Episode Transcript
[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.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: Game by game by game by game by.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: 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 595 of the League Rundown. This is your 2026 LEC Week 4 review and LCS Week 3 review. This episode is lovingly entitled There are no issues with the format. I'm your host, Kangas, and I'm joined by two esteemed co hosts. Up first, we have introducing for the first time to the masses, his favorite Riftbound deck. Badger.
[00:01:32] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. It's singed.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: That's not a deck.
But it was a League of Legends champion and I gave you probably 20 minutes to think about that. That's crazy that you still weren't able to come up with an answer. You.
[00:01:47] Speaker C: You.
Okay? The way y' all were talking about Riftbound is probably the way that my parents felt like I was talking about League of legends like 10 years ago when I was coaching and like explaining. So my mom asked me the one day, she's like, so what is this that you do? And then I explained it and she's like, that's 25 minutes of my life that I'll never get back. And I'm like, yeah, congratulations. Also, I have a substack now because I've been writing more and it's a lot of bullshit, but it's probably entertaining bullshit. So I'll link it in the description of the episode. If anyone read my ramblings.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: Let's go. What do you most recently ramble about? Let's take some time.
[00:02:25] Speaker C: I just did the first one. It's a series that's called Tales from the Secret Lab Chair. It's a ripoff of a bunch of stuff like Tales from the Lane and everything like that. So, you know, continuing the legacy.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: Are you sponsored?
[00:02:36] Speaker C: The one I did last week, the first thousand words of it is a very touching tribute to one of my teammates that I played with an amateur that unfortunately passed away from colon cancer and his birthday was last Thursday.
So part of it was very therapeutic and like, part of it was just like a remembrance for him because he was one of my favorite people that I've ever known in the scene. And I feel really, it was very depressing news when I heard it. So for anybody who's listening, his name was Socks and he's genuinely one of. He was one of the kindest people that I had ever met and one of the genuine reasons that I kept playing the game even after I wanted to stop playing, so.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: Oh, that's awesome, dude. I mean, sorry to call everybody out.
[00:03:23] Speaker C: But after that I talked about like, a general, like, rundown of like, what's going on. And once we get more into like, internationals, I feel like I'm gonna be able to like, make it so much easier because there's like, not 100 games every week that I have to like, sit down and analyze and be like, hey, here's what I'm noticing. It'll be great when it's just like group stages of like first strike or fucking first stand.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Well, it's awesome that you did that and you're getting that up and running.
Yeah. Sorry to hear about your friend, but I'm sure that he'd be happy to that you're writing about it and that you're continuing on. So thank you for sharing. That's really cool. Yeah, let's throw a link in the description for that one if anybody wants to check it out. We also have joining us. Good luck following that one up. Rfc.
[00:04:10] Speaker C: Yeah, sorry, man. Hey, you guys maybe listen to riftbound for 20 minutes. So.
[00:04:16] Speaker A: So what's your favorite Riftbound deck?
[00:04:20] Speaker B: I'm gonna go with Victor for now because like a deck with no no units is pretty funny.
Also. Victory.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: He got me thinking what colors would singed be? Purple. Green.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: Definitely purple.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: Maybe purple. Orange maybe he'd be like body. Yeah. Because he's kind of bruiser.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: I think he mind because he's a scientist. Researcher.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: Sure. I guess I'm just thinking more play style and league as opposed to lore of character. But yeah, you're right. That could work.
Let us. Let us know. Community in the Discord. What you think Cinch would be in Riftbound? There's a lot of cool right now. People again shout out Anoki who I've been seeing at locals lately.
And yeah, even at the. The. The pre release, we both did really well there.
Hell yeah. Let's talk about the news going around for League of Legends. At least let's avoid the global news League of Legends News. We got one funny roster piece of information which I am about 95% sure is false and that is that Echo Fox is returning to League of Legends. There was a account Called like Echo Fox Esports. That quote retweeted the NACL Twitter account that said, hey, open qualifiers is happening because there's one team that is not going to be competing, that was supposed to compete. That's its own whole scandal thing. But they're hosting a last minute open qualifiers two weekends from now for anyone to come in and then qualify to join the nacl. So this post was like, echo Box is coming back. Who wants to play for us? I'm like pretty positive it's not true. I reach out to Charlie, a friend of the podcast who still has the original Twitter account for Echo Fox. He like has the, the password and login and he can go into it and he's like, yeah, that, that was not me or like anybody that I know at Echo Fox. So what do we think guys? Likelihood Echo Fox is actually real that they're back without.
[00:06:16] Speaker C: I thought this was bait. When I saw somebody tweeting about this earlier. I'm not gonna lie. Like, I was like, oh, Echo Fox is back. Ahaha. Funny like.
But no, it was like an actual account that.
What the fuck are we doing?
[00:06:29] Speaker B: Like taking a history is what they're doing.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. But. But RFC has over 500 likes. Surely it can't be fake.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Definitely not the same way Sleepy Sports. Definitely copy fake.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And don't mind the fact that when you look at the actual account, they're following 42 people and have 124 followers.
Hey, their bio does say I bought the rights of the Equifax brand for $1 and I'm bringing it back. Maybe they did. Maybe they just got.
How crazy would that be if they actually were real?
[00:07:02] Speaker B: But it's not Echo Fox. I don't care.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: Good point. Maybe they bring Kyle back. Maybe the Fox's son back.
I actually, this could be a tangent. I spent like an afternoon with that dude at the, the Renaissance Fair because I had friends going. I went with them and then there was like friend group we met up with and he was there. And so I got to like interact with Kyle Fox, Rick Fox's kid. And it was so funny because I'm like, I.
It's one of those moments where it's like, he's a human, I'm a human. I'm just gonna like, we're just gonna be amicable in, in the, in the interactions. But like, man, the amount of stories I've heard about you, dude, but that's for a different time.
Variety topics. Actually not a lot happened in terms of Like League of Legends news. A lot of it. Like, for the LEC and lcs. We'll cover when we actually talk about those. There' lot of information for, like, how the tournaments have shaken up, but in terms of roster news, haven't really seen anything going on. But what about over in the cb? Lol, rmc? How are things looking down in the South?
[00:08:06] Speaker B: We started our playoffs. I think we're the first region to actually start playoffs.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: Oh, nice.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: Yeah, that just happened this week.
[00:08:12] Speaker A: How many teams are in playoffs right now?
[00:08:14] Speaker B: Six teams in playoffs.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: Okay, so same as the LCS format.
[00:08:20] Speaker B: Similar because we.
Well, no. LCS is four teams. Oh, no. Six teams.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Two.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: Two start in the lower bracket. Yeah. C below does it the other way around where they do Juggernaut, I guess. So that the top two seeds get a buy in the first round and then the bottom.
[00:08:36] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:08:36] Speaker B: Interesting. Three to six have to play on the lower side. Our first seed going into the playoffs has already lost by the way. They're knocked to the lower bracket, right? Yeah.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: That's kind of wild.
[00:08:47] Speaker B: They lost to the team which nobody expected to make playoffs in the first place, which was Loud.
And they. Yeah, loud. Just took them out. So it's the funniest thing.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: Beautiful, dude. I feel like every time I hear cb, lol, you're like, yeah, it didn't go as expected.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: Yeah, that's basically. This is why. Okay, so there's a lot of people who gamble on cb. Lol. And if you gamble on cb, lol, I do not understand why you do it. It is actually gambling. Like, you think you know the odds. Nobody knows the odds down there.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: That's hilarious.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: The reigning champions, vks, who brought in Kai Wing from formerly of cfo, like a top eight international support, is now struggling to survive in the playoffs. Like, they are just choking and getting whacked like Loud two zero them and then two one los, who was the first seed coming in. So that side of the bracket is just being.
Yeah, that is the most Brazilian side of the bracket right now. So if you're gambling, I hope you have fun and you can afford to lose the money because anything could happen here.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: Isn't that what makes it exciting? Not that I'm condoning anything, but you.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: Can just watch it for fun. And it is really fun. And the gameplay is, like, wild too. So like, literally.
[00:09:55] Speaker A: Gamba Twitch points. There we go. Just. Just the Twitch channel points.
