League Rundown - Episode 596: The best of series and the worst of series (MKOI the team who shattered time)

[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. [00:00:19] Speaker B: Zion can eat it single handedly win [00:00:22] Speaker A: 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. [00:00:48] Speaker B: It wasn't a mutant. They're Nexus. [00:01:07] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to episode 596 of the League Rundown. This is your 2026 LEC and LCS playoffs week one review. And this episode is lovingly entitled the Best of Series and the Worst of Series. I am your host. Yeah, yeah. [00:01:24] Speaker B: Genghis. You messed up the. You messed up the intro, bro. Now we gotta chrono break it. [00:01:28] Speaker A: Oh, okay, okay. Let me go back and redo it. And this episode is lovingly entitled the Team who Shattered Time. Is that better? Does that one work for you? [00:01:39] Speaker B: It works for McCoy. [00:01:41] Speaker A: Okay, perfect. Perfect. Well, I'm your host, kangas. I'm joined by two esteemed co hosts. You already heard one of them. But up first we're gonna introduce Mr. Mazelpl. [00:01:50] Speaker C: Hello. Excited to talk about current state of things. [00:01:55] Speaker A: Oh, there's a lot of current. [00:01:57] Speaker C: There's a lot of. There's a lot of current states of things. [00:02:00] Speaker A: All of them positive, right? [00:02:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:03] Speaker C: And happy Lunar New Year. [00:02:05] Speaker A: You know what? That is positive. The year 2026 has been a doozy so far. But it didn't even start technically. Now it's the now it started. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We also have joining us Yanni as well from the lpl. How's it going, Yanni? [00:02:21] Speaker B: It's going pretty well. I'm also excited to talk about the state of things. There are only four states of things though. Solid, liquid, gas and plasma. [00:02:28] Speaker A: Plasma. Isn't that just like matter? [00:02:32] Speaker B: Not that, no. [00:02:33] Speaker A: That one's like spicy liquid, right? [00:02:35] Speaker B: It is kind of like spicy liquid. You know, my buddies are science teachers. I'm just going to tell them that plasma spicy liquid the next time I see them and just watch them get so mad. [00:02:46] Speaker A: Okay, you know what? I like this. I like this. Yeah, like also, what is plasma? Is that one of those things where we don't even know what it is? Kind of like magnets. I mean, I'm still pretty sure that like scientists are studying it. No, no. No one knows if you want to [00:03:02] Speaker B: find out what plasma is. Just like, you know, throw some tin foil in the microwave on high or something. [00:03:07] Speaker A: All I know is that he's one of the best Destiny heroes out of the entire archetype. Shout out to the destiny hero plasma [00:03:16] Speaker B: believers, by the way. Don't. Don't put tin foil in the microwave. Don't. Please don't. [00:03:20] Speaker A: Actually, yeah, I just kind of brushed over that. Please don't. You will break your microwave. That one. I. [00:03:24] Speaker B: You will burn down your house. Do not do that. [00:03:28] Speaker A: Well, I mean. Well, now you're giving people ideas for insurance fraud, so. [00:03:32] Speaker B: Well then they got the idea here. [00:03:34] Speaker C: But I didn't endorse, so couldn't do this at home. Okay, but it's really cool anyways. Back when like the. The 2000s, I guess. Early 1990s, the late 1900s. Yeah. You just put CDs in the microwave for like five seconds and it would create like a really cool pattern on reflective side. [00:03:59] Speaker B: Oh wait, I remember my sister did that. [00:04:03] Speaker C: But it was so incredibly dangerous and you should not do it. But it was really cool. [00:04:07] Speaker A: Well, I mean think of how cool it was though. You know, you gotta weigh the danger with the cool. [00:04:12] Speaker B: Wow, that's so sick. No, I was trying to. I could never figure out why my. My sister had these cool looking CDs. My sister, 10 years older than was born and that's just how she did it. She was just risking the house. [00:04:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, why not? You also did anybody like do the custom print like CD covers? You could like get the. The ones that looked like note paper and then you could like write on them and it was like stickers you put on top of the cd. [00:04:39] Speaker C: I don't know if Shane, we were. We were truly living in the future. [00:04:42] Speaker A: Dude, I miss those days. Bring me back. Honestly, I don't like this digital crap. As I say, let's talk about some digital crap. There's a lot of legends news around the world for the. [00:04:53] Speaker C: The. [00:04:54] Speaker A: The game digital game that kind of employs all of us. Not a lot of roster news. In fact, no roster news that I picked up. So we're gonna jump strai other global topics up. First, big Update in Tier 2 over in Europe. Yanni, did you see this story break the. The NLC drama, the fiasco happening right now? [00:05:15] Speaker B: I did and I'm glad that you called it your rip because this is. This is disastrous. Basically mid season. The NLC is essentially fired all of their broadcast talent that at least on the front facing side. We don't even know much about the people behind the scenes. You know, like on production and stuff like That I just. This kind of felt like it came out of nowhere, but apparently people have not been paid for months. [00:05:41] Speaker A: Yeah. So the. The big thing, I don't remember the which Castro was, but there was one caster that like posted actually. Was it trouble? I think it was Trouble Inc. That posted it first that, that I saw about like how upset they were or that they were just like being let go from the pod, the broadcast. Then another caster, Aragon, who's been on the LEC before. So recognize that name. He posted like screenshots of his messaging with NLC leadership and his contacts there and how like delayed payment had been. Even hip frame came out and like pretty much everybody that's on the team that has been let go now has come out and like started posting screenshots or just their stories and experiences with the management. That this tier 2 organizer was not paying their talent or was incredibly delayed paying their talent and was incredibly mismanaged on the broadcast side. So raises questions. Will there be a broadcast going forward? If so, is like who are the casters they're going to bring in? Like who are the scabs coming in basically to kind of like replace these more established folks that are leaving because they just got fed up or the people that got let go because they were also causing a hubbub behind the scenes. [00:06:56] Speaker C: So big thing is that this kind of stuff has been going on for a little while for nlc. It's obviously getting a lot of traction now because all the casters are coming up. About two ago, this takeover of the current leadership happened and I remembered because I was like obviously hanging out with like Jamata and stuff a lot at that time. And the first situation that really happened was that like the newer casters came in and like severely undercut I think. Sorry to call him by name, but like the duckling person that does an LC now like when their generation of casters came. So I think it was like two or three of them. They like severely undercut the current and it's LC talents rates. And it was like a really big hubbub back then. And a lot of the NSC NLC casters were pretty upset about it. And then a lot of the like track record with the. The organizer started kind of coming through as well at the same time. So it's been like. It's not like NLC hasn't had its issues in the. In the last few years as well. But I also find it really point. Yeah, I also find it really interesting. I can't remember who posted I know Jamada reposted it, but there was somebody talking about like the kind of two faceness of the current organizer, the, the main guy that Jamada keeps hate adding on on Twitter or whatever. Like it went down basically a whole conversation of the fact that like this guy's forward presentation on like LinkedIn is extremely professional and using all of this kind of stuff with the NLC to boost his resume in terms of a professional side of things and that it's like a completely different story from the communication stuff that's on Twitter as well. And it's just like further seeding the fact that like this person doesn't care at all about the, where esports lives and where the NLC lives and cares more about their professional development because all the posts on their LinkedIn are like all super positive and like any bad things are used as like personal growth moments. And so he's got like this huge track record of just like all these amazing sounding things on his LinkedIn and like that, that's just shitty I think in a lot of ways because you're not, you're not living where your product is. And I think they state that very well in the, in the Twitter post that I read. But it's just crazy to think that somebody like this is like just feeding off of, off the NLC in a lot of ways and not giving much back and feeding off tier two get better whatsoever. [00:09:33] Speaker B: Yeah, feeding off tier two, by the way, like that's, that's not what, that's not what Tier 2 Esports exists for. Tier 2 Esports exists to not only give players and broadcast talent a platform to play, but also try to foster them or nurture them through team environments as they try to progress through their careers. It's the most important thing that I realized working my day job is that we care about the new people who come in and try to foster their growth and we want them to grow with the company. You should want your players, your broadcast talent, your producers to grow along with your product. And if you're only, you know, showing your face on one side of things, but not showing your face on Twitter where all of your casters, your production, your players are, your fans are. What are you actually doing? You are doing this for self serving purposes and you need to get out. [00:10:29] Speaker A: I'm sorry, I, I think that there, there's, there's two sides to that and that I agree with you that being in Tier 2 because like all of us have been in the tier 2 ecosystem for league of Legends in North America. And I think it's. It's good to talk about the fact that none of us, like, that's not our end goal. Right. Like, I don't think any of us would say, oh, yeah, I want to be in Tier two for my career. It is a place