League Rundown - Episode 601: When does G2 play?

[00:00:13] Speaker A: Gets a little too far here, he's [00:00:14] Speaker B: gonna have to try and get himself out. [00:00:15] Speaker A: Let me go Tillery and the rest of the shots of fire Zion is [00:00:18] Speaker B: just killing the next Zion can eat [00:00:20] Speaker A: it single handedly win the game by game by game by game by should [00:00:26] Speaker B: be oh my God. [00:00:28] Speaker A: Stupid passes through and manages to the [00:00:32] Speaker B: table with Messiah tanking it up. I do not believe he just believe. [00:00:42] Speaker A: I cannot understand this game. [00:00:46] Speaker B: Unicorns of Love it wasn't a mutant the Nexus. Foreign welcome to episode 601 of the League Rundown. This is your 2026 spring split LEC week one review and LCS week one preview. This episode is lovingly entitled When Does G2 Play? I'm your host, Genghis and I'm joined by two esteemed co hosts. Up first we have fresh out of the can, it's Badger kangas. [00:01:28] Speaker A: When does G2 play and will you be able to cast that series potentially? [00:01:34] Speaker B: Well I'm happy that ass they play a Saturday against Team Heretics won't be casting that one. They are on Sunday with Fnatic as an opponent and I absolutely will be casting that one, which I'm very excited about. [00:01:47] Speaker A: Also. [00:01:48] Speaker B: Yeah, surprise everybody. I'm currently in a hotel in Berlin at 1am trying to be a little quiet on my end because I am casting LEC this coming weekend as well as this past weekend. Hard secret to keep for a whole month that I knew ahead of time. But to talk about it and also lec, we also have joining us a bit Pickle. How's it going Pickle? [00:02:09] Speaker C: Good man goes to Berlin for a week, or technically two weeks in this case and decides he's too good for us as he decides to blow off our casting yesterday. [00:02:18] Speaker B: Okay, I and it's even worse than that because it's like two nights of of kind of blowing off casting because the first time was like we just couldn't get enough people. Then last night I was very overconfident in my abilities to go out drinking with the LEC crew and then also make it back in time to record a podcast in a sober mindset. [00:02:40] Speaker C: In terms of excuses, that's a very acceptable one. [00:02:43] Speaker B: Well, thank you. Thank you for being gracious tonight. I'm just simply hungover still 24 hours later. So do not try and out drink a Dutch Irishman. That's what I learned. It's not gonna go well for you. It's not gonna go well for you. Folks, let's talk about some of the global news. Speaking of LEC talent, this is something I learned last night and then was officially announced today. Recording LEC host Lore and Odo Omn are having a baby. That is correct. We have more esports kids coming in a Zale jat now. Lauren Odo, we're gonna have like a whole LCS and LEC team here soon. Uh, in a couple years once they all grow up. But yeah, big congrats to Lore. Uh, awesome to see. Uh, and also all of us, uh, surprised on this podcast. Yeah, Lord's dating Otawamne. [00:03:45] Speaker A: It's funny, I just. We just said that and a tweet came up on my thing and apparently they soft launched in an instant Instagram story a while ago. And that's just, you know, just how it worked. And I'm like, all right, cool. Yeah, congratulations to them. No, that's, like, very exciting. I saw the. The tweet this morning and I'm like, yeah. And I'm like, hold on. Wait a second. That's. That's Odo. What? [00:04:06] Speaker B: Right. [00:04:07] Speaker A: Right. [00:04:07] Speaker B: It's so crazy. That kid is gonna e like, like a great player or a great broadcaster. And the scary thing is, could be both. So my job's. The answer is I got my job for another, you know, 15, 16 years until that kid starts popping off. Yeah. So, yeah, huge congratulations. Super cool. For Lauren Odo, other things about LEC going around the kind of news sphere right now, Somebody noticed, and this was talked about on Jad and Vetti's podcast, somebody noticed that the. Because of the road shows for lec, there's really weird scheduling stuff with some of the teams, specifically SK. Bickle, what's going on with SK's schedule for LEC this spring? [00:04:58] Speaker C: Yeah, so SK will have played nearly all of their games. In this case, eight of the nine games they will be playing by the end of week four. There are seven weeks to the lec, which means in the final three weeks they will have a single game. And that is because the LEDC just decided, let's not bring SK to either road show. [00:05:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Casey can go to both, but SK doesn't get any. Which is also crazy to think that, like S or KC is similar story. Like six of their nine games will be in the last three weeks. Double road shows. Yeah. And that final week, actually crazy. KCS or KC, MCOI and G2 are all at that roadshow that the seeding implications for going into playoffs are going to be crazy with those three teams together. [00:06:01] Speaker C: So you mentioned those three teams in particular. There will be three teams that go to neither Roadshow, it is Team Heretics, SK and Vitality. But with Team Heretics and Vitality, they both have two games. Week six, which is why they will only be playing seven of their nine games in the first four weeks. [00:06:23] Speaker B: Much better. Much better scheduling. Yeah, it raised a lot of questions about it. Badger, do you have any big thoughts on this? Like, is this a. Is a competitive integrity issue or is it just like a weird, like awkward scheduling thing? Because I feel like there's arguments that there could be advantages or disadvantages I [00:06:41] Speaker A: feel like part of. So like the. The. The. There's two schools of thought that you can go into it with. This is okay. If you are in a position like where you are able to win games and be ready for playoffs, you can use that as last couple of weeks as like a boot camp, like a mini boot camp. Get tape on all of your opponents over the course of those last couple weeks and just be ready to tackle playoffs. But at the same time, we're talking about sk, which probably in. In an honest and true fashion when I say this probably won't be sniffing like playoffs at this point. [00:07:26] Speaker C: Just. [00:07:26] Speaker A: I'm just saying so, you know, honestly, it might be. It might be great. They can get their games over with early, plan a nice vacation, you know, take a couple of weeks off during playoffs, go on a nice trip somewhere. I heard I go to the coast. I don't know what coast that they would go to in Europe. I. I'm an ignorant American when it comes to this. So, you know, whatever their version of [00:07:55] Speaker B: Germany has a coast, right? Is Germany has. [00:07:58] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like in the north, though. Like. Like in the. Like towards the Baltics. Like the Nordic states. [00:08:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. They got Denmark up there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:08:10] Speaker A: You know, it's like whatever their version of Cancun on three is. That's like SK's motto for like the next like three weeks until they get through week four. [00:08:18] Speaker C: Like, Paris is nice this time of year. [00:08:21] Speaker A: Oh, cool. Go to the south of France. [00:08:24] Speaker B: Mediterranean. Yeah, yeah, there we go. That's a better case. [00:08:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:08:28] Speaker B: Because usually when you think coast and Denmark, you don't think a positive. [00:08:31] Speaker A: Yeah, go to Greece. Go to Greece for like a week and a half. [00:08:34] Speaker B: Just like, just fanatic with you while you're at it. They got two Greek players and they're probably not making it to playoffs either, so. Yeah, yeah, I like this. [00:08:45] Speaker C: If they visit Norway, can they leave leader there? Because that's where he's nationally from. [00:08:49] Speaker B: Oh, you're right. You're Right. I don't know, man. Mickey really likes that guy. Apparently so. But we'll talk about SK a lot though. This team. Crazy, Crazy. Like week one and the amount of stories, like, first time Orianna leader. Oh, my God. Okay, we're gonna say we're gonna save it. [00:09:10] Speaker A: We'll talk about it. We'll talk about it. [00:09:12] Speaker B: Other news around the world. Before we get into LEC review and LCS preview, a couple of weird stories coming out of the lpl. One in particular, Badger, a player known Nayu banned over match fixing allegations. Is that correct? Yeah. [00:09:32] Speaker A: So this is a story that was started in, I don't know, do they call it Winter split or do they call it some weird name? Like. [00:09:40] Speaker C: I think they just call it Winter. [00:09:42] Speaker A: Okay. So over in LPL Winter, there was a story that came out during the playoffs about a jungler named Nayu who was under investigation for match fixing. And they. They take that very seriously over there. So that's just like, oh, you know, maybe it's just a misunderstanding and there is some conversation going on with this team and it's like, oh, you know, it was. It was bad at first and then it was okay, well, maybe it's just a misunderstanding. And now he's like permanently banned from riot sponsored activities and probably got blacklisted in any esport in China or the [00:10:27] Speaker B: same player that we talked about on a previous episode because a coach came out and said on