League Rundown - Episode 608: LET’S GET READY FOR PLAYOOOFFFSSS!!!

[00:00:12] Speaker A: Gets hit Kimmy kids a little too far here. He's gonna have to try and get himself out. Living O Tillery and the rest of the shots of fire. Zion is just killing the next Zion can eat it single handedly win the game by game by game by game by [00:00:26] Speaker B: should be. [00:00:27] Speaker A: Oh my God. [00:00:28] Speaker B: Stupid. [00:00:29] Speaker A: Passes through and manages to the table with Messiah tanking it up. [00:00:34] Speaker B: I do not believe he just believe. [00:00:42] Speaker A: I cannot understand this game. Unicorns of love. [00:00:48] Speaker B: It wasn't a mutant. The Nexus. [00:01:07] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to episode 608 of the League Rundown. This is your 2026 spring split LEC and LCS playoffs preview. That's right. They finally synced up. And this episode is lovingly entitled let's get Ready for Playoffs. I am your host, Kangas, and I'm joined by three esteemed co hosts. Up first out of the can, it's Badger. [00:01:30] Speaker C: So yeah, cool. Me first. I was looking up how many teams actually go to msi. I thought it was from each reason for me, Trees. I was right. [00:01:42] Speaker A: Every week, every week, you know I'm gonna say your name at some point, right? [00:01:46] Speaker C: And I was thinking about it and I was like, oh, okay. You know, Doklo, lion with Doklo goes to MSI and Lion with Castle, you know, starts practicing. [00:01:56] Speaker A: Okay. You're. You're prepping your future narratives for the episode. I like it. As long as you're doing something. [00:02:01] Speaker C: I love to pick and choose my narratives. [00:02:03] Speaker A: Also with something much more insightful to say to start off the episode, we got bickle. [00:02:08] Speaker D: You know, it's really nice that the LEC and the LCS decided to align themselves on a playoff bracket format. It would have been really nice if they aligned themselves on tiebreaker format because apparently one region cares about head to head while the other one cares about game score because what the hell is that? [00:02:23] Speaker A: Wow. I. I just threw you on the spot to say something insightful and that actually was very insightful. [00:02:27] Speaker D: Well, you asked for a rant earlier and I didn't provide, so I figured I needed to come up with something true. [00:02:33] Speaker A: No, that was good. Yeah, we talked about that a little bit last week. We can talk about it more this week. But before we get into all of that, final member joining us on the pod, it's Yanni. [00:02:41] Speaker B: You want to talk about tiebreakers? Tiebreakers are, are real, real rough, especially in the great region of the opl. [00:02:49] Speaker A: So we do care about is everybody having tiebreaker issues. [00:02:52] Speaker B: So we had an opportunity for like a three way tiebreaker and we were thinking it was going to result in a tie break match like we had in split one. Instead, we go off game score, then we go off head to head. Then we go off head to head game score, then we go head to head games. One average duration. And then we go regular season average duration of wins, and then we go coin toss. You see, I hate average duration of games. 1. I think you just go head to head game score, and after that we're playing tiebreakers, baby. It is what it is. [00:03:27] Speaker A: Yeah. The average duration of wins, like rewarding, winning fast, theoretically is like, oh, yeah, the team that's smashing more is the better team. But different teams have different styles and different reads on the meta. So like, some teams will just play J4 comps all the time and. And some teams will play mundo jungle comps and like, just take longer to scale. Right. So it's. It. It doesn't necessarily reward the better team. I agree with you there. Yeah. Biggle, to your point, though, we talked about this briefly last week. LCS tiebreakers thankfully didn't come up. We had the blessed timeline where they didn't come up in, like, having to explain how crazy it got. We tried to really dumb it down on the broadcast and then it just kind of like played out. But, yeah, head to head score didn't matter in the lcs, which is very odd. That's never happened before. But we didn't get your thoughts on it, Pickle. [00:04:21] Speaker B: So. [00:04:21] Speaker A: So what are your thoughts on that compared to LEC and what was going on over there? [00:04:26] Speaker D: It's a choice where you're trying to synchronize everything, but then decide not to synchronize that in particular. [00:04:33] Speaker A: Mm. [00:04:34] Speaker D: It's a choice. [00:04:36] Speaker A: It's a choice. But I am happy that we have synchronized playoff schedules from this point. It is just funny to think that, like, LCS is still a eight team region. LEC is 10 team region. So LEC had to say farewell to four of the teams, whereas over here in North America, we only said goodbye to two so far. We'll talk about which ones those are later on, but before that, we have some news. [00:04:58] Speaker D: There's one thing you mentioned that it's nice that the schedules are in sync. If I'm thinking right, I think they're only in sync for this week. [00:05:08] Speaker A: Oh, my God. [00:05:09] Speaker C: Is it. [00:05:09] Speaker A: Is that actually true? [00:05:10] Speaker D: Because the. Because the LEC has a third game this week and the LCS doesn't. [00:05:15] Speaker C: That's right. [00:05:17] Speaker A: Okay, so LEC has round one, two, three, and then finals, and it's going to Be over the course of three weeks. And LLCs playoffs for some reason are not on league pedia and the schedule, so that's annoying. [00:05:34] Speaker D: Hold on. LEC ends at the 14th. [00:05:38] Speaker A: Four, I think. Oh, yeah, I think we have four. [00:05:43] Speaker D: Yep. There's an extra weekend for the LCS. God damn it. [00:05:47] Speaker A: Yeah. God damn it, Leo. [00:05:53] Speaker D: Because by the way, it's because the LEC is willing to play on Mondays and the LCS isn't. [00:05:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. That's so bizarre. So the format is the same like the. The brackets. [00:06:07] Speaker D: Yes. The bracket format is the. [00:06:10] Speaker A: But the schedule will be slightly different. Hey, you know what? It'll just make it so that we can actually give more time to talk about LEC finals on its own and then LCS finals on its own, the next week's episode. So I guess for our purposes, you know, if they're gonna change the entire schedule just for this podcast, I'll take it. All right, well, that's our thoughts on some of the scheduling. But now let's get into global news that happened this past week before talking about the. The playoffs previews. First up, roster news. Bickle, I'm gonna throw this one right back to you because. Oh, my goodness, a weird one over in the lec. Team Heretics not happy with the two changes they've already made. One being coaching staff, one support. They also have another change announced. [00:06:57] Speaker D: Yeah, Team Heretics is working for that delayed bud light ace, but they are benching Ice and bringing in hype as their ad carry. Hype, if I'm remembering properly, does have some pre existing synergy with their support way who they brought in. They both played on Misa Esports to start this season, so there's some synergy there. We'll see. I mean, to. [00:07:30] Speaker C: To quote everyone's favorite Star Star wars character, Misa. Think that's a bad idea, Playing God. This is the worst decision that they could have made. Literally benching your best player. Fucking erase yourself here. [00:07:45] Speaker A: I mean, I'm like, at this point, [00:07:46] Speaker D: does Heretics have a best player? [00:07:49] Speaker A: I think they do. And I think it was Ice. [00:07:52] Speaker C: It was Ice. Like, by far. [00:07:55] Speaker A: Yeah, like literally the last place team who's ad carry had an argument to be top three. [00:08:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:03] Speaker C: No, like, genuinely, he was a top four AD in this league and. And he gets benched. Like, congratulations, your. Your valorant team might be good, but your League of Legends team is abysmal dog at this point. Like, what the hell are we doing? [00:08:20] Speaker A: Like, to me, it screams player behavior issue. I don't know anything about that like for confirmation. So don't quote me on that. But I can't think of another reason other than like he was something he was pissed off about and didn't want to play or like the team environment was crumbling because like in game performance, if you're just