League Rundown - Episode 613: Do you believe in miracles?

[00:00:12] Speaker A: Gets hit. [00:00:12] Speaker B: Kimmy kids a little too far here. He's gonna have to try and get himself out. [00:00:15] Speaker C: Let me go. [00:00:16] Speaker B: 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 [00:00:23] Speaker C: game by [00:00:26] Speaker D: should be. [00:00:27] Speaker B: Oh my God. Stupid. Passes through and manages to the table with Messiah tanking it up. I do not believe he just believe. I cannot understand this game. Unicorns of love. It wasn't a mutant. The Nexus. Hello and welcome to episode 613 of the League Rundown. This is your 2026 MSI preview episode and it's lovingly entitled do you believe in miracles. I'm your host Kangas and I'm joined by four esteemed co hosts. That's right. We got a big crowd tonight to talk MSI up first. Fresh out of the can, we got [00:01:27] Speaker D: badger in this case. I don't believe in miracles, Steve. Thank you for asking. [00:01:31] Speaker B: You do not believe in miracles? [00:01:33] Speaker D: No. Christmas miracle is not going to happen. It's not Christmas in July. It's. It's going to be disappointment for one team in particular that we'll get to. [00:01:42] Speaker B: Well we'll talk all about that in a bit. Also to talk about that we got and the big bickle pickle. [00:01:47] Speaker A: Well we've been saying that the past few finals could have been an email this plans is about to be a DM [00:01:55] Speaker B: and like a sleazy one too. Like one that you don't want to get. It's just like makes you feel dirty. Don't open that that image that link. Also joining us, we got Mr. Mazelpl. [00:02:08] Speaker C: Hello. I'm excited to spread the wonderful news of the lpl. It's going to be a great time. [00:02:14] Speaker B: Well you picked the wrong episode because there are not actually playing in play ins. They're both going straight. [00:02:19] Speaker C: That's why the news needs to be spread. [00:02:21] Speaker B: Oh yes, true, true. You need to plant the seeds now for future growth. But to also help us talk through play ins we got the one, the only friend of the pod, Mikko joining us again. How's it going Mikko? [00:02:37] Speaker E: Well, my national football team is about to eat the dirt. So I'm going to now obsess over the one thing that we never lose in. [00:02:49] Speaker D: Is that. [00:02:50] Speaker B: Is that league of legends. [00:02:50] Speaker E: Yes. [00:02:51] Speaker B: Plans. Because I think you guys did just lose in first stand. [00:02:55] Speaker E: Yeah. So. Yeah, that didn't count. [00:02:58] Speaker B: Oh, okay, okay, okay. Sure, sure. Fake tournament. Not even important. Most people call first strike anyways, so who knows what's my line. That is your line. [00:03:06] Speaker D: Son of a. She stole my line. [00:03:08] Speaker E: I'll start nodding with disapproval, but with respect if the results change with starting with this msi. [00:03:14] Speaker B: True. Well, MSI historically had been the tournament that LPL kind of crushed. So you picked a tough one to really back Korea or choose to direct your fandom towards. You have a chance at World Cup. I think you could do it. Mexico's a good team. Okay. [00:03:30] Speaker E: No, I don't have faith. [00:03:31] Speaker B: Okay, fair enough. Who else is in the. In the group? I know you had Mexico. Did you. You tied your other game, right? Didn't Korea tie a game? [00:03:39] Speaker E: Yeah, Korea tied. No, no, we won against Czechia, and then we. We were 10 from Mexico because of the worst fumble that I've ever seen in my life. And if we don't beat South Africa, I swear, though, that national team will not be able to make it back home. [00:04:00] Speaker D: Yeah, there you go. [00:04:00] Speaker B: See, you're fine. It's top two make it out of the group, right? [00:04:03] Speaker E: Yeah. And the worst part is they're gonna [00:04:05] Speaker C: go on vacation, right? [00:04:06] Speaker E: No. Well, they're gonna play against Canada and then they'll most likely lose. But, yeah, the hope was that we finish first. But no, our goalie had different. Yeah. Point of view on it. [00:04:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Like Mazel said, they're not gonna go home. They're just gonna go on vacation. So the goalie wanted to go on [00:04:24] Speaker E: vacation for a very, very, very, very, very long time. [00:04:28] Speaker B: One way to dodge the military draft. All right, let's talk about msi. Or rather before msi, actually talk about some of the news that was going around the horn. Actually, a lot of roster news this offseason. In particular, pretty late from spring to summer. We expected some moves, and now they're already a couple that are being confirmed here. Up first, Mazel. Over in North America in the LCS Shopify rebellion have confirmed they have parted ways with SEOs, and Zazel is set to replace him. What are your thoughts on. On Zazel coming up from NaCl from tier 2? [00:05:03] Speaker C: Again, fear the beard. Well, technically he's not because he's not playing in NACL right now, but I am really excited. I think he should have had a team. I think it was a shame that he didn't have a team in Tier two. I don't know what happened with his off season or whatever, but I still think he's a great leader. I think he's shown that he can bring a team up, especially from the support position, and he's still very engaged Focused, which I think is what the meta is leaning into as now. So I actually think it's a really big pickup and I'm just happy to see Zazel back. I think he's a great, like, maybe he doesn't make the most content in the scene, but he's a great presence to have. He's very nice. He's great in interviews. I've had a great time talking to him over his multiple NACL championships, and I don't think people should judge him off of his international performance with C9 the last time. That's like what people, a lot of people associate. Even though they, I think they did pretty well, I still think people should kind of go into it with a fresh face. [00:05:58] Speaker B: On Zazel, I think that a big conversation I've seen around is that it's a snub for some other, you know, more developing support players. Do you, do you agree or do you think that this is still the best and I want to get some of the other guys also? [00:06:13] Speaker A: For sure. [00:06:13] Speaker C: Like, I see that there's some developing supports right now, but I think Zazel's the clear target. [00:06:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I, my, it's been a bit since I've been like, deeply invested in NACL and watching Tier two play, so I don't think I'm really like the even close to subject matter expert in this, but my opinion is there's not a lot of supports that I'm hearing hype for in Tier two. And when I stopped casting Tier two, I still felt like Zazel was probably like the best, if not like top two, at least supports in the league. Still, I want to get some other people's thoughts, though. Badger, what