracts and Zinni. I don't know who's throwing these games harder, but they're both competing for that honor, bro. [00:54:47] Speaker B: He had one and a half items. [00:54:48] Speaker A: Zinny was zero, six and zero. [00:54:51] Speaker D: They. They need to turn this man into Korean chicken. Chicken. Like BBQ chicken. [00:54:58] Speaker A: He probably saw his anivia passive more than any other pro Nivia. [00:55:02] Speaker D: They sent this man to BBQ Oliver's twice. [00:55:06] Speaker A: Game one. I feel like it was more contracts. He this guy. I love contracts to death. I will go to bat for one because we know what he can accomplish when the team's behind him. But you're playing a vi comp with an anivia. [00:55:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:20] Speaker D: Question. [00:55:22] Speaker A: Yeah, you have a rumble and alucia, which can maybe follow up with some damage, but like the types you just watch when contracts chooses to press the R button. And I don't think there was a single time that I agreed. Every time I was like, what? [00:55:35] Speaker C: Why? [00:55:35] Speaker D: Or what? [00:55:36] Speaker A: What are we doing? And it's just like, it's brutal to see because I know what he's capable of as a player if the team's behind him and if the comp works. But it just did not seem like this comp worked nor was the team behind him. Game two, though, Zinni. That was an atrocious performance and it's really tough because I was so excited for this player. Me, Bickle and Badger met up for like an hour on Friday so I could like prepare a defense for Sunday. Because I had to give like a defense on broadcast. I'm supposed to have a couple minutes for it. Ended up only having a minute. That's just live broadcast. The schedule changes like on the fly. So it was super abbreviated. But like, Zinni was so good in LCK Challengers and that was the number one reason why I had Shopify so high on my tier list. Because I just believed in Zinni and what he would do for this roster. And it has not. [00:56:23] Speaker B: This is what happens when you bring over perspective of Korean talent into na. [00:56:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean we have seen this time and time literally all over. Nothing's new under the sun. I've just never been burned because I never had so much personal faith nor put so much of my public reputation. [00:56:39] Speaker B: Do you think he's also. Do you think he's also like, maybe I should have taken that, that, that EU offer. [00:56:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Maybe playing behind BDD wasn't so bad. [00:56:49] Speaker B: Maybe I should kill the hack. [00:56:52] Speaker A: Yeah. So again, they can maybe turn it around. You never know. I hope they do, but it's not a good sign when the coach, Damonte, one of the Shopify coaches, came up to me after game one, put his hand on my shoulder and said, you gotta stop rooting for us, bud. So when we look at predictions. Speaking of, let's get into that for this coming weekend. Unless before we move on to next week, does anybody else have any final thoughts either on Shopify, Rebellion vs TL or any other storylines from LCS from this past weekend? Going once. [00:57:26] Speaker C: Nothing ever. I think APA just looks like the best mid in NA now, which is. [00:57:30] Speaker A: A very legit does. [00:57:34] Speaker C: You know, Quads had a really weak opening. Excuse me. Quit. Oh, like, I mean, we've seen the matchup. Like Quid. Quid got it put up all in him, right? Like that. [00:57:46] Speaker A: That was not Quid Walked into melee range of a bunch of his your soldiers and just stood there. Yeah, that was ridiculous. [00:57:53] Speaker D: What are we doing? Like, honestly, like, oh, that's like, come on, come on, play the game. [00:57:57] Speaker A: And then Saint did basically the same thing. [00:58:01] Speaker B: Doing great, bro. [00:58:02] Speaker A: Yeah, he's mind controlling these Korean mid laners, man. He's just like, hey, I'm not a threat. [00:58:07] Speaker C: I'm not a threat. Yeah, I agree though. [00:58:10] Speaker A: Thanks for the APA shout out. But next week we have week three predictions. It's going to be the last weekend before we go into our playoffs already. So LCS is going to to line up with LEC playoff beginning because we only have eight teams and it's only the Swiss stage round best of threes. Fun fact. On Sunday we actually will have one extra game. We don't know what it is, so I don't have it on the predictions, but there'll be a best of one to end the day on Sunday because that's tiebreakers. So