looking at that, it was like Dardoch level of carry. Now Dardoch, we all know what happened to him as well. So that's where my mind goes to be. Like maybe it's something like that, but it's all speculation. [00:08:52] Speaker D: In his defense, I wouldn't blame him for crashing out at this roster Coming into the season. They said they wanted to focus on long term stability and play for a couple years down the line and foster and grow this roster. They've already changed 3/5 of it in the coaching staff. [00:09:09] Speaker C: Yep. Yeah. [00:09:11] Speaker A: Insane jungle change, support change, coaching staff change. I even forgot that, yeah, there was another player change. So that's two on the roster now. Three plus the coach. That is the most changes in the lec. [00:09:23] Speaker D: And what's hilarious is that the second Shale left and went to shifters, he started to look better. So I think it's just a heretics issue. [00:09:33] Speaker A: He just, he beat them in the, in the matchup that they had the next weekend. It was crazy. Yeah, I. I'm gonna be scratching my head about that one for a while. Maybe more information will come out if they want to give any public infer or public kind of address to it. But for now I put team Heretics hype in for ice with about 10 question marks and exclamation points afterwards on the sheet to really hammer home the confusion. [00:10:00] Speaker C: Other news. Can I. [00:10:01] Speaker A: More exciting one Badger. [00:10:03] Speaker C: Okay. I mean we officially have our first team qualified to msi. [00:10:10] Speaker A: Oh, that's where you were going. I thought you were going to go for the other roster thing happen. [00:10:14] Speaker C: No, no, no, no. Because I just checked the MSI page. Congratulations to Team Secret Whales. [00:10:19] Speaker D: Yep. [00:10:20] Speaker C: For qualifying msi. [00:10:21] Speaker A: I forgot about this. Oh my God. Because qualified before playoffs even began. [00:10:28] Speaker D: LCP has a really weird thing because they involve championship points [00:10:35] Speaker A: where everyone was always a fan of that. [00:10:38] Speaker D: Yep. [00:10:38] Speaker C: Yep. [00:10:38] Speaker D: I think it's whoever has the most championship points at the end of two splits is auto qualified to MSI and they're guaranteed to be top two with the only way they don't finish first is if a certain team comes in first which would then qualify that team for MSI and they still qualify on championship points. I don't really know. [00:11:02] Speaker C: It's so weird. But you know what it is what it is they have because like you get there at least in the play and so. [00:11:11] Speaker D: And you get championship points based off the number of games you win as well. [00:11:17] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:11:17] Speaker A: Yep. So like you don't even have to do crazy good in series score. As long as you win a game in each series, you just get more points. Kind of crazy. I remember Raz crashing out about that last weekend. I totally forgot. So thanks for reminding us because. Yeah, that's. That was a shocker. Okay, well, there we go. One MSI team already confirmed. We'll see the more locked in throughout the coming weeks. But what I thought Badger was gonna set up was another roster information. Badger, I'm still gonna toss this one right to you, kc. Looking to keep their roster together. [00:11:52] Speaker C: Oh yeah, they. So the long. The long awaited extension of Kalist's contract has finally been announced by Casey. Yeah, till 2028. [00:12:06] Speaker A: Nice. They got the kid. [00:12:08] Speaker D: They throw enough money at him. [00:12:10] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. [00:12:13] Speaker A: Although G2kalis would have gone hard. [00:12:17] Speaker D: I'm just saying that the only thing that I think kept him from re signing last season was okay, what's my offer from G2 gonna be? And it probably became okay, we'll give you a fuck ton of money. You will be our franchise player. And just look at this road show. You are a God to these people. [00:12:35] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:12:36] Speaker A: Also we got Jibusio, so. Yeah, please don't go. Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. So at least that's a confirmation of a player sticking around with the contract extending. Yanni, what about a rumor floating around in the LCS about a support that might be looking to leave? [00:12:55] Speaker B: Yeah, so apparently SEOs might be headed back to cb. Lol. Again, as you said, unconfirmed rumor. Take it with a large grain of salt. Especially because Shopify Rebellion did well enough this week to make playoffs. We'll have more on that later. And honestly I really hope this doesn't happen because SEO's had a really good week this week. [00:13:19] Speaker A: I think it would be a tough loss for Shopify that are trying to scale as a team. I feel like SEOs has not been stellar throughout his entire tenure here, but he hasn't been like full on int mode and like the reason that they're losing the majority of their games. I think there's been a couple where he's. He's looked tough, but I feel like if you're a team like Shopify making a change in the support role might not be it. Unless you really just do think the bevoy is like your main guy and you're Gonna try to make like a heretics type change where you give him something stronger in laning phase. But who are you even getting? Yeah, I don't even know who they would get. Yeah. At that point, I guess another import. Although I don't think SEOs takes up an import side because he's like grandfathered in from the cb. Lol. I'm pretty sure. So. Yeah. But the rumor is that SEOs is looking at other Brazilian teams and offers, so it's not like he'd just be leaving. He'd be going back to Brazil to have maybe greener pastures down there. He was one of the studs back in CB Lowell and has not been able to replicate that in the lcs. Of course it is a more competitive league, so not too surprising. But maybe getting back to comfort could be in the cards for him. [00:14:30] Speaker B: Like I said, this week was good. [00:14:31] Speaker A: Comes of that. Yeah, I agree. Okay, well, there we go. Those are all the roster rumors going around. I put one down for variety topics because somebody mentioned it, but I have no idea what it means. Chovy has old man hips. Well, you. [00:14:47] Speaker B: You put that down. [00:14:49] Speaker A: I think I put that down, yes. But I don't. I don't know the context of the story. [00:14:53] Speaker D: This ties in to the. Yeah, this ties into the LCK announcing their roster for Asia Games, which is a big Asian tournament. It's basically pseudo Olympics for this for these countries. And Korea announced their roster for their performance in this tournament. It is essentially the former T1 roster of Z Faker, Gumayushi and Carria plus Canyon from Gen G with Zeka being a sub mid laner. Now, a lot of people may be saying, hey, wait a second. Isn't Chobi kind of the best player in the mid lane in league? To which a lot of people will say yes. But it turns out he has old man hips and is dealing with injury. So he has will not be participating in this. And I am sorry, Cat currently yelling in the background. [00:15:48] Speaker B: He's been dealing. [00:15:48] Speaker A: No, that adds points. [00:15:49] Speaker B: Chronic, chronic hip pain since last year. Apparently this has gone as far back as hle, so it recently got a little bit worse. So hopefully he'll be okay. Because I mean if you're. That's causing a problem, I mean when you're just sitting down and playing and you're constantly pain. I mean like I'm in. I have sciatica. Right. Like, and it, it's obviously not hip pain, but I mean when I'm sitting down driving, and I love driving. It's one of My favorite activities. I'm in pain a lot when I drive. I'm in pain a lot when I play league. And when I sit down on my day job, I try to just like put it out of my mind. But there's sometimes where I'm like, damn, this sucks. And it's kind of hard to forget about some days. So hopefully he's able to kind of get the ship righted on that because it could severely affect, you know, your performance while you're trying to concentrate and play league. And you know, Chovy is one of the greatest mid laners to ever play the game. Let's call it what it is. Even though he doesn't have a world trophy, right. He's still one of the greatest ever played the game. It would really, really suck if his skills begin to diminish because of pain that he's dealing with. [00:17:03] Speaker A: That would suck. Yeah. So heart goes out to old man hips