to develop and grow. But that doesn't mean that it is something that you ignore and just say, oh, this is only a stepping stone. I don't care about it. Like, I'm just using it to get to that next step. Like, the best way to actually get better and go to the higher levels in esports is to give a shit about what's going on at Tier two and actually focus on developing and learning the industry through the Tier 2 system. Because then when you bring that experience to Tier one, you're going to have actual resume as opposed to a fake resume. Whereas when I hear stuff like posting on LinkedIn about all this stuff, I'm like, oh, yeah, they're just trying to use this as a resume builder as opposed to use this as a skill builder. They're not using it to actually get better at what they do. They're just using it to say, hey, look at this fancy thing on my resume. I looked for Riot Games. Hire me other people. And they're probably going to be just as shitty when they work at that other thing, because if you're not actually learning on the job in Tier two, you're not going to be bringing any skills to that position when you actually get it. So it's important to take the steps and develop. And it's unfortunate that at the tier 2 level, a lot of people consider it as just like, oh, this isn't my end goal, so I'm not gonna try, I'm not gonna care. Yeah, but we, we wanted to cover. I'm sad Jamada's not here to cover it. He unfortunately wasn't able to make it, but he was you. I said, you know what, we'll give him hell for you, because I know he's got a. [00:12:23] Speaker B: Giving him an uphill already on Twitter. But one, One last thing I wanted to bring up about. [00:12:28] Speaker A: Sure. [00:12:29] Speaker B: You know, just Tier two in general, whether you're a player, whether you're a production member, whether you are a team owner or you, you know, own the particular tier 2 league or caster or whatever, you have to always remember one thing. You need to be your best for the people around you as well. Because for whatever reason you decide that your. Your journey is going to end there, somebody else alongside you has not made that decision and does need you to give your absolute best in every single facet. [00:13:10] Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. Rising Tide raises all ships is a quote that Cubby, another one of the tier 2 casters in North America likes to say. Totally agree. Is if you focus on raising the scene and elevating the scene, everyone's gonna benefit from it, including yourself. And if you're only focused on that self improvement and not the scene itself, first off, people are gonna see through the bullshit usually. And second of all, yeah, it's just not gonna benefit the scene as a whole. Yeah. All right, well, that's the NLC update on our end at least. I'm sure Jamada would have more than what to say, but it's pretty far removed from my experience and I've never interacted with the NLC broadcasters or the product at all. But it was a big story that broke this week. One other pretty big story that broke this week also. Over in Europe, LEC teams specifically won, being pretty upset with the addition of Los Ratons and KC Blue coming into the the ecosystem for the the first split here in LEC and actually now speaking out more publicly against it. This is an interview, or rather a report from sheep esports on G2. Their CEO Alban actually has been speaking out about just frustrations with the current ecosystem and the franchise league accepting non franchise teams when it was like a unanimous decision from the partners that they didn't want to do it. Riot, Big Capital R. Riot said, no, we're doing this. And to my own admission, I know I've been relatively positive about Lost Ratons being in the league from the community standpoint, from the viewership standpoint, from the broadcast standpoint. But this was a really interesting read because it does show that that's a biased standpoint. And I'll admit that as a broadcaster I was thinking about it from those lens, but from a team owner that's. It's really frustrating having non franchise teams come in when you had to buy this franchise spot. So it opens up the conversation because he basically says, look, if Riot wants to buy out our spot, we're open to negotiate. Like if we're removing franchise as a requirement to be in this league, why are we, you know, why did we buy this spot? Essentially, if Riot wants to buy it back, we'll, we'll go to the negotiating table. Which is a scary thing for like G2, the, the kings of EU, their CEO to be talking about publicly. So mazel. I want to hear your thoughts. And Yanni, I'll hear your thoughts. What do you think? Just first off, like, the current state of lec, accepting these teams in from the team standpoint, and then also what you think this statement from G2CEO means for the broader conversation. [00:15:52] Speaker C: I think it's tough. I mean, obviously, like, like you said, from the broadcast perspective, it's very biased, but I think it's very valid to be upset about it. I think we all kind of knew this was going to be a bit of a contentious issue. I mean, this was like, coming up even on Twitter posts whenever they first got announced to be in the first split of lec. And I think it just. I think he actually put it best before we even went live was like, it's a testing bed for LEC in a lot of ways. Because I do think that franchising is just not working. And while I think the entirety of the esport will be harmed by not having franchising, for the stability that it brings, I think we're in a tough spot anyways. I think we might as well rip the bandage off. And I think the competition would be a lot healthier if we do return to a state of, like, I guess, promo relegation in some sort of way. Right. The safety of those spots not necessarily being there and, like, the effort needing to be there to keep those spots. I think it would. It would do well in the long term. But I can also see the arguments for, like, why franchising has been so popular amongst, like, a lot of the orgs. But we're seeing, like, so much downtrend on the, like, negativity that being in these leagues and franchising, all that has brought, especially even coming, like you said, from, like, one of the biggest orgs in the world. It's obvious that there are some bigger issues and I don't know how to fix that. I don't have the logistical mind for that. But, like, something has to change because what we have right now is just not working. [00:17:29] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It's tough to see the difference between, like, the first two, three years of franchising to the last couple years of franchising. It's. It's stark. Just. [00:17:40] Speaker C: Teams are barely holding on. [00:17:41] Speaker A: Yeah, the number of teams that are still around, like, think about that. I actually don't even know what the exact number is off the top of my head, but it's got to be over half of the total teams between LCS and LEC that were there at the beginning of franchising are gone. And different orgs have come in now. So Crazy. Just seeing how the landscape has changed. Yanni, though, I want. I want to hear your thoughts. Same general question of just like, initial thoughts on the statement and then also what you think it means for the greater conversation. [00:18:08] Speaker B: Yeah, the statement as a whole. I mean, I would agree if I was an owner, I would feel the same way about it. You know, I think I do wonder how much of this is actually about Los Ratons, a non franchise team, getting in, or how much of this is about the franchise. Owners pretty much unanimously voted against this, but Riot just did it anyway. Right? And yes, you know, that's their call. I'm. No, no strong opinion one way or another. They can do whatever they want to do. But as an owner, you have to be like, well, if my voice has no power and we get together and we want to speak out against something because we disagree with the management of a move, well, they could just go in and do whatever they want to do anyway. Well, all of a sudden, me being a franchise team doesn't actually mean anything. [00:19:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, like, at that point, if you buy into a franchise, a franchise league, I don't know too much about the business side of it, but, like, the. The high level, like, easy to understand is, well, everyone pays, you buy in. It's basically like a socialist system that you're buying into where, like, there's revenue share, there's salary. Well, I guess there aren't salary caps. Are there seller caps in lec? I actually don't remember if there's caps [00:19:29] Speaker B: is probably on salary. Yeah, well. [00:19:31] Speaker A: Yeah, okay. Well, I'm looking at things like the NFL or like, different sports leagues where it's like, there's certain things where it's like, oh, yeah, if you do poorly, you get the first draft pick. Right? Like, it'. You. You get into this league where everyone buys in and there's the big things, revenue share. But then also the goal is to try and have competitive integrity within this league and make certain changes. [00:19:52] Speaker C: Remember when we have scouting grounds with. [00:19:54] Speaker A: Remember when we. Yeah, like, that's gone. We don't do scouting grounds. We don't do, like, all these things that we used to do back in the day when the. The league was first introduced, at least on the LCS side. And the biggest argument they had for it was always gonna be easier to, you know, develop talent. That never happened. Easier to get sponsor money because there's no concern with us getting relegated. It worked for a short while, but now teams are still bleeding dry. So it's like, are we era like yeah. [00:20:24] Speaker C: Should franchise that in a world where gaming is getting bigger and bigger, we're just dropping fandom and viewership. It's like gaming is at like the highest it has ever been in terms of like global reception and eyes on and it's still failing. [00:20:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It's a scary question to ask because I don't know what the repercussions will be. It like change for the sake of change is almost never good. You want there to be intention behind it. And I don't know what the intention would be for Riot to say, oh, yeah, we're gonna buy back all the spots and we're remove franchising, kind of rewind the clock and go back to pre2017 or 2018 or whatever. [00:21:11] Speaker B: I mean, realistically, it might, it might even be worse than that because of all the money that they're gonna have to spend