stream and then kind of walked back the statement later and now it's now this is it. So it's like, clearly the. The investigation did side with what the coach was saying, but Tian is actually stepping in to replace him at Top Esports. So Tian kind of a more known quantity is what's down. [00:10:52] Speaker A: Good. [00:10:52] Speaker B: Like, why wasn't he on the team? I feel like he's been around for so long, I don't even know. [00:10:56] Speaker C: He is one of the multitude of players that took Spring, that took Winter off. [00:11:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:03] Speaker C: For rest. And I use resting quotation marks when in reality it's so we don't have to deal with the new LPL rules about having to go into a bidding system of where we go and when we come back in spring, we get to pick which team we join. It's the same thing that happened with him. It's the same thing that happened with Jackie Love. It's the same thing that happened with Mako. [00:11:21] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. Yeah. That whole, like, draft. [00:11:23] Speaker A: Yeah, that's exactly what it is. [00:11:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, that makes more sense then. Well, hey, good for Top Esports. Then I guess again. [00:11:31] Speaker A: Yeah, let's go. [00:11:33] Speaker B: But in. In a weird time is a flat circle, you know. There was another player banned for match fixing allegations that has now had that ruling reversed. It would appear as Milky Way has come out with a police report basically disproving allegations about him and match fixing. So shout out Milky Way. [00:11:59] Speaker A: You know, not mix match. Not match fixing. Just ass. [00:12:03] Speaker C: Like I wouldn't say rng prison bad. [00:12:08] Speaker A: Honestly, he was just an rng jail. And there was. Those games are rough once you get put into the asylum over there. So it's serviceable. LPL Jungler, you know, not the. Not the best, not the worst. Like kind of like the Mendoza Line for junglers in China, I would say. [00:12:31] Speaker B: And you know what would have been the funniest possible thing was if top esports had actually gotten Milky Way. So they drop one player, another who just gets it confirmed he was not. Or at least, you know, the investigation came back with no evidence of it. So yeah, we'll see if Milky Way is picked up by any other teams going forward. But man, there's a lot of investigations happening with players right now, it would seem because Bickle, what's going on with Ruler? [00:13:03] Speaker A: So [00:13:05] Speaker C: I had to double check this when I read it because it seemed so absurd, but no, it's true. Ruler is currently under investigation by the Korean government for tax evasion. Yeah. [00:13:20] Speaker A: Hey man, get that bag however you need. [00:13:22] Speaker C: I mean, if they can get Capone, they can get anybody. [00:13:24] Speaker B: I was gonna say. [00:13:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:26] Speaker B: The same way Capone went down. What a gangster. Yeah. So everyone pay your taxes. Professional advice to you. I mean, I can't. I can't force you to do anything, of course, but. [00:13:40] Speaker A: But I would strongly encourage paying your taxes. You know, just. [00:13:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And as a culture speaking with like Miko about the topic, Korea is like very, very serious about that type of stuff when it comes to like putting it on your permanent record and then having that effect, like employment opportunities and stuff. So I don't remember if it was like a riot thing or if it's just like a general employment law thing as to like why he's like, this is. The chances that he could like not be able to play are on the table. Like, like depending it is on the table. [00:14:17] Speaker C: And this is not like a lck. This is like a federal government sort of investigation. [00:14:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:28] Speaker B: Already it temporarily suspended while this investigation is underway. Or is he still able to. [00:14:36] Speaker C: He's still active. [00:14:37] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. [00:14:38] Speaker C: At this moment. [00:14:41] Speaker B: Well, that would just be crazy if. What a way for rulers like Career to end. [00:14:46] Speaker A: Like, this is a guy that, you [00:14:48] Speaker B: know, maybe it's too early to say, like has the potential of getting on to like the. The hall of Legends, but you know, when you think of active players that are in the conversation, like he's probably top 10. Like there's. There's a chance he could make it there eventually. And yeah, if this, if this is on his record, he's probably not making it. [00:15:10] Speaker C: Apparently the LCK is at least slightly confirmed as they bwipoed him from a video, AKA they edited him out entirely in a video they had released recently. [00:15:20] Speaker B: I love that we call that a bipo now. [00:15:22] Speaker A: Good news everyone though. Genji's academy team went 0 and 5 and got lost. Last place challengers round one. So I don't think the player formerly known as Bazooka will be making his call up to the main roster just in case. I. I have a feeling they're going to outsource to another team and spend a lot of money to try and pick up an 80 carry from. You know what they could do. Ghost got Ghost got demoted to KT challengers to just go get Ghosts. [00:15:54] Speaker B: I was gonna say Milky Way, but yeah. Wrong roll. [00:15:58] Speaker A: Wrong roll. [00:15:59] Speaker C: I don't know if you're any carry could be pretty good. [00:16:02] Speaker B: EDC is just click. Anyone can do it. [00:16:05] Speaker A: Yeah, you're right. [00:16:06] Speaker B: Here's the tinfoil hat conspiracy is that the Korean government knew the entire time and it wasn't until they lost to G2 that it became an issue. And now they're like, okay buddy. [00:16:18] Speaker A: They're like, we. There's something going on. We have to do an investigation. [00:16:21] Speaker C: And then lo and behold, hold deeper conspiracy theory. They found this out years ago and then Ruler had to escape to the LPL for the all those years until he struck a deal with the Korean government. As long as he played with Gen G and did really well and won a bunch of tournaments, they. They'd look over it. And now that they finally started had a terrible debut at first stand, they're not going to overlook it because. Because a Korean team did not win the tournament. Yeah, they've overlooked it in the past when he lost because t1 one world. So they accepted it. [00:16:55] Speaker B: Yeah, because they. They needed to be the. The narrative to like prop up T1 which then sells more tourist tickets. Something like that. [00:17:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Or it's working theory but you know, we'll. [00:17:12] Speaker A: We'll work on this. [00:17:14] Speaker B: Yeah, there's something there. All right. With that being said, that's all the news that we had from this past week. A lot of weird news. A lot of investigations happening. Bickle, are you being investigated for anything currently that we should be aware of? [00:17:28] Speaker C: I plead the fifth. [00:17:29] Speaker A: Okay, that's a good answer. Good answer. [00:17:31] Speaker B: Respectable. Respectable. If anybody in the audience listening along is being investigated for anything, let us know. In the community, Discord, you can find a link in the description wherever you are. [00:17:41] Speaker A: What is your favorite crime? Just. [00:17:43] Speaker B: Just favorite crime. [00:17:45] Speaker A: Get in the Down Below. [00:17:47] Speaker B: Wait, that's. That's really good. Yeah. Tell us your favorite crime and also how you got away with it in the community. You can also, if you want to help support the podcast, maybe with some of the money you got from that crime, you can check out our Merch website as well as our Patreon shout out to everybody who does support the pod. With that said though, let's hop over to the narratives circling the second best region in the world. I guess following first and LEC were able to eliminate the the two LCK representatives and make it to the finals and actually pick up a game versus an LPL team which had been kind of cursed in finals versus LPL for a while. LEC had their debut week for spring split and we had a lot of three game series. Pickle, that's the first big thing to start off with is no more best of ones. [00:18:45] Speaker C: Thank God best of ones are gone and the the record of second best region may have lasted as long as the first series that we watched. Yeah. [00:18:56] Speaker B: Yeah, there was. So I wasn't supposed to be on the analyst desk for day one. I was only casting the final series. But then Finn was sick all weekend so I I filled in for for his spots on Saturday and Sunday on the ad and that first series I remember immediately just being like a oh okay. No, this is. This is lec. Yeah. No, this isn't. This isn't too bad. You know, like they're riding high and then it's. It's good to have it crash down around them. You know, you kind of leave Odo's eyes on the desk and this he's like oh God this is awesome. [00:19:35] Speaker C: It's even worse as he had to watch his own TV fanatic. [00:19:40] Speaker A: This is a disaster. God, this series. Oh my God. Just they they played three games of League of Legends and let me tell you, they I watched. I watched my the LBLCS team that I subbed for play against David Shyax team last night. You