[00:09:58] Speaker B: Loud won a game off a 3v5 engage at Baron after losing two members.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: Jeez.
[00:10:03] Speaker B: The other team was like, pretty Much. Mostly full health when that started. The five members. Only one off of that. So.
[00:10:09] Speaker A: So you're saying they're as good as Danny on eg. Cool.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: I am saying that. It's like five Danny's on every team in terms of like yeah. Baron clutchness in that region.
[00:10:18] Speaker A: That's crazy.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Loudest like the anti. Anti dig right now. Like they just.
[00:10:25] Speaker A: We're going to print that and put it on a T shirt. By the way. CD LOL is like five Danny's on every team.
All right, LCK update. Let's talk about what's going on over in Korea, the top region in the world. Badger, do you have any big updates in terms of like what the. The format's looking like over there? Any big storylines happening?
[00:10:43] Speaker C: Yeah, everything is a shit show.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: Technically.
[00:10:48] Speaker C: Technically. Han will life the, you know, first. First stand winners from last year were the first team globally to be eliminated from first stand contention.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: Because we did. We did talk about that last week. That was.
[00:11:02] Speaker C: I was. I have. I didn't get a chance to listen last week. I know that that was a contention point. Yeah.
So trying to think who else didn't make it. Katie Rolster didn't make it either. Yeah.
Reigning world runner ups and they didn't make it. And then Nongshim, who was a top five team in Korea last year, also lost to the DN Supers in the qualification match. And then of course.
And of course then Nongshim in a best of 5 gets 3.0'd by DRX with rich with Hot Goat Rich Willard Jungle Yukal Mid and Jinwu or Jiwoo and Andil Bot Lane.
So Scouts return to Korea is not going very well at this point, so. But we're in playoffs now. The first series is in seven hours from when we're talking about this. So 5:00am No, 3:00am it's. It's tomorrow morning.
It's Fear X which for the love of dark, love of God, please play Daystar at some point versus the DN Supers. And on the other side, it's DK versus DRX.
Gen G is the higher seed than T1, so they get. They get to choose who they play in the second round.
So congratulations to the winner of FearX versus DNS. You are going to be playing Gen g in the second round and then T1 will play the winner of DK DRX.
[00:12:40] Speaker A: Okay, cool.
[00:12:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:43] Speaker A: All right. Well, hey, again, pouring out for hle. It's crazy that they were like as competitive as they were in their group and still just didn't make it out because the other group was worse.
So they get punished.
But that's just how the LCK format went. We don't have any of the regular LPL guys around, so we'll save an update for that next week. Also, we're going a little late already on the intro here, so just a reminder that if we didn't cover anything that you wanted us to cover, let us know in the community. Discord. You can find a link to that in the description wherever you are listening as well as if you want to start participating. We have Fantasy for lcs, so hop in, check out the Fantasy Channel. If you don't have a team or if you haven't joined going into this next week, that's fine. You can still join the league and whatever points you've already earned will spill over into the league.
And then also if you want to help support the pod, we have a Patreon and we have a Merch Shop. Links to both of those are also in the description below.
With that being said, let's talk about this past week in LCS and lec. We're going to start in the LCS this time around and end with LEC and LCS wrapped up its Swiss stage. We have our final standings going into the bracket stage as well as our first round bracket matchups. Badger looking at lcs, how did things shake out just top to bottom? Give me the standings going into the bracket stage. Who took first place and also who unfortunately got knocked out of the bracket stage.
[00:14:11] Speaker C: We don't have to talk about that. It's fine. We can, we can skip past that one.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: Yeah. So honestly, I'm okay with that too. It's good for my brand, dude. It's unreal.
[00:14:24] Speaker C: So the teams that are going to be in the winners bracket of the LCS lock in are going to be Cloud nine Sentinels is the two seeds somehow Fly Quest and dsg.
And then the lower bracket teams awaiting their fates are lion is the fifth seed and then tied for sixth and won the tiebreaker.
T o beat tla is it TL Alien?
It's T Law and they beat Dignitas and a best of one play in for the playoffs and Shopify Rebellion got eighth place and didn't win a single.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: Game the wrong way. Badger Shopify Relevant was first from the bottom, first out.
[00:15:12] Speaker C: That's it.
You know what? The only way they can actually go from here is up. So true.
[00:15:19] Speaker A: Dude.
I part of me is like I should feel embarrassed. I just feel disappointed man. Like what the was that show.
[00:15:31] Speaker C: I, I saw something that said that you could take five players at a solo queue and put them into a call on the LCS stage and they would look more coordinated than Shopify did like this at all. This split, they just look so out of whack.
[00:15:45] Speaker B: I, I disagree. I thought Shopify, okay, sure, they didn't look great, and I think Zinni not having time to blend in was one thing, but the, the problem is that their, their score does not reflect their games. I actually think they, within each game didn't look individually terrible in any one game. They just couldn't win any of those games.
[00:16:04] Speaker C: It's just not to the level that we were, we were expecting at this point. And it definitely looked like there was times that people were going for plays when they shouldn't have been going for it. Like, they didn't look like they were all set up and ready to go. Like their dragon setups, there was times that, you know, contracts would get a little bit overextended or SEOs would be looking to get vision control and the team would be set up on the other side of the river, not in a position where if he was going to get collapsed on by the enemy team, that they weren't able to get to him in time. And they would just turn it into a 4v5. And then it's the, the coin flip of, okay, do we take this 4v5 and contest the objective? Get. Let them get to Sole point or do we just back off, you know, farm up, try and get plates?
Because, you know, every turret has plates at this point because why the hell not? So there's all this standing gold that's on the map now. Like, okay, we can give up the objective, but we can go get some gold somewhere else. But we're going to have to fight for the next dragon. We're going to have to make sure that we're set up for it. But then they just kept constantly showing that they weren't able to be able. Able to be set up into a position at most of the major or like the neutral objectives in the games.
[00:17:15] Speaker A: So even the few moments that they were set up and they were able to contest, they, they choked so hard. Henry Heimlich wouldn't be able to help him. Dude, like, holy. Yeah, Zinni.
All three of those were just like tagging in of like, I'm gonna throw. No, I'm gonna throw. I'm gonna throw. No, I'm gonna throw. And it's just ridiculous how often they would just like get caught out of position in these team fights and God, it's, it was painful to watch. And I gotta say I am so unbelievably disappointed in Zinni's performance at an individual level. Outside of the leaning phase I think leaning phase he showed some promise but even then it wasn't great. And I think he was definitively the 8th best mid laner in this. Yeah.
[00:18:04] Speaker C: Oh yeah.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: I went into this expecting him to be top three, if not the best based on you know, just the hype around him and the amount of tape I was able to see.
And I was wrong. I was, I was just very, very wrong about his performance on the league. Now that doesn't to say he can't turn it around. Made a point on broadcast because we, we try not just like straight up dog players on broadcast. Like some people are more comfortable doing that. But me and Jat were casting the game between or series between them and Dignitas and the way we wanted to frame it was hey, he's still, you know, there's got to be a reason they scouted him. He's still got to show us more than like we probably haven't seen what he's fully capable.
[00:18:42] Speaker C: Six games. He's six games into his LCS career.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: Yeah. And so we made the comparison to Quid in that quid. His first four games you look statistically in eye test, they were terrible. Quid was awful in his first four games and then it was that third series that he started actually like getting his feet under him. We didn't really see that from Zinni this time around. There was some show of that. I'd say like he looked more comfortable as the weeks went on but it was not nearly enough to beat Dignitas and Palafox who to his credit pal Fox has looked much, much better. Yeah, credit where it's due. He's no longer just having this like black hole of a. Of a deficit in the mid lane and he was able to find a couple of really clutch engages into Shopify rebellion as well. So I mean I think we got a little into the weeds there just by talking about Shopify because that's like the big story for the standings. But let's talk about the, the games that happened this past weekend and kind of break them down because then, then we'll talk about each team in order rmc. It started with T Law versus Sentinels that didn't go how expected.
We all had T Law as predictions across the board.