on buying back these franchise spots. [00:21:18] Speaker A: Yes. [00:21:18] Speaker B: Like, we might be, we might be going back to the days of double [00:21:22] Speaker A: if sleeping on Travis's couch and, and mazel. I think before we went live, you had had an interesting point that like, yeah, what would this do for player salaries if. If, if franchising doesn't exist? I don't remember actually which of you had brought that up. [00:21:34] Speaker C: But [00:21:36] Speaker B: yeah, like our team's gonna be. Our team's gonna have to pay a minimum salary anymore. Like they're not. Because there's no league. Right. [00:21:42] Speaker A: Yeah. So. [00:21:43] Speaker B: So all of a sudden you are playing for. Essentially what's happening is you would have to open up the entire tournament circuit again to like the world. So like, you know, your dream hacks can have these events, your paxes could have these events which I think should have already been opened up again a long time ago. [00:21:59] Speaker A: Yeah, that's beside the point. [00:22:01] Speaker B: But now it's like you're just going to have players showing up to like, try to win whatever prize money is going to be on. And unfortunately, because of how far ahead we've gone and how long we've progressed from that, if you are making a pittance off that, then nobody is going to play. [00:22:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:20] Speaker C: Is there. I asked the question here because like, is there a world they just rewrite the. I know this would take a lot of effort on their part and I don't think we have enough confidence or I don't think we have that kind of confidence in them. But is there a world that they just rework the rules surrounding competitive play completely from the ground up and make it to where even if there isn't Franchising, there is a minimum salary and like there are some stipulations that teams must apply to if they're like in the tier one. Like do you think that's even at all functionable? [00:22:51] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:22:51] Speaker B: I. [00:22:52] Speaker A: Maybe the prize money would have to be worth it. [00:22:54] Speaker B: The prize money from events would have to be worth it. [00:22:57] Speaker A: My gut says no, they can't figure out a way to do that. But then my, my brain says it's Riot and general Riot likes to have control over stuff. So maybe they still would impose something like that. But I just don't even know what that would look like because like if we look at. Let's look at Counter Strike as another example where it's these tournament circuits throughout the year that lead up to the. The majors, areas of the majors that lead up to the world. I don't remember exactly what all the tournaments are named, but I just know that there's like qualifier tournaments throughout the year. Like if they're open, sign up and anybody can really join. Unless it's closed, sign up and you have to be like a partnered org or something. It gets really. I don't think that there's an elegant solution at that point other than just yeah, you know, give up control and then have qualifying tournaments to get you into worlds. And at that point are you region locking anything or is it like Chinese and Korea teams can come over to the tournaments hosted in North America and compete here. We could be looking at a completely different landscape of what competitive esports looks like. If Riot goes down that path. There's nothing confirming it Will. This is just a conversation that was started by G2's CEO and like it's been, let's be honest, it's been a conversation that's been around but just never by a prevalent like team owner or like, like a higher up at a team rather. So I mean G2 is at least willing to go and negotiate at the table. I don't know if that means every team would also be willing to or what that would look like. I know that different teams have paid different amounts of their. Their buy in. Some teams still haven't even finished like their that like 2018 when franchising began. Not every team has actually paid the full amount even to Riot at this point. And that was 10 year or almost 10 years ago now like 8 years ago. [00:24:42] Speaker B: I wish I could put a team on zero percent interest. [00:24:45] Speaker A: Right? Imagine, imagine just like buying a spot and never actually my credit's good, but [00:24:51] Speaker B: it's not that Good. [00:24:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you think they can get taxed on it? Probably not because they don't own it yet. [00:24:56] Speaker B: Right. [00:24:57] Speaker A: So businesses work. Something like that. Anyway, it's an interesting conversation and yeah, I. I just hope that if change happens, there is a very well communicated reason for why they're happening. And it isn't just like, oh, teams are mad so we're just gonna change it. It's like I would rather them try and fix what currently is as opposed to just burning it all down. But you never know. You never know what's. What's gonna come. And it feels like year by year it could at any moment could just. Just drop of a hat, change. Which is a odd place to be in right now in esports. But so Tier 2 and Tier 1 things are looking great. Guys, let's go. [00:25:38] Speaker B: I got it. I have the fix. [00:25:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:40] Speaker B: Introducing another team in each league. It's called otacon. Right. And when you kill otacon, you get a million. When you beat otacon, when you beat team, you get a million dollars. And then if your team would go bankrupt, you, you get the bailout. Buff Riot will bail you out. One time. [00:26:01] Speaker A: One time. The one time bailout. [00:26:02] Speaker B: You know what? Much like how Otacon GA used to exist, you know. [00:26:06] Speaker C: You know what truly saves league esports? You know the NLC rule that. The hot. The hot sub rule that they have where Roxa is randomly playing for teams and you have like all these like high name players playing for random ass teams. They don't even know who they're playing with the week that they're playing the game they go in and play. You just do that. But it's a singular person and you make him have no region locks across the entire world and you let Faker just become the Riot mercenary and he just goes around, plays one game in each region like every couple weeks and the entire esport is saved. [00:26:45] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean viewership on average would probably increase across every region if that happens. [00:26:52] Speaker C: One week of a 500,000 viewer spike in this league. That's crazy. [00:26:56] Speaker A: Koreans watching else crazy. [00:27:00] Speaker C: Hbo, where you at? [00:27:01] Speaker B: I actually have. I actually have a legitimate question. [00:27:04] Speaker A: Okay. [00:27:04] Speaker B: Do we think that maybe, just maybe one way to inject an extra bit of life if they wanted to, was allowing teams to do what CLG did way back in the day. No. And go and play in another region for a split? [00:27:23] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. I mean, so that has been something that's been teased or maybe not teased, but has been a point of discussion is like if Riot removes The. The regional leagues and just has like a global league that then feeds into worlds. And any org from any country can sign up for this global league that you get all these logistical nightmares and stuff like that. But I see it sounds like what you're. [00:27:46] Speaker B: All the eastern teams are gonna fly over here and beat up the NA team. Teams. [00:27:50] Speaker A: I know, I know. It's gonna be crazy. And at that point then it's like, what? What is it? How do you even like have an N a roster? Like, how do you wait to watch [00:27:59] Speaker B: Night versus Dark Wings? Dark Wings. I think Dark Wings is playing well, but that Wings was not night. [00:28:07] Speaker C: The funniest part is that the. The level of League of Legends gameplay would drop significantly. [00:28:14] Speaker A: Oh, you think it would drop? [00:28:16] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I think not being able to play against the better teams in the world. Like, like LPL teams actually getting to practice LPL teams if they had to spend like 80% of their time traveling to Europe and fucking NA. [00:28:28] Speaker A: Oh yeah. [00:28:29] Speaker C: Suck ass. [00:28:30] Speaker A: See, I was gonna say. I was thinking from the opposite standpoint. I was thinking, I think the average quality of game for the NA viewer will increase. [00:28:38] Speaker C: Yeah, 100%. The LPL and LCK players will start sucking. [00:28:42] Speaker A: Yeah, they'll just host all the tournaments in China and Korea. We'll get like one in the Americas and it'll be in Brazil. All right, well, that's all the kind of global news. Two meteor topics right there. So that a lot of time we spent on that one. Thanks for sticking with us, everybody. We will talk about the League of Legends games that happened this past weekend. But spoilers, there weren't many great ones. So that's why we decided to spend a little bit more time actually giving opinions and thoughts on kind of of the two bigger news there. Other than that though, guys, since I have two LPL guys, I would love to hear the LPL update. What's going on in playoffs, if they came to NA, how doomed would we be, etc. So mazel, let's hear from you. And then Yani, we can get your points in as well. [00:29:26] Speaker C: Okay, well you. You got us at a great time. We're in the middle of a two week break for Lunar New Year. [00:29:33] Speaker A: Perfect. [00:29:33] Speaker C: So there's so much happening. Absolutely everything you could ever ask for. We did get our four added teams to the playoffs. They will be top esports, nip, IG and we. Which I'm pretty sad about because one of my previous statements was that LNG will rule the world and they'll make all the run all the way to group ascend and maybe even win the split. They lost the W E, which is very unfortunate. But the biggest travesty was the fact that they lost 3.0to TT in the previous round. [00:30:09] Speaker A: I'm going to need you to get your predictions better because we have a really stellar prediction record on this pod. [00:30:13] Speaker B: They. [00:30:14] Speaker A: They're really wrong about those types of predictions. [00:30:16] Speaker C: Well, my. Yeah, my favorite team's gone. Rookie made it somehow. They. They were able to fight, figure out their demons. But it should be an interesting playoff. The force for matches that