are your thoughts on Zazel coming in, specifically replacing Sales? Like, do you have any thoughts about Sales leaving the team? [00:06:54] Speaker D: And then I, I think this is what the team needs. They just, you got to change pieces out. I mean, we were so high. We were, we are all the, the rundown as a pod was so high on them coming into the season, obviously. [00:07:08] Speaker A: Yep. [00:07:09] Speaker D: And we've just been dealt disappointment the entire time. So, you know, if, if it takes a different leader, a proven leader in the past, so be it. I mean, we'll see how it goes from here. I, I, I don't know if it's too little, too late at this point, but we'll, we'll see in summer. Hopefully they're able to put up a more competitive split. [00:07:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't believe this is going to fix it. That's my two cents is I still gotta be. [00:07:40] Speaker D: Listen, gotta have. Gotta have a little hobium in there. So. [00:07:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess. Miko, do you have any quick thoughts on this one before we move on to the. The next roster? A rumor slash announcement. [00:07:53] Speaker E: I just asked for some opinions of other people and I think Mizel's opinion is quite echoed that Zazel is like the only competent one. And for a lot of times I think it's the tragedy of NaCl where a lot of the players have to be self coached and support and jungle are the two roles in my opinion that are really, really hard to develop, especially transitioning from solo queue to pro. And it's not even the coach's fault that they have to just figure things out and they genuinely have to have a knack for it. So it's, it makes sense to me at the very least that you want a veteran in the support role and a lot of teams that have found success in that. So I hope that works for them because the two imports that they have on Shopify are also the ones with slightly lower than average experience when it comes to imports. [00:08:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's Zinnian, Bvoid. These are not like I'm trying to get like a bigger example of like a really hyped import that came in to carry that, I guess Sword art. Oh God, I don't want to remember that. No, no, that was a bad example. We're gonna move on. [00:08:58] Speaker E: Like river would be a better example. Who would river when he was playing. [00:09:04] Speaker B: Oh sure. Yeah. Or like maybe Huni. Would Huni be a better example too? [00:09:07] Speaker E: Like who was well decorated when he came to na. So I think that could be a good example. [00:09:13] Speaker B: All right, well, keeping it in na. I'm gonna call somebody out. It was an anonymous message in the Google Doc, but there was somebody that all caps said tactical to C9 rumor with like 30 Rs. Is this because I had. I know people are talking about like what. [00:09:32] Speaker C: What's happening? [00:09:33] Speaker B: Is this an official rumor? Like I haven't heard anybody reporting on this. [00:09:37] Speaker C: There's a lot of talk conversation about it. Especially in the season. Yeah. Because the teams are already making moves for the next split. Oh, is not on the lists, dude. He's. He's moving in for his bed, bro. Like Sven is out. I. I don't know. I don't know. It could not happen. Like these are all rumors. But yeah, that would be crazy. [00:09:56] Speaker D: And I joked about C9 getting another ad carry that we'll talk about here in a little bit. But like yeah, Tactical. You know what it we ball at this point. [00:10:06] Speaker B: Tactical looked really bad the last couple splits, but reminder, he was on Immortals. [00:10:12] Speaker C: But I will say in just a little context for Tactical, he took some time off. He wasn't playing for a majority of the. The opening of the of NaCl. He came in as a sub for conviction and he went on. He had like a huge long series of posts where he was talking about how like he was taking things for granted before. He didn't really like the way he like left things last time around, even though, you know, he was a champion and he like was going on this journey to like stream more, be more connected with community. I don't think any of that has happened, but he's been damn good on the rips. [00:10:43] Speaker B: Okay. [00:10:43] Speaker C: Really, really cool to see he's. Besides some of the budding ADCs that we've had. Especially like looking at Sushi. I still think tattoo was like heads and above a lot of them. So the dude's locked in. [00:10:53] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean in. In a league where Scary Jerry is kind of the top 80 carry, I feel like kids, something like Tactical, if you're gonna go for an NA player pretty big. And that would be very different than my expectation for what C9 would do to replace Ven. They have an import slot available. I expected like a Korean challenger, like tier two player to come in and just hop into the roster and they're just like, yeah, figure it out. But grabbing another NA player that doesn't take up an import slot. Very, very cool. Very, very based. If C9 does do that, some things that are more confirmed. This will set Badger up to talk about who he was expecting because GX announced today that they're dropping some players and there's some rumors for who's replacing them. Badger, who's getting dropped from gx. [00:11:39] Speaker D: So GX announced today that Lot and Noah are being moved to the bench and they're bringing in Oscar in it and flack it. Oh my God. 2023. We're so fucking back. [00:11:53] Speaker B: Okay, so I saw the confirmed of not a lot and Noah and then Bickle. I think you're the one that was talking about Oscar and flack it at first. So is that a rumor or is that just expected? [00:12:04] Speaker A: Flack? It has been announced by team, by GX and confirmed. Oh, Oscar. And it's just the name that's rolling around there that I thought. [00:12:12] Speaker D: I thought he was announced. [00:12:13] Speaker A: No, Oscar wasn't announced. No, Flak. It was announced. [00:12:17] Speaker D: Okay. [00:12:17] Speaker B: Okay, interesting. Well, either way, it's been a bit since we've seen flacked benefits since we've seen Oscar in it as well. Do we think that this makes them better? [00:12:28] Speaker C: No. [00:12:28] Speaker D: No. [00:12:30] Speaker A: I don't. I don't know what the hell GX [00:12:32] Speaker D: is thinking but dear God, what are they thinking? [00:12:34] Speaker A: Oscar in until from lot. Okay. I can see it like you gotta change something. Lot's not the biggest name. Throw something at the wall and Steve it sticks from Noah to Flock it. I just. Why like what's next? Are you getting replacing? Do you bring Targum send that support? [00:12:59] Speaker D: Is he free? [00:13:00] Speaker B: I have to remind myself that flock it was on G2 at like a [00:13:04] Speaker A: point in his career that Flocked Targum is roster of G2. [00:13:09] Speaker B: Right. That roster was so bad. Then he went to