[00:19:51] Speaker B: Yes, I think that was the the big shocker match as far as matches are concerned was the fact that spoiler Sentinels won that that particular series and huge props to them. I think they stepped up pretty huge in terms of clutching up dark wings, especially in the mid lane. I felt like really set the like. Don't get me wrong, Rahel is probably the mvp.
Was he the MVP of that match?
[00:20:11] Speaker A: I don't know if he was the match mvp. He won a player of the game. I know that.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, okay, that's fair.
[00:20:17] Speaker C: This is Rael guy is really good. Yeah, it is incredible how Eu managed to fumble him. Like, I mean, I know he was on SK when he was over there, but this guy is insane.
Like, my God, this Kaisa game that he had in game two will go down for like ages as like the definitive Kaisa performance. And like his team was just setting him up so well. I mean it was Azir Nico in front like Scion to go for the Engages VI to get into the back line. And then it's just. Rahel is just firing for free this entire game.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: Okay, we. We didn't talk about though game one.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: No, no, no, no, no, no.
[00:21:08] Speaker C: We don't have to talk about game.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: One have been a two zero because we didn't even get a game one. Like let's be honest, Game one does happen. It was Impact locking in Guardian, Aatrox top lane.
[00:21:22] Speaker B: Notably he tried to pause and get.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: A remade too because.
And the officials ruled it. No, that was not a bug. You just double clicked, dude. Like you. You did not save the rune that you tried to change it to and you just locked in Guardian. That's a you issue, not a game issue.
And notably that is a. A rune that cannot Proc. In a 1v1 lane. You need an ally there.
Which led to some hilarity with the.
[00:21:51] Speaker B: Casting is that it's Hambock's fault that they lost it.
[00:21:56] Speaker A: Yeah. How about you needed a gang top repeatedly.
[00:22:00] Speaker C: It was so sad to watch like him laning versus Imbesa because like normally early on Aatrox does really well or at least goes into. Goes neutral to does well in that lane. And then it's just. You see the grass proc come out and you're just like, oh, that's yeah.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: Oh.
I will say credit where it's due. He did not freaking tilt. And that I think is one of the most impressive things about Impact as a player is that one year he can win mvp, the next year he can have his worst ever recorded year as a player. And Then the following year, he can lock in Aatrox Guardian top and still with the series not tilting while missing. Seen Orin ol in game three. Also, like, he's also whipping or like.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: Whoa, he missed one. Or an ultimate.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: To be fair.
[00:22:46] Speaker C: It was just true, true.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: It was a pretty impactful one, to be fair.
Yeah, dude, that was like, how the is he getting away with it, man?
[00:22:58] Speaker B: Because that's why he's the.
[00:23:00] Speaker C: That's why he's the goat.
[00:23:02] Speaker A: It also was Morgan. Yeah.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: And see, this is my problem with Morgan. I think actually won his lanes pretty handily. But this was why I didn't rate Morgan that high coming over. Like I already said, he's good.
[00:23:14] Speaker C: Yeah. Everyone was hyping him up coming over. And then you have the people who actually watched him.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: People on this pod were not hyping him up, but externally I did hear it. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: Because the problem is like, I think his laning is good. That's fine. But it was more like his mid game impact. Oftentimes I feel like it just isn't there. And this series I think was put on full display. I felt so bad for Jose Deodo. That man. Grandpa over there was like desperately trying to carry the team and it just wasn't working. Like yon couldn't find traction.
Morgan was like not there when they needed him for most of the mid game and like, oh, quit, quit, quit. Was I? I guess so. Yeah. No, no, okay. Quit was trying to help Jose where he could, but it was like Jose was trying to make miracles happen. He got the. The Baron's deal right on in game two.
Yeah, I mean, it was nice. It was cool. It did not do crap because the team got wiped anyways.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: But yeah, yeah, I felt like Yawn and Core were playing disrespectful to Rahel and ui. Like they were. They were playing as if like they had ego and that they could smack him. At least Jan was. And they weren't able to like get a significant lead to carry through bottom lane. Mid lane was doing okay, but like Team Liquid just kind of fell apart when it came to the. The team fights and the. The objective control. Like, they just didn't have the right timers because somebody like Yam would get ego and then take a big chunk and be like, okay, well now I have to reset and then like, like lose the dragons. Like, okay, well that's tough.
So, yeah, I think Team Liquid has a lot to clean up in terms of not just like having ego.
They just Play respectful. I think this team is really good.
But there was just too many times where they just like thought that they could do something cool and it was at a bad time and it didn't work. And I was like, oh, we just lost a lot for that.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: And Hikey, that. That win for Sentinels was super clutch because that is what made Sentinel second seed.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, winning was important in that, of course, but then, you know, they did take second seed. We haven't talked about like that part of the story much because we were talking about Shopify earlier, but because they beat Team Liquid and then the rest of the. The way the strength of schedule worked out, there's a whole tweet about it. Think card was like, how the hell is flyquest not second seed? Why is Sentinels above us? There was a breakdown from Leo, the LCS stats guy who's been on the pod before. So shout out Leo, like explaining why it's visual. It's too complicated to explain here, but basically, strength of schedule was the decider. Every team has like points assigned based on how well they performed, and Sentinels just got more points from that. So.
But even that is like an oversimplification because I went to like a second tier of that because technically they were tied in strength to schedule wins. All that to say Sentinels were able to take second seed, which is huge for their run in the bracket. We'll talk about the bracket more later.
But basically it's kind of stacked for the Sentinels disguised side. Actually.
[00:26:06] Speaker B: Don't get it. So when we get there, you can explain it to me why it ended up the way it did.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:26:13] Speaker A: So that's actually a really good point now that I'm looking at it again. Why did it end up the way that it did? What the hell?
Now I'm even more confused. Wait a minute.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: Okay. So for audio listeners, it's just dawning on me.
[00:26:30] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: Let me explain this. So the first seat is C9. As Badger mentioned, they are facing FlyQuest, whose third seed in the first round of the playoffs. Whereas Sentinels, whose second seed is now facing fourth seed disguised. So I don't know why it's 1, 3, 2, 4. Usually it's 1 4.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: There are no issues with the format. RMC. It's the title of this episode. Okay.
We all.
We all adhere to Mark Z's.
[00:26:57] Speaker C: The.
[00:26:58] Speaker A: The man who Zimmers. We. We adhere to his brain and comp ops. It's not all Mark Z, but it's mostly comp ops. But he Just takes the heat for everything, which is very funny.
But yeah, you know, well, you're just gonna brush past that. Disguise versus lion also happened and disguise with their debut performance of rookie jungler Kryra. We finally got our look at the Canadian sensation, the Quebecois piece de resistance.
And he looked damn good, dude. Holy crap. DSG firing on all cylinders. Their jungler was the engine for the wins. I'm gonna give him a lot of credit for straight up just having more impact than inspired. He was able to smite steel from inspired, he was able to, you know, out gank. Inspired. He was able to out jungle. He was actually like up and clear as well. So, like, dude, Cryo just popped off in a debut. It's been a long time since I've seen a rookie with like that clean of a debut, but we've had a couple of those even this year. Like Griffin, Cryogen, Sajed, all of them impressive. I think Kryra, he turned my head the most and impressed me the most in terms of just initial debuts.
[00:28:11] Speaker B: Yeah, who'd have thought there's actually talent in NA guys if we actually started using our tier 2?
[00:28:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember Cryra going all the way Back to. So 2023 is when I first like heard his name and started interacting with him through like combines. But then going into 2024, if anybody remembers, we talked about this on the podcast, the jungler Kryra and the mid laner Toasty Toasty Alex, who's now playing over in the erls, both of them would have been rookie starters for Evil Geniuses.
All the reports we were hearing internally at EG was that, yeah, that they're going to go for a budget roster and they're going to run it back kind of like they did with like Jojo Puna Danny, when they brought up like these rookies surrounded by a couple of more veterans, but save some money and like have a really, you know, rookie focused roster. It was going to be a jungle in mid laner this time. But then the Evil Geniuses wasn't around. They. They actually dipped and we're not competing in 2024, but we. There's a world where we would have had their debuts two years ago and we would have seen Cryo when he was 18 as opposed to 20 or 17 as opposed to 19. I forget how old he is right now.