we have are JDG Top Esports, which should be an absolute banger. Top Esports been looking a little bit better as they go. They did go five games against we, so it was a little bit tough. But then we'll have alwe, which should be a pretty easy one for al. We'll have Weibo Gaming versus ig, which is going to be a chaotically fun series. I feel like BLG and IP, where BLG should be the favorites over Nip, but those are the first four matches, and they'll be starting on the 23rd, so still have another week or so. [00:31:03] Speaker A: Yeah, okay. [00:31:04] Speaker B: The. The unction in the mid lane and that Weibo Gaming IG game, our mid laners are have a combined age of 56 years old. [00:31:14] Speaker A: Damn. [00:31:15] Speaker B: That is one thing to note. [00:31:16] Speaker A: Put him in the retirement home right now. [00:31:18] Speaker B: Exactly. I was. You know, I'm with Mazzella. I was very disappointed in LNG. I mean, I. I got to cast the We LNG game, and from the moment I watched the LNG TT series when LNG 1, 3 0. It was not good. They stomped the first game. It was like, oh, man, LNG is that team. And they struggled against the worst team in group perseverance by a large margin. They struggled in games. [00:31:43] Speaker C: TT won two games, like, the whole regular season, and then they three. [00:31:47] Speaker B: No series, just games. [00:31:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that's not good. [00:31:50] Speaker B: It's just, you know, like, you know, even though LNG did win that series, like, games two and three were not convinced. [00:31:56] Speaker A: Missing. [00:31:57] Speaker B: It's not good. [00:31:59] Speaker A: But wait, I'm a little confused. [00:32:03] Speaker B: Stay three ott. [00:32:04] Speaker A: They three owed tt. Okay. But it was a struggle in games two and three. [00:32:08] Speaker C: Yes. [00:32:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Games two and three were like, oh, my. I was like, damn. Like, this we LNG series is gonna be. Is gonna be a quick three. Zero and almost. It really should have been. OMG had the chance to do the funniest thing ever and send Rookie into nirvana, but they were. They were unable to do so. [00:32:27] Speaker A: That would be hilarious to have rookie in group nirvana. [00:32:29] Speaker B: It would be like showmaker and in group rise vibes. Honestly. Okay, cool. [00:32:36] Speaker A: But when does it come back? When can folks get 23rd again? 23rd. All right, so next week? Next week on Monday. Cool. [00:32:44] Speaker B: Cool. It's hilarious because it's a different day for you guys than it is for me. [00:32:50] Speaker A: Oh, Eastern time versus Pacific. Yeah. [00:32:53] Speaker B: That's why I was like. When myself said 23rd, I'm like, 23rd. This is 24th year. I'm like, oh, I can do. [00:32:58] Speaker C: I've also decided to keep going with the double best of five. [00:33:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:02] Speaker C: Honestly, say goodbye to our brutal dude. It's so ridiculous. They used to do double best of fives, like one time, maybe two times an entire year, and now it's literally every day is double best of fives. [00:33:15] Speaker B: Why are we double fisting best of fives? [00:33:18] Speaker C: So disgusting. [00:33:20] Speaker A: Well, again, shout out for you guys and everybody else involved with the LPL unofficial English product. It's still a sick fan run broadcast for the league, so people can actually keep catching the games in a more professional environment. So if you have not yet viewers or listeners, go check it out. LPLunofficial on Twitch and on Twitter. Give them a follow on socials. Give them a follow on Twitter or sorry, Twitch and also on YouTube. Subscribe to the YouTube channel because all the VODs go up on there and that's like one of the best places to. To catch the LPL games that you will be able to find. All right, well, let's. I believe that's it for global news. LCK will get an update on that maybe next week. If we can get Pickle or Badger on. See below. If we can get RMC back on, [00:34:05] Speaker C: you don't need it. [00:34:06] Speaker A: Yeah, you know we're all biased towards LPL here, right, guys? Am I in the club? Can I. Can I join the club? Can I be sure? [00:34:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:34:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Even though I consistently predict LCA to win World World, so. [00:34:18] Speaker C: Yep. [00:34:19] Speaker B: That's okay. I do too. [00:34:20] Speaker C: It's okay. You're not as bad as Cubby. I actually did on the broadcast and he's actively preying on LPL's downfall. [00:34:26] Speaker A: That's actually hilarious, but also terrible, but kind of funny. [00:34:30] Speaker B: You know, he's. He's preying on LPL's downfall. And yet I'm sure there's fanfic out there about him and Haijo. [00:34:36] Speaker C: True. [00:34:37] Speaker A: What? [00:34:37] Speaker C: He's. He's gonna drink a shoe. [00:34:41] Speaker B: Wait, I don't think Kangas knows. All right, Kangas. [00:34:43] Speaker A: I know. We'll save that for off the podcast. [00:34:46] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I need to grab the picture. I'm just grabbing. [00:34:49] Speaker A: I have a mental image already. But thank you everybody, by the way, for your recommendations of what we can talk about for the news stuff when it comes up. I see people kind of posting the news articles in our community Discord as they pop up. It really helps us know kind of what you're interested in hearing us talk about. So if we missed anything, make sure to let us know. In the community Discord, you can find a description, a link to that in the description, wherever you are listening today. And also shout out to everybody who helps support the podcast, either through our Patreon or through our Merch shop. Links to both of those are also in the description. And with that being said, it's time to hop into our actual show today. A good old 30 minutes into the recording, we're gonna start talking about some of the League of Legends games that happened this past weekend. Starting off with the L lcs. We are into playoffs. We are into best of fives, and at least one of them was entertaining. Mazel. Tell me in the audience what two series happened this weekend and who were the winners of said series. Do we have Mizell? I don't know. Do we lose? [00:35:58] Speaker C: Mazel. [00:36:00] Speaker B: I guess so. [00:36:00] Speaker A: All right, you go for it. [00:36:02] Speaker B: Yeah. So the winners of our series. Oh, man, it was a banger weekend in the lcs. So first off, we had Sentinels versus disguised. It went the distance. It was awesome. I cried and a ton of people died. But Sentinels took a 32 victory. And then the second series was the fifth fastest series in LCS history. Cloud 9 absolutely stomped fly Quest in the dirt. I don't know if anybody can be beat Cloud nine. [00:36:35] Speaker A: Yeah. So let's start. Honestly, I kind of want to start with the C9 side because this one's like the easier to talk about because it's just so quick. I think there's an argument C9 is the best team in the west right now. They look so dominant in this region. I think that the big surprise was a lot of people expected Team Liquid to be better. They're going to be in the losers bracket and we'll talk about our expectations for them later. But like, C9 have not been challenged. They dropped a game to Fly Quest last time around in the best of threes. They get the rematch immediately because of how funny the seating worked in in this Swiss stage. And then they just smashed them here. So they're like 5:1 against fly quest who are like, okay, maybe they're the second best team. If team Liquid struggling so much because lion also has not been doing well. Shopify Rebellion was abysmal. It's like, who the hell is competition for C9 in NA? And then also going and looking at Europe and how close and sloppy a lot of that region has looked. I think C9 is the best team in the west right now. [00:37:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you got the BL ones over in you, so obviously we true. Well, you know, they're not. They're not the peak of their powers straight. We can't. We can't just, you know, despite the fact that we are NA based broadcast, we can't just, you know, be. Be that biased. Right? Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think all these guys are playing. So I think Apa, like, Apa was one bad year away from like, like being a. A forgotten mid laner, bro. I called it, kind of. I called it, didn't pan out anymore. And I was kind of on that train. Big team Liquid fan. So I watched a lot of Apa and you know, I know the guy is good, but I was very, very disappointed. And he is. He is exactly what Cloud9 needed. As it turns out, all Cloud9 ever needed was a native mid laner. And it took him this long to [00:38:23] Speaker C: find out, bro, I. I called it, man. I. You earned it. The look at his eyes. [00:38:30] Speaker B: You're right. [00:38:32] Speaker C: Like that. That man, that. That man Apa was ready for it. [00:38:37] Speaker A: I think. [00:38:37] Speaker C: I. I still think there's some champ issues and I still. I still hope that like, that continues to grow. But right now, I mean, they're just playing efficient League of Legends, which is really good. [00:38:45] Speaker A: APA has leveled up significantly from last year and the year before. Like, individually, he's just playing better. And also Thanatos, I still think is showing that he is mechanically the best top laner that we have in the league. Pound for pound, he's just crushing everybody. Gatkos could not step up to this guy. It was a struggle for Geckos the entire series. Blabber's playing cleaner. I mean, there's still the memes that they're like throwing for scuttles and stuff. And that will still happen occasionally, but in the late game, he's making much better decisions than he was last year where he would like. But he costed them spring split split finals. Like they could have won that game. And then he just like throws a game being out of position. We're not seeing that version of Blabber anymore. And then Sven Vulcan are also crushing violence. [00:39:27] Speaker C: Like every crazy what a chip on your shoulder can do. [00:39:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Every part of this roster is. Is playing like towards the peak that we've seen of them. Like we. We also are seeing like really high quality Sven. Maybe not Peaks then like he was really, really good back on you know, G2 and than when he like first came to Fly