out there everywhere, but specifically Chovy and what he's going through right now. All right, well, let's just do the rest of the LCK update and then we can hop into LPL happenings because that was it for kind of general news. So Badger Bickel, do either of you want to kind of update what's going on LCK wise in. In their playoff scenario? [00:17:28] Speaker C: Yeah, let me pull the standings back up. [00:17:30] Speaker D: There is a top five with the rivalry of a lifetime brewing for that six place spot. [00:17:35] Speaker C: God, I know, I'm so fucking excited at this point. But neither of those teams is actually going to get it. So locked into top four is Hanwha at 12, 2kt, Ulster 11 and 3 and second. Tied for third is T1 and Gen G, but T1 technically has one less game loss than Gen Garden. So they're ahead in the standings at 500. Almost between series and game. Score is D Kiya and then right behind them is Haunch and Brion, the team that everyone expected to be in that spot. And then rounding it out, it's fearx at 5 and 9 krx, drx, whatever the fuck they're called at this point at 4 and 10 alongside nongshim at 4 and 10. [00:18:22] Speaker A: Krx sounds like a cereal brand, so [00:18:25] Speaker C: it's of kind kiwum drx. Now the tri code in Valorant is krx but I believe it is still DRX and league so that's why it's very confusing. And then Nongshim who traded with Ferrix in the Taeyun Diablo. [00:18:41] Speaker D: No refunds. [00:18:43] Speaker C: No refunds. Well, Diablo dropped a pentakill on them in the EWC qualifiers today and they made a video making fun of taehyun throwing away his Nongshim jersey in the trash can at celebration. [00:18:57] Speaker A: I did see that. Yeah. [00:18:58] Speaker C: And then bringing up the rear as unusual is the DN poopers. I mean Supers at a Kangas. Let me just read the scoreline to you at a 1 in 13 series score and a 2 in 26 game score. [00:19:12] Speaker A: Oh my God. [00:19:15] Speaker D: You know what the best part of that is? [00:19:17] Speaker A: Oh, they. [00:19:19] Speaker D: They started one zero in series and two and on game score. They have lost 26 games in a row. [00:19:26] Speaker C: They have lost 26 games in A row. [00:19:28] Speaker A: Hey, better than Dignitas. [00:19:31] Speaker C: They beat KRX to start the season and now they have lost every game since then. [00:19:37] Speaker B: Hear me out. [00:19:38] Speaker C: It's not going to get any better for them since who would win KRX and Gen G? [00:19:42] Speaker B: Who would win this current iteration of DN Supers are 2018 barbecue Oliver's summer. [00:19:48] Speaker C: Oh, barbecue Olivers. By far. 100%. Really? Yeah. Oh yeah. No, this team is so much worse than Barbecue Olivers, let me tell you. [00:19:59] Speaker A: God, I love LCK team names by the way. Every time it's like you could just do a random name generator of like three. [00:20:06] Speaker B: What about our boys? [00:20:07] Speaker A: The letters and then just like a silly word. [00:20:09] Speaker D: Huh. My boys, the gladiator plane. [00:20:14] Speaker A: Jin Air Glad Plains. Got the I. [00:20:17] Speaker B: Missing that on every Reddit thread when they played would just be like glad player sad playing. [00:20:24] Speaker D: Go back old school KT Finger bang. [00:20:30] Speaker B: That's a wild throwback. [00:20:32] Speaker C: Yep. [00:20:33] Speaker B: Oh my God. [00:20:35] Speaker C: Are we talking spring or summer? BBQ Olivers is the real. [00:20:39] Speaker A: He said summer. [00:20:40] Speaker B: Summer. I said summer. [00:20:41] Speaker C: BBQ Summer. Oh, you said summer. Yeah, I would give it to. I would definitely give it to them because Ghost Ignar trick is it does not lose to. [00:20:54] Speaker B: Yeah, that bot lane is pretty solid. [00:20:56] Speaker C: Like in 2018 they don't lose the Corpse of Duckdom and the corpse of. [00:21:04] Speaker B: What's crazy is that we're calling him the corpse of Duckdom when bro had a good performance last year. [00:21:11] Speaker C: Yeah, no, it's wild how much he's fallen off. Closer. Closer. Duck Dom. And then we'll say either Peter, like, [00:21:21] Speaker A: did you say Doo Doo was a player's name? [00:21:23] Speaker B: Yes, yes. [00:21:26] Speaker C: We got Doo Doo and he plays for the DN Poopers. So. Yeah. [00:21:35] Speaker A: How is it possible? It's not real. It's so crazy. We got to get passes because otherwise we could stay. I just think, were we again, were [00:21:46] Speaker D: we talking a spring or summer for 2018 Olivers. Then we also have to consider good old Prince. [00:21:55] Speaker C: Not the prince that we're talking about, the other prince. [00:21:58] Speaker A: Like the foremost artist formerly known. God, I'm having a stroke. All right, we're gonna get past this, guys. I can't handle like the prince that [00:22:07] Speaker D: was supposed to save Fly Quest and then gave Badger and I the worst depression of our lives. [00:22:13] Speaker A: Yep, there we go. That one. LPL update. Yanni, what's happening in the LPL for playoffs? [00:22:18] Speaker B: Okay, so we've officially wrapped up our our split two, which does mean we say goodbye to two teams for the rest of the year. Down in Group Nirvana. OMG finished. OH and five and three intended games. Yes, they are done. They are done for the rest of the year. We will see them in 2027. Typically what would happen is they would go down to ldl. But ldl. LDL is in a weird spot right now. There's like a different tournament and they don't get sent there. The other team is Ultra prime and there are rumors that Ultra prime may not exist next year. We do not know how confirmed that is, but there are rumors that Ultra prime may be pulling out. [00:23:00] Speaker A: We do that be kind of like last year how the teams that got disqualified in summer then like just kind of. [00:23:05] Speaker B: Yeah, like rng. Well, om. OMG was one of the teams that got that got kicked out. So they came back but RNG did not survive the kicking. [00:23:16] Speaker D: So I don't know if OMG should have come back. [00:23:18] Speaker B: The top four of Group Nirvana are set. They're gonna play play ins. We have Edgar at 3 and 2, LGD at 3 and 2, Thunder Talk at 3 and 2. Lots of lots of shenanigans went on there to determine who was going to be second, who was going to be fourth. Really cool thing about ThunderTalk is that they have rookie solo laners and Keshe and Haru. Very, very cool to see them have some success. They were in group Perseverance in split one. They did not win a single match. They won a singular game. I think they went like 1 in 12 or something like that. So it's nice to see them bounce back. Notably, LNG is the best team at a group Nirvana. This is the sheer Croco Bulldog 1xn and missing roster that we expected to get into Group Nirvana and split two but failed. So they will have one last chance to try to get in group Ascend this year. So up to group Ascend now we had team. We actually win a game. They were previously the Last time we spoke about them, I think they were Owen D8 or oh and 10 or something like that. And they hadn't won a single game but they had improved there. Ended up 1 in 13. But their game score was 6 and 27, which was interesting what they were doing before. [00:24:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:35] Speaker B: God damn it, IG. IG finished at 5 and 9. They have instability in the mid lane. Rookie was in for split one, but he had some personal issues crop up. Didn't play in the split. They brought in backup Renard from their juniors team. And then they brought up nya. Yeah, like, like the sound the Cats make. That's been hilarious on broadcast. We haven't. They haven't really figured out what they've been doing there. Good. Good news is Moo is still performing at a high level. We have Weibo Gaming finishing in sixth at six and eight. Shahu is sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe. They brought in a new support in the middle of the split. The Hank. We have AKA we have the Hank AKA AKA we have the shy at home. We have already made Hank Hill jokes. Then in fifth place, I don't care [00:25:24] Speaker A: about any other player in this league anymore. Now I just want to follow the Hank's journey. [00:25:28] Speaker B: In fifth place, we had ninjas in pajamas at 7 and 7. Now what's interesting about Ninjas and Pajamas is the roster is Hoya. Go on care awesome. And Joe, if you're not tapped in, you're probably like, who the hell are these people? If you are tapped in, you're like, this team is not going to be good. We expected them to be as bad as Team W E. But Ninjas in pajamas have taken games off of Top Esports, jdg, Anyone's Legend