[00:29:13] Speaker B: 20 right now.
[00:29:14] Speaker A: Yeah, he's 20. Yeah. So we would have been 18 at the time, but I'm still happy to have him. But it just goes to show that there he's been at this caliber or closest caliber for, for a while now.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And the fact that even kids know before him, like, who was playing for disguise prior to him, like, was also very good. Like, to me, like, I just don't get it. Like, we've got talent. Like, can we please start promoting? Look at how successful they all are. It's beautiful.
[00:29:38] Speaker A: I would say, oh, this is a good sign. But we've said that in the past and rosters and orgs and GMs have still just been not.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:47] Speaker A: You know, I don't want to talk too much now that I, like, work at the that level.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: Well, then I will. Because Lions gm, I don't know what the hell they're doing.
[00:29:55] Speaker A: Like, yeah, you go off King.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: This is such an expensive roster they put together.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: Right.
[00:29:59] Speaker B: They've got inspired Saint Berserker Isles and they can't find their artists with two hands in a map. Like, what the hell is going on here?
[00:30:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:07] Speaker B: Like, we are actually getting run over right now. Like, and Lion K, what pisses me off to was I actually supported lion because lion was an LLA organization.
[00:30:15] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:30:16] Speaker B: And this roster has no LLA players, has no rookies. Like, you went for a high end super team team which absolutely didn't work. And then, yeah, I don't know what the hell y' all are doing. Like, but there is something systemically wrong with this team because when with the hands they have, they should not be.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: Losing, like, the way they are.
[00:30:32] Speaker B: And they just look uncoordinated. They don't look like they know what they're doing. Like, there are moments where I can see Saint looking like he's about to.
[00:30:40] Speaker A: Pop off, but then next moment is.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: Like, he gets lost in the sauce. Berserker has those games where he's like just crushing the 2v2 and he gets out of lane and he just looks discombobulated. And Big Dogs looks like he's just straight showing the top lane and not giving a crap about the rest of it. Like, I, I don't know what's going on in the same.
[00:30:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:58] Speaker A: All right, Badger, any thoughts on your end about lion in the, in the situation going on there?
[00:31:01] Speaker C: I, you know, we were talking about how bad Zinnia looked.
Saint. Oh my gosh, what a fall from grace. Like last year we were talking about how this guy's really good and like, you know, another year, I, I, the quid trajectory of everybody at this point of just like, oh, all these Korean players, all these Korean mids that are coming over. It's, it's the. Oh it might be rough at first but then he could be the MVP next year. And I, I mean I thought, I thought Saint was. It was really good last year too but he, he's. He's getting bodied by call me like it's bad.
I mean it's, it's in. It's affecting Inspired's game as well because like Inspired, you know, had quad in the mid lane last year who was like a very stable mid laner won't, you know, get into situations where he's going to affect jungle to the point that KRYA was, you know, having a really good early game against Inspired in these games. It's just again it's the, the five solo queue player thing. You know. Like you have all these.
It's the super team problem too.
[00:32:11] Speaker A: Like yeah, I would say more the super team problem because what RMC was talking about before lion spent big. This is, you know, player contracts are not public information. I don't have any additional information. This is only just what like the the rumors online are. It's expected that Lion's roster is the most expensive one in the LCS and that DSG is the least expensive in the lcs. DSG is the. As Cubby, another friend of the podcast, likes to go at the Poverty. Org they're the guest team that's funded by a streamer's pockets and they don't have a sponsor. This is the only team in the entire league that does not have a sponsor. It is just their streamer paying for everything and it's like minimums for pretty much everybody. And they beat the team with the biggest budget in a best of three by focusing on developing NA talent as opposed to spending big and putting together a roster of stars on paper that do not work together.
We've seen it before and lion are following a tough track record of the super team mentality that just doesn't always work.
[00:33:17] Speaker C: Wild that they almost got quid this off season too.
[00:33:21] Speaker A: Like right. Well that would have fixed them actually if they'd go.
[00:33:26] Speaker B: But the problem for lion is that like they they to me they still wouldn't be a top three team even if they did pick up quid which would have been a horrific waste of quid.
[00:33:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:33:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
So that's unfortunate to see. But lion are still in playoffs of course. This just meant that they're not in the upper bracket. So they have one life. They do not get a second life.
They're in the losers bracket to begin.
[00:33:48] Speaker C: Should get move Up D. No way would it be this. Oh, actually it would be Fly Quest, wouldn't it?
[00:33:56] Speaker A: I. At this point, I'm not gonna make any statements about the bracket because I do not know and I've been confused this whole time.
[00:34:03] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, you're right. You're right.
[00:34:05] Speaker A: It's usually my job on the broadcast to explain it after Leo and the producers explain it to me.
[00:34:10] Speaker C: So now we know who's actually talking.
[00:34:13] Speaker A: When Kagis opens his mouth.
Dude, I'm just a talking head man. We've known this for a while.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: Nothing goes on moving, but it's Leo's words. God.
[00:34:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
Loser, it looks like. Don't quote me on this, but it looks like loser of C9Fly plays Lion, and then loser of Send DSG plays TL.
[00:34:32] Speaker A: Usually on a bracket. That's how that would work. But again, the fact I can't even explain why sentinels are against DSG. Fly Quest is against C9.
[00:34:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:39] Speaker A: So who knows?
That was Saturday's game Sunday. Moving on is Dignitas versus Shopify Rebellion. We already talked about that a lot. The last thing I'll say is that, God, it was hard to cast this series.
Shopify Rebellion, Defender.
[00:34:57] Speaker C: But it was the grudge match match super.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: It was ultimate grudge match bowl shout out to Jat for that pitch. We've done the ultimate grudge match in the past. Kind of meme up like matches that don't have as much like going for them in actuality, but we kind of ham it.
[00:35:13] Speaker B: In Brazil, they call that the law of Exes. And whoever gets dumped usually wins the fight. So in this case, got dumped. So Law of Exes favors him and he showed up huge this series.
[00:35:24] Speaker A: So he did. He won this breakup 100%. So. So this was actually a fun narrative thing that we found. I had really requested this graphic because the GM Jonathan had flagged it to me. He was like, yeah, it's like Palafox has not had a different jungler other than contracts for like three years. And I was like, that's a good point. That's actually really cool. I want to, like, talk about that broadcast. So I brought that up to the producers. I was like, that's an interesting story for both of these players because it's a jungler with a new mid laner for the first time in a while and a mid laner with a new jungler. Turns out it was four years, not three.
And also it was the record by a lot.
It was. I believe Bjergsen and Santorin were the or maybe it was Fence Garrett. I don't remember. It was. It was one or the other and then the others.
Yeah. So it was second and third were Bjergsen, Santorin, Bjergs and Svenskeren in either order. But it was contracts and Palafox by like almost 100 games as the most tenured mid jungle duo in LCS history. Which is crazy to think about.
So yeah, we hammed that up on the broadcast. That was a really fun storyline. And yeah, pal, Fox 100 won that breakup. God damn.
[00:36:29] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: Also, they don't show the beef on live camera, but it's funny behind the scenes. I'll. I'll say this. I. I think there's real beef there. Like, I actually think that at least from Battle Fox's side there is some beef and I really want him to show more of it on camera because I think it's hilarious.
But when we put them on camera, they're generally pretty civil with each other. So that's, you know, it is what it is.
[00:36:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:36:58] Speaker A: Then something interesting happened with C9Fly and that we had one close game flag was one that closer game.
[00:37:09] Speaker B: I would say though C9 looked like the best team in the west for some of these. For I think game one and game game three.
[00:37:17] Speaker A: Game three was a stomp to extreme. Like holy. They smacked fly quest around. Well, game one was also pretty one sided.
[00:37:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Like it was just the timing of their rotations were disgusting. Like the. It was some of the cleanest macro I feel like I've seen in 2026 so far.
[00:37:35] Speaker A: Like they were just for sure in the lcs. Yeah. Yeah. I think that in. In the west.
[00:37:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:42] Speaker A: Honestly.