there's gonna be guaranteed there will be three teams that are one and two and the whatever team has the highest game record. So that's one and two in best of three. Freeze. Whatever team has the highest game record will make it in automatically. The bottom two will have to play each other in a best of one for that final spot because there's one, zero and three team. The way we have it set up, there's only one oh and three team. They will automatically get out. Knocked out. But between Dignitas Shopify, one of them wins and then the other one and one teams, two of them are gonna lose. So like there is a. Yeah, we have an odd number. So that's how we're. We're dealing with it is that whoever has the best game record and then it goes to like, like, I think like time to win and like other factors if there's another time or tie up there. But one team will make it in automatically and then the other two will battle in a best of one at the end of the day on Sunday. So we don't know what those are until the games happen. So we're not going to predict those. But for right now we have team look at Alienware. Shout out T Law for the name change versus Sentinels. T Law across the board. DSG versus Lion. We do have a split here. I have faith in dsg as does Mazel. Yanni, you have Lion. [00:59:48] Speaker D: I do. [00:59:48] Speaker A: Jamat, I don't know if you want to throw your predictions in here if you have feel strongly about LCS either way, but Yanni, what's your big argument for. For Lion? [00:59:56] Speaker D: Well, we got a new jungler coming in for Disguised. Think that uh, that that'll actually throw a wrench into the plans a little bit. Uh, it'll it'll definitely. I think it'll throw them off just a little bit. [01:00:07] Speaker A: You disrespect, I think Counterpoint. And I just want to tell you this before you continue defending because it might change your opinion. They only played two total games with Kizno. They have been scrimming with Cryra the entire time. [01:00:20] Speaker D: Yeah, stage, stage and scrims. Are way different. Different. There's one thing that I have learned since paying attention to League since 2012 is that scrims don't mean. [01:00:32] Speaker A: Okay, fair enough. [01:00:33] Speaker B: Good defense. [01:00:34] Speaker C: Well. [01:00:35] Speaker A: And you know, to counter that point, I've heard Shopify have been atrocious in scrims and also look really bad on stage. So that one double sandwich there is. Is that what the bread is? [01:00:46] Speaker B: Yes. [01:00:48] Speaker D: Okay, scrims sometimes do mean. [01:00:53] Speaker A: That's your French or Dude, yeah, the. [01:00:54] Speaker B: French are going to come. You can't even. [01:00:56] Speaker A: That's why you said French sandwich. That makes sense. [01:00:58] Speaker B: Oh my God. I said French bread. [01:01:00] Speaker A: French bread. You did say French bread. And it. It took me literally that long. [01:01:06] Speaker B: You gave me a look at everything. I thought you got it. [01:01:09] Speaker A: No, I just thought you were saying like, oh, we. We name French sandwiches off of the bread. I don't know, I just. Sometimes you just don't want to like, admit you're not the same page. [01:01:18] Speaker B: Jesus, I'm glad we could get all of this one episode. [01:01:22] Speaker A: And again, that was between us in person. Making eye contact. Okay. Anyway. [01:01:26] Speaker D: Ch. You think those guys are kissing right now? [01:01:29] Speaker C: They. They might be. [01:01:30] Speaker B: Might be. [01:01:30] Speaker C: They might be. [01:01:32] Speaker D: There some cast going on. [01:01:36] Speaker A: Anyways, on Sunday we have Dig D versus Shopify Rebellion. So everyone picked Shopify Rebellion to win. [01:01:44] Speaker D: Win. [01:01:44] Speaker A: And I would normally agree because I do still think Dignitas are the worst team in the league. But because Damonte made physical contact with my physical form, our forms touched. He said to me, making eye contact. You gotta stop rooting for us. And he said, bud. [01:02:01] Speaker C: He called me bud. [01:02:03] Speaker B: That's a tying moment. [01:02:04] Speaker A: When a coach calls you bud. It really like, demoralize. [01:02:07] Speaker D: I've got a really important question. Have you played any? [01:02:09] Speaker A: I gotta go. Dignitas too. [01:02:10] Speaker D: Have you played any since he's touched your shoulder? [01:02:14] Speaker A: I have. And I've lost every game day. [01:02:16] Speaker D: He has transferred the suck into you. [01:02:19] Speaker A: Wait, have I? Maybe I absorbed it. Maybe. Maybe