take the name plates off. The quality of play in the Giant X Fanatic series is about the level of that. And that's like a. Those are like silver, gold plat and a couple of emerald players between both teams. And quite frankly, yikes in general is [00:20:19] Speaker B: just looking like a dumpster fire. Vlad, he's getting bodied in lane upset on a siver game. Game three, he has a 5,000 individual gold lead or like 4.5 somewhere in that range on Siver. And they still lose the game like everybody else. [00:20:41] Speaker A: Honestly, I'm not gonna fall upset for Game 3 because, like, he was. He was given a terrible situation. He's playing. He's got. I mean, he's got peel between like Gnar and Wukong and like, and Nico, like, they. They had a really good anti dive comp. It's just the. The rest of the team around him was not executing the anti dive of a part of the comp. [00:21:07] Speaker B: Like, yeah, there was one moment where Imperials lands the four man gnar old into the wall while they're like, running away from the Baron Pit. An upset. He gets one kill off of it, everyone. I even took a screenshot. It is three kills by the end of the play because then GX turret dive and like, kind of run forward and like, go crazy. So he does get a triple, like, by the end of the play. But, like, from the Gnar old. He only gets one kill from just throwing out the boomerang the queue and then like running away like, he was so scared because it's in a collie. It's a vi. It's like all these things that are trying to just dive on top of him. And that is how the game ends. It's just like, literally GX's jungler swim up like Isma just flash VI alt and then just TP flank from the Akali and then they just like destroy upset and the game's over. It's like, yep, that's. [00:22:05] Speaker C: I had to double check this when I heard this because I didn't believe it's true. Razor's been with Fnatic for five years. [00:22:12] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a long time. [00:22:15] Speaker C: It's crazy. [00:22:17] Speaker B: And he. He also looks very lost in these games. Yeah, drafts were also tough. Like, this was something we talked about on the desk is like, grabs got away with bad drafts on G2 for so long because of just how good the team was. But. But the problem is he still has drafts. Like, whether he was on BDS or now on Fnatic here, it's just like. It's just not good comps that they're setting them up with. So I think that's going to be the number one thing to work on. Talking with Odo also. First off, shout out to Odo. He's been awesome to work with, a really, really cool guy to have on the ad and just a great, you know, personality in general. But he is, is helping out as an assistant coach with the team and he was saying that at the very least, like the morale of the team hasn't gone down. Like they still, that's good. They can get better and that they can improve. And he's like that the worst thing that can happen on a team is that morale disappears and then, then, you know, it's over. But he's like, I still think that we have a chance just because nobody's like given up yet. But that's really all you can say. Things are looking right now, Casey. Vitality. This was interesting. Vitality. We're able to pick up a game win. And KC looked a little more fallible than I expected coming in. Kalist in particular had a pretty rough game. I'm trying to remember like which game it was. Whatever. Whichever game they lost. [00:23:43] Speaker C: Game one. [00:23:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Turned it around a bit. But like when you're the team that just pushed G2 to five games and then G2 just did what they did to LCK, you'd expect Casey to kind of make quick work of Vitality. But to Vitality's credit, they. They also stepped up really, really big. Shout out to Flesh. [00:24:09] Speaker A: Yeah, Fleshy. Really? [00:24:12] Speaker C: Both bar games this week. Nuts. [00:24:14] Speaker A: Yeah, like Fleshy Bart is insane. [00:24:18] Speaker B: I actually asked for a. A new stat that I had an idea for specifically because of Fleshy. So shout out. Molecule. The. We have Leo, the LCS stats guy. Molecules, the LEC stats guy. And I, I messaged him. I was like, is there any way to do a stat that's like a. An alt to kill conversion ratio? So how many of your alts resulted? And it's really hard to automate something like that. So he's just going in and like eye testing it. But we're gonna have that for, for Fleshy's bard because. Holy. That's all lethal. It's kind of like a cool stat. Like if you can just have like a stat like that for players, like how often do they press R and then get the kill, you know, especially for. For supports, you know, the engage champs. But yeah, Fleshy was fantastic. I'm a big fan of this Knock Knocko guy. I. I didn't really know what to expect from him coming into the year and then split one. He already impressed A bunch. And that has just continued the Jax game where like, Azir is shuffling and he like, has the. The counter strike and then s. Keys to stop and not get hit by the Aziral and then jumps over it and then flashes past it to then, like, stun three people. Is like, oh, yeah, he is the [00:25:40] Speaker C: best top laner in Europe. And it's not close right now. [00:25:43] Speaker A: Oh, for sure. [00:25:44] Speaker B: That we've seen play like Broken Blade, I think is better than the. [00:25:49] Speaker A: I think he's better than bb. Everything that I saw in. Everything that I saw in. What is it? Versus. Versus? Yeah, it was Versus. I'm like, trying to think of the stupid name that they get. Not a stupid name, but the. The not season name that they gave it. But I think Knack Naco from. From like Versus to now is. Has been the best top laner in Europe, maybe the best top laner in the West. I'm gonna be honest. [00:26:23] Speaker B: That would compete with him in lcs. [00:26:24] Speaker A: Like, I don't think exactly the only option. [00:26:29] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:26:30] Speaker A: Yeah. No, I. This guy. This guy's really good. Like, his Jack's game that he had even in a loss against Casey was incredible. Like, he's doing that I don't, like, expect people to do. And it. It doesn't look like he loses lanes. Like, he. He has rough times. Like, he's got, you know, like he's playing weak side at some points, but, like, [00:26:55] Speaker B: he makes Renekton Cassante matchups interesting. Like, we actually, me and Vetius, when we were casting, we legitimately spent a minute watching the top lane in Renekton vs. Cassante because it was interesting and like, just seeing how Knock Knocko controls the lane. And it was like. It was cool. It was awesome. And like, that should never happen. Like, why the hell is Renekton Cassante interesting? [00:27:22] Speaker C: If he were a free agent at the end of the year, I'd fully expect him to go to G2 next year. But Vitality actually has him under contract until the end of 2027, which we [00:27:33] Speaker B: know teams could buy that out if they want to. [00:27:35] Speaker C: I would not be surprised at all if G2 bought him out. In all honesty. [00:27:39] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:27:40] Speaker B: Or even like a team like Casey for sure interested. MKOI like Merwin's my goat. But imagine like McCoy with a player like Knock Knocko instead of signed your head. [00:27:50] Speaker A: I. I was laughing. That happened. [00:27:53] Speaker B: Yep. Yep. And then Busio refused to thumb wrestle me and I was like, oh, now. Now it's getting a little too long. Cringe Aside though, Navi McOid was also a crazy series. Like we're only one so far. [00:28:11] Speaker C: But there's no chance that Mkoy could lose that last game. [00:28:16] Speaker B: The most insane caster curse I've ever witnessed and I was live next to it the entire time. Like that was legendary from Vettie and I'm quite lost it. Navi actually stepping up in a huge way. They won both their series this past weekend. So Navi's undefeated right now. But the way they did it, dude, like holy Kobe. Get the in the game. Because you are just completely invisible at the very end. There's kind of like an expecting moment where it's like Poby and Paris hitting the Nexus and it's only Merwin defending and Poby just doesn't do. I think he autos the Nexus like twice in a 32nd nexus. [00:29:03] Speaker C: Not the Vlad. [00:29:05] Speaker B: Yeah, Paris is Rakan just slapping it. He's like, come on, give me. [00:29:09] Speaker A: Like he couldn't walk up to the. Because he would have died and then they wouldn't have the damage. It was the way that they were dancing. It was really weird and I was just sitting there like just walk up. [00:29:20] Speaker C: Like if you die like in Poby's defense. Jojo something else this week. [00:29:28] Speaker B: True, dude. JoJo is on one. He. Did you guys see the stat? He in his first four games had eight solo kills. That's like that doesn't happen. That's crazy. Averaging two a game and then the average goes down because in his fifth game he didn't get a solo kill. But still, you know, eight soul kills in five games is crazy. [00:29:52] Speaker C: Yeah, that's absurd. [00:29:55] Speaker B: There was actually an interesting point. Hopefully I'm not spoiling it because he might make the point on the desk as well. But during the story meeting this past week, Finn had the. The observation that was like it's criminal that in a region where every team that's trying to win is like how do we deal with caps? And that's kind of the number one concern. Every