[00:37:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:37:43] Speaker A: LEC's had really sloppy macro. Yeah.
Yep. Yeah. I credit to apa. I'm really happy with how he's doing with the team. This was my biggest wild card going in. And why I had C9 a little lower on my power rankings was just because I didn't. I didn't have faith that he would click with the team. I was wrong on that account as well. Wrong about Shopify, wrong about C9. There's a one general trend going on here.
But yeah, I mean they look clean.
[00:38:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. It was absolutely disgusting. And even the funniest thing to me was just like I was watching Griffin play and I was like, oh, Griffin's limit testing.
[00:38:15] Speaker A: Like he was.
[00:38:16] Speaker B: He was showing up for every scuttle against Blabber. And I'm like, brother, Blabber lives on scuttle. And like Griffin's timing was A little bit late for some of them. So he was not in a great position to do it. And he went anyways. I'm like, ah, yep. Okay.
FlyQuest isn't winning this because Griffin's limit testing. But I do think FlyQuest to me looked like the second best team in the league despite their loss. And game two, I think had a lot to do with that Masu Cryojin Man. Like that bot lane is sexy.
[00:38:42] Speaker A: They are so good together, dude. I. I think that they might be the best bot lane in the league right now. There's a lot of competition, but I love watching those two lane together. They're one of the only bot lanes that can consistently like get kills on their own without jungle interference. They'll just win the 2v2 and actually like kind of run away with it. So agree on that. And even on like the jungle rotation point, it was funny in game two, the voice comms afterwards because everyone the the team. I don't know who, but somebody was grilling Griffin. I'm like, can we stop throwing?
Yes. And he's like, what do you mean? What are you talking about?
[00:39:15] Speaker B: The thing is like I watched him do that last year in Law on Loud in Brazil and I'm like, that's why I was like. When he started doing that in game one, I was like, oh, he's limit testing. I've seen this pattern before, dude.
[00:39:24] Speaker A: Such a funny team to watch. His interview ahead of the game was also fantastic with him and Blabber dude, just we need more Griffin on the mic. That guy is one of the funniest guys we have in the LCS right now.
Badger, any big thoughts on C9? Fly Quest?
[00:39:42] Speaker C: Fly Quest kind of looked like the team of rookies that we expected. I mean I good on. Good on them for, you know, getting that game to win. They. They looked. They looked pretty good in it. Griffin had a great trundle game. But like when you got the. I mean we can confidently say it now, C9 is the best team in the LCS at the moment versus is 100 of a team of rookies that's kind of in a rebuild that's a little bit ahead of its time. This is kind of what it looks like.
[00:40:14] Speaker A: So yeah, I mean you can say, oh, Griffin's got a split in the south. Oh, Geckos played a little bit last year. It's like, no, these are still rookies to me. In their first full year rookie for Griffin, Cryogen and Geckos have. Crouch has got no stage experience. Geckos barely any.
And then even like quad Masu still young in their respective careers. So I, I have a lot of faith in FlyQuest. They're performing much better than I expected them to already. And I agree. These are the top two teams which funnily enough, we get round two.
Just looking at next weekend, we already have our first round. This is upper bracket all best of fives going forward in the lcs. Shout out to best fives. Love them. We're starting with the upper bracket where C9 is facing fly Quest for reasons. Usually it would be first seed versus fourth seed. So it should be C9 versus disguised and then Fly Quest Sentinels. But apparently we're not doing it that way.
Yeah, that's just bizarre. I. I can't because usually I'd be like, oh maybe like first he got to choose their opponent. Why would C9 choose Fly Quest? Like that doesn't seem to make sense.
But it does mean that Sentinels and DSG both have a chance to make upper finals and then lower bracket finals at minimum if they. If you win this series then you're guaranteed a minimum third place in the lcs, which is pretty cool.
Both of these org Sentinels in their first split here. DSG as the partner org, first time qualifying for playoffs ever. Actually technically both these orgs their first time qualifying for playoffs, which is really, really cool. So Sentinels versus DSG. I have DSG. RMC, you have DSG. We both think it's a five game series. Badger, you have Sentinels 3:1 in your predictions. What gives you so much confidence in Sentinels?
[00:41:56] Speaker C: So spoilers for the piece that I'm writing this week for the sub stack link in the description down below. I believe.
[00:42:06] Speaker A: We'Ll get it in there.
[00:42:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:07] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll get it.
[00:42:07] Speaker C: Yeah, it'll be in there. I have Sentinels going to first hand.
Whoa.
[00:42:13] Speaker B: No shot.
[00:42:16] Speaker A: That's a shocker.
Why?
[00:42:21] Speaker C: I. I believe in this team. You know, I.
I'm a Dark Wings guy. Like Dark Wings is starting to level up. Rahel might be the best AD carry in North America.
Impact is, you know, he's flipping heads at this point. So it's working out really well. This is gonna age very poorly if the next coming weeks.
This could age very poorly in the next couple of weeks. It's just I. I mean who he is a veteran leader. It's just I'm scared of Hambock at times. Like we. We haven't mentioned him yet at this point.
[00:43:03] Speaker A: Yeah, he's got the wild card dude.
[00:43:05] Speaker C: He's like, you know, he reminds me of like old God. What was the. The top laner. I can't remember his name. That was just not. Not Thanatos Summit.
He just reminds. He's like Summit in jungle of just like how much just like, like. Well, he can either win you the game or he's the reason that you.
[00:43:31] Speaker B: The whole team gets disqualified for cheating.
[00:43:32] Speaker C: Yeah, he's. He'll either tilt the entire team or he'll just like win the game. 1v9. And I mean we haven't seen the 1v9 yet, so it's got to come out at some point. Right guys?
[00:43:42] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:43:43] Speaker B: Well, I'll give Hambock this much credit. Like, I actually do think his. His jungle gangs were a big part of Sentinel's win over Team Liquid. And I remember on the broadcast they were saying that like a lot of the players, I kind of worried about Hambock's ganking in that he does really weird pathing and timings to get on pros.
[00:43:59] Speaker A: We heard contracts talk about that. He's like, yeah, he's one of the toughest in scrims to play against because he'll just like if blabber coin flips for scuttles. Like, that's his reputation. Hambock's reputation currently is he will flip for every objective the entire game. Like every. Every camp, every scuttle, every grubs, every dragon. He will. Will always go in and try and get it. And like it just is throwing our junglers out there. Like, what the hell is this like guy's problem? He's got no. Why is he at my raptors like a level below me contesting me and getting the smite steel like this guy.
[00:44:35] Speaker C: The bar fight analogy of there just isn't a. There isn't a far a fight that he would be outnumbered in that he won't take at that point.
[00:44:43] Speaker A: Just like that seems to be the Hambock strategy or Hambock experience.
[00:44:48] Speaker C: So.
But no, I think.
[00:44:50] Speaker A: I think can lose you games.
[00:44:52] Speaker C: They have a really good bot lane. Mid lane is mid lane. I. I think Dark Wings is starting to level up now that he's getting more games under his belt in the lcs.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: I and I don't.
[00:45:04] Speaker C: I guess that's half on them and half on. I don't like trust any other team at this point outside of C9 based on everything that we've seen up to this point.
[00:45:13] Speaker B: So you trust but you're still being.
[00:45:15] Speaker A: I could be convinced.
I could be convinced if you told me it's C9%.
[00:45:18] Speaker C: Well, no, it's two teams, right?
[00:45:20] Speaker A: No, we only get one team.
[00:45:22] Speaker C: Oh, wait, what? Okay, okay, never mind.
[00:45:26] Speaker A: That's why I was like, dude, have them first.
[00:45:28] Speaker B: That's why.
[00:45:29] Speaker C: Okay, I'm not gonna lie. I thought it was two. Wait, it's not two teams.
[00:45:32] Speaker B: Only Korea and China get two teams. Everybody else only sends one.
[00:45:35] Speaker C: Oh, okay. Well, that's, that's, that's.
[00:45:38] Speaker A: But our second through fourth seeds will go the week before first stand to compete in the Americas cup, which is like a little thing between north and South America, cb, lol, and lcs. The week before first stand.