Quest. But I just. I cannot think of a team that can challenge these guys. Like they are such shoe ins to win LCS lock in and then go represent us at first stand. It's not even close in my mind and shout out to them for again making me wrong because I had team Liquid even above them in expectations. I know Mizel, you believed in APA and the team. I did not. I did not see this team clicking based on what I was hearing behind the scenes and also even like in interviews. Like APA during week one, I interviewed him and he was. I was like, yeah, so like what are the expectations for the team? And he was like, yeah, we still haven't talked as a team about our expectations or goals. And I'm like, you guys are in the season and you haven't had that conversation. Apparently they didn't need to. They're just good enough. It doesn't matter. Whereas usually I put a lot of stock into those types of conversations and kind of accountability for. For players in that way. But. But hey, the magic hit and it's working. Any final thoughts on on C9 versus fly? Let's talk about the Fly side. [00:40:46] Speaker C: Dawn needs to go to world Finals. No, I'm just. [00:40:49] Speaker B: Poor Griffin, man. There's a reason why FF isn't his name, man. This was. This was a very, very tough series. You know, listen, Blabber. Blabber is one of the best junglers we've ever seen at na. Like people will clown on him, you know, Crabber of course. But this guy has consistently been a very good player throughout his entire career. Like Blabbers. Blabber's worst year is better than most Junglers best years in na. And you know, there's no shame in losing to that. This is a Fly Quest team that is over over performed I think to this point. But at least over performed a league expectations. Not saying that like oh, they're playing better than they actually are because these are very, very talented young players. They're just gonna need a little bit of time to throw some cold water on things. I just hope they don't lose their momentum. [00:41:36] Speaker A: I think the Griffin's learning valuable lessons in these losses because this is now a couple losses to blabber in a row. I mean, they just played C9 twice in a row here in the best of three and now best of five. And we're seeing that Griffin was not punished by junglers for a lot of his pathing and his early decision making. And now with the jungler like blabbering, that will contest you for a lot of stuff like contracts. We're not seeing peak contracts, we're seeing kind of sloppy contracts. Humbach is a psychopath, but he also will put himself behind just to do something crazy. X use Xu, you know, like the, the junglers in the league right now. Inspired is like trying his best, but his mid laner is struggling heavily. I'm trying to think of like the other big like junglers that we could really, you know, put, put in, you know, conversation. Cryra, I guess is like the other rookie jungler coming in. So we're excited to see what, what Griffin Cryro will look like as they both develop. But we're seeing that Griffin is learning through failure and hopefully that failure turns him into a better jungler as well. I'm hoping that we're at that point where he really shocked us and surprised us. And now that he's playing against junglers that will watch his tape and be like, oh, I'm gonna guess he's at this camp at this time. I'm just gonna go like fight him off of it or he invades a lot at this time. I'm just gonna like have my jungler or like, sorry, my mid laner nearby to help me out out. Which we saw a couple times. I think that, yeah, again, once, once he realizes that he can't just do whatever he wants to do, sometimes he's gotta, you know, respect his opponent's ability to counter play him. Griffin will get better for that. So. But yeah, 300 for C9. Really, really dominant look for them. Which leads into the first series of the weekend. But we're saving it to talk about later because I agree with you, Yanni. Oh, baby. This was a fun series to watch. Full five game banger and an entertaining one at that. Should we just go game by game? I feel like we should go game by game through, through one like this. It was five games, but still like five very back and forth games. Game boy kind of slowly came into it. It wasn't like a crazy explosive one right away, but we're seeing this kind of combination of nocturne Akali Swing in where like you go for the nocturne. If the enemy team locks in Orianna, you go Akali or. Or wait, actually now I'm trying to remember. No, it was the. It was the Orianna pick and then you picked the nocturne with the Akali because you're gonna lose lane somewhat as the Akali. But then you have like two champions that go invisible basically and just make it impossible for the Orianna to play the game. So from the draft I was always already excited with what this guys was doing, but. But yeah, other. Other thoughts, Yannia, on this series, either game one or going into game two, I mean the. [00:44:23] Speaker B: The first thing that I'm like super excited about is game so. Because in fairness, game three is the one that I remember the most. I was. I was at a riftbound opening party at my buddy's house. [00:44:35] Speaker A: Okay. [00:44:36] Speaker B: Yeah. So my buddy and his brother and his other friend each got a case of. Of spirit forged. So we just spent the entire day opening packs. [00:44:44] Speaker A: That's a lot of cards. [00:44:45] Speaker B: Yeah. I was sending this to my buddy Tim. We were watching the games. He's, you know, casual esports enjoyer. So asking me my opinions on things. It's just so crazy how game three went. Game two, you know, this was. It was a tough performance out of Lions on the blitzcrank. It was not ideal. Lions really didn't have the. [00:45:05] Speaker C: The. [00:45:06] Speaker B: The. The best series, which is a shame. [00:45:09] Speaker A: Also this comp is just weird. Like re. [00:45:14] Speaker B: Call it what it is. This comp stinks, bro. Like this is not a good composition. I don't. [00:45:20] Speaker A: It's like there's pieces that make sense together, but the whole does not Renekton pantheon. That being said, a Nivea Kaisa blisscrank. [00:45:27] Speaker B: Sad. Sad. On Kaisa. We're. He's starting to get into like LPL 80 carry on Kaisa territory. [00:45:34] Speaker A: Like you. [00:45:35] Speaker B: You might not be able to give this guy this champion because he will do everything he can to try to win the game. [00:45:42] Speaker A: It does look like his best by maybe not like a super significant margin, but by a margin. Yeah. [00:45:48] Speaker C: I gotta say though, Dark Wings Rise was nutty. Watching him zip around like crazy. I. I really appreciate the angles he was using in that game too. I think he was doing a really good job of like having like flank plays. [00:46:04] Speaker A: Yeah. He was also able to get the team around with the realm warp too. Like he was carrying Hambock into the back line to then like get on to call me because like Anivia, if You have egg up can be scary to die, but as soon as that egg's down, you're just like, yep, just kill him. That's a bird with very low mobility. It called me would electrocute Anivia too, which was interesting for me. He's like really trying to play for Lane more so than the scaling aspect. But the big thing with play game three though that we have, I haven't specifically said nasus for Castle. Dude, we got nasus top Lane in game three. Let's talk about it now, Yanni, because I, I'm assuming this is why game three was so exciting for you. [00:46:42] Speaker B: It's just because this entire game I was like, all right, if the skies just do nothing most of the game, they're good. They're gonna win, right? They go and they get this first dragon. I'm like perfect. This is gonna completely throw off sentinels. And then impacted Hambock just, just started showing up in these fights. These team fights were completely ran by them. And then it got to a point where it's like, well it looks like sentinel's just going to roll over disguised. But impact, it just goes to show with this kind of comp. I didn't like the sentinels comp but it just goes to show that if you don't have an impactful cannon ultimate against what the skies are showing, you're just going to lose every single fight because that's what happens happened. You know, it was, it was impact. Oh, you weren't able to get on priority targets with your ultimate cool. Sajed is free firing. Cryra is shielding everybody. Castle is using one NASA skew to take out Rahel's barrier and then some HP on top of it. And, and I don't even think it was a particularly great game out of call me. I. I think that this was a, a fumbled game by sentinels and that I, I really thought they were going to get punished for it. But you know, credit to Castle. Dead ass, bro. Just pick NASA's dude. [00:48:01] Speaker A: Yeah, he said dude. The, the voice cops was so funny. Like just try to convince Ido like no, this is good. No, no, no, let me play dases here. And it was looking dire for a bit but yeah, the, the late game scaling. I mean this composition is just filthy. They have ivern jungle senna ad carry you beat this like yeah, yeah, it didn't matter. They can still win the team fights because of just how unkillable Castle became on the dog. Yeah. Sajed also shout out on or deathless in this game seven, 06, crazy, crazy performance from Sajed continually impresses as a rookie AD carry. So then disguise was up to one. You know, they fumbled game two, but it was like, okay, I think Disguise actually could win the series right here. Like maybe they have a shot. Oh, cry against Mundo. That's exciting. Oh, Sajet on a on a strong carry in Corky. That sounds exciting. And then impact and humbug just kind of popped off. Also, dark wings on Veigar, man. I mean, we talk about champion pool. Mazel. I know with apa champion pools, you know, sometimes questionable. With dark wings, I feel like it's the opposite. [00:49:16] Speaker C: He just plays everything, brother. I'm still waiting for the swain gameplay. I'm still waiting for all kinds of stuff from this man. Isaac is a goat when it comes comes to knowing his chample and being able to use it. And I think this was a perfect indication of it. [00:49:29] Speaker A: Even just confidence in playing new picks. Like, I remember last year he played Malzahar and I, I asked him, I was like, do you play Malzahar? He's like, not really. My coach just said it'd be good. And I was like, all right, cool, I'll do it. You know, like, he's just that type of player where he will play whatever fits the comp. And this time