and blg. They have beaten each of the top four teams. The one thing that stinks is that they finished one game below anyone's legend in the standings. So now they have to play against EDG and Group Nirvana in a single. Best of five. And the loser gets sent to groom Nirvana for split three. Ninjas and Pajamas. Oh, that's crazy to be in that position at all. They did admirably. They had a rough stretch toward the end. They lost a couple games they shouldn't have, but still, overall, very good. Moving to the top of the table. We have anyone's Legend in top esports. Both at 8 and 6. Top Esports had a much bigger, better, better differential. Anyone's legend has not been the anyone's legend that you know from last year. You know, Tabe leaving really hurt this team. Some meta changes also made things difficult with solo lanes having a big importance with quests. Flandre has really struggled a lot. Top esports was so good at the beginning of the split. They. They 369 took a break. They brought in this rookie's way on. They acclimated him very easily. He was a top performer. I think I voted for him for all pro. They faltered in the second half of the split. At one point they were like 6 and 1, I think. So finishing 8 and 6 is a big disappointment for them. [00:27:10] Speaker A: Imagine a rookie replacing 3, 6, 9 though. That's gotta be big. [00:27:14] Speaker B: Well, we also, we also don't know what's gonna happen in split 3 if 3, 69 is gonna come back because Zweion did well enough to avoid a benching or anything like that. So we'll have to see what happens there. JDG finished at 9 and 5. They were very inconsistent. Even after they went to first stand. They came back and they looked a lot better. Hongq split one and Hongq split two. Night and day player. We thought it was going to take some time for him to acclimate to the lpl. It clearly did. He has acclimated. He's played so well. Junja was not great in the first split and we were like, this is the weak spot. Junja. I think, I think I voted him first team all pro. This guy legitimately doing so much for his team. Best Jarvan in the world. Don't at me. And then of course we had BLG finish at 12 2. What's crazy is for the first time in a long time, the last game of the first place team did not determine like who was gonna lock first place. [00:28:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I was gonna say that. I mean that's two series ahead of second place, right? [00:28:17] Speaker B: Yeah. So JDG plus five in games at second place, 20 wins, 15 losses. BLG plus 16 at 24 and eight. [00:28:27] Speaker D: Whoa. [00:28:29] Speaker B: They are far and away the best team. In fact, the. The team of the week for the last week of the split was all blg. Oh, so now we have split two playoffs which is going to be coming up very soon. We are playing on Saturday and Sunday. Two best of fives a day, which is going to be really rough. [00:28:50] Speaker A: That's. [00:28:51] Speaker B: So we have team W versus lng. What's notable about this is as bad as team w e has been. Excuse me? As bad as twe has been. They did beat lng when lng tried to get in the first time. And because of the way team w e has Been playing lately and they've been a lot better. I think that this is going to be a close series. I think I gave it to lng. We're pretty split on the broadcast. IG is going to play against Thunder Talk. We generally think that IG is going to win or hoping to see. ThunderTalk put up a pretty good fight on Sunday. We've got Nip versus edg. We expect this to be the second closest match because NIP has shown some inconsistency. EDG has shown that they can have a really high ceiling. I'm going to be on for that game. I'm super excited about that. And then the final game is going to be Weibo Gaming versus lgd. We think that Weibo is pretty much going to take that. Even though they're not super consistent, they, from top to bottom, are just better. But keep in mind, the losers of these series are being sent to Group Nirvana. So if any upset happens, like if IG gets upset or Weibo gets upset, could you imagine those teams going down to Group Nirvana with some of the players they have on them? [00:30:01] Speaker A: That's actually kind of crazy. There's four different series that are going to determine who's in Group Nirvana. [00:30:07] Speaker B: Yes. And this is just to get into the playoffs. It's crazy. If you win, you're in. So what I'm. If you're hearing correctly, you're in the lower group. [00:30:14] Speaker A: If I hear correctly, there's no world. Unless I guess if they win, then maybe in playoffs it would match. But at least like in this, this coming, like next couple weeks, we won't get TT versus Nip. It's not gonna happen. [00:30:26] Speaker B: So it's really funny. We just. I think we. I think we just had that happen. No, no, we did not have just have that. We had to happen in the prior spring. [00:30:33] Speaker A: Every time it happens, one of your producers, Kai, he messages me and lets me know that TT Nip is happening. [00:30:38] Speaker B: Yeah, Kai's the go for that. [00:30:39] Speaker A: And then I'll. I'll at least tune in. [00:30:40] Speaker B: They would both have to win. If you want to see TIPS and [00:30:43] Speaker A: tts, well, you know who I'm cheering for. Well, we have variety topics. [00:30:47] Speaker B: Real quick. [00:30:48] Speaker A: We have LPL topics. [00:30:49] Speaker B: Remember NIP versus edg. We have Nip versus Edge. So, like, keep that in mind. [00:30:53] Speaker A: Oh, wait, that's pretty good too. [00:30:54] Speaker B: And I'm on. [00:30:55] Speaker A: I don't think about that. You're on for Nip versus Edge. All right, go check it out, everybody. Thank you, Yanni, for the very detailed lpl. Breakdown. We took a little bit longer on the. The pre show here. [00:31:06] Speaker C: No fucking sense to me. I'm going to be so fucking for real, dude. [00:31:10] Speaker A: LPL is not real. LPL is not real. Just like lck. Team names are not real. That's what Riot thinks. [00:31:15] Speaker D: All you need to do is find whatever team Knight is on and pick that one. [00:31:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:21] Speaker A: Is that BLG right now? [00:31:23] Speaker B: Yes, sir. [00:31:24] Speaker A: There we go. Boom. All right. See, I could figure it out just from context clues. We took a little longer on the pre show this time just because we only have one region to react to and then playoff preview ahead of us. So let's hop into it. Before that, though. Reminder that if we missed any news that you wish we had covered, let us know in the community. Discord. You can find a link to that in the description wherever you are listening, as well as shout out to anybody who supports the podcast, either through our Patreon or through the Merch Shop. Links to both of those should also be in the description. With that being said, let's talk about Lec Fur. [00:32:00] Speaker B: Ah, no, no. [00:32:01] Speaker A: Why did I say that? No, we're gonna talk LCS first, because we actually have games to react to, and then we're gonna end the episode with both of our playoff previews. So, LCS kicking things off here in North America. We had our final week of the regular season happened this past weekend, and oh boy, were there some big playoff implications. And then by day two, Match one, we had kind of figured them out for the most part, but there was still one upset that kind of kept things spicy. Yanni, how about you just run me through what was the final regular season standings in the LCs from top to bottom? [00:32:36] Speaker B: Absolutely, sir. So we had Cloud 9 at 7 and, oh, lion at 5 and 2. Team Liquid also at 5 and 2, but the differential was of one singular game. FlyQuest finishing at fourth with a 4 and 3 record. Very nice on them. Sentinels at 3 and 4. Shopify Rebellion getting that sixth and final playoff spot at 2 and 5. [00:32:59] Speaker A: Say that one again. [00:33:00] Speaker B: Shopify Rebellion. [00:33:03] Speaker A: Getting that name right. [00:33:05] Speaker B: Sixth. [00:33:05] Speaker A: What? [00:33:06] Speaker B: And final playoff spot. What? And you know what? You all y' all doubted me. Y' all doubted them. But I told y', all we'll get to that in a little bit. Disguised finishing in seventh at 2 and 5, just below Shopify Rebellion. And unfortunately for Dignitas, they were unable to secure a single win this split at 0 and 7. [00:33:26] Speaker A: Yarp. But I will say, at least from top to bottom, we did not have any weird Scenarios where somebody was lower in series score but higher in game score. I was a little worried that something some shenanigans like that