[00:45:53] Speaker C: So. Okay.
[00:45:56] Speaker A: There we go. There we go. Change your subject to say Sentinels is going to win the America's Cup. That's a much better time.
[00:46:01] Speaker C: America's cub.
[00:46:02] Speaker A: Okay, dude, could you imagine, by the way, if lion doesn't even get to go to the America's Cup?
Very real world.
[00:46:09] Speaker B: They deserve it. We want Jose back in the South. We can leave Lions. Where's the Southern. Where's the South? Americans in line right now. They can't. Can stay up there.
Yeah.
[00:46:17] Speaker A: Lion just needs to win one. Best of five and they're in.
[00:46:20] Speaker C: Like, there's no way they miss it.
[00:46:21] Speaker A: That would be crazy. Although looking at how they played, I don't know, man.
[00:46:25] Speaker B: Depending on how that bracket shakes up, right? Like if Line ends up facing bottom of C9 fly, like they.
Their odds are not great in that situation.
[00:46:33] Speaker A: Fair enough.
Well, moving on. C9 versus fly quest is happening on this coming Sunday. It's going to be C9 across the board for all of us, whether it's a 3:1 or a 3:2. None of us have 3:0. I think Fly Quest is at least good for one game. RMC, you're the one that thinks it's going to be closest with a 3 2. I just think that like what we saw in the wins for C9 is they are so decisive and it's not possible for C9 to come or sorry for FlyQuest to really come back if they lose the lead. So I think that they're good enough to get one win, but I don't think they're good enough to come back. And I don't know if they're going to be able to get multiple leads in the series. So that. That's my reasoning. Do you have a big reasoning why you think FlyQuest can pick up two games?
[00:47:13] Speaker B: I think they'll get one game off of Griffin doing something absolutely insane. Because that man is the more games you Give him the more chances he has to flip. And I'm going to give them one more game for Masu and Cryozen because that bond is really, really, really strong. And I think, yeah, as long as it doesn't happen in the same game. Like, yeah, that did happen in the second game against Cloud9 where Masu, Krajin and Griffin all popped off at the exact same time. If they split that up, I think they can take two games.
[00:47:39] Speaker A: You didn't like game one with the senna sion? That was kind of fun.
[00:47:42] Speaker B: I actually didn't hate the center.
[00:47:43] Speaker A: Did not work.
[00:47:44] Speaker B: The problem was, again, I blame Griffin and Kakos for that because Griffin kind of into Scuttle and then Gagos got zero help and then C9 just rotated on him repeatedly, which was again, the beautiful part of C9's play was just how clean they were at rotating. And also for Cloud 9, if you are looking for those rotations, APA only gets to Leo once, right? And Ziggs will be perma ban.
[00:48:02] Speaker A: So true. Good point, actually.
All right, well, there we go. That's our expectations for North America and the LCS going into this next weekend.
If anybody. I haven't, like, I think, made an announcement about it, but I'll be hosting a Yu Gi oh tournament, so I will not be on the broadcast this coming weekend.
So sucks to miss the first week in a playoffs, but this has been on my calendar for a long time. It's the 300th Yu Gi oh championship series that I'm gonna be hosting that weekend. So you'll see me tweeting about Yu Gi oh instead of league. But I will still be watching the games probably while I'm also watching Yu Gi oh at the same time. It's gonna be a very eventful weekend for me, probably not getting a lot of sleep, but that brings us across the pond all the way over to Europe for the LEC baby. RMC. If you could, can you run me down the 1 through 12 positions to close out the round robin? Best of ones, they finished up and we're going into the bracket stages next weekend. But how did everyone solidify themselves in the standings?
[00:49:04] Speaker B: In a very funny fashion. So we've got in first place, Carmine Corp.
They are eight and three solo, and then in second place. Well, okay, should we call them ties? Do we talk about ties or do we just. Just run it down 1 through 12?
[00:49:18] Speaker A: There's head to heads because it's best of ones. So.
[00:49:22] Speaker B: Okay, then we've got Navi in second place. 74 tight score wise with Vitality in third place due to head to heads and then.
[00:49:28] Speaker A: Which by the way, crazy timeline. That's Na'. Vi. And Vitality is sole possession of second. And at 7 and 4. What the hell, Navi, we had you ranked in like Rogue tier. You were the lowest ranked team in our preseason power rankings. That's crazy magic.
[00:49:47] Speaker C: Oh yeah, that's right. We did put them in Rogue two, you guys.
[00:49:52] Speaker A: Yeah, we did.
[00:49:55] Speaker B: Missing the first episode has so many perks. And then from.
[00:49:58] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:49:58] Speaker B: And if you're wondering where G2 and McCoy and Fanatic are, well, you're going to find two of them. Them coming up. Because in fourth place, by the way, I don't know how the hell the tiebreakers shook up that they ended up in fourth place. Team Heretics like oh my God. And then in fifth place.
[00:50:12] Speaker A: A joke.
[00:50:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:13] Speaker C: So.
[00:50:13] Speaker B: So there's a four way tie. So there was Team Heretics in fourth. In fifth is Giant X. Okay, understandable. 65. And then in sixth place it's Mcoy.
Like how did they fall to top three? And then below them at seventh place, our rating champs, G2.
[00:50:29] Speaker A: So yeah.
[00:50:31] Speaker B: And then below that. So eight through ten are also tied. Which if you understand the way the playoffs work for LEC, one through eight make playoffs. So the fact that eight, nine and 10 were tied means only one of them makes playoffs. And an eighth place. Drum roll please.
Of course.
[00:50:50] Speaker A: That was my drum.
[00:50:51] Speaker B: I liked it. It is. It has to be. Because it's dynasties. It's LEC, it's fanatics.
They squeezed in at 8, knocking out shifters. Not. Not super unexpected to see them down there. And loss. Ratons lost. Ratons had a shot to make playoffs and tie breakers shafted them. There is no problem with the format. And then in 11th place, Sol. 11th is SK Gaming Soul. 12th, Carmine Cord Blue.
[00:51:15] Speaker A: Although also all lost Ratons needed to do was beat SK Gaming. Or sorry, not, not sk. They just needed to beat Vitality to make it in. They were like 4,000 gold ahead.
Dragon Soul Point and they throw the game like they should have made it in. And then even though they didn't win that game, there was like four other like situations where they could make it independent on how the other games go. It went the worst case possible scenario for them and they were not able to. It wasn't just fnatic losing to G2 that the last straw, but there were other ways that they could have made it in. None of them worked out. So they were just cursed to not.
[00:52:00] Speaker B: Make everybody vision about that. It's not that Fnatic had to beat G2 to, to make it in or to guarantee that Fnatic was going to make it. It's that Fnatic had to beat Heretics to make it. I still don't believe Heretics are fourth. Like, I still can't understand that.
[00:52:16] Speaker A: Yeah, true, true.
Dude, it's just like, it's crazy the way best of Ones caused chaos. It sucks for Lost Ratons because that was the big storyline.
Love them or hate them, I know I'm sure a lot of people hate watching them. I was on the side where I think it's kind of cool that this is happening. I know it's annoying for kind of competitive integrity because it's like, oh, they're just adding them for viewership. But look at what it did to get excitement around the league and the lec. I think that this was a easy success and a big win for, for the lec and it really bolstered their, their viewership numbers across the board.
And it's just heartbreaking because we could have had that momentum go into playoffs and had this really cool run. Bowse was playing great.
You know, I think Nemesis is really showing that he still has what it takes to, to play at the tier one level. And he was like carrying these, this team in many situations, loved how they looked and they were a fun team to follow.
What a painful way to, to be eliminated. And then Bows had a public statement as well. Badger, did you. Did you catch Bowse's public statement at the story going on with that?
[00:53:24] Speaker C: I did not.
[00:53:25] Speaker A: Okay. Well, basically it was just that Baus, he had his first stream since the loss and he said, yeah, I told everyone or told myself and the team I would give it one year of competitive play for fun. I didn't think anything would come of it. Didn't expect it would be this big.