around, you know, you see a Jax, you see a Corky, you see an Ari. All things that will like want to jump around and you just drop a cage as Vegar, it's like, well, you can't just jump towards me. You can't jump out of it. Like, you're just kind of locked down. We saw the vive Vegar being a really cool combination. Plus the vegar cage and misfortune holding over top of it. Like, man, yeah, Veigar was kind of nasty incentives. This was another game now where they got the dragon soul. How many? You know, I don't even remember offhand how many times did they get soul? They got. No, no one got it in the game two. Game one. [00:50:22] Speaker B: Game one, they got plus elder. Yeah. [00:50:26] Speaker A: Disguise just kind of ran the objectives in game one. Last two games in a row that sentinels were able to get that dragon soul. And a lot of it just off of mid lane having just a crazy dominant performance in terms of being able to carry fights through just one ability. Just drop the cage really hard for anyone to deal with it. Oh, also unsealed spellboard. Look, Vegar, really, really cool because you're able to like TP to lane but then swap it out for like a barrier. [00:50:52] Speaker B: You want like ghost. You want ghost as well. Like just to be able to catch up to some targets. I play a lot of Vegar. Vegar was fun fact my OTP when I first started playing the game with my one friend that I was watching these games with, we would play Vegar Alistar bot Lane. I played vegar from level one to level 30. And like it was. It's always nice whenever I get to see him in pro play. But I have really enjoyed the. The spellbook Vegar. You just get so much utility and it's mostly for the summoners that get you to move around with your teleport and your ghost. And then it's like your. Your defensives. You're almost never like taking ignite. [00:51:30] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It sounds really like flexible for surviving laning phase, which is what Veigar sometimes can struggle with. You want to scan, you just get more ap. The more units you kill with abilities. So wait for your people you hit. Yep. And. And hitting people's abilities too. So just making sure that you can survive or if you die, get back to Lane fast. TP Ghost Lane. You know, whatever you need to do, you're getting the CS if you're gonna build actualizer. [00:51:57] Speaker B: Maybe clarity actually has some uses now. [00:52:00] Speaker A: True. I even think about that. [00:52:03] Speaker B: I used to take Clarity, by the way. Like when I played solo queue on this champion. I take did. I took flash clarity so I could stay in lane as long as possible through the early laning phase and get as much farm as I could. But more often than not, what it did was when I had no mana, it would bait my opponent, who was on low hp to walk closer to me. So I would just clarity and then kill him. [00:52:24] Speaker A: That's hilarious. I like that a lot. Yeah. Especially with that cage. Like, if they're like, oh, I can't [00:52:29] Speaker B: believe I thought I had like five people tried to tell me it was bad. And I was like, guys, you guys don't know what you're talking about. And now like. Like 13 years later, I'm like, I was terrible. [00:52:39] Speaker A: Holy moly. Well, hey, it's one of those things where it's. It's noob stomping. [00:52:43] Speaker B: Right. [00:52:43] Speaker A: You know, you're just doing it for a specific reason that noobs will fall for. So it works. That. That was the. The series back and forth, back and forth, two to two. Really exciting going to the. This last game and game five was also pretty close. I mean, it was sentinels with a lead DSG kind of pull it back on off of a big team fight where call me is able to finally like find resets on Tristana. But then Sentinels wrestle it back and just kind of get objective after objective. A big part. You had already highlighted it. Lions had a rough series. I think this one also showed in game five. Here he's playing Bard in game five of a fearless series. Crazy to me. The Bard made it this far, but also just didn't really deliver on it. Like wasn't finding impactful olds and was sometimes putting his team in jeopardy by like giving portals that Humbock could take in. And then get Gallio onto the back line. And it was like, oh God. [00:53:42] Speaker C: It's one of those things where it's like your. Your angel or your angle and your double. [00:53:46] Speaker A: Yep. [00:53:47] Speaker C: Because like a bard in a game five can absolutely be just a complete series winner or it could be a complete series loser. And I think we know which one it was. [00:53:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:58] Speaker B: But Zen Gallio, by the way, like also how this combination made it to game game five is beyond me. Like I, I really think that this was a really, really great draft by Sentinels and I, I think this guy's kind of lost the forest for the trees when it came to picks and bands. Because like you cannot let a team have that combination in a game five. You will lose almost every game. [00:54:23] Speaker A: It was two very long range damage dealers in Hue and Varys. Although Varys did go on hit as opposed to lethality. Kryra locked in Sejuani. So I agree with this fully. Like you need somebody to be able to get through the Sejuani health bar. But yeah, like Xin Zhao making it to game five. We see him much earlier. Galio was still a counter pick for Castle's Rumble, which was something I guess they just didn't think about. This was first pick Rumble and then Sentinels are like, okay, well we'll get Varus Xin Zhao which are still really good picks. And then third pick Go Galio to counter the Rumble and impact was just like unkillable. Basically he built one magic resist item and then full armor because it was also Sivir and Tristana Mid Lane. I have not seen Tristana Mid is Tristana Mid been played in LPL at all lately? [00:55:11] Speaker C: Not lately. [00:55:12] Speaker B: I don't think so. [00:55:13] Speaker A: Yeah. I have not seen this in quite some time. So interesting to see call me kind of go into that pocket. Maybe we're seeing some champ pool stuff. Or maybe it was just like, hey, we think that this works well because they saw the hue already. So, like, maybe it's a. It's a Lane matchup thing. I'm not exactly sure, but either way, it did not work out for them. There's one cool fight, but Sentinels were able to take it another game where they get all dragons. They pick up the soul as well as every other objective. So Sentinels second best team in na. I mean, they. They move up in the upper bracket, up against. Against C9 in a hilarious path to get there. Yeah, this. This bracket. I don't know how fraudulent I'll say it is, but it does not feel like it's an accurate representation of the best teams. When we have sentinels versus C9 going up against each other in round two, upper brackets, it feels a little odd, but that's how the cookie crumbles. So, any final thoughts from either of you on C9 versus. Or rather, sorry. Sentinels versus DSG. It was a banger series. Go check it out, everybody. If you have not series to watch. Yep, the series to watch for the entire weekend LEC is. We'll talk about it in a little bit here. We had a lot of duds. Like, there really weren't any. They were all stomps. So I think that if you're gonna watch anything this past weekend, Sentinels, DSG is the one to watch. So now let's talk about next week. It's C9 and Sentinels moving on in the upper bracket bracket. And in the lower bracket, we have our matchups. It's going to be Fly versus Lion, and then Team Liquid gets disguised as their opponent. So let's cover predictions. DSG versus T law happens on Friday. Actually, wait, I'm not 100 sure on that. I'm pretty sure it's Friday. I'm pretty sure that happened on Friday. There we go. I should definitely know that since I'm going to be casting. Well, I. I'm casting day two. But still, that does change which one it would be. But DSG versus T Law kicks things off on Friday. We all have D G across the board. Team Liquid has not convinced me that they have what it takes to get everyone on the same page and win a series individually. They still have some strong performers. Morgan looks good in Lane. He's a chicken with his head cut off as soon as we cross 20 minutes. Jose Deodo does not look like he's got the synergy with Quid. Quid is also like losing Lane to people. That's not supposed to happen. Quid. You're supposed to be like the best mid laner in the league right now. And then Yan and Core are just trying their goddamn hardest down there. Shout out Jan, who has had a couple of like monster performances, couple of really big duds. But I think that the duds I can excuse because you can see he's trying to carry the team and it's just not working. So we all have DSG3 too. Mazel. Any other future? Cryra is the future. Boom. I like that Fly Quest versus Lion is coming up afterwards. This is going to be the series that I'm casting. I finally get to cast a FlyQuest game. It's be to going my first one of the year. Now that Dignitas is out, I no longer get put on all the dig games. So that's exciting. [00:58:17] Speaker C: Congratulations. [00:58:18] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you very much. This one I have C9 or sorry, I have Fly Quest taking it three zero. Mezzelle, you have a three one. Yanni, you have a three two. So actually the closest between them. Yanni, let's get your thoughts and I'll give mine. Why do you think it's gonna be a close series? [00:58:36] Speaker B: I just saw what Blabber did to Griffin. Like I. I just saw that, man. Like, I think that Inspired is going to be able to get advantages through the jungle and I think that if he's able to do that, the rest of his team can be empowered enough through him to be able to take games. I think pound for pound Fly Quest is better, but I do think that, you know, Berserker individually is. Is able to stand up to Masu. I think that Inspired individually has a pretty big advantage in the jungle. I think that Dokla could be stable in the top lane against Geckos. So obviously you're just worried about mid support at that point. This is why I think it'll be a much closer series than. Than you guys think. [00:59:26] Speaker A: Okay, fair enough. I. Because to an extent I agree with like Mid and Bot Lane being so important. I have the both of those favored for Fly, especially Mid. Saint has looked abysmal this year. Unless he's able to turn it around in a big way, I don't see him being able to hang. This is a far cry from last year where we were like, ooh, lion is struggling but Saint looks good. Saint is promising. This is like the opposite. It's like lion is struggling and Saint looks terrible and like inspired looks like the best performing player on the team. Not that big of a surprise. Berserker has the ability to like still carry team fights. Like, I still think he's about the same player that we saw last time he was in na where it's like, yeah, you give him zer, you give him a Felios late game, he can pop off. But getting there is getting harder for the team because of kind of this black hole in the mid lane. Essentially. I think Quad can take heavy advantage. So I think Flyque was 3. 