Team Heretics and most recently he was just a co streamer for Giant X. Yeah, I think [00:13:16] Speaker A: he had this the winter and spring off. [00:13:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:21] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:13:21] Speaker B: So he got signed as a co streamer. I think he actually might have played for like they're like academy team or something for a bit. [00:13:29] Speaker A: He played for their academy team in winter and then co streamed for them during that time period. Sure. [00:13:37] Speaker B: Well, I think it's like you said. I also don't agree that this is going to be better for the team. I don't really understand the. [00:13:44] Speaker A: I'd like to point out though, they're their. The EU Masters team apparently looks like it was terrible. [00:13:54] Speaker B: Okay. This is so, so like doubling down. This is a bad move basically. [00:13:59] Speaker A: Like normally a good player like that can carry you far, but apparently, apparently not. [00:14:07] Speaker D: Apparently. [00:14:08] Speaker B: Well, okay. [00:14:09] Speaker A: Now because Giant X is EU Masters team had the Antonio Jungling who retired as a top laner last year. [00:14:20] Speaker B: You know what? It's starting to add up why they did so poorly. [00:14:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:23] Speaker B: Would you put it that way as well? They had a till. [00:14:28] Speaker A: Okay. [00:14:28] Speaker E: Okay. [00:14:28] Speaker B: I don't know who that is, but I'm just gonna nod my head and say oh yeah, okay. [00:14:31] Speaker D: Don't worry about it. [00:14:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So Oscar Renan was a player that we just saw recently on Fnatic. He was their top laner for two years from 23 to 25. So actually three or two and a half essentially did not make a lot of waves on Fnatic. So this seems like side grades at best. Downgrades more likely. And that was what you were joking about Badger, because you were saying before we started like, hey, I want to see nine. [00:15:01] Speaker D: I honestly, I mean they have time. [00:15:05] Speaker B: They. [00:15:05] Speaker D: They got a boot camp coming up and conveniently Noah is Korean and they will Be in Korea for a boot camp. So you know, I'm not trying to start rumors or anything like that or play play Couch, but Korea boot camp, Couch, gm. All. [00:15:22] Speaker B: All you want though. Badger, I believe. I think that C9, if they go with the tactical route, that's cool. But they do have an opportunity because you're right, they are boot camping in Korea to actually try people out. I would not be surprised if they are trying out players while they're over there. Okay, one other thing in the LEC Bickle Vitality made a big announcement after a dominating regular season and then a bomb out in playoffs. They're making roster moves as well. [00:15:51] Speaker A: Yeah, so it turns out after you go 8 and 1 in the regular season and are clearly the first play team into 06 in the playoffs, someone's head is going to roll. And in this case it's Humanoid. Humanoids heading over to the bench. Over on Vitality, nothing come out yet about potential replacements. It's been rumored they're looking LCK Challenger League, as most teams usually do, but we'll have to wait and see what comes out. [00:16:18] Speaker B: Yep. Now, notably, this is not a they're letting him go, it is a benching. So he, I believe will still be receiving his payment from the contract. Will still be on the roster technically, but he will not be their starting mid laner. If things change, maybe they bring him back in. So if you're a big Humanoid fan. I'm a bit of a Humanoid fan. I like it when he succeeds. It's tough when he's struggling, but I. I joke about him lovingly when I tease his bad plays. But yeah, you can still root for him because maybe he makes a comeback. Okay, that was all the roster news that I was able to catch unless anybody noticed anything else. Going once, going twice, boom. If we missed anything, let us know in the community. Discord. You can find a link to that in the description wherever you are listening to the podcast. The only other bit of news that we can cover is did anybody see the big systems update that's coming to the client starting tomorrow in all games, including ranked and I would assume then also in pro play, which is the execution threshold on Minions. Is everyone caught up on that? [00:17:27] Speaker A: That's ever. I thought that was just in norms. [00:17:30] Speaker D: No. [00:17:32] Speaker A: All right. [00:17:32] Speaker B: It's in everything. And if it's in ranked, I would assume it's in in tournament realm and pro play as well. Yeah, let's get everyone's thoughts here. Badger, how big of an impact will this have on pro play? Because obviously it's gonna have a huge impact. I don't think it's most people's games. [00:17:47] Speaker D: I. I feel like anything above, like, diamond, it's not going to have that much of an impact on the game. But I lower yellow. Like, it makes sense to have this in there. Like higher yellow. Like, it's just gonna be annoying and it feels like. I don't know. I don't think it matters that much in, like, tier three and above. [00:18:12] Speaker B: Okay, interesting. Mika, let's get your thoughts. Yeah, this affects pro play at all. [00:18:16] Speaker E: I agree. I. I don't. I think the change is minimal, mainly because if you hit pro play and if you hit like, top of, like, what League of Legends is supposed to be, it's not even the question of can you hit the minions at a specific time. It's the more the question of can you manipulate the waves, like, shape, so that, like, which you decide which minion gets hit first, which minion gets his last, Vice versa. That is the level that you go up to. And at that point, then having a small indicator to help you when your auto attack is going to kill off a minion is like, negligible. Right. Like, it's basically saying to them that, like, you're gonna give them, like, fundamental base. Like give them a calculator when they already have a supercomputer in their head. [00:19:04] Speaker B: Yeah, here's a calculator. I'm holding an iPhone, but sure. [00:19:09] Speaker E: So that's. I think that's just what it's going to be. I think it's going to be a good change for rank, though. [00:19:16] Speaker B: So mazel quick. Yes. [00:19:18] Speaker D: No. [00:19:18] Speaker B: Does it. Does it affect pro play or is it going to, like, make pro play drastically different? [00:19:22] Speaker E: Yes. [00:19:23] Speaker D: No. [00:19:23] Speaker C: No, I don't think so. [00:19:24] Speaker B: Pickle. Yes. [00:19:25] Speaker C: No. [00:19:25] Speaker E: No. [00:19:27] Speaker B: Okay. I think that there will be a delta that is visible in stats in ad carries, mid laners, top laners, CS per minute, and it will be biggest in regions like cb, LOL and lcs. I legitimately think that we will see like, on average CS per minute go up by a statistically