team has that Koi have the solution. Jojo pun insane laning and can actually beat caps in the 1v1. But then the rest of the team is just kind of shit about like super in particular had a really bad series. He's kind of the reason they lost to super and Alvaro. Like both of them. Super got picked a bunch of times in the mid lane and then Alvaro just had brain dead engages that then set up mcoid for like 4v5 situations at like at the barons like 45 minutes in the game. [00:30:51] Speaker C: You could tell that mcoid were not happy because their coach came out and said it. [00:30:57] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. I have never seen a coach so like publicly shitting on his own team after a loss like that. But he basically said to the extent of like Alvaro, I think. Did he? I'm pretty sure he called out Alvaro, Supa and Merwin. [00:31:16] Speaker C: Yes. He basically said this is why. This is why Supa and Merwin aren't extended yet. And even though Alvaro just got extended, it does not mean he is safe. [00:31:25] Speaker B: Yep. And that's a tough thing to hear for a team. [00:31:29] Speaker C: He basically just said Elio and Jojo are playing great. The rest of the team just can't do anything to help him. [00:31:35] Speaker B: Yeah. But hey, they lit a fire under their ass and then they just. Giga stomped Fanatic the next day. So there's. [00:31:42] Speaker C: That was fanatic. [00:31:44] Speaker B: Yeah, it was fanatic. But Vlad, he got the Jojo experience as well because again, he just is on such a heater right now. So casually about it too. So I'm not too concerned about McOil. I think that they can turn it around, but they just need a. Alvaro needs to get his head out of his ass. Super. Needs to stop character. [00:32:10] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. Yeah, it's just week one. Honestly, that's the. That's the thing that I will say in all of this is they've got time [00:32:21] Speaker C: feeling it sometimes. [00:32:23] Speaker B: Can. Can we say the same thing about the next team we want to talk about though, which is sk? Oh, God. Kind of teased it at the beginning. They played two matches this past weekend, one versus Team Heretics, one versus Navi, and they picked up game wins. So there's that. But. Oh my God. The biggest story. Pickle, what the hell? How do you only have. How do you have zero Orianna games as a mid laner with 71, I believe, tier one games and 200 plus tier two games. [00:33:00] Speaker C: I don't. I don't know. [00:33:02] Speaker A: Honestly, I don't have his Games of Legends page. [00:33:05] Speaker C: It's. He's played 285 tier 1 slash tier 2 games on record and that was his first game of Orianna. [00:33:18] Speaker B: That is absurd. [00:33:19] Speaker A: I mean if you look at his most plays, like it makes sense like the. That he plays normally. [00:33:26] Speaker C: He has more games on Renekton and Viego. [00:33:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:32] Speaker B: So if you polled the entire populace, every League of Legends player active or in the past and said name five mid laners, I would. I would guess like 80% would include Orianna. She is so iconic. Like she. [00:33:49] Speaker C: Wait a second, hold on. [00:33:51] Speaker B: Ari. Or Azir. Yeah, like Ari, like. But she's up there. She's one of them. [00:33:58] Speaker C: Yeah. It's funny you name Ari. This past week against Esk, against Navi was his first ever Ari game. [00:34:07] Speaker B: Yep. [00:34:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:08] Speaker B: It's absurd. It is actually absurd. [00:34:11] Speaker C: Like these are prototypical standard mid laners that are like the first thing you learn. [00:34:17] Speaker A: I mean his. So like just going through, quick glance at his profile, like he's got a 73.3 win rate on Irelia and a 71 win rate on Zed and it's like Akali, Silas, Rise, Zed are like his top picks, like his most picks of all time. Well down. [00:34:45] Speaker B: His win rate went down a little bit on the Zed, I will say because he was useless in the Zed game. Well, he did play Zed. [00:34:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:53] Speaker B: I made a joke on the broadcast, I made a joke on the broadcast that the Orianna game was. He was protesting because he wanted to play Zed and then he locks. But I was like, oh, I did not. That was a joke. I was posting. I didn't. [00:35:11] Speaker C: I don't mean to be mean, but did they hit a single nocturn Orianna combo? [00:35:17] Speaker B: No, I, I don't remember a single. I don't remember seeing one conversation that he was like, I think they might have gotten one. I don't think they. Because the one that they actually like pulled off, I'm pretty sure ICE flashed. I'm pretty sure he was so like, they technically did, but like it didn't. I don't get landed on anybody because the one time they actually like timed it correctly, it was flashed away. [00:35:41] Speaker C: I can't believe I'm saying this. The player I feel the worst for in this SK lineup is Yopa. [00:35:49] Speaker B: Yeah. 100 so. So he looks good. He's a rookie standout on a team of washed veterans. And he even said it in his own interview. Like we did the sideline with him after one of the wins and it was he like. When I joined the team, I was a little nervous because like all the veterans, but then I realized they're washed. So, you know [00:36:08] Speaker C: he's not wrong. [00:36:10] Speaker B: He's not. And you can still see I'm getting shades of like debut Masu from YAPA where it's like you can tell that there's moments where if he's a more confident ad carry, he could carry team fights. And we waited a while for Masu to like get that confidence and then show that he had that ability to just, just win a. Win a team fight on his own. Yapa's still at that early stage in his career where he. There's. There's angles, and you're like, ah, man, like Hansama probably would have carried that if. If he's on the keys there. But that's because he has so much more experience and confidence in himself. And Yap is still, you know, getting to that point. But I have a lot of faith in Yapa. I think he's going to do well. [00:36:52] Speaker C: I think so. Even if it's not with this roster, he's got a future ahead of him. [00:36:57] Speaker B: Yeah. I think if SK wants to be serious about a rebuild, he's the one that you rebuild around right now. It's still like the Mickey show where he basically just got to build the roster himself. So I'm. I'm hoping that instead Yappa gets picked up by a different team. I think that. [00:37:18] Speaker A: Please save Yappa. Somebody, please. [00:37:22] Speaker B: Please. Who else haven't we Talked about? Navi. Navi 2, 0. They beat MCOID. They beat SK, so one of the best teams and the worst team. But Reletch, man, this. This dude's crazy. Big fan. [00:37:41] Speaker A: It's really good. I. I don't trust Junglers to play Carries right now, but if he's. He. His. His games are really like. He looks really good on, like, all of the stuff that he plays. It doesn't matter the play style that he has at this point, he's just, you know, coming out firing like he had a goodbye game. He had a good. I don't want to say good, but a decent Ambessa performance. His Aatrox, honestly, Aatrox should be a ban against Navi because it just feels like the champion that like. Like he's just like, okay, I go kill now. And just. He. He gets a couple of levels under his belt. He's able to contest crabs and like, play objectives, and he's just. I mean, [00:38:31] Speaker B: dude, he even on his non carries his Mundo game against sk. He level one invades bot gets spotted, has to flash over Dragon Wall, and it's like, that's disastrous. Holy. He's gonna be so far behind. Skeens on Zahen proceeds to do the stupidest jungle clear I've seen where he, like, prioritizes getting his Raptor Spawn, but then doesn't even, like, go there immediately on Spawn and, like, wastes time in the river and then is behind. And then like, the second clear is even worse. And Rellech, despite level one having to flash away over the Dragon Wall and then run back to his Camps being like, like 15 seconds behind on the clear flame horizon ski in the jungle. It wasn't a true flame horizon. It was like a 85Cs advantage or something like that. [00:39:21] Speaker A: Like, but still in jungle. That's. That's a. [00:39:24] Speaker B: That's a Crazy how it started. [00:39:30] Speaker C: I mean, when Navi came into the league for rogue spot, they signed him before he could even play for them. They kept him on the roster, signed him to. We want him to play for us. Even though you can't play for the rest of this year and we're seeing why in every series they're winning. He is basically the reason why in the best of ones and playoff best of three, plus these best of threes, he has won, I want to say 8 of their 10 player of the series awards. [00:40:00] Speaker A: Yep. [00:40:01] Speaker C: It's nuts. [00:40:02] Speaker B: It's absurd. It is absurd. I believe somebody else. It might have been some D won it this past time. I think somebody else wanted from reluctant. [00:40:15] Speaker C: I think he had both of them this week. [00:40:16] Speaker B: Oh, did he? Oh, wow. Interesting. Okay. Yeah, both of. [00:40:22] Speaker C: He had both of them this week. He had five of the seven in spurt. In verses one of them. [00:40:32] Speaker B: I'm confusing. [00:40:34] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [00:40:35] Speaker B: Who I feel like, man, if we imagine a world where we get Knock Knocko and