might happen. But nope. It did actually kind of work out nicely here. Like Shopify Belly in disguise. Could have been tied in game score, but rebellion just having the head, which I guess is still nice. But that whole like game score not mattering for head to heads never actually came up, which is very convenient. All right, Bickle, let's turn it over to you. Talk me through what were the games that happened this past weekend. Just run through the schedule, the four matches that we had and who won which one. [00:34:09] Speaker D: Sure thing. So starting off the weekend we had kind of the big brawl that everyone was looking forward to. Cloud 9 team Liquid battle for first place and Cloud 9 walks away 20 unfazed. Then to wrap up Saturday, we had the battle for the final playoff spot, Shopify vs. DSG. Shopify walks away 2 0. Then on Sunday we had Sentinels vs. Dignitas in a series that meant absolutely nothing. And Sentinels walked away with the two zero. And then we had FlyQuest lion to wrap up the weekend. FlyQuest playing for a top four four spot while lion was playing for absolutely nothing. Fly Quest walks away with the 2:1. [00:34:53] Speaker A: Yep. So for it meaning absolutely nothing for some of the team Sentinels did want to make a push for top four because if they beat Dignitas and the lion beat Fly Quest, which was kind of the expected result. [00:35:06] Speaker C: Okay. [00:35:08] Speaker A: Jumped into top four. Yeah. [00:35:10] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:35:11] Speaker B: That didn't happen. [00:35:11] Speaker D: I guess I wasn't even considering the fact that Digna Toss could win that series. Sorry, that's my bad. [00:35:19] Speaker A: Thank. [00:35:19] Speaker B: Thank God that didn't happen by the way, because I think if Sentinels got in fourth at three and four that's like yikes. I don't think you should ever be. [00:35:26] Speaker A: That would have been kind of crazy. Yeah. I mean if I was also would have been three and four if they had dropped though. So then it would have been like either one of them would have been negative record in the top four. It just shows that we are kind of like a top three team league right now. FlyQuest keeping it interesting though with the win over lying. [00:35:44] Speaker B: The growth initiative. [00:35:47] Speaker A: The growth initiative, yeah. Yeah. Let's start at the beginning of the weekend though. Rather than going, you know, getting the. The normal trap of talking about the last one. Said Team Liquid versus C9 kicked things off. Badger, I'm gonna throw this one over to you. Team Liquid C9 first off, just did it live up to the Hype and expectation for these two teams and like the heavy hitters of the league, you know, [00:36:10] Speaker C: I, I came in with kind of lower expectations on this series, if I'm gonna be honest. Really wasn't. I really wasn't inspired by Team Liquid going into it. Like, there's. There's all the narrative that was built up of like, oh, you know, we were talking about how like Jose Dioto was like an MVP candidate and Vulcan was making the case for it, but like C9 just had Teal's number. Like AP. I don't know what's going. I don't know what happens with Apa when he plays against TL TL, but he looks like caps in like 2019. MSI pops off whenever he plays against Liquid. Like, [00:36:52] Speaker A: and on facilitating picks, he was like twisted faith. [00:36:54] Speaker C: Yeah. On those, like, yeah, they were just playing like heavy skirmish comps and they were just doing really well in team fights and playing the map very well. They were very suffocating in game one and then game two. It was just, you know, they. They just have so much oppression and CC built into the comp against a team that's, I don't want to say fairly squishy, but moderately squishy when you take a look up and down the picks. [00:37:24] Speaker A: So game two was the one where they got me excited to be like, oh, we're going to a game three. Like, Team Liquid are clapping back Yon. Core JJ are showing that they can actually fucking lane, which for some reason they just forgot to do earlier in the split and especially game one. You know, Quid was having a much better performance as well, getting around the map with Jose. But then like, yeah, it really was like Apa and Blabber having like a really big team fight moment, you know, turn the lights off. Annie just destroys Core JJ and Yon as they're trying to like look for a flame. [00:37:56] Speaker B: No love for Thanatos. [00:37:57] Speaker A: APA did a really good job of just marking, like flank or not marking flanks, but like looking for his own flanks and just preventing Yan from getting into any fights. It was really hard for Yan to actually do damage against the comp. [00:38:09] Speaker B: No love for Thanatos on that play, Kangas. That guy was the reason why Apa was able to get there. He TP'd to the ward. That was in Chicken, bro. That was at Chickens with the lights out. So they didn't seize the scion charging up a big ass cube. [00:38:23] Speaker A: No, that. That was a different play. That was an exciting one too. I'm thinking of the one that was around the dragon comes up from the bot lane from the river, like walks up and pushes. [00:38:32] Speaker B: Any play happens and you just assume that it could be like literally any of them. [00:38:36] Speaker A: Honestly. Yeah, there were a lot of them. But no, that was a cool play that you're talking about too where Thanatos like TPS over the raptor pit. There's a Caitlyn trap on him, but he still is able to charge the Q and get a double knock up. Apa gets a double stun off it that leads to the Baron. Yeah, that, that was crazy. [00:38:52] Speaker B: One thing I noticed about the series, Team Liquid do not play very well as a team. Like they just don't at all. Like they played shockingly bad in this game. I mean this, the, the, the overstay on the bot lane in game one where you know, yawn and core and Jose is coming through and they just kind of like sit there forever trying to think like, yeah, we're gonna dive here. And they just get counter ganked like because you just allowed Blabber 20 minutes to walk down to the bot lane was, was so dreadful. And like Morgan is like shoving extra waves that he shouldn't and getting flank TP'd on and they're just choosing really bad times to fight at objectives. Like the herald fight that they took was like super silly. Jose Deodo is still doing red buff core. JJ got bursted out. He's coming back from base. You have two drags to nothing. So like you, you lose that fight and then you lose all control of like being able to fight for the third dragon. So you lose all your dragon stacking. It was, it was just a really disappointing game to watch. It just felt like you were watching an inferior team play against a superior [00:40:15] Speaker A: team and that was not the expectation. When you think about like how teams and players talk about Team Liquid, they talk about them as scrim boogeyman that like, yeah, they're crazy good in scrims and they just show up on stage and do that. It's like, oh my God. You even go back to like the coach react cam spawn multiple times just being like what are we doing? Like just confusion around the jungle tempo. And like Jose, what he was choosing to do with the individual leads that he was able to find for himself in a couple of those moments. Just over pushing and the team not really coming together around him. So that not the, the heavy hitter result that I was hoping for. I definitely went to three games. I thought Team Liquid would look much better and I'm a little worried that C9 still look like the best team in our league because I'm not convinced that they're going to do well international if they even make it there. [00:41:11] Speaker D: That's the thing you're concerned by regular season Cloud nine. You haven't seen playoff Cloud nine yet. Cloud nine is [00:41:21] Speaker C: do they have something in store for you? [00:41:25] Speaker D: You're now playing with stakes. Oh you mean clown. [00:41:30] Speaker A: They have a habit of dropping the ball when that happens. [00:41:34] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:41:35] Speaker A: But usually not until later. Usually it's like in round two in the upper bracket or even in the grand finals like this winter. So I think that they'll be all right for at least a little while longer. We'll see if the pressure mounts for C9 as it always does. Shopify versus DSG was the other should happen on Saturday and really the only thing of note to talk about here is oh my God. Contracts got it back man. [00:41:59] Speaker B: Turn back. [00:41:59] Speaker A: Every now and then he likes to remind us that he is one of the na jungle goats. And so he's like game one lock me Olaf and holy. He literally just one v9 carried that entire game disgusting performance. [00:42:13] Speaker D: Olaf go Burr. [00:42:16] Speaker A: That moment at like the dragon soul where call me and Kry are hitting it when everyone else is mid and Contracts like walks backs to pick his death stance, runs straight to dragon, gets there in time to contest and then just 1v2 kills them and takes the dragon. It's like holy. [00:42:33] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:42:33] Speaker A: Crazy. [00:42:34] Speaker B: You knew. You knew it was over at that point. I mean there was a lot of great team play at a Shopify rebellion in this entire series. I thought that they played like a well oiled machine. [00:42:42] Speaker A: They. [00:42:43] Speaker B: There were a lot of moments where they could have made a mistake that I would expect out of a team that's on the lower part of the standings and they didn't. They showed a lot of really good restraint obviously like contract Smurf the series. Zenny didn't really play amazingly but had a lot of really nice plays on the Annie and then that Anivia wall that was so perfect. [00:43:06] Speaker A: Oh the one mid lane on Call me Call me. [00:43:10] Speaker B: Oh my goodness. Perfect. Yeah SEOs had an awesome game too on that. On that Nico and then bvoy just consistently good as he's always been. [00:43:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:43:21] Speaker A: B boy in game two especially was pumping the damage. I do want to note on the side of disguise though. Serde still having a good performance. Game one he solo kills Fudge K' Sante into Rumble and then game two on the Jace he's like the Only one with a gold lead for disguise. He individually had like a 5,000gold lead or something crazy over Fudge. But unfortunately you're Jace into like, you know, Wukong who's just gonna get on top of you and you can't really like stop that from happening. And then all the damage follow up of Ezreal Nico Nibia. Like it wasn't enough. But I, I was, I was proud of what Serdy did. Showing up for only two series at the end of a split and showing like, hey guys, if anybody wants to sign a native na top later, still around. [00:44:08] Speaker D: Really should have a team come summer. [00:44:10] Speaker B: Please, man. Oh, God. [00:44:12] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:44:12] Speaker A: I just know he's not going to like. Some part of me just understands that this league won't sign him. I don't understand. [00:44:22] Speaker D: I think he needs to pull a Toasty and go to the ERLS legitimately. [00:44:27] Speaker A: I think he would have a. A good shot over there. Toasty Yukino both having great success over in their respective teams. All right, well, there we go. That was this guy's last push for their potential chance because if they had won the series, they're in playoffs. Shopify needed to 20 the series to make playoffs. If they 2 1, then it would have come down to like maybe dignitas pull some crazy upset. But no, it did turn out that Shopify just destiny was in their hands. 20 the best looking Shopify we've seen all year. Yeah. Now let's see if they can keep it going because I, I still think that this is more of the peak of what they're capable of. And it was disguised a bottom two team. So, you know, what's this gonna mean for future implications and future series against better teams? I don't know. Still don't have a lot of faith in them. But it was fun being Stone Cold and, and hyping them up for a little bit. I that whole bit. By the way, if anybody is confused and didn't see the broadcast, I did like a stone Cold dress up and like gave Raz the stunner and we filmed some bits in between games. All of that came to be just because in the meeting I brought up so they have three wins and 16 losses. So like SR316. Can we just do a stone Cold bit? And they were like, fuck yeah, whatever you want to do. And so then we just like spitballed pretty much all of it. It just kind of like came up with it on the day. It was great. It was a really fun time. All right, next up up on Sunday or. Yeah, after the Saturday matches on Sunday we had Sentinels versus Dig. As Bickle said, pretty much meant nothing. Dig were out of playoffs. Sentinels were fighting for a chance at the top four. But it was a small chance and this was. I don't even want to talk about this one guys. Holy. This was the most depressing one sided game I've ever had to guess in my entire career. [00:46:26] Speaker D: Photon kept Dignitas from being perfect gamed. [00:46:30] Speaker B: Yeah, sure, sure. [00:46:33] Speaker A: They were not perfect gamed but it felt like they were it really. I, I never seen a team like so obviously just kind of give up in a stage game. Now again they were still like in some of the player comms we were hearing them kind of chuckle and laugh about stuff and they were going for attempted plays but none of them worked. They gave Hambach Skarner. I think that's rule number one against Sentinels right now. Do not give Hambock skarner or you're accepting a game loss because his garner's way too clean. So let's move on to the other very interesting match. I would say really the most exciting match of a weekend of relative stinkers. We had two one sided smashes with like bad teams. Air quote. And then one surprisingly one sided smash with C9 versus TLC. But fly quest lion went the distance. This one was much more exciting. Who wants to talk about this one? I was gonna just throw it out to somebody, but does that. Is anybody super opinionated about Lion Fly Quest? [00:47:32] Speaker D: Okay, you have an asterisk for this. [00:47:34] Speaker C: Can I, can I just say if Castle's gonna do whatever the he's doing. [00:47:41] Speaker A: Oh no. [00:47:42] Speaker C: Can you just wait until summer to play this guy? [00:47:45] Speaker A: Oh yeah. 0% win rate with Castle. He. [00:47:51] Speaker C: He has not won a single game for lion and it's been big doaks the entire time. And you have this team that's pretty good, you know, may or may not be, you know, kind of a favorite to potentially take the title once C9 does, you know, their usual C9 playoff thing, but you're trying to integrate them into a team mid split after a trade and it's just not going well. The team just looks off. Is it is Dokla? Dokla's like the biggest glue guy in the league right now because this team looks lost without him. They look like they just fall to pieces. [00:48:37] Speaker A: Yep. And that game three, I think not only was it the team play but the draft as well. You're going for like a one three one style comp but you're pairing it With a Yannara. Yanara is a team fight ad carry who loves it when everyone groups up together. You have nobody to really make him group up except for Isles on Rakan. But then it's like Castles on Yorick. He doesn't really want to join the fight. And then Saint on Aurora can maybe look for a flank to back that up. But like, I just. I feel like Castle and what he's trying to do on the team is so different from what Dokla was doing and the team is not looking good with that style. Also. Shout out. Griffin got to play Nasus on stage. It was the first LCS NASA stage game since 2013. I believe it was Saint Vicious that had played it last. So 13 years ago. Crazy to think about, he had played it in one of the EWC qualifiers. But this is the first time in LCS stage in Tier one for a while. So really cool to see that. What do we think this means about Fly Quest defense? [00:49:42] Speaker D: This game meant legitimately nothing to them. They could have two owed 022112. They would not have changed the fact that they were in second place. So I don't hate the fact that they're saying, okay, we won with Cat. I mean, we lost with Castle, we won with Docla. Let's just see what happens with another Castle game. If it actually meant something for them, I'd be flaming the hell out of them for playing Castle in that third game. But it meant nothing. It was a Scream game. [00:50:08] Speaker A: I think. Arguably this is a funny point that I had heard brought up heading into the weekend. There's an argument that they should have swapped the schedule and had this series play on Saturday and the C9TL series play on Sunday. [00:50:27] Speaker D: So Fly Quest was still. I mean, so lion was still actually playing for theoretically something. [00:50:32] Speaker A: Exactly. Because otherwise, if you believe the players, Fly Quest is a stronger team than Sentinels. So lion was kind of incentivized to lose so that FlyQuest was fourth