relevant number. I don't know what it's going to be exactly, but my entire time watching lcs, one thing that I've talked with coaches a lot about is like, how often do you drill CSING into your players? Because, like, let's just take Sven for example. Sven misses a lot of minions when he's just in a wave on his own, the cameras on him, and he just like, misses arranged minion for no reason. And I'm like there's no harassment happening. You just missed that for zero. And I legitimately think that we will like see this have an effect on like certain item breakpoints because if you miss enough minions in the first 20 minutes of the game, that could be the difference between a completed item or two components. So I think it depends on the region is basically my point is regions that don't drill CSING nearly as much and and we're much more lax about it. I think you will see a noticeable increase in that stat. Am I crazy? Does anyone want to talk me down? Does anybody want to disagree? [00:20:55] Speaker E: I'll just give you like a mid lane like example to kind of support your point is if you perfect cs then you could actually recall a wave earlier. For mage item breakpoints, which is often your first recall unless you are somehow like extended your trade for a really long time. It's either dark seal refill or Sapphire Crystal and refill both are the same exact amount of gold. And the mage that ends up making that recall first and is deployed to the map often gets like map advantage. So if the mid laner who is frequently like badass CSING is given that assistance and they could hit that breakpoint more consistently, then yeah, maybe the game quality will change drastically. Who knows? I don't know. [00:21:40] Speaker B: But yeah, I think that at least in the stats we'll see a difference whether in the gameplay we'll see a difference. You know that that's much harder to actually like quantify. Yeah. All right, cool. I was just curious if anybody would have the the same read on it as myself, but man, after casting LCS for a year and a half now I'm so tilted watching our players see us. They miss a lot of freaking videos, dude. Okay, that was, I think it for the news. We've already covered all the teams that are going to be at msi. This episode is going to be all about MSI play ins. We will try and get an episode out next week. Hopefully. I'm not going to try and promise that it'll be before the group stage starts because it's going to be just one big go. There's no breaks. It's every day. There's games plans will bleed right into the bracket stage the next day. But we'll try and get it out hopefully early before bracket stage. So that way you can hear at least our kind of thoughts on how bracket's going to shape out out. But that means it's time to talk about msi. Play ins are right around the corner they're starting this coming weekend and I for one, am psyched I hit that point today. I don't know if anybody else has this. Whereas, like, anytime an international event's coming up, there's that moment during a day leading up that you just get, like, just get a little giddy, you know, you're just like, yeah, Internationals around the corner, baby. [00:23:00] Speaker D: So I started listening to like all the world's songs again. Yeah, all the world songs. Like, all the songs for like the Valorant tournaments and stuff like that too. Just like all the, like esports, like. Yeah, you know, you get to that point where you're just like, okay, like, go time. It's. It's go time. [00:23:18] Speaker B: It's time to see I as an N A fan, an N a die hard. It's like, I'm gonna cheer through the losses. I'm gonna get really excited for every win, and then I'm gonna be excited to watch T1 continue in the tournament. You know, that's generally how it goes at internationals for us, but I think that this is shaping up to be a very unique one specifically because of the format. We're going to talk about that one first. Badger, break it down for me. What is the MSI format? We're going to talk about the plans mostly today, but throughout all of msi, what can people expect in terms of games? [00:23:51] Speaker D: There's two stages. It's the play in stage and then it's the group stage, which really group stage is a weird way to say it because it should just be a bracket stage. [00:23:59] Speaker B: Pretty much. Yeah. So I think it's just called stage two. Actually. [00:24:03] Speaker D: I'm pretty sure it's just called stage two. I don't know. So we'll just call it playoffs essentially. But so this play ins is the four teams. So it's LCK2CT1LCP2 seed DCP or DCG LCS2CTL and LEC2 seed KC. And they're playing in a double elimination bracket, all best of fives. Winner of this winner of the bracket makes it to stage two. And stage two is just eight team double Elim bracket. All best of fives. Yep. We're very simple stoked. Winner of the tournament if they make summer playoffs. Apparently. I thought it was just they made it. Anyways, winner qualifies to worlds automatically. As long as they make summer playoffs. Apparently. That's the caveat thrown on it. Yep. And the second best performing region unlocks additional seed and an additional seed at [00:25:00] Speaker B: Worlds, which of course the MSI winning I believe also does. It was confusing because, like when I read it, it specified the second best unlocks. I was like, yeah, but I'm pretty sure I'm like 99. [00:25:11] Speaker D: So congratulations, the winner. Also LCK and the ELF yell for. [00:25:16] Speaker A: They're treating the winner of MSI as its own separate seed. So it is giving it an additional seed to that region of worlds. It's just technically locked by that team. [00:25:27] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:25:27] Speaker B: Okay. Well, I mean, you say that badger though about LCK, LPL with the additional seeds first sand just G2,3. Oh, Gen G and then actually make it to finals. If we see another tournament like that, this is probably the best opportunity in a long time for Europe specifically to try and like get that fourth seed. It's always been four seeds for LCK and LPL ever since they introduced the fourth seed. I don't think we've never seen another region get the fourth seed. Right? I. I don't think so. I'm not crazy. [00:26:00] Speaker E: All right, come on. But let's, let's get real here. Is Gen G in MSI right now? [00:26:06] Speaker B: Ah, that's a good point. [00:26:07] Speaker E: Right? Yeah. The tax evasion ad carry is no longer here. [00:26:13] Speaker B: We talked about that last. [00:26:14] Speaker D: There we go. There's the first reference. Okay. [00:26:18] Speaker B: All right. Well, hey, it's gonna be an interesting format. It's all double elim brackets. That's what both stages are play ins and stage two are just big double elim brackets. So there's a world that you, if you're a fan of one team, they don't do well. You only watch them play two series because that's the, the minimum that teams will get to play could be the maximum. That will be the maximum