0. But I do hear your point. Still inspired. There's a chance he can just shut down Griffin. And if you shut down Griffin, Fly Quest might peter out as well with their setups because Griffin has shown a penchant for poor decision making if he doesn't have a lead. Because he plays the same whether he has a lead or doesn't. So that leads into the final game of the week for LCS. And that's C9 versus Sentinels. The big dogs. The top two teams. The El Clasico. No, that last one's for sure fake. The rest are probably fake as well because I think Sentinels have had a pretty fake run in playoffs. They still look good enough to beat a lot of the teams around them. But I don't think they have anything on C9. I got a 3. 0. Yanni's got a 3. 0. Mazel. You have a 3. 1. So you have a little more faith in Sentinels. How do you think Sentinels pick up their win versus Impacts? [01:01:16] Speaker C: Good for one. [01:01:18] Speaker A: You know what? [01:01:19] Speaker C: What? [01:01:19] Speaker B: Fair. You're not wrong. [01:01:20] Speaker A: Fair enough. [01:01:20] Speaker C: Impact Impact. Dark Wings Combination. One game. [01:01:24] Speaker A: Shout out both those guys. Dark Wings. [01:01:26] Speaker C: He pulls out the Swain Unkillable comp. [01:01:29] Speaker A: Oh, even a champion Predict. Are you gonna lock that in for Fantasy points? Are you that confident? [01:01:34] Speaker C: Sure. [01:01:35] Speaker A: Hell yeah. But also shout out Impact, who's had a much, much, much, much better year than last year. He's actually looking like he's returning to kind of like Inform Impact. Actually not even returning. He is Inform Impact right now. So. You know what? I don't hate that reasoning. But that's it for lcs. We got three best of five series ahead of us. And the playoffs will continue from there. But we will be saying goodbye to two of the teams because the losers of Fly lion and TSGT Law, they're. They're going home. Their season will end. Crazy to think. Crazy to think we might not see Inspired in Brazil. We might not see Quid in Brazil. Like the two biggest off season pickups from last year into this year that everyone was talking about. Where's Inspired going? Where's Quid going? And there's a world where they lose these series and they're actually knocked out and we don't see either of them, not even at first stand. But also at the Americas cup, which is the week before with like the. The next three top team. Because winning in the lower bracket will at least get you into the Americas. [01:02:42] Speaker C: Why'd you have to bring up the America's Cup? [01:02:44] Speaker A: Yeah, dude, we're still a thing. Wait, why are you Sad about it? [01:02:50] Speaker C: T2America's cup died for this. [01:02:52] Speaker A: Oh, true. You know what if we had both? [01:02:56] Speaker C: I still have the accolade of being the me and beat down be the one and only America's challengers grand finals casters, you know, Hell yeah. With me till I die. No one's taking the plaque. No one's taking it from me, bro. It's mine. [01:03:15] Speaker A: Add that to your trivia. We all have like pedia pages as casters. You should add that to your caster. Trivia Is the one and only ever. [01:03:23] Speaker B: It. [01:03:23] Speaker A: It's kind of like Fly quest are the one, the only, the eternal LTA champions. [01:03:27] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. [01:03:28] Speaker A: You're the eternal finals caster for the tier two Americas. All right, well, let's hop across the pond and talk about Europe because we thank God. Oh, sorry. What? [01:03:42] Speaker C: Why? Why? Stop it. I can't tell if you're doing it on purpose or if it's. If you just don't know how to say Europe. [01:03:48] Speaker A: Europe. I. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not trying it. That is just naturally what's coming out. All right. Your rope. Your rope. [01:03:58] Speaker C: There. There you go. There you go. [01:03:59] Speaker A: Yeah, that's fitting. That's probably better than your rip. Although both are funny, you know, because of the game. [01:04:04] Speaker B: Let me tell you, I'm pretty sure fanatic fans want to rope. [01:04:07] Speaker A: Yeah. It was not a great weekend over in the lec, but thankfully we are past the best of ones. So now we don't get the excuse of. Oh, all the tomfoolery, all the silliness, all the crazy standings. It's best of ones. It's just the chaos of best. You don't know who's the best. You don't know who's. Well, turns out half the teams are kind of. We. We saw some bad games this past weekend. I'm. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna mince the word words. All of them were sweeps. It was all two O's and all of them were very one sided, save for one game in one of the series that was very close. And that's going to be our one to watch and probably the one we talked about the most here. But before we get into that, Yanni, just same thing like LCS talk to me about who played who and who were the winners. Who were the losers from this past weekend. [01:04:56] Speaker B: Oh boy. Well, we, we had some, some interesting games and some, some games that really didn't matter. First of all, everything was a two, right? So Navi took on Fnatic. You guys put Navi and Navi tier, by the way they do in Rogue [01:05:13] Speaker A: here, in Rogue's here and Rogue tier. [01:05:14] Speaker B: Yeah, they're all alone now. So they're Navi tier. They should be at the highest here, right? Then we had MCOID20, Team Vitality, G2, 2o Team Heretics, and then Carmine Core, T O20 Giant X. Nothing of consequence happened to this weekend for sure. [01:05:33] Speaker A: I think that the only like surprise [01:05:36] Speaker B: these days, not even weekends. I forgot it was Monday and today. [01:05:39] Speaker A: Yeah, it was Monday. Tuesday it was the. So the day that we're recording was when the last two series were played. I think in general even I say this ironically with two erroneous predictions. I think that this went about what you would expect if you did just predicted based on like names on paper outside of Fnatic. Navi. But Navi did show during the best of ones that they were a good team and now they've solidified it. So I. I agree with you Yanni. I will you know, again say take the L. We were wrong about Navi on this tier list. Holy. I did not have faith in them coming in and they have shown it was not just best of ones, it was not just the chaos of that. They are a well oiled machine and yeah, they can, they can show that they're maybe the best team in Europe right now. Poby, I think is the best looking mid laner in Europe. And Sam D. Holy. He also can carry some goddamn games. And then Rylak as well, you know, like young jungler coming in here turning heads. So yeah, we were wrong about Navi. You were the one person on the podcast that thought we were crazy. Also Jamata, I think disagreed somewhat, but not enough to move it on the tier list. Yeah, yeah, but they, yeah, I want [01:06:53] Speaker B: to, you know, I think that Navi has played really well, but how much of this is. Is fanatic and the internal turmoil that they have where they have like what two or three coaches like that their support staff is so small. Like what's happened to this European giant? [01:07:09] Speaker A: There was a report or like an interview with Grabs the head coach after the series and he was, was echoing just that sentiment. He was like, yeah, I mean I feel like I was misled by when they brought me onto the team of like the amount of support staff we would have. It's really just us. Like we, we don't have a lot of people around that are helping out on the Fnatic side. So the team's trying their best from their situation, but also kind of put themselves in the situation. They let go of of Vlad or not S Not Vladi. They let go of Poby and brought in Vladdy. Keeping upset. I've been an upset believer for a long time. He is not working well with Lospa Imperials. Sorry dude, I know you're the Greek believer. Imperious is not looking like a top, top laner in the league. He's at best middle of the pack. And Razork is still getting punished for things he was getting punished for last year. So I think that Fnatic are gonna have to probably look. I don't know if it's another rebuild or if it's just like, like a heavy, heavy, you know, off season, you know, boot camp or something. I mean they're still in the split so like maybe they can win through the lower bracket. But I'm not expecting much from Fanatic going forward. [01:08:19] Speaker C: Also, why is Lec just randomly starting to play games during the week? [01:08:23] Speaker A: I believe it was VCT this past weekend in the studio. Not 100% sure on that. Maybe it was like a holiday or something but I think it was VCT. But okay, so, so that, that one was a stomp. Shout out Navi. G2 was a huge stomp versus Team Heretics KC a big bot lane stomp. They were close ish games but man Colise and Busio are just so good. Like holy these two are crazy. And they were like single handedly just won game one and then game two was a little better for him. But the one that we want to talk about mostly was the McOil Vitality one. Yanni, walk me through game one because this, this series ended on a kind of one sided note but it was a wild ride at the beginning. [01:09:11] Speaker B: It was a one sided game, back and forth, back and forth and Vitality had just gotten out of lead and they were, they were going to make a nice pick play and this pick play should have worked and it looked like it was going to work. They had Meerwind dead to rights and then we had a pause and then we ran the play back. Yeah and then mcoy won the fight. [01:09:50] Speaker A: Yup. [01:09:52] Speaker B: And then MCO won this game and then they won the series. [01:09:58] Speaker A: It was frankly a disgusting game to watch. Like, I was so frustrated that other community is frustrated about this one. It's a really tough moment to be like Chrono breaks. Nobody wants them to