I took Shopify. [01:02:23] Speaker D: You took Shopify Suck. [01:02:27] Speaker B: You're gonna. They're gonna do great. [01:02:28] Speaker A: You know what? I need to quote that on broadcast this next weekend. Be like, I. I'm not gonna say I suck. Shopify. [01:02:36] Speaker B: That's off. [01:02:37] Speaker A: That's. [01:02:38] Speaker D: So anyway. [01:02:41] Speaker A: I took the suck. [01:02:42] Speaker C: Yeah, I took their suck off. [01:02:43] Speaker A: Off. Yeah, it was on. They. They sucked on. Now they suck off. It's getting worse. C9 versus fly quest. To close out the weekend, this is the two undefeated teams in series score. C9 have not dropped a game and they are looking like the best team. But it's still exciting either way. I'm very, very much rooting for Fly Quest to give us a good series, even though I have C920. Mezzelle, you're the only one with giving Shop or Sorry Fly Quest a game. It's like to my core we all have C920. Why do you think it's going to be a close give the defense for FlyQuest? [01:03:16] Speaker B: I think FlyQuest can surprise. I don't think they're nearly the same stacked like overall team as they were last year with a lot of their pieces, but I think they can surprise any team and something at some point has to give, even if it's just one game for C9. But I am really excited for the APA versus Quad matchup because I think Quad is somebody that APA struggled a lot with last year. [01:03:38] Speaker D: True. [01:03:39] Speaker B: And I think it'll be really fun to see the new and improved APA against him. [01:03:43] Speaker A: And now we get Blabber versus Fly Quest without inspired. Yeah, because every time before and now Griffin gets to go against another one of the na Goats. Yeah, I'm considering contracts in any goat in in this analogy. Okay, that's gonna do it for LCS predictions though. Thank you everybody for sticking with us for the craziness that has been lec. We will start doing predictions and more thorough breakdowns of games going into the playoffs because then we'll actually like it's not going to be 18 best of ones and then we'll also have, you know, more insight from the series themselves. So sorry for everybody who's like oh, why are you talking so much more about lcs like the games and really what happened as opposed to lec. Hopefully that will even out going forward. But that is it for this episode as well. Thank you for tuning in everybody. It was awesome having you along for another week. I forgot to give the shout out earlier in the episode so reminder that if you want to support the podcast we have a Patreon and a merch shop. You can check both of those out. Links are in the description where you are listening and also shout out to everyone that joined the league Rundown Fantasy League. It's not too late to join. You can still find the link in the Discord and your current points will be updated on that. They made that tweak which is really cool that if you join a new league you're not going to be like super behind in points, which is a great addition. So. [01:04:57] Speaker B: And if you have two seconds you could also give us five stars. [01:05:01] Speaker A: Oh is that. How many stars? [01:05:02] Speaker B: I think so. [01:05:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:05:03] Speaker B: I think that's the number. It's as high as I can get. [01:05:05] Speaker A: One for every time that we touched during this podcast. [01:05:09] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. [01:05:10] Speaker A: I feel like I touched your shoulder a couple of times. Yeah. [01:05:12] Speaker D: Oh, don't really play any games with. [01:05:14] Speaker A: Me building this up. [01:05:15] Speaker D: I'm trying to get away. [01:05:18] Speaker B: I'm strictly off of league. [01:05:20] Speaker D: Kangas said there must always be a sucker. Oh, true. [01:05:24] Speaker A: I did spread it. Oh, now you have the shop. We're just. I'm not gonna again. [01:05:29] Speaker B: Well, now you have to do six stars because I just touched games. Saying this again. [01:05:32] Speaker A: Six stars out of five, everybody. [01:05:34] Speaker D: The podcast getting along. [01:05:39] Speaker A: You missed this, right, Jamada? I did. Of course, this is pretty par for the course to end an episode. Actually, I think this is one of the cleaner ends that we've ever had, to be clear. So just remember, everybody listening, that we love you and we'll see you next time. [01:05:54] Speaker B: Bye. Bye. [01:05:57] Speaker C: Pickle, pickle. [01:05:59] Speaker A: Boom. All right, that's it. [01:06:23] Speaker D: Sam.