for some of them that get knocked out in the first round. But either way it's gonna be exciting. Also prizing. I wanted to touch on this because I don't remember exactly when they made this change, but it's another year with a two million dollar total prize pool. Last year was the same in years past. It was a much smaller prize pool. It's like 250k. I went back and checked like the past couple of years and 250 was the standard. Then they bumped up the prize pool for internationals. I think this was part of the initiative, like the skins and like the, like the icons that they were selling and like doing the global prize pool kind of pooling stuff. We covered this like a year and a half ago, but it's been so long. I don't remember exactly what that was. But with an additional team, it means actually less shared around for the folks towards the bottom. Top four will be the same and I put it in the doc so everyone can kind of follow along here with me. But essentially because there's an 11th team now in the play ins, everyone gets a little bit. Even if you just get knocked out right away in play ins, your last place, you walk with 60k, but last year it was 80k for the 10th place team. Honestly, with operating costs, that's probably like basically the same, but I thought it was worth notice. Or pointing out that with an additional team, they didn't increase the prize pool. They just spread it out more across the teams at the bottom. All right, with that being said, let's talk play ins and our expectations and predictions. There are four teams in the play ins. Bickle, what are the four teams that will be representing their regions in plans? [00:28:19] Speaker A: Sure thing. So the four teams we're going to be seeing are Carmine core representing the LEC2 seed. We're going to be seeing Team Liquid representing NA's second seed. We got Deep Cross Gaming representing Apex second seed and T1 as Korea's second seed. And because of first stand results which directly determine the pooling for play ins as well as MSI mainstage bracket, KC is technically the first seed in plans and will play the fourth seed in plans Deep Cross Gaming, where T1 and TL as the two seed and three seed will face off in round one as well. [00:29:01] Speaker B: Yep. And I think T1 might surprise you probably favorites to make it out of play. [00:29:13] Speaker D: Whoa, whoa. We're saving the hot takes for later. Come on. [00:29:17] Speaker B: Okay, sorry. Yeah, you gotta reign it in a little bit. [00:29:20] Speaker D: All right. [00:29:21] Speaker B: The fact that T1 is in plans is just hilarious to me. [00:29:27] Speaker E: It genuinely feels like a heavyweight boxer in kindergarten. [00:29:33] Speaker B: Oh, God, that's. It's like that meme. Has anybody seen that? Like, I don't remember what it was from. It might have been like impractical jokers or something, but like at the barbecue of the guy that like slaps somebody and people keep walking up to him like, hey, you can't do that. He just keeps slapping everybody. Like, right. That's going to be T1 just slapping everyone around in this bracket. At least that's the expectations. Some people might believe in miracles. I had us all build brackets for how we think the the plans is going to go. So I figured we can just kind of run through those and that'll kind of paint the picture for our expectations. I'll go first. I have Casey beating DCG. I do not know much about DCG, so this is purely a vibes thing. I have a 30 because screw it. Let's build up Casey to at least be more exciting for when TL eventually beats them. Am I right? I losing to T1. T1. I have that taken at 3. 1. I do think TL can get a game. But then Casey will lose to T130 in the upper bracket. TL will beat DCG3 2. Casey will lose to TL3 2. Haha. TLs go to the finals of play inside and they're gonna take two games off of T1 before getting eliminated. They're gonna make me believe so hard and then disappoint me right at the finish line. That's usually what happens. [00:30:51] Speaker A: Is it a reverse sweep? [00:30:53] Speaker B: No, no, not even. It's gonna be like we win game one, they win two, we won four, and then they win five. Actually, no. No, not even that. We win one, they win one, we win one day. When? One day. [00:31:05] Speaker D: 1 1. [00:31:05] Speaker B: There we go. Boom. We will be up on them in game score at some point in the series just to give maximum opium. All right, Miko, how crazy am I? Because your bracket looks slightly different. [00:31:18] Speaker E: I don't think I respect you enough to not use crazy. I think the word that I'll use is delusional. [00:31:24] Speaker B: Okay. This is my heart voting my okay. At least I didn't put T1 or TL making it out. If I put liquid making it out, then you know that I'm crazy. [00:31:33] Speaker E: Like let me just preface this just by like I'll just add a little bit more context to what T1 is because I think players like fans just need to know with Pace being added to this team. Kumayushi is a player that has consistently encouraged Carrier to roam outside of lane. It impacts solo laners in a very meaningful way. Carrier occasionally still does that whenever he's playing champions like Bard, which he almost never gets to play and Pyke and those type of roam heavy players. But you will also see this him opt to just stay in lane and just crush bot lane into the ground. It's because this new AD carry is mechanically superior to majority of his counterparts. Even in the lck he consistently comes out on top in a lot of the smaller skirmishes. And this gives T1 a new ammunition where they actually have the luxury to play slow. T1 historically has always been the team that snowballs the game that plays a lot of like insane dive comps to take out our scaling compositions. Before they get online or even take them out when they get online because of some miracle play. They don't need that. They don't need to rely on that style anymore. And you have consistently seen iterations where they will just 100% put all their focus into the bot lane and then they will just win out on the third or the fourth Drakes. So what I mean by all this is that in order to take out a team like T1, you need to have immaculate late game team fighting and close a closing power. And that is one thing that TL does not have. They're really good at everything else. They're really good at early games. They're really good at early game map control. They're quite good at objective takes. They know which ones they could contest, which ones they have to give up and get resources. They are good at everything except team fighting. And that is the one thing that you need to take out T1. [00:33:35] Speaker B: Which is partly why I don't have them getting a an actual series win against T1, unfortunately. Because I do agree with the sentiment. [00:33:43] Speaker E: Like I would like the best showcase of this is the really infamous KT versus T1 series where they were 10,000 gold behind and with sheer team fighting they climbed