to play against C9, as opposed to Sentinels being fourth to play against C9. Because now there's a chance that FlyQuest can maybe pull an upset in the upper bracket and lion has an easier upper bracket run because Lions been kind of running FlyQuest. So that. That's. [00:50:58] Speaker C: I don't know. [00:50:58] Speaker A: I don't think that's what happened here. But I think that it's like another side effect of them doing this Castle experiment and being like, ah, it doesn't matter if we lose. It's fine to just like get more stage experience for Castle also if like was beat us, it's arguably better for us in the upper bracket anyway. Which is kind of like another sour asterisk to have because you don't want to have that thought that a team would do that. But like they were incentivized to let FlyQuest win because it's a harder opponent. Now for. For C9 Sentinels would have been top four if lion had just won this series. Weird to think about. But then there's also the counter argument that Sentinels were a top three team last like like in. In the lock in tournament. So that's only if you agree that FlyQuest is a better team. It's just that a lot of players on like pros and stuff have been given Fly Quest a lot of props of yeah, they're actually a better team than the record shows. And it' top three region. It's the top four region. Fly Quest is up there with us and not really giving the same respect to Sentinels. So I don't fully buy in because I think Sentinels and Fly Quests are actually very similar in strength and I think Sentinels is slightly better right now. So I actually think that this is better for C9 to play fly. They also have a good matchup against Fly and a worse matchup against Sentinels. Although they I guess did also father Sentinels a lot last split anyway. But like again I just don't like those little asterisks that can be next to teams and they're kind of like incentives in these types of situations. Yeah. All that to say FlyQuest did get the win and I want to give props to them. So real quick everyone, thoughts on how high is FlyQuest going to fly? Badger, let's start with you. Is FlyQuest a top four team? Top three team? If team Liquid's not looking as good, like where do you think Fly Quest settle now? [00:52:46] Speaker C: I. I think at this point I would give them top three. I think it's. I think going into playoffs it would be. Well I guess I can't do the caveat. Lion with Dokla 1C9. [00:52:59] Speaker A: Okay. [00:53:00] Speaker C: Fly 3 TL4 lion with Castle 5. [00:53:06] Speaker A: Okay, nice. I like it. I like it. So lion with Castle still beat Sentinels then? Because I think he'll beat Sentinels. [00:53:15] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Exactly. [00:53:21] Speaker A: Yanni, what are your thoughts on FlyQuest as a team right now? Do you do. First off, do you think like they're top three? But then also I'm curious your thoughts on their development so far from like split one or Lock in tournament rather to now here in. In spring split. [00:53:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I could reasonably see them as a top three team, especially with the way things have been going for team Liquid. It feels like they're trending downward. Flagwest are trending upward. And I mean the progression of this roster is nothing short of amazing, right? Because these are obviously very talented players, but they are also highly inexperienced players at the highest level and they've been able to come through and you know, lock in. They, you know, obviously are finishing slightly higher in spring than they did in lock in. But that's awesome, right? Any sort of immediate progression that you're seeing come out of this team is fantastic. And you know, now it's a team that we can be excited about again. Right? Because remember how everybody was always excited about FlyQuest like the last two years or so, like, yeah, this team can go and they can, they can punch with the best of them internationally. Right. And then you have all the roster changes and you kind of have to reframe your focus of like, okay, this is developmental roster. Where are they going to land? Well, now we're getting to the next step of they can punch with the best in na and I think once you get to that step already after not even fully finishing the second split, that's really fantastic growth and makes me even more excited than I was for this team. Okay. [00:54:57] Speaker A: I like it. I. I think that I agree with most of that sentiment. I just don't know if I have enough hype behind them to again put them above a team like Sentinels that has just so much more experience right now. I feel like a lot of conversations I'm hearing is like, oh, Fly Quest is better than Sentinels. I. I'm still not 100 convinced, but Bickle, I want to get your thoughts and then also bake. I'm going to phrase it for you. Do you think FlyQuest makes worlds? Because that was kind of the goal of the team is to level up over the year and if they're already punching into top four right now, does that mean that they could go for top top three and make a Worlds push? [00:55:33] Speaker D: I think right now they are solidly at third. And I don't just think they make worlds, I think they make MSI. [00:55:42] Speaker A: Oh. [00:55:44] Speaker D: I think we see the traditional Cloud9 playoff collapse unfortunately and FlyQuest is able to capitalize on that and grab second. [00:55:57] Speaker A: Okay. Bold prediction. I like it. [00:56:00] Speaker C: Interesting. [00:56:01] Speaker D: I definitely think FlyQuest has been showing the high potential they have as a young roster in being able to play up with the best with the hands checks, they just need to sometimes be able to rein it in, which will come with experience. And even if they don't end up making an msi, I do think I'd pick them to go to Worlds. [00:56:23] Speaker A: Okay, yeah, MSI is a bold prediction for me because I feel like lion and C9 are just so far above. Yeah, I get the lead right now. [00:56:31] Speaker D: It's predicated on a C9 clap, unfortunately. [00:56:35] Speaker A: And because we've seen so many C9 collapses, I could see that too. But even if you think about the winter C9 collapse, it was a collapse in finals, it wasn't a collapse earlier. So I still think that C9 should be able to make it two finals unless they collapse earlier than we typically see them. If they just make it through the upper bracket, they're going msi. So yeah, we'll see what happens there. But I. I like it. Spicy take. Spicy take. Let's talk about our expectations then for next week because that is it for this past weekend's LCS games. I highly Recommend Checking out FlyQuest vs Lion. If you miss any of the series, it's really the only one that had great games in terms of like back and forth. If you want to see any of the funny bits that we did though, Shopify Rebellion versus DSG was also a lot of fun for for me. So if you like wrestling references, go check that one out. But playoff predictions this coming weekend we have two best of fives in the LCS upper bracket. We've already talked about it a little bit. C9 versus Fly Quest. We all have C9 across the board. So Bickle. You don't think FlyQuest takes the better of C9 this early? You think it's gonna be later in the bracket yet? [00:57:44] Speaker D: I don't think they beat them this time. [00:57:47] Speaker A: This time you have a three. Two though, so you still have a close series. I think it'll be close. I have a3.0. I think it's still C9 heavily favored here. Dude. APA I. I legitimately think it's their C9 solo laners are the best solo laners in the league right now. Thanatos by a mile in top lane. And I actually have APA as my All Pro number one mid laner right now. We actually have votes for that coming up here. I totally forgot about that to bake it into this episode. But maybe next episode we can do that because they shouldn't be announced yet by that point next week. But we can do our All Pro ballots for LCS And Lec, because I think that Apa is just. He's had a couple of bad laning phases, but he. He's had so many individual moments where he plays a team fight so well that it individually wins them the team fight, and then they. They get an objective and can win the game off of that. And I'm like, man, he's got a clutch factor that I have not seen Apa kind of show since his debut split on Team Liquid, where he was playing with, like, Prime Core, Yawn and stepping up to facilitate them. Now he's facilitating and carrying at the same time. Very, very impressed. TL versus lion is the other matchup this coming weekend, though. I got lion, three two. Biggle's got lion