Reletch on the same team, oh my gosh, that would be a fun team to watch. And then Yapa As Ad Carry. Let's just get like a rookie team. Just get all the. All the young guns together. [00:40:52] Speaker C: They're a young gun. [00:40:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Yahoo. [00:40:58] Speaker A: Yahoo. Yahoo. [00:41:00] Speaker B: Probably would be it actually. And then support. [00:41:04] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. You're just building my dream team at this point. [00:41:07] Speaker B: Fleshy count. I don't know if he counts. He's been around. [00:41:10] Speaker C: She's played more [00:41:13] Speaker A: like Way from. Nah, Way's too old. He was in KT Challengers for way too long. [00:41:19] Speaker B: He was. But you know what? That's a great point because we haven't talked about team Heretics yet. Way had his debut first time playing and I, yeah, pretty impressed the idea. We got like a whole information. Doc interviewed Way and also talked with the. The coaches and the entire philosophy around picking up Way was we want to give Ice a better laning phase. Like, we know that ice can carry games. He's the Pentakill King and he's great in the late game. But we want to give him more cons. We want there to be higher consistency in him leaving laning phase with a lead. So we really wanted like a mechanically intense lane dominant support and that's exactly what they got. You watch the games in a way even on like Nautilus matchups. It's just like controlling lane states in a way that you know, other supports were just. Were not prepared for. And I think in. In just terms of that, it really worked out. He did get picked off a couple of times in the mid to late game in some of the games. But I think overall I was still impressed with. With way and the Solo lanes because like I. It's always been the ice show for Team Heretics. But Shayo, Trace and Saren, they all stepped up in a big way, so pretty impressed with them. [00:42:36] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:42:37] Speaker B: Pickle on Team Heretics. [00:42:40] Speaker C: Nothing in particular. Like you said, Way a bit of few hiccups in his debut, but that's understandable. Solo laners look solid and Chero's just doing Shayo things. [00:42:52] Speaker B: Yeah, well, we have not talked about GX very much, dude. Talking about top half of the map that normally is carried by their bot Lane. Noah June didn't have like the craziest showing, but Yzma, dude, his invades. This guy just lives in the enemy jungle right now. And it's because Lot and Jackie's are actually getting priority and they're able to help him out also because big part is that they're. They're really. [00:43:21] Speaker A: I was gonna say they played the book well. They also. Well, I guess they played fanatic, but yeah, yeah, yeah, that was their only game. Okay. They played. They played the. The corpse of this fanatic roster. Just. I mean they did. They somehow did lose a game, but even then like, yeah, Easmo was invading really well. [00:43:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I did that. The Xinjiang game in particular, he's got the ash Seraphine and they're just like always backing him up. And yeah, I think gx, if they had like a main character from this past weekend, Isma was probably the standout. So [00:44:06] Speaker C: Jackie's though Game three that Akali. [00:44:10] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:44:13] Speaker C: And he was pretty solid on the Aurora too. In all honesty, aside from their loss, Jackie's was pretty solid. [00:44:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So I think the. The big takeaways from LEC Week 1, like for the teams that we saw, because we didn't see shifters, we didn't see G2 and I believe those are the only two that we did not see. We saw everybody else play at least a series. So the big takeaways are Navi and Vitality. Very fun teams to watch. Navi's undefeated Vitality. They still look solid despite losing a series, but I think that those two are going to be the two in my book that are, like, potentially punching up towards the Casey's, the McOise, the G2S. Because that top three is still feeling pretty solidified. Unless McOi has more inconsistency issues like they did this past weekend. And then also Fnatic SK are not making playoffs. Holy, these teams are terrible. [00:45:19] Speaker C: It feels like we know five of the six playoff teams already. Yeah, in all honesty, we might just know six. Like, I think. I think there's a clear top six in the leck. [00:45:33] Speaker B: Who would you have as your top six? [00:45:36] Speaker C: G2, Casey, MCO, Vitality, Navi, and I think Giant X is still that gatekeeper. I don't think any of the four teams below Gian X can beat the teams above Giant X. Yeah, I think [00:45:48] Speaker B: team Heretics give me hope. But the problem is, like, the. Their one win is against sk, and it's like, they're probably gonna be that skate. They're probably gonna be Fnatic, but, like, that's not enough to make playoffs. Like, you have to actually be able to beat the other teams around you. So, yeah, I think that that does make a lot of sense, but that's the only other one that, like, maybe could be GX when it comes to that final spot. Okay, well, that was week one results in a nutshell. I would highly recommend you check out Navi McOil. That's my series to watch. Very, very entertaining. You get to see JoJo pop off moments. You get to see an insane end to game three. Yeah, just all around. That was entertaining. What do you guys have recommended or recommendations for. For series for folks? [00:46:40] Speaker C: See, Vitality was fun. [00:46:42] Speaker A: Vitality games are fun to watch. [00:46:44] Speaker C: Yes. [00:46:45] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, I honestly boast Vitality KC is [00:46:48] Speaker A: actually a really good series once you, you know, get past the fact that two of the three games were a stomp. Okay, Game two of Casey Vitality going. It should have been four minutes. It should have been. It really should have been a two zero. Yeah. [00:47:06] Speaker C: The fact that Vitality lost that game's a crime. [00:47:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:10] Speaker C: Because Vitality just decided not to end the game. [00:47:14] Speaker B: God, that was such a long game, dude. Oh, my God. [00:47:17] Speaker A: I like, I. [00:47:19] Speaker C: What? [00:47:19] Speaker A: I. I was watching it and I'm like, oh, this is over. I'm gonna get something to eat real fast before the next series. And then it's. Then I get back in it and we're loading into draft for game three between Vitality and Kids. [00:47:31] Speaker C: I'm like, oh, hold on. [00:47:32] Speaker A: What? What? What did we do? We're doing what now? [00:47:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:36] Speaker C: Vitality A little bit too much. [00:47:42] Speaker B: The voices in his head, they were speaking the. The spirit of Ben possessed him too strongly. All right, well, let's talk about week two and. And predictions because we have same schedule this coming week where day one's gonna be three best of threes, and then two best of threes on Sunday and Monday. Starting off with SK shifters. We got shifters across the board. None of us have faith in SK. I did give SK8 game with a 21 just because they showed that they were able to get games in their previous two series. So shifters are also not a very strong team in my eyes. But I. We all still agree. Shifters, Team Heretics, G2. I see Badger and Bickle have made the cardinal sin of predicting G2 to win in their first game of the split. I am following the trend that G2 is assigned at the beginning of splits, and team Heretics will win this one. What? [00:48:40] Speaker A: Fair? Yeah. [00:48:42] Speaker C: Wait, am I reading the right thing? Oh, yeah. I was looking too long. Like, you have G2 beating Fnatic. Nope, wrong game. [00:48:48] Speaker A: No, it's. It's the. The G2 hangover. Yeah. [00:48:53] Speaker C: You're not wrong. That could happen. [00:48:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's the craziest thing. [00:48:59] Speaker C: It happened. G2 coming back, having six zeroed the LCK looking like God meters being so hyped up, and then losing the team Heretics would be the most G2 thing ever. [00:49:08] Speaker B: Look, man, it's the seventh seed versus the fourth seed from the regular season. Obviously the fourth season. [00:49:14] Speaker C: I think Team Heretics take game one and then G2 realize, wait a second, we just lost this and thank God it's not best of ones anymore. [00:49:22] Speaker B: Oh, true. And then we start that conversation of, like, if they were best of ones, team Mary Dicks would be crazy. [00:49:28] Speaker C: I mean, G2 were the seventh seed last year. I mean, last year. [00:49:32] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:49:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:34] Speaker B: They almost didn't make it to playoffs. Loss Ratons could have three zero gen G wild. [00:49:40] Speaker A: Yeah, that's exactly how that would have worked. [00:49:42] Speaker C: I mean. Yeah, and then boss definitely wouldn't have gotten gapped as hard as Broken Blade did. So maybe they just win msi. I mean, win first stand and we see bow slip first stand trophy. [00:49:53] Speaker B: Dude, imagine the world where that happened. I don't know if I would have been able to come to EU at that point. I would have been so, like, just sad. I mean, happy for you, but, like, sad that that's what it took. [00:50:10] Speaker C: That would have been the worst storyline because it would have been like, they've won first stand and now they're not playing in anything else anymore. [00:50:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Although maybe that would stop the boss from retiring. Who knows in some weird bizarro universe that that is what happened. Rounding out the day on Saturday, though, we have Navi versus Vitality. I have Navi 2. 