back out of that deficit and beat kt. So in these type of situations where they're throwing games and making mistakes against Lion, I have very little faith in them to making it out. [00:34:09] Speaker B: Yeah, they got three zeroed by Lion. Like that was. That was brutal. That was exactly what you're talking about. It was like losing consistently in the team team fights. [00:34:18] Speaker E: I don't think they're gonna take out Carmine Court either. I just take a look at the lineup that Carmine Casey has is that I think the only fun matchup that I'm actually looking forward to is Connor versus Morgan. I think that will actually be quite exciting. [00:34:31] Speaker B: Yeah, that'll be interesting. I think that in terms of the lower bracket because our, our brackets are basically the same. You just have KC beating TL in the lower bracket and then losing to T1. And you have T1 sweeping 90 in the play ins. But yeah, I think that KC team Liquid is going to be the very exciting one. And then DCG is still in the running. Like I never want to count out the LCP representatives because they can do a lot of damage. We've seen them do a lot of damage in the past. I just don't know what to expect from this team. I've not done my homework on that one. Let's move on. To the next bracket though. Here, Badger. Anything exciting that you want to highlight on your bracket? [00:35:10] Speaker D: I think so. There might be a record set at this tournament. [00:35:17] Speaker B: Oh. [00:35:19] Speaker D: DCG's AD Carry Fang had two double digit death games in the grand finals against team Secret Whales. We might see the highest deaths per game average out of an Ad Carry in an international tournament at this one. [00:35:38] Speaker B: That was not the exciting record that I thought you were gonna see. [00:35:41] Speaker D: You know what they're gonna. Honestly, Honestly, I'm excited to watch DSG just by the sheer fact that there. There's no bar. They're an LCP team. There's no bar fight. This team doesn't think that they can win. They can be down two people. Doesn't fucking matter. They're just like, all right, let's fucking scrap, boys. Let's do this. Like, this team is so fun to watch just by the sheer fact that. But they don't stop fighting. They're Russell Crowe fighting around the world. You know, it's. It's. It's gonna be great to watch them play. [00:36:11] Speaker B: I didn't hear no bell. [00:36:13] Speaker D: They didn't hear no bell. Exactly. They. Okay. One of the games in finals, team secret whales got 36 kills in 30 minutes. [00:36:23] Speaker C: Jesus. [00:36:25] Speaker D: What? [00:36:25] Speaker B: Team Secret Whales did like, not. [00:36:27] Speaker D: Secret Whale got 36 kills against. Against DS DCG. It was 36 to 7 kill score in 30 minutes. [00:36:36] Speaker B: My God. [00:36:37] Speaker D: They just didn't stop fighting. Like, they're just like, yeah, you know what? Whatever. [00:36:40] Speaker C: It we ball. [00:36:41] Speaker B: Hell yeah, dude. That's gonna make some crazy games. [00:36:44] Speaker D: I'm so excited to see how they come out against like TL and Casey, because obviously those are the two teams they're most likely gonna face at this point. Dude, I think Casey's up, but I think TL might get exposed by DS this dcg a little bit. [00:37:00] Speaker B: Well, well, when you say they want to fight all the time, it makes me excited because Jose wants to fight all the time. Jose deodo was like the highest action. [00:37:07] Speaker D: Jose is gonna Love Jungle against DCG. So I so just quick run through KC3 1 over DCG. TL T1 3 O's TL, Casey loses or T1 31 over Casey in the upper bracket. Lower bracket is TL. 32 over DCG. Next round, Casey 32 over TL. And then the finals would be T1 3 O and KC. Because I have enough tape on them at that point and it won't matter. [00:37:41] Speaker B: Yeah, okay, cool. I like it. I like it. I think that that makes me more excited to watch TCG's games, so definitely be watching very closely. Mazel. We're gonna save your bracket for last. I I gotta say, this thing is so based. Bickle, let's go with your bracket. What are the highlights of yours? [00:38:03] Speaker A: My bracket's probably about as boring as can be. I have t 190 ing play ins they 3o TL. They 3 okc and they throw Casey again. [00:38:14] Speaker C: It's. [00:38:14] Speaker B: Yours is the exact same as Miko's, I believe. I actually think born for bar the [00:38:19] Speaker A: same, but it's realistic. [00:38:21] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:38:22] Speaker B: Yeah. The one that hurts is Casey beating tl, but I, I, I will say [00:38:26] Speaker A: Casey's just a better team than tl. [00:38:30] Speaker B: I hate to agree, but I think I actually do kind of agree. Again, the NA fan of me is not gonna ever admit that to a French person's face. Speaking of a French person's face, I [00:38:41] Speaker C: was gonna say I'm right here. [00:38:42] Speaker E: Yeah, I hate to be that guy as well, but, like, I love Core and I really respect him, but I think Pusio is so the perfect support that you want for this meta where flexibility is heavily encouraged. And I think if KC ever is successful, it is if they're able to utilize a lot of the flex picks that are on the rise with the new MSI patch. [00:39:05] Speaker B: Yeah, you had mentioned the patch. Let's talk about that a little bit later, because I want to get through the brackets first. But Miko actually had an interesting point about how the patch could potentially affect which teams are strong and which teams are not. So, Bickle, was there anything else that you wanted to highlight in yours? It seemed like yours was pretty cookie cutter. No offense. [00:39:22] Speaker A: Pretty. It's pretty cookie cutter. It's pretty basic. KC, 3 O's, BCG, T1, 3 OSTL. TL take beats DCG, but take but loses a game to them. Casey drops a game to TL but beats them, and T1 just runs the table. [00:39:38] Speaker B: Yeah. So if that's the the cookie cutter Mizell, give us the spice because. Oh, my God. Your bragging is what I wish I was bold enough to predict. I did. I know I tweeted out that this is my prediction, but what's hilarious, not [00:39:52] Speaker C: even for the same reason as what you would be doing. The reason I have is because I want T1 out of the tournament. That BLG can put another brick in the road. That's all I care about. [00:40:02] Speaker B: Yeah, you need to eliminate D1 for that to happen. [00:40:05] Speaker C: The LPOL must be revived. All right. The golden road is the only thing it's like the Dragon Balls for Dragon Ball Z. You have to put them all together for, you know, bring somebody back to life. That's a question for Worlds, but. So I have Casey beating DCG 3, 2. And then I have TL beating T132 in the first round. Probably the more base one is for them to lose here and then to win in the finals, because that makes more fun narrative sense. But I go with my heart, and this is what I got. And then. And then in the lower bracket, T1 beats DCG