three one. Yanni's got lion three two. Badger, what do you have? [00:59:08] Speaker C: I have Dokla winning the series. [00:59:10] Speaker A: 3 2. Yep, there we go. So does that mean Castle loses the two games? [00:59:16] Speaker C: Yes. If they play Castle, he loses the games. If they play Doka, they win the games. [00:59:21] Speaker A: Good call. Good call. We just saw this match actually [00:59:26] Speaker B: not [00:59:26] Speaker A: this past weekend, but the weekend before. And I definitely expected Castle to step up and be able to take down Morgan, but they still lost with Castle. Castle now in his defense because Inspired mentioned this in an interview that Castle had to play Rise into Rumble, which is a matchup that they had been practicing with Dokla. Castle did not get practice with that matchup, but they still wanted him to play it for the comp. But then you factor in this past weekend's games, and Castle also lost two. So it's like, eventually, how much are you gonna be able to defend that? So we all have lion at the end of the day, and we all have C9. That's it for LCS in terms of our reactions and predictions for this coming weekend. So it's time to hop across the pond now to lec, where there's no reactions from this past weekend, but we can still predict for their playoff week one. Annoyingly, thank you, Bakel, for reminding me. It is not synced up with lcs. It will be three best of fives this coming weekend. They'll play upper bracket and then also the winners of the upper bracket against each other. Starts off with KC versus G2 on Saturday. I have G2.30. Badger's got G230. Pickles got G230. Yanni's got G230. Wow. We all did the boring one. Oh, that's tough. Anyone gonna change? Anyone willing? Damn. Okay, well, I guess it's just G2. No, 3 2. I'm a 3 0. I wanted to use G2, but I really think Casey's good for 1 1. [01:00:59] Speaker C: These two teams just played last week in an EWC qualifier, and it was not close. G2 is. G2 was taking their lunch money. [01:01:10] Speaker A: So I'm changing. I'm going G2. 3 0. Okay. I'll be. I'll be the fun one. I want some lunch money. Maybe G2 will pay me some. If I believe in them. [01:01:20] Speaker C: G2 will pay you in lunch money. [01:01:22] Speaker A: Vitality versus McOil. Is that on Sunday? And this one's a little more split. This one's spicy. We all have five games. Myself and Bickle think it's McOid. Badger and Yanni think it's a Vitality. Bickle, you're on my side, but I'll let you give the defense here. Why do you think MCOI is going to be the one to win this match? [01:01:39] Speaker D: Vitality has been looking very good as of late, which means it's right about time for Vitality to start choking. But also, JoJo Pune has been on an entirely different, different level as of late, and it's just been looking absolutely phenomenal. The only person in the middle and that's been even rivaling him right now is caps, because CAPS is caps, and we'll do CAPS things. And I think the highs and lows of both these teams is variable enough that we'll see some differentiation here and there. But I think that MKOI has enough to kind of pull it all together in the end. [01:02:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I think that McCoy, they have draft potential, advantage in the top lane, and then JoJo's just gonna win, really, any side of any matchup in my mind. Don't think Humanoid's got enough in the tank to take him down. Yanni. I'll throw it to you, though. Why do you think Vitality, again? [01:02:32] Speaker B: When we talk about this team, I think we talk about a team that is playing well as a. As a unit. I think that will continue. I do not think that they're gonna have to deal with the problems of the lights being too bright for them. I mean, this is the best team in Europe for the season for a reason, and I expect them to. I think this is actually, like, not Fool's Cold, right. I expect them to continue to play very well. And, yeah, I think that we. We could have a new. A new power arising. There's always one team throughout the year that surprises you in either N A or eu, and I think that at least for split two Vital. At least that surprise team. [01:03:13] Speaker A: Okay, so at least you're leaning on tradition for one of those. There is usually, if not always one team that surprises us. What I want to remind everybody though is that there was long ago a witch that cursed the LEC. The G2 would be bad in the regular season and then when playoffs and that vitality, even if they're in the regular season, will bomb in playoffs. So I don't, I, I, I just, I didn't make the curse. I just like to educate people on it. At least it feels like it's that at this point. Either way, the winners of both of those series will match up against each other on a Monday. Everyone loves Monday Night league, right? Remember when that was a thing in North America? 2020 Monday callback. The winners of each series will go up against each other. We all have G2 across the board. We think G2 are just the raid bosses of the LEC and will make maintain their position at the top of the standings. Various three O's, three ones, three twos. With Yanni giving vitality a lot of respect. Wow, Yanni, you know what? Credit for consistency. You do have vitality. Pushing G2 to 5 games as well. And to be clear, I would love it. I love vitality as a team. I really hope that they do well. I just, you know that. That darn witch, she cursed him. It's crazy. [01:04:27] Speaker B: Listen, I don't believe in curses. Ever since the the Philadelphia Eagles broke the curse of William Pe. [01:04:32] Speaker A: Fun. I don't know that reference, but I'm happy for you. [01:04:36] Speaker D: Go Birds. [01:04:37] Speaker B: Go Birds. [01:04:38] Speaker A: Go Birs. All right, that's going to do it for another week of the league rundown. A pretty short one when it comes to talking about the leagues themselves. Which is why we took some more time at the beginning to hash out all of the news. But playoff season is upon us and that is always an exciting time to see who's going to be going to representing each region at msi. Both regions will get two representatives. Actually, you know what? We kind of did it for LE lcs. Sorry. Let's do it for lec. Top to bottom. Let's predict who's going to represent. I'll go first. I think it's gonna be G2 and I'll go MCOI. I think G2 and MKOY are going to MSI. Badger, who you got? Do we have Badger? We might. [01:05:22] Speaker C: I'm sorry, I'm just thinking. I'm trying to think. I mean, I think it's just D2KC like these are the two best DC teams. [01:05:28] Speaker A: Okay. [01:05:28] Speaker D: Bickel, it's boring, it's basic. It's the right answer. It's G2KC. [01:05:34] Speaker A: Okay. And Yanni, G2. [01:05:35] Speaker B: Vitality. [01:05:37] Speaker A: Hell yeah. All right. I like that we have three different opinions. [01:05:42] Speaker D: Giant X Navi. [01:05:46] Speaker A: Dude, that's not possible. No, they both went at the lower bracket. Yeah, but honestly, if somebody put gx, that would have been pretty ballerina. Now, Yanni, if anybody wanted to leave a review on this episode, specific episode of the podcast, how many stars would you recommend they leave? If you had to give it a numerical value? [01:06:05] Speaker B: No. No worries. So you got Vitality and McCoy. [01:06:10] Speaker A: Right. [01:06:11] Speaker B: And we all think this series is going to be three. Two. How many games is that? [01:06:17] Speaker A: Three plus two. Carry the one. That's five. [01:06:20] Speaker B: I thought you were going to tell me goddamn 47 for a second second. It is indeed five. So you should leave that amount of [01:06:27] Speaker A: stars, which I'm happy that you reminded me of that reference from last week because that was a banger reference and I did not get it. But then you showed us afterwards and I was like, I feel bad. That was actually a really funny reference you dropped on the podcast. [01:06:40] Speaker B: Put you on peak. It's all good. [01:06:42] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Five stars helps us get noticed on the podcast and helps us continue to grow the podcast. So thank you, everybody who does leave a review. And thank you everybody for sticking through to this part of the podcast. Not everybody watches all the way, or rather listens all the way to the end. If you're watching, you should probably do something else with your eyes because we don't put out a video with these. But if you've listened this far, just know that we love you and we'll see you next time. Bye Bye, everybody. [01:07:11] Speaker B: See ya. [01:07:11] Speaker D: Peace. [01:07:14] Speaker A: Oh, yes. Daddy. Sam.