1. Badger has Navi 2. 0. Bickle has Vitality 2 1. Pickle. What do you. What's making you lean Vitality's way? [00:50:44] Speaker C: Two words, one name. Knock. Knocko. [00:50:48] Speaker A: Yeah, [00:50:50] Speaker B: One word, one name. Rellech. [00:50:56] Speaker C: It's gonna be so fun. The voices are such a coin flip as to what's gonna happen. [00:51:02] Speaker A: Yep. [00:51:02] Speaker C: It could go either way, but I think it'll just be exciting and fun. [00:51:06] Speaker B: Series where they just beat that calendar for this one. This is gonna be, I think, the most fun matchup of the the weekend by far. [00:51:14] Speaker C: Yeah, Game of the weekend, definitely. Game of the. Ooh, Vitality. M coin, maybe, but. [00:51:20] Speaker B: Oh, that is also. There's a lot of good ones. There's a lot of close games. I have, like, two ones for a lot of my predictions. And I also get to cast this one, Navi Vitalities, which I'm very excited about. And then Sunday. Sunday, Sunday. Unless was that Pickle? Did you have anything final about this year? [00:51:39] Speaker C: No. [00:51:41] Speaker B: Cool. All right. Sunday it is. SK versus GX to kick things off. Bit of a snoozer. GX two O's across the board for us. No one believes in SK, but then we have El Classico. G2 versus Fanatic. And yours truly gets to cast it. If you had told me three years ago that I, you know, in a couple of short years. Hell, if you told me at the start of this year. If you told me a couple months ago, three months ago, hey, Steve, you're going to cast Fanatics G2 this year, I would have shot myself. And I'm. I'm right now look at this. Let's go, boys. G2 across the board, though. Two O's because it's fanatic and in their current form, which is a bit of a bummer because, like, it's an exciting matchup, but it's just the most [00:52:34] Speaker C: fanatic thing and most G2 thing ever is going to be a fanatic. Manage to two older somehow, that would be. [00:52:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I just couldn't put it in my heart to do that. I still have G2 too. I know that I made the joke earlier about the team Heretics thing and I still kept that prediction. Fanatic looked so bad, man. I don't think it's possible. Vladdy beating caps. There's just no world. [00:53:04] Speaker A: So say that now. But, [00:53:07] Speaker B: hey, I'm. I'm happy to cast a curse because again, if I get a cast Fnatic upsetting G2 as my final LEC series, that would just be the funniest way to leave Europe. Just be like, well, I'm out here. Good luck figuring that out, guys. And then on Monday, rounding out week two, it's GX versus Team Heretics, with all of us having. Actually, no. Badger has Team Heretics, and then I have gx. Piccolo's gx. Any insightful thoughts there, Badger, as to why Team Heretics are favored versus gx? [00:53:42] Speaker A: You know, it's just Vibes. Honestly, I feel like. I feel like I've gone away from analytics and looking at box scores with Europe, and I'm just gonna go with Vibes because, you know, I. I said the G2 was going to be, you know, not. I. I've, yeah, discredited EU enough at this point that I just need to go off of vibes. I don't need to go off of what I'm thinking. [00:54:06] Speaker B: So you really never can tell what's going to happen over any. [00:54:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:11] Speaker B: And speaking of Nana, what's going to happen? Vitality versus mcoi. We all have MCOID winning this, but this one is a volatile match. Another very exciting one, because Vitality, I feel like in their current state, with the current roster, they could take games off of anybody. They can then if they get games, win a series versus anybody. Are they favored? No, I have them winning a game. I still think McCoy are the better team, but Vitality are just this wild card in the LEC right now, which is very exciting to watch. Badger's the only one with more confidence than McCoy with the two zero. But there we have it. That's LEC week one reviewed. Week two previewed. Any final points, gentlemen, that you'd like to make before you move on? Any big narratives or things that we missed out on? Did we on Leader enough? Do we need to on Leader more? [00:55:05] Speaker A: I think we did, but I think [00:55:08] Speaker C: Leader does a good enough job of that himself. [00:55:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. [00:55:11] Speaker B: True. Oh, one. One other fun fact because I just remembered it. Leader first Orion game, first our game. Wonder first Anivia game. He played Anivia top lane. [00:55:21] Speaker C: Yeah, that was. [00:55:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Which now puts him in the top 10 players with the most unique champs. Picked number one, I believe, is Baker with, like, 70. [00:55:34] Speaker C: No surprise there. [00:55:36] Speaker B: And then Wonder is now at 74. I believe that was his 74th unique pick. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. All right, let's hop across the pond to the sun shining LCS in Santa Monica Studios. LCS is returning with a slightly different format. In Split 1 it was the Swiss stage. Now it's going to be single round robin, best of threes. Very simple, very safe format. But I, I like the classic formats. I'm actually very excited for the return of this format for lcs. And this is another one where I think we actually have kind of banger matches. Every single match to preview here. I have two ones across the board. Like, I think these are all gonna be close because it's all teams that were kind of like near each other at the end of the split anyway. Starting off, it's C9 versus Lion. In classic fashion. We do the, the, the last splits finals. As you know, this splits opening, which we didn't do for the Swiss stage because of just how the seating worked. But you know, split one didn't matter. That was not a real thing. IFC 92 1. Badger has C920. Bickle has Lion 21 Bickle. I think that this would be the obvious answer. So I'm gonna let you go first because they are the defending champs. But what's your big reason for having lion over C9? [00:57:13] Speaker C: I honestly just feel like inspired is C9's boogeyman. [00:57:18] Speaker A: That's that. You know what? [00:57:21] Speaker B: When you put it that way, that actually does. [00:57:23] Speaker A: You know what? I'm making it a 2 one for C9. Now easy Baba Yega is going to show up for Lion. [00:57:33] Speaker B: Yep. Badger. I'm curious if you have a similar reasons for why you had C9 in this one. Mine is C9 is always better. They're like the opposite of G2. [00:57:44] Speaker A: Like they're, they're the. They're like the regular season demons and then once the playoffs turn around, they just, you know, kind of the bed. [00:57:52] Speaker C: Like you're not wrong. [00:57:53] Speaker B: You're gonna be hungry after the playoffs loss. And then that hunger is only gonna last until America's cup made it even worse. [00:58:00] Speaker C: Oh my God. [00:58:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And that's the funny thing is that, you know, if you factor in America's cup, like they should get smashed here if they're in that form. But there's just no way that they're in that form. [00:58:16] Speaker C: Split Cloud 9 or Team Liquid. [00:58:21] Speaker A: I think it's P9. Because if there's no. There's no world where you are the best team in lock in and then not only do you the bed in playoffs and finals, but you also the bed at America's cup at least TL has had the opportunity to, like, recoup. But like we talked about this, We've talked about this before. When's the last. Do you know when the last time that C9 made an international tournament that wasn't the Esports World cup? [00:58:52] Speaker B: Was it Worlds 23 or MSI 23? [00:58:56] Speaker A: Worlds 23. [00:58:58] Speaker C: Wow. [00:58:59] Speaker A: They haven't made an international tournament in over two years. [00:59:03] Speaker C: That's crazy. [00:59:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that is. That is absolutely crazy. And again, just a reminder, we. We said this when it happened at America's cup is in one week they went from heavy favorites in LCS finals to getting 3 0ed by Brazil. By Brazil's second seed in America's Cup. Yeah, just embarrassing performance there. But again, for all those reasons, I think that they're going to come in very hungry. I, I legit think that C9, they. They are gonna look good at the beginning of the split. And then the concern is just going to be can they actually close out good. But I, I think that they're going to look really good here and it's gonna be a close series. Gonna be a banger. But IFC 9, next up is Sentinels versus DSG. And this is surprising to me. We have DSG across the board with two 1. I definitely thought that I was gonna be the spicy one with the DSG pick, but I'm happy that everyone agrees. Badger, why do Vibes? [01:00:10] Speaker A: Okay, honestly, Honestly, this off season, between all the that he's pulled in Valorant and all the that he's pulled in league, Rob Moore, the guy who owns Sentinels, has just