losing a game. One game. One game. And the upper round, it's Casey losing 2, 3 to TL and then they go to the lower bracket, lose to T130, and then for a second time, lightning doesn't just strike once, it strikes twice. TLB T132. [00:41:06] Speaker B: That is the craziest part is at any time, I'm like, okay, so can TL beat T1? I'm like, yes, technically it's possible, but I don't think it's gonna happen twice. So if TL Miracle gets. [00:41:19] Speaker C: They have to make sure that the [00:41:21] Speaker E: world knows the context behind this. And I personally find this really funny because of this. Morgan, in his entire career, in his. Yeah, let me try to check. Because he was in Hanwha, and most recently, he was an okay Brion. Yeah. He has never, ever taken out T1 in a best of fighting. [00:41:42] Speaker B: Damn. [00:41:43] Speaker E: So it's about them, but if. [00:41:45] Speaker B: So you're saying this is the one [00:41:47] Speaker E: that if this is the roster they do it with, that will be cathartic in a whole different level. I don't think this man will be able to take it. I think he'll be, like, crying on stage, dude, if this. [00:42:00] Speaker B: If TL beats T1, Lions winning MSI, [00:42:05] Speaker E: like, that'll be hilarious. [00:42:07] Speaker D: All right. What? [00:42:09] Speaker C: Yeah. How does that correlation. [00:42:13] Speaker B: How good is Lion? [00:42:14] Speaker E: You know, Spire just turns on his, like, super hacks and just takes out of their jungler from, like, the beginning of. [00:42:20] Speaker D: The beginning of the game, he just says, no, you. And beats him down the entire. [00:42:25] Speaker E: It's like, I am the jungle. [00:42:29] Speaker B: So just for everyone listening at home, I know that was a lot of us explaining visual brackets, but essentially we all have T1 making it out, except for Mizell, who's praying on Team Liquid to pull the double Miracle. Respect it to hell. It's just a matter of a real [00:42:46] Speaker C: one, Steve, you ain't a real one. That's all. [00:42:48] Speaker B: I ain't a real one? [00:42:49] Speaker D: No. [00:42:50] Speaker B: I'll. [00:42:50] Speaker C: I'll. [00:42:50] Speaker B: I'll make the joke on socials just to rage bait. But if I'm dropping a prediction here, I try and be a little more serious about it. Plus, and I had. [00:42:58] Speaker C: You think I'm not serious? [00:43:00] Speaker B: You think I'm not serious? Yeah, I think. [00:43:03] Speaker C: You motherfucker. [00:43:08] Speaker B: Well, if you actually were trying to pick a team that would legitimately beat T1, do you actually think it's TL and not KC? Because I feel like Casey has a stronger argument for actually finding a way to beat T1 in my mind. [00:43:20] Speaker C: No, I. I think it's TL. I think shown a lot of. A lot of good stuff. [00:43:25] Speaker B: All right. Hey, let's. Let's pray Quid plays Assassins only melees for Quid. You're not allowed to play the victory to fake her. [00:43:33] Speaker C: Please don't. All right, cool. [00:43:35] Speaker B: Well, that's all of our brackets. Miko, I want to give you some time to talk about a point that you had brought up earlier, before we started recording, and then just reminded me of there. It's going to be a new patch, brand new patch for msi and we have now confirmed, like, what the changes are going to be and you had highlighted one that you think is going to be pretty significant in the format and in the meta. So, yeah. What are your thoughts on the patch? [00:43:58] Speaker E: Okay, I'm just going to sum up. I'm just going to close this with just two major points. Jungle and then Support Mid. So Jungle, there is a really strong champion that is getting buffed. Olaf. Olaf is getting a lot of damage in his monster physical damage for his Q. So Top Lane Olaf isn't buffed, but Jungle is. This gives a lot of flex value, especially if this champion is allowed to be playable in the jungle and clear at a reasonable rate. Because Olaf also happens to be very, very strong against a lot of the meta junglers. He's really strong as Jarvan and he's really strong as Xinzhou. So that is the one, like, I think trump card that gets put in here and how the teams value this champion, because Top Lane Olaf has been played by plenty of other teams in the past. So this may perhaps, may add another [00:44:46] Speaker B: curveball in every region also. Yeah, he's like actually kind of popular. [00:44:50] Speaker E: Big curveball, though. Is Imperial Mandate getting buffed? Because even before Imperial Mandate got buffed, teams were still experimenting with a lot of interesting flex picks that are specifically between Mid and Support. I think the person that kind of fired off the flare for that was on with Adivia Support. But from that point on, like, there were a lot of more flexibilities such as Camille and champions like that. But now things are getting weird because Lissandra is being played as support by players like Delight in solo queue and Galio has been consistently been seen play with Imperial mandated mid lane and also as a support role. So we are in for a very very hectic draft phase if these go through and if I. If the things that I estimate happening will occur because Galio is still relatively playable in game four to five. So Lissandra has been consistently seeing play on on four to five or best of fives as well. And so like these champions are not like off meta champions. They can very easily see play. [00:45:57] Speaker B: So yeah, I like that specifically you highlight the the flex pick ability of Olaf because yes, the buff is for the jungle but they can still pick it and then it's just as strong as it was before top lane which [00:46:07] Speaker E: and I want to link it back to two teams that are in the play inside. Casey and the T1 because I think if there's any western support that has the flexibility and the mechanical prowess to pick up these champions and learn them very quickly, it is Busio. He has proven it time and time again. His. He made a name for himself when he was lesser known with Camille support. Which is something that a lot of players around the world just picked up now. Right? [00:46:34] Speaker D: Dude, His. [00:46:35] Speaker B: His. His first ever LCS game was a zero support. [00:46:39] Speaker E: So he is very comfortable experimenting and being quite proficient at these like strange picks. So I think Casey is going to be much more threatening. And of course T1 has carrier. That's all I need to say. Yeah, I don't need to expand on that. [00:46:53] Speaker B: We are. We all know what to expect from that. Other notable things though that I. I think could shake up the format. Poppy Jungle getting buffed. I think that Poppy is really good into certain comps that have a lot of dashes. And now you can flex it between support and jungle even better because like it's just monster damage cap going up on the Q in the jungle will make it feel so much easier to play in there. Also LeBlanc getting some some small