But I'm committing to that one year and I'm not going to keep playing for the team anymore. So he, he's stated he's out. He's not going to keep playing for Los Ratons, which is painful to, to see that because like, man, what a sad way to go. Like if it had Blaze glory and playoffs, sure. But like the fact that this was how it ended, it's like, well, he.
[00:53:59] Speaker B: Okay, so two things. One is that the fact that I think Lost even had a shot at playoffs tells you that a streamer team, if a streamer team can do it. I think fundamentally the LE's middle to lower end of Things is a little bit could, could do with a shakeup. So I, I like the fact that streamer team managed to do that. Second of all, he went out on his signature Scion and Loki. I think they lost because of his sign.
[00:54:20] Speaker A: Oh yeah.
[00:54:23] Speaker B: I would say that come at me right. Like the thing is, look, it works in solo queue because you're running into all sorts of things but when you pick that Scion and the opponent team knows that that's going to be the case, they're just going to pick something that can punish the bow Speeding strategy. Right Knack Naco went with the.
Oh, what did he go with? He went on the tanks oh Mundo and he just kind of got Fed in that top side and that became the brick wall that that Lost Returns couldn't cut through. And that's because B fed him. Like I get the idea of the whole like okay, you know, like he's, he's getting a lot of pressure. The gold he feeds, it's not the end of the world. And his jungler got incredibly, you know, fed as well. So Lost Returns was competitive and they were ahead. But they were on a bit of a timer in that you know when the enemy tank is getting kind of that big and they've got a better front to back than you do with a bit more range, a bit more safety. Yeah it becomes a problem. And you teams are going to do that. Professional teams, teams are gonna know how to draft and punish you. And if this happens once in the best of ones, a best of three only gets worse for Lost returns.
[00:55:20] Speaker A: Yeah, it did show that this team, it was exciting to root for them but they had clear flaws. They had clear issues as to like why good teams should be able to beat them. And Vitality are a much better team than I gave them credit for initially. They're kind of a middle of the pack team in our tier list. And yeah, I mean they're, they're third place. Third third seed going into playoffs I think well deserved. They really were able to pick it up when it mattered.
So shout out Vitality. They are the funniest team I know Lost and Jones is probably most popular team. I still think the Vitality is the funniest team. Every time they do lec like Teamcom videos. God, it's so funny having humanoid cars. He just chirp each other non stop.
Great content.
Also shout out to Casey Blue, the other of the EMEA teams, the tier two teams competing in this event, they picked up their second win. So that's kind of funny. They weren't even played for anything and they just said, fuck you gx. You're going to lose a game and not be up there with navi and vitality.
[00:56:19] Speaker B: That's a good way to understand go Yukino.
[00:56:21] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. When you have nothing else to lose, you know, that's when you start waiting. But also, shout out Yukino. Through his performance throughout. I think even in the losses, Yukino showed that he's got a lot of promise. Shout out Na Jungler playing over in eu and I think it's really cool that we got this kind of look at what he's capable of. I think he's got a bright future ahead of him him.
But with that said, also crazy to think that two, five and six teams were eliminated from the top eight.
Usually think of like the bottom four teams as being like, oh yeah, they're gonna have like really low win records. Two of them were close to 50 win record just right below what it would be. And one of them had a two win streak going into it.
[00:56:58] Speaker B: Shifters.
[00:56:59] Speaker A: They. They won both their games this weekend. That was crazy.
So, yeah, yeah.
LEC in a nutshell from this past weekend, I guess. Badger, do you have any final thoughts on LEC from this past weekend now that we're done with all the best of ones. I know it's always tough with the best ones, like talk about all the games and everything, but were there any big things that you wanted to mention either like specific games or big storylines that you noticed?
[00:57:22] Speaker C: The fact that. The fact that Los Ratons was one game away from making it into playoffs.
[00:57:29] Speaker A: You.
[00:57:29] Speaker C: You have to think that the, the lack of as a league themselves was bricks at the possibility that an EMEA Masters team would come in and knock their golden child G2.
[00:57:46] Speaker A: Dude, that would have been crazy. That would have been the most Ratons did.
[00:57:51] Speaker C: Same timeline in 2026 where it's like, yeah, Cagel's team lost. Ratons knocked G2 out of the first stand contention. It's like, dude, I'm still calling it.
[00:58:03] Speaker A: I'm still calling it to this day. I think I mentioned this last week.
Lec's match fixing. There's no way Fnatic were in win or loss. They just gave the game to G2. They were like, Ah, whatever, we'll let you in. G2 paid.
[00:58:15] Speaker C: They paid. There was another game that it was on. On what, what day was it on? Yeah, I'm close series Sunday.
[00:58:25] Speaker A: The.
[00:58:26] Speaker C: That people were like, they might have taken a dive on that one too.
[00:58:30] Speaker A: So there have been some really Questionable sus plays and also the number of pentas we've had in the lec. I'm like, I'm not like I'm mostly meming but also oh, the KC game.
[00:58:47] Speaker C: Because Casey was more incentivized to lose than to win. Win.
And they lost big.
[00:58:53] Speaker A: Oh, they're game versus Team Heretics.
[00:58:55] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that one's the one that locked Fnatic for playoffs. And then Fnatic's like whatever, we don't care at this point.
[00:59:03] Speaker A: Oh, I suppose. Yeah. Because if they beat Team Heretics and then fanatic BG2 then G2 could still probably make it in.
[00:59:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:59:09] Speaker A: The 5, 6 head to heads. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, there was a lot of weird craziness.
[00:59:15] Speaker C: It's so weird. Like, like, you know, in three and a half years or something like that there's going to be a thing of like oh, remember 2026 kickoff or lock in or versus or whatever. This tournament versus le versus. God, there's so many different you got there.
It's like remember the game in week in week four on Sunday? Yeah. They we were told to throw it for. It's like, huh?
[00:59:40] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:59:40] Speaker C: There's stories in. In three to five years it's going to come out like sheep's gonna post it with like David, David Shynak or something like that cooperating it and it's gonna be wild.
[00:59:52] Speaker A: I don't think David Shanock pays attention to lec. They'll get their own person in there. Yamato, we'll do it. Yeah.
Anyway, let's go and do predictions for this coming weekend because playoffs begin not only for LCS but also for lec. LEC is going to to also be a double elimination playoff bracket, but it is all eight teams in the upper bracket and then losers will go against each other in the lowers bracket as they lose. So no one's certain down below. Everyone's starting up at the top of the bracket and I'm realizing I did not post it into the document so I'll just list it here. It's at the upper side of the bracket. It's KC and GX along with Team Heretics and G2. So KC and G2 are on the same side of the bracket. Very interesting there. Then on the bottom side of the bracket it is Navi Fanatic and Vitality mcoi. So arguably if we're just looking at like the expected big 3 KCG2 MCOI. MCOI's got the better side of the bracket. But the problem is Vitality And Navi have both been playing better than mcoi, so maybe it's not that good for MCOI to be down there. Who knows?
[01:00:58] Speaker B: I find it particularly interesting that the. The sort of perennial powerhouses are being paired up with, like, the.
Not really upstarts, but like, the. The new. New money, if you will.
[01:01:08] Speaker C: Right.
[01:01:08] Speaker B: Like, you've got KC, G2, Fnatic and McOil as sort of the.
[01:01:12] Speaker A: The.
[01:01:13] Speaker B: The traditional powerhouses. And then now you've got.
[01:01:16] Speaker A: It's funny saying Casey and that because it's from like a year, but. Yeah, yeah, I see your point.
[01:01:20] Speaker B: Yeah. But then you've got like, Navi out of nowhere vitality, which is always. And gx, are you traditionally been like, middle of the pack and team Heretics is like. Like Navi from the bottom just coming out of nowhere. And all the matchups are old versus new.
[01:01:33] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a good point, actually. Yeah. Navi and like, their first time here, actually. Is this their first playoffs? I'm trying to remember last summer. My memory's so bad already. But going up against, like, the Legacy Orca, Fnatic, that.
[01:01:47] Speaker B: I mean, they're the newest org here, up against the oldest orc here. Like, Fnatic's been here since season one. They were the season one winners.