happen, but when it's that type of thing where it's like, oh, one team so hard wins a fight that the game might just be over. Pause. Chrono break. That team loses the fight and then the game's over the other way. It's like a cheese. It was a late, like a long, long game. It was 55 minutes for game one. We got the full seven dragons. Vitality were controlling early game very well. They had a big lead. But then the fact that, you know, movie star Koi pulled it back, you know, props to them for getting the second Baron. But there were five freaking Barons in this game. Dude. [01:10:44] Speaker C: Dude. [01:10:44] Speaker A: Like, oh my God. Yeah, I don't even know, man. I don't even know that. It was such a disappointing way for like a pretty banger game to close out just because there's that sour taste in your mouth of like, ah, man, like we. It feels like we got two different endings to this one. And yeah, it was just, it was just sad to see. [01:11:05] Speaker B: Real quick, I'm sorry. Vitality had a 6.2 thousand gold lead when the play went their way. And then when the Chrono break happens, they were down three and a half K. And then they lose the Baron fight and the Baron and all of a sudden they have a thousand gold lead. Like that is a 5,000 gold chrono break. [01:11:34] Speaker A: The delta is insane. And I think that it. You could tell that it affected Vitality's mental because then game two, it could have been an email. Like this was a very one sided stomp. There was like Vitality at First Blood. I think it was in the bot lane, if I remember correctly. It was like El Yoya had a rough gank or something like that. I don't remember exactly. But from that point, McCoy just controlled everything. It still took two barons to close it out, but they probably could have won on the 1st Baron if they had really pushed harder. [01:12:06] Speaker B: Hey, listen, it's hard to end on one Baron. [01:12:09] Speaker A: It actually is very hard to end on one Baron in the. In this current format. But shout out Supa for having a monster performance on the Caitlyn 13, 0 and 4 in game two. But yeah, it's just heartbreaking because like this, this should have been a three Game series. This should have been a banger. This had a chance to be a really, really entertaining series. But game one just kind of took all the the wind out of the sails. Super all of sort did pop off in game one though. 14, 4 and 7. So cumulatively what's that? 1447. So 27, 4 and 11 was his KDA damn monster performance in. In two different games. So yeah, I mean that was LEC. It's sad to say. Like the the other series were very one sided. This is one was at least something to talk about because how close Game 1 was. But Chrono bake issues meant that it just kind of ended poorly. I still think you can watch the game. It's still an entertaining game into it. It's kind of like the Game of Thrones thing where it's like if you go into it knowing that the ending sucks, then it's not going to hurt as much. You can still enjoy the ride on the way there. But yeah, that is unfortunately like all we can say for LEC this past weekend other than the big narratives. Just that Navi really, really cool that they are putting themselves up in that conversation because like beginning of the season expectations were like oh yeah, KC, G2, those are the best teams. Those are the teams to beat. You look at at currently in the upper bracket of LEC, KC, G2, McOil, you know, best of ones be damned for them. There's that same argument that oh yeah, best of ones weren't a true indicator for how good they were. Navi though, it's the opposite. It's like oh no, that was a pretty good indicator because they were able to 20 Fnatic and are putting themselves up in that same conversation which I think makes for a very exciting story in playoffs for the lec. But with that being said, we have three days as well. So it's a super week for NA and for Euro you this coming weekend. We got three days of best of threes. Still no best of fives unfortunately in Europe. But it is going to kick off in the upper bracket. Navi versus McOil and then Casey versus G2 on Saturday. It's gonna be Saturday, Sunday, Monday I believe for. For lec. Let me just confirm that real quick. Usually they do the opposite where they go into the weekday and no, I'm wrong. Actually it is Friday, Saturday, Sunday this time. Okay, never mind. So it is gonna be Friday. So same as lcs. [01:14:32] Speaker B: That's. [01:14:32] Speaker A: That's kind of cool. So set your alarms for Friday everybody. For both Series or both league seven games. Navi, I got. Yanni's got two one. Mazel. Still has mcoid two one. Mizel, you still believe in our boy, Jojo Pun? You still think any Midlander can get it done? [01:14:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:14:50] Speaker A: All right. [01:14:51] Speaker B: Jojo Pun. [01:14:53] Speaker A: Oh, why are you a hater, Yanni? [01:14:56] Speaker B: I'm not really a hater. It's just because [01:15:00] Speaker A: that Vladi sucks. [01:15:02] Speaker B: First of all, Vladi had a totally fine game, too. Second of all, okay, it's not my fault that Jojo decided to phonetically put pu in his name. [01:15:12] Speaker A: You know, he did choose that. I suppose that that was on. [01:15:15] Speaker C: Definitely chose it. [01:15:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I still think that Navi's just got this magic to him right now. Poby in particular, very, very solid in the mid lane. KC versus G2. This is A. I think think I don't even know which one's more hype, but this one definitely is turning into a rivalry because KC kind of came into the league. They had a rough start, but then since that first split, they have really roared to life and been a menace towards the top of the standings. Challenging G2 time and time again. We all have Casey across the board. I think that in current form, G2 have still shown some inconsistencies, some of that just being best of one woes. Maybe this is like an overreaction to how G2 have looked and this is where they start to carry, kick things into gear in playoffs. G2 have a kind of reputation for doing that. But Casey's bot lane, I think, is just the best in in the west right now. And I don't see Hansama being able to compete with Kalist's Heat. All right, but since we're on agreement there, let's move on. GX versus Team Heretics. We all have GX across the board. And then also for fanatic vitality, we all have vitality across the board. Some of us with 2 0, some of us with 2 1. But in general, it's seeming like Team Heretics and Fnatic we don't have as much faith in. So we'll be expecting to wave a warm goodbye to them early on in playoffs here. But that means that there's one more day of games on Sunday and we don't know who's going to be playing yet. It's only going to be the losers of the upper bracket versus the winners of the lower bracket. And I will say the way that we kind of just went about it is because we don't know who's gonna be playing Who. Who do we expect to make it out out? We just kind of all agree G2McOil are the most likely because we all have them losing. Or maybe not all of us have them losing. Mizzell actually has McWay winning. So McOid, would you say it would be like Navig 2 making it out then, in that case? Or do you think like Fnatic or. Or Team Heretics or somebody can do. [01:17:06] Speaker C: I don't think fanatics making anything. [01:17:07] Speaker A: Okay, yeah, yeah, agreed. So basically it's just, yeah, we think that, you know, whoever the losers of the upper bracket are going to be are still going to be the ones that make it out here in the lower bracket. [01:17:16] Speaker B: It. [01:17:17] Speaker A: So that means that, yeah, we'll. We'll track our predictions basically for how the. The teams get paired against each other for prediction's sake. But we have faith in G2MCOI and Navi. And with that being said, that's. That's it. Wow. All right, cool. Yeah, we kind of sped through LEC there, but the podcast was going a little long because of how meaty the beginning was. But that's another week wrapped for EU and N A League of Legends. Thanks so much for listening along, everybody. Yanni, if people wanted to leave a review a number of stars to signify how much they have been enjoying the podcast, how many would you recommend that they leave? [01:17:56] Speaker B: Oh, that's a tough one. So I want to take you back. All the way back. [01:18:01] Speaker A: Okay. [01:18:02] Speaker B: All the way back. Oh, we're going to this past match of Sentinels in disguised. [01:18:08] Speaker A: It's not that far back. [01:18:09] Speaker B: How many games did that go? [01:18:13] Speaker A: So there's one. Disguise one, then Sentinels one, the Disguise one, then Sentinels one, then Sentinels one. So five. There were five games. [01:18:19] Speaker B: W. This podcast episode is about as good as that series should probably get. [01:18:25] Speaker A: Hell yeah. Although if we're being honest, that series was way better. But you know what? I like the comparison. We will strive to be as good. We will strive to be as good as DSG vs Sentinels at all times. Times. I think that's a good. It's good Northern Star to aim the ship. It's like Superman, you know, it's a symbol. It's a something. It's an ideal to strive towards. But yeah, if you could leave five stars on the review wherever you listen along, it really helps us get noticed. Also, again, shout out everybody that supports us through the Patreon and through the merch store. You help us get these podcasts out sounding as crisp as they do. Also shout out our audio editor Ian and all the tromboners out there that are big fans of him. And also I'm seeing that we're getting some predictions from Badger and, you know, let's just throw these in because he added them to Doc. He wasn't able to join us tonight, but he also thinks that Koi will win KCGX and Vitality. So he basically agrees with Mizel. Yeah. All the same as Mizel. Do you think you just copied your homework, Mizel? [01:19:23] Speaker C: Well, he put GX2.1 instead of 2.0, so a little different. [01:19:26] Speaker A: Okay. [01:19:27] Speaker C: Yeah, you got to make sure that a little bit. [01:19:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Don't make it obvious. Obvious. Don't make it obvious. All right, well, thank you so much for listening along, everybody. Another fun episode. We'll be back next week for week two of playoffs for both of the leagues, but until then, have a good one. We love you and we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. [01:19:47] Speaker C: And the big Bickle pickle.