increases to damage while things like Cassiopeia got nerfed in their health per level. So those are smaller ones. I think probably Kai' sa would be like the a big change as well. You get a much bigger shield off your ult and shorter cooldown on your W. But yeah like every time a patch like this happens for msi, I'm happy when it's a smaller one because like we had a pretty big patch with the whole minion interaction change. What was that? Just last batch or two patches ago. But for this one, it's mostly just like one item change and then a couple of smaller tweaks for champions, but. Oh, yeah, also the. The Rumble Nerf. [00:47:58] Speaker A: That one. [00:47:58] Speaker B: Q flames damage going down. Oh, cyan as well. Yeah. What was the sign? [00:48:04] Speaker E: The minimal damage for his Q. So the. The bow special, where you just like press it for like 0.5 seconds and then you just flick it and then it deals a large amount of damage. You. It's much less effective. [00:48:17] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, it got nerfed. So 10 damage at level one and 30 damage at rank six on this. Jeez. Or rank five. [00:48:27] Speaker A: Sorry. [00:48:29] Speaker B: Okay. Interesting. Also, the W. Soul Furnace mana going up. [00:48:33] Speaker E: That's something that I just need to, like, get a little bit more data on, because Sion actively, depending on the matchup, doesn't even use Soul Furnace that often unless he's actively trying to trade. So maybe some of the matchups that he has to interact with the top pointer a little bit more. This actually has impact, but in a classic Tank V Tank matchup, this should. That shouldn't change it. I as much [00:48:58] Speaker B: I'm also just reading here. I hadn't seen this one. The Doran's helm change. So health's going up a little bit. Armor and magic resist going down from 10 to 8. Health from 140 to 150. [00:49:08] Speaker E: I don't. I don't think they appreciated Senna taking that to the bot line. [00:49:13] Speaker B: Dude, Senna with the Doran's helm is disgusting. [00:49:16] Speaker E: That was very strange. [00:49:19] Speaker B: I just had to play against one of those earlier today in solo queue. I was not happy. Yeah, can't kill him. [00:49:24] Speaker E: Nasty. [00:49:27] Speaker B: All right, cool. Well, there we have it. That's our expectations for the play Ins bracket, as well as a breakdown of the MSI format. Like I'd said before, the goal is after play Ins to record an episode, hopefully that night or that next night, because it's gonna be happening kind of overnight for us, and then get that episode out as quickly as possible. But expect at least like a day or two of the stage two of MSI to be happening before you hear our kind of reactions to the play Ins. Bickle, do you have the. The information up in front of you in terms of the time of, like, when MSI is going to start, when people can expect games to be, and what the schedule is going to look like for the first couple games of plans? [00:50:07] Speaker A: Yes, I do. It is right in front of me. So this obviously taking place in Korea makes time zone. Well, makes timing a bit weird over here because if you're in the. Well, technically there are two games a day, but, yep, in the US It'll be. They'll be split in terms of when they start before and after. So the first game of the tournament will be team liquor versus T1, taking place at 8pm Pacific, 11pm Eastern, which will then be. [00:50:47] Speaker B: I thought it was 10pm oh, wait, no, that is. That is 8pm oh, my God. That's kind of. [00:50:52] Speaker C: That's gonna be so, so weird. [00:50:54] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:50:54] Speaker A: Yep. For PST, followed by Carmine Court versus DCG at 1am Pacific, 4am Eastern on Saturday. Yeah. [00:51:08] Speaker D: Or Sunday. [00:51:08] Speaker B: Well, technically, that'll be Sunday. [00:51:10] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:51:11] Speaker A: Basically, it's yes, but no. [00:51:15] Speaker B: It's Saturday night that the first series happens. Saturday night, Sunday morning in the ungodly hours that the second series will happen. If you believe the first series won't end before midnight because there is a good chance that you want three. Oh, and that we actually have Casey versus dcg. [00:51:33] Speaker A: And then day two, where you have winners and losers is again Sunday night, Monday morning, and then at. Again at the same times. And for the days that only have one best of five, that will be at 1am Pacific. [00:51:50] Speaker B: Yep. So everyone set your alarms if you're on the East Coast. Well, actually, I guess you're just kind of staying awake late. Either way, I will probably be watching, like, the first series live and then going to sleep and watching the second series the next morning. That's probably what I'm doing. I don't want to, like, completely tank my sleep schedule unless it's a really exciting matchup. But for. For these international ones, I've kind of reached that age where I'm like, I just fall asleep in my chair otherwise. Remember when we used to, like, sit on the couch and, like, wait up all night and watch? [00:52:23] Speaker C: You should still do that. [00:52:25] Speaker B: I'm too old. [00:52:26] Speaker C: Too old. [00:52:28] Speaker B: I don't have to spring in my step anymore. [00:52:30] Speaker C: Oh, my God. Who is this guy? [00:52:32] Speaker D: This spring in your step is crazy. [00:52:37] Speaker C: Somebody sound clip that so we could have that. [00:52:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't have the spring in my step. Sorry. But I will be watching, of course, as it will all of us and hopefully everybody listening along. But if you don't get a chance to watch it, you can at least hear us talk about it on next week's episode. Thanks for tuning in, Everybody, to the MSI preview episode for 2026 MSI reminder that if you have not yet joined the community. Discord. You can find the link in the description wherever you are listening and join the conversation about how things are going at msi. Also, shout out to everybody who supports a pod, either through the Patreon or through our merch shop. You help us keep the lights on and keep these episodes coming out every week. Mikko, I'm going to throw you under the bus this time. How many stars would you recommend the audience give us if they had to choose a number between one to five stars to give the podcast in a review? [00:53:26] Speaker E: Six. [00:53:28] Speaker D: Six. [00:53:29] Speaker B: Well, deduct a star for Miko not listening because I only gave option one to five, but that gets a number anyway. There we go. Five stars. That'd be fantastic if you could. It helps us get the podcast out there and noticed more. And yeah, shout out to everybody who tunes in every week and shout out to everybody who made it to this part of the episode. Just know that we love you and we'll see you next time. Bye bye everyone. [00:53:54] Speaker A: Peace. [00:54:18] Speaker B: Sam.