rubbed me the wrong way. And I'm starting to think he's like the new age Reginald. And quite frankly, if that's the case, I'm picking against Sentinels every time that I can. That's fair. It's. It's bad. He was. He's like, hey, watching like N A and VCT and like VCT Masters just so that you know, oh, teams never won. Meanwhile, his team is abysmal dog in Valorant and like the league Demons, like, All right, so hate watching Sentinels. It's gonna go well. Go DSG Vibes. [01:01:03] Speaker B: Okay, fair enough. I have DSG because I was so impressed by Cryra's performance in his debut and I think that giving him even more time now with the team as well as to jed more time in the bottom line, we just. Please, please, please, Lions, stop inting. This team will be very good. [01:01:28] Speaker C: I'm. Yeah, I'm right there with you on the Cryrad points As those are the two that really stood out and are gonna continue to improve. [01:01:38] Speaker B: And I think those players is crazy. [01:01:41] Speaker C: I have a hot take for 2027. Oh. [01:01:47] Speaker B: Oh. [01:01:49] Speaker C: I think Crier is going to be the starting Jungler for Cloud 9 next year. [01:01:52] Speaker A: Oh. [01:01:54] Speaker B: Oh. [01:01:54] Speaker A: You know, I was thinking about the other day that is going to be go to a team but I thought it was going to be that pl finally blows up the the TLCK experiment and goes back to na players. [01:02:11] Speaker C: I. I have Criera going to Cloud nine and I have Blabber on Team Liquid. [01:02:16] Speaker A: Oh, that's. But you know what? Damn it, Pickle. You had yours is so much better than mine. [01:02:24] Speaker B: That is a really fun prediction. I like that a lot. Dude on C9 would be hype because I think Thanatos. Yeah. [01:02:36] Speaker C: I think Cloud9 another year not making worlds. They finally have to part ways with Blabber. [01:02:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:44] Speaker B: Yeah. It would be. The fans would just kill Jack. [01:02:49] Speaker A: You know, I still. I still would be in danger as a player, so I just want to make that clear. I still love Rahel as a player, but like, unfortunately I have to pick against you right now. My guy. [01:03:04] Speaker B: Yeah. DSG happy we're all aligned on that. Fun team to watch. And again, I think it's gonna be a close series and a very exciting one. And then another one. Another banger. Team Liquid. Fly Quest. Team Liquid having a abysmal end to their split one just bombing out in glorious fashion. Almost not even making playoffs. Like they had the. The Dignitas game that was literally like one Nico clone away from them losing. But they were able to find FBI. But like there's a world that they didn't even make it to two playoffs. I say abysmal, I guess like they did 30 DSG so there's that. But then they just didn't put up that much of a fight against Lion. I feel like Team Liquid, they were on the precipice of things coming together, but they needed more time to cook. And for that reason, I have Flyque was 2:1. I think the Flyquest is a more cohesive team at the end of split one than Team Liquid was compared to Team Liquid's expectations, which was like they were going to be one of the top dogs. So yeah, I guess, yeah, it seems maybe harsh to say abysmal when, like you it were able to win your first playoff series and then, you know, take a game off of the eventual winners. But when you think of like expectations for the team, it was abysmal. The Bickle though you have Team Liquid 2. 1, Badger. It looks like you agree with me. Fly Quest 2. 1. What gives you hope in team look good to take the series? [01:04:44] Speaker C: I think TL has the support type of staff that given this longer off season, they didn't even go to America's Cup. They've taken this time to really shore things up and put some things together that they come out swinging. Okay. [01:05:01] Speaker B: I think that with a roster like theirs. When we had Spawn in the studio last split, during one of the Fly Quest games, he was walking around and we were chatting, and he said that in scrims because Team Liquid was smashing everybody in scrims, like they thought at that point. But he did say that Fly Quest was the only team that had beaten them in scrims at that point. And he was like, I'm actually. I really think that this Fly Quest team is, like, really good, and they might be the second best team in the. In the league outside of us, which obviously not how things played out because line and C9 were the top. But Spawn was very, very impressed with specifically Griffin. He was like, yeah, this. This kid's doing stuff that, like, we haven't seen Junglers do in NA in a while. So, yeah, I think it's gonna be a fun matchup, and I'm very excited for it. And then another exciting for maybe not the reasons you want. Closing out the week. We got Dignitas versus Shopify Rebellion. This is the exciting one where it's like, oh, man, it's just. It's fun to watch. [01:06:09] Speaker A: One of these teams has to bounce back, right? [01:06:11] Speaker C: Surely they don't have to. [01:06:13] Speaker B: They. They don't actually have to. I really hope Shopify does, but I just. Man, they looked so depressed last. [01:06:21] Speaker C: Surely Shopify can't tank our credibility anymore, right? [01:06:29] Speaker A: Don't. Don't say that too loud, you know. [01:06:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I had that mentality for all of last split. I kept thinking, now they'll turn it around. Oh, yeah, I'm getting memed on. Everyone's on me because, like, Shopify is struggling, but, like, they'll turn it around. And then they never did. They just get. They just went winless in split one. [01:06:49] Speaker C: You know, it just came to me. It's in this exact moment. But I figured out what our problem is. You know, Zinni's coming from KT. [01:06:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Hey, almost perfect game T1 the other day. Like, yeah, they did. [01:07:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:07:05] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:07:06] Speaker A: We're so up. [01:07:09] Speaker C: Side note or Lauren Otoamnes child having to be a fanatic and a KT fan. [01:07:15] Speaker B: Oh, my God. I just. Actually, I didn't even think about that. Why would you put that on them anyways? I suppose they did it themselves. [01:07:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Shopify. Please, please. For my sanity, as someone who supports the Cleveland Browns, I need something positive in my life at the this point. Please, please, please, please. [01:07:37] Speaker C: I'm so sorry. [01:07:40] Speaker B: I just can't. I can't believe it. [01:07:42] Speaker C: Surely Zinny doesn't get gapped by Palafox, right? [01:07:45] Speaker A: Oh, my God. [01:07:46] Speaker B: Again? You mean again again? Because that happened last time. [01:07:50] Speaker C: That never happened. I've wiped it from my memory. [01:07:53] Speaker A: You know, first. First. No, wait, what's. What was kick, not kickoff. God. You know, this is a great game where I just. My brain just destroys. If it's not named World's msi. Spring, winter or Summer, I'm lost, honestly. [01:08:20] Speaker B: Well, to be fair, you actually named most of the things, so I. Yeah, but I. [01:08:25] Speaker A: It was. I had to go through the Rolodex of all of the weird names that Ryan has used for their different tournaments. [01:08:33] Speaker B: Yeah, dude, there's just. I. I hate to say it. I. I think unless Shopify can figure out like why they have zero synergy and then Contracts can stop engaging by himself into five people every single game. Dignitas, take this. I actually, I think that the only way to. To bring it back and. And get Shopify back in the game is if I stop predicting in them. You gotta stop believing. Dimonte said it himself, man. He put his hand on my shoulder. He said, you gotta stop believing in this, buddy. Actually, he just called me bud. He didn't say buddy. It was just bud. That's a bad sign. My coach calls you bud and asks you to not have face. So, yeah, that's how the cookie crumbles. But that's also our LCS preview. At least our thoughts on all the teams. Who's everybody excited for though? For. For lcs. So we didn't really do like a like lead in for narratives for. For lcs. So, Badger, let's start with you do. Are you excited about any teams? And if so, like, what's. What's getting you excited about them? Otherwise I can go first. [01:09:47] Speaker A: I mean, if we can get like a conglomerate of like the lcs, like all pro team and fuse them together and make a super team, maybe we'll stand up to the power that comes from the. The east at this point. No, I. I think it's. I think seeing crier, like we've talked about it already, seeing criera with a full off season like, all this time off for DSG is going to be really good. I think the team is going to be fantastic. The split, once they actually have practice with their intended jungler in a. In a proper practice environment, I think they'll be a really good team. And I think FlyQuest just leveling up. You know, he got another split underneath them. Like, they made it through the first one. It impressed people, and they can come out firing in spring. I mean, those might be two of the top four teams by the end of the split. [01:10:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, there's. There's a chance. We talked about this with FlyQuest. Last split is like, this isn't the type of the team you expect to win a lot now, but by the end of the