[01:01:53] Speaker A: True Jackets. Worlds, baby. Yeah, they. They have that.
Yeah. Well, let's talk about predictions then, because it is Navi versus Fnatic. To start things off, it's gonna be the bottom half of the bracket. Not the lower bracket, but the bottom half of the upper bracket that plays first.
Navi. Fnatic. I have Navi along with a badger, but arms. You still have Fnatic. Yeah. Taking it.
[01:02:17] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:02:17] Speaker A: What's. What's going on there?
[01:02:18] Speaker B: I'm an owner. I've supported Fnatic through. Why do you think my LEC rates are low? It's because they keep supporting Fnatic and they keep choking. But also, look, it's playoffs. It's.
It's when all the. The perennial powerhouses start showing up again. So I believe FNATIC will actually turn on the monitors now that we're in playoffs.
[01:02:35] Speaker A: Also. I hate to say it, but you are tied for highest percentage prediction rate in the LEC.
It is atrocious. It's 56%. We are doing bad. Dude. This is like the worst year, I think on.
[01:02:48] Speaker C: Wait, do I have the highest, highest percentage?
[01:02:50] Speaker A: You're tied. You're tied for 56 with RMC. I'm at 55 prediction rate, then Bickle at 53. Yanni at 52, Mazel at 50.
So no one's below 50. And in the past, we have had people. I've been below 50 before, but the average, this is definitely the lowest because of how crazy the best of ones have been.
All right, cool. I have Navi because power, friendship, baby. They laugh when they play and that gets wins.
Vitality versus McCoy. I have vitality. Badger actually has MCOID 20. I have vitality 21. RMC has MCO2O as well. So Badger, I'll give you the defense here. Why do you have McCoy taking this one? Not drop in a game?
[01:03:28] Speaker C: This team's too good to. To falter in playoffs like this.
[01:03:33] Speaker B: I mean, this team just lost the vitality this week.
[01:03:36] Speaker C: I.
Vitality might be good. You never know, man. I. I just think the pedigree that MCO has at this point, I mean, this roster was a top three roster last split and nothing changed. Like, what. What's going. What's going on, boys? Like, please.
[01:03:57] Speaker A: JoJo's having a few too many JoJo games is what's. What's going on. He can pop off and carry, but he can also do really silly things, I think.
[01:04:04] Speaker C: I think Mirwen's, like, gimmicky top lane is working as well, too. So, like, that's the only, like, hesitation I have in the situation.
[01:04:14] Speaker B: Do you think it'll be better in best of threes?
[01:04:17] Speaker C: Probably get into fearless this. He might. I mean, best of ones, like, best of ones is a show. Like, let's be honest for a second, the fact that it was 11 best of ones for this, it's pretty disgusting.
[01:04:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I hate best of ones. It does not give you an accurate representation. But that being said, Merwin has looked tough also. I'll say part of my reason for vitality, I completely messed up with the last series. This is the one where they're the team that is the fun team that laughs and they get wins. Navi, my explanation was Poby is going to get revenge against Fnatic for dropping.
That's why I think Poby takes that one. I think the vitality they've shown that they are underrated and that again, I honestly do still think that there's some truth that, like, when you have fun with who you play with with, you're going to have better success. So mco, I think the pressure is kind of getting to them and they're. They're playing like they. They have pressure on their shoulders. Vitality are not moving on today. Number two on this is Tuesday reminder by the Way we didn't mention this. These games are going to be Monday and Tuesday this coming week, not on the weekends. So we'll probably record.
Sometimes we record Tuesdays or usually record Tuesday. Sometimes we move to Wednesdays. This next week will definitely be a Wednesday because we're gonna have to have a data to kind of react to these games.
But Team Heretics versus G2 will kick things off. Everyone, of course, has G2 because of course that's the obvious answer. And of course G2 should win it. And of course they're like the best team in Europe. Of course. Right? No, I got Team Heretics 2 0. Because G2 do not look like they got the magic anymore. And despite all the time I've hated team Heretics and prayed on their downfall, I can't explain it, man. They're just gonna win a pentakill. Probably two two. He's probably gonna get two pentacles in this series.
[01:06:00] Speaker B: Okay. You know, here, I'll give you a reason why they're gonna win. Can I guess? Okay. Because Heretics are currently on a four win streak. And if you look at the four last four teams yet to play, they started KCB fine, warm up. They beat McOid, Fanatic and Casey.
So it's that. It's that Reaper meme. You know, they're knocking on all the powerhouses and it's only G2 left.
[01:06:20] Speaker A: G2's next, baby. G2's next.
Speaking of powerhouses, we do have KC, the actual powerhouse of the LEC right now. The only team in sole possession of first place versus G X.
Let's go, baby. They were able to pick up the that team from the 6 and 5 not bracket. That's not the right term for it anyway. It's gonna be Casey up against a team that I think is relatively easy for them to pick up. I got a two zero. Badger got two. Oh, rmc, you have a two one.
You do think that GX is good for. For a game. When do you have a big reason as to why Giant x can get one one?
[01:06:56] Speaker B: I am. Wait, actually, did I say MK2, sir? All my things should be two one, basically, because I just think the LEC right now is a hot mess and everything and everything is happening and can happen. So I don't feel particularly like. I don't feel confident in any team being able to just crush right now. Yeah, because you just dropped the game.
Heretics. Yeah.
[01:07:16] Speaker A: Yeah, Right.
I just think that, like, they should be better, but you never know.
[01:07:23] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:07:23] Speaker A: But I think though, he has Looked incredible. Busio Callist are an insane bot lane over in eu. I think that they, they got to be the best that exists right now and I still think that they have the chance to be like the all time best bot lane in the history of EU if they keep improving. So.
Yeah. Cool. That's it for lec. Anything we missed? Guys going once, going twice, sold. LEC and LCS previews for their first weeks of playoffs are wrapped. Thank goodness we can start saying that we're both in playoffs at the same time for week one of playoffs. least it started a week before us, so there was like that week four, week three thing. Now it's gonna be much more simple going forward.
And yeah, excited to watch some. Some League of Legends this coming week and talk about it again next week.
Badger, if people wanted to leave a review for us, including a number of stars, like a numerical value. If you could assign a numerical value to the number of stars they should give us on this podcast. What comes to mind?
[01:08:26] Speaker C: I believe that the people should give us the amount of stars that Los Rotones got wins after we said that they might not win in a single game in LEC versus And that would be five stars.
[01:08:41] Speaker A: That would be five. That's a surprising number. Also surprising if people are willing to give us five stars too. So I think that's appropriate. Yes. Rmc, it sounds like you're gonna hop in.
[01:08:49] Speaker B: No, I, I was just laughing. Why would people be surprised to give us five stars?
[01:08:55] Speaker A: Just the general quality of the, you know, the analysis from. From at least the. The main host, notwithstanding the. The co host of the. Of course.
But we all did believe in Shopify rebellion. I just want to remind everyone of that.
Why are you shooting yourself?
I'm just, you know, I just like, man, I'm gonna have to wear that badge for the rest of my life.
[01:09:19] Speaker C: People are still listening at this point.
[01:09:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:09:22] Speaker C: Good on you. Honestly.
[01:09:23] Speaker A: Shout out to the people that still like as. Not only the people that listen, but the people that listen are like, yeah, they make some good points. Because.
[01:09:32] Speaker C: You know what?
[01:09:32] Speaker B: It makes sense.
[01:09:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, dude, I had so much faith. I really thought they could do it. Anyway, that's gonna do it for this week's episode, especially for everybody listening. Shout out to you.
We don't do this for anybody else other than just for the, the love of the game, the fans that come out here, people that do support us. That money goes into our audio editor, Ian. Shout out Ian for making the edit videos or not videos, the audio sound, anything even close to listening. Reasonable. And then also that little bit of extra goes towards, like, off season stuff. But you're the real ones that help support, even if you don't help support. Thanks for listening. It's awesome. If you can give us that five stars, it really does help us out. But most importantly, what I want you to know going out from this episode is that we love you and we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.
[01:10:16] Speaker C: Bye, everyone.
[01:10:16] Speaker B: Bye.
And the big biggle pickle.