year, there's a chance that they're fighting for that title. They're that type of team of young guns. I agree. Excited for DSG, excited for FlyQuest. Those are my two, like, top teams. Bickle, what about you? [01:11:10] Speaker C: I mean, I want to be contrarian here, but I can't be because my answer was Fly Quest in disguise. [01:11:16] Speaker B: There we go. Well, hey, I mean, I think it's fine if we were all aligned on that. Although we also all were aligned on Shopify. So are we cursing DSG and FlyQuest right now? [01:11:26] Speaker C: Yes. [01:11:27] Speaker A: Oh, [01:11:31] Speaker B: I'm very excited for Dignitas, let me tell you. Oh, my God. [01:11:34] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Looks so good, you know. You know, teammate has really been rising through my power rankings at this point, you know? You know, I would love to watch Team 8 really perform. [01:11:49] Speaker C: You know, guys, just hear me out. NRG in NaCl. Looking solid, dude. [01:11:56] Speaker B: Speaker one of the upcoming. How did we scout that guy? How did we not know who he was before? That's crazy. [01:12:03] Speaker C: I don't know. [01:12:04] Speaker B: Badger, you made an interesting point, though, and I want to kind of. Maybe this is worth doing a more dedicated segment in a future episode, but we could probably do it now. What would your dream All Star LCS [01:12:16] Speaker A: roster be of all the players in LCS right now? [01:12:20] Speaker B: No, no. Contract jail. You can take players. [01:12:24] Speaker C: Import ruler now. [01:12:25] Speaker A: Import ruler not. [01:12:28] Speaker B: I think. I mean, I think imports are fine, but yeah, you can only use the two imports. [01:12:34] Speaker C: Okay. So import rules still exist. Gotcha. [01:12:36] Speaker A: Okay. Import rules still exists. [01:12:40] Speaker B: I'm. I'm probably taking Gecko. Stop. [01:12:43] Speaker A: I've. I'm screaming Cryra. Quid Mid Jungle. And then the rest of my team. Doesn't matter at that point, honestly. Okay, Quid Rahel. [01:12:56] Speaker B: Who he just. [01:12:58] Speaker A: Because I would love to have, you know, a shot Calling support with all of the firepower that I'm gonna have with this team and I'm probably gonna go [01:13:10] Speaker B: Castle. [01:13:11] Speaker A: Castle. Like no, because then that would. [01:13:15] Speaker B: Wait. [01:13:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Now [01:13:21] Speaker C: import Castle. Import. Quit import. [01:13:24] Speaker A: So the. The two iterations of this roster would either be. Well, there's too many import top laners at this point. [01:13:33] Speaker B: I think they have to. [01:13:34] Speaker A: It's probably. It's probably Dokla or Cryra Quid Rahel Huhi or Corje. Actually, honestly, Rahel Core jj. [01:13:48] Speaker B: Well, what it. What if instead of Rahel because actually I think I. I'm just trolling. I think it's. I think ego. Thanatos top. [01:13:56] Speaker C: I think I'd go thank Thanatos is the call. [01:14:01] Speaker A: Thanatos cry Requid [01:14:05] Speaker B: probably Sajid or Masu if you want somebody good right now. Sajed if you want to scale. [01:14:15] Speaker A: No, it's right there. [01:14:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:19] Speaker C: I'm really excited for fire up. Honestly, over inspired yet Since Fire counts [01:14:27] Speaker A: as a resident, that's actually inspired the resident. [01:14:30] Speaker C: Oh, inspired the resident. [01:14:31] Speaker A: Oh, God. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. [01:14:34] Speaker C: Give me. [01:14:35] Speaker A: Give me Castle. Inspired Quid Yawn. Core JJ I I that team. That team makes quarters at worlds 110% side. [01:14:45] Speaker C: You need a reminder of what happened the last time you picked an NA team to make course. [01:14:49] Speaker A: Yeah, you're right. I, I have my prince jersey sitting in my laundry basket over there and I stare. I stared at it for more than 12 seconds the other day thinking of what could have been as I was wistfully like, like wiping the tears away from my eyes with it. [01:15:08] Speaker B: If that roster existed, we would get inspired core philosophy clashes and we'd get to learn which one wins out. Oh yeah, the bigger leader. [01:15:20] Speaker A: Those two would clash. [01:15:21] Speaker B: I don't. I don't know if it would be a bad clash. I think it might work. It's just. Honestly, it would be an interesting thing. [01:15:26] Speaker A: But think about the idea of Core J inspired. Running your mid game from like 11 minutes to like the 22 minute mark. They would run that like the army. Like genuinely. [01:15:41] Speaker B: It would be one of those. [01:15:42] Speaker C: At that point, you just need three players with hands and no brains. Poor and inspired can just like play it like it's Starcraft. [01:15:51] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Thanatos Quid. Yeah, at that point, yawn. [01:15:54] Speaker A: At that point, Thanatos quid yawn with inspired Corja. Yeah, I think we've. I think we've. I think we've established our the the ideal n a roster. [01:16:06] Speaker B: Quote all those players. What the hell are we doing, guys? Yeah. Quote na how many? [01:16:13] Speaker C: This is how we get back to the example. [01:16:19] Speaker A: Yawn. With three Koreans and a Polish man. Just. [01:16:24] Speaker B: That's pretty funny. We're not beating the allegations, dude. [01:16:29] Speaker A: I'm not. Trust me. I am. Am never beating the allegations. I'm gonna be 110 honest. [01:16:34] Speaker B: Okay. What if we can only use N A players? I think it's. Well, it has to be Dokla top line. He's the only. [01:16:41] Speaker C: Unless we pull from [01:16:45] Speaker B: apa APA or. [01:16:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess it would be APA over Dark Wings. At this point, I don't know if [01:16:50] Speaker B: APA and Yan can work together anymore. So I'm going Apa Masu and then Vulcan. [01:16:57] Speaker A: God, this. God, this team just screams we're playing for 45 minutes. When you say that. When you say that, though. [01:17:05] Speaker B: I'm less excited about this roster than the previous one. [01:17:09] Speaker A: I know, I know. Well, that's the problem. Yeah, I'm gonna be. I'm. My bias is definitely showing when I say three career when I want four Koreans on my team. Like, I have no shame for Koreans and Cryra. Please just give me that. Just inject it into my veins right now. [01:17:30] Speaker B: Who's your coach? [01:17:32] Speaker C: Rain over. [01:17:33] Speaker B: Oh, think card. [01:17:34] Speaker A: Think hard. [01:17:35] Speaker C: Think hard. [01:17:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I think either think hard or rain over, depending on if I'm allowed the. The four Koreans and a Cryra. [01:17:45] Speaker C: Yeah. I think if you get four Koreans plus a fuss over. [01:17:51] Speaker A: I fear we've created a monst roster. And that's the delusions in my head. [01:17:58] Speaker B: I was saying think card for. Yeah, the. The NA roster. Yeah, I agree. Probably ran over for the Korean or Spawn. [01:18:06] Speaker C: It. [01:18:06] Speaker B: You know, he's spiritually Korean Spawn with [01:18:10] Speaker A: Cord inspired as his mid jungle that we. We're reaching new levels of the belt coming out at that point. If anybody up. [01:18:23] Speaker B: All right. Well, that was a fun little way to end the episode. I felt like we. [01:18:26] Speaker A: We did do enough lcs. [01:18:28] Speaker B: Just yapping. So cool. There we go. Let us know in the comments or not in the comments in the community. Discord. What you think about the rosters you put together, what your dream roster would be as well. And while you're there, if you have the time. Bickle, how many stars would you recommend people leave this episode as a review if they enjoyed it? [01:18:50] Speaker C: Oh, God, I haven't prepped this. Think of something interesting relating to the number five. How many games will be played on Saturday and Sunday by the LEC Series, not games. [01:19:06] Speaker B: Yeah, okay. I was gonna say we don't know how many games. Series is five, though. That's a great number of stars. If you could leave us a five star review. It helps us get noticed. [01:19:14] Speaker A: Helps us our review. [01:19:16] Speaker B: Spread the. The. The word of the pod. And shout out everybody again. Who helps support the pod. Shout out. Ian. [01:19:23] Speaker C: I should have said as many Koreans as Badger wants on his dream roster. [01:19:27] Speaker A: I was. I. The layup was right there and I was wondering why you didn't take it. I'm gonna be honest. How many LCK Challenger players can I put on a team and come over? Yes, that'd be. [01:19:39] Speaker B: I don't trust them anymore. I have trust issues. After Z, Disastrous. [01:19:44] Speaker C: I swear he's good. [01:19:46] Speaker A: I swear he's good. [01:19:49] Speaker B: I mean he. [01:19:50] Speaker C: Please don't be Prince. Please don't be Prince. [01:19:54] Speaker B: All right, well, thanks for sticking with us, everybody. It was a little quieter episode on my end just because I'm in a hotel and it's 2:31am currently. But thanks guys for. For working with my crazy schedule here and getting an episode out this week. Everybody listening? Just remember that we love you and we'll see you next time. [01:20:13] Speaker A: Bye bye. Peace. Yes, Daddy. Dear God, we really derailed there at the end. Oh, yeah. [01:20:26] Speaker B: See, I love it when it just falls apart. [01:20:29] Speaker C: It's always.