League Rundown - Episode 624: Sweep City

[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 single handedly win the game by [00:00:22] Speaker B: game by game by game by [00:00:26] Speaker C: should [00:00:26] Speaker A: be oh my God. Stupid marches 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. They're Nexus. Hello and welcome to episode 624 of the League Rundown. This is your 2026 summer split LEC playoffs week one review alongside the week two preview and LCS week seven review and playoff week one preview. This episode is lovingly entitled Sweep City. I'm your host Kangas and I'm joined by two esteemed co hosts. Up first we have fresh out of the can, it's Badger. [00:01:28] Speaker C: I, I forgot to think of a gimmick. [00:01:33] Speaker A: This is our second intro that we had to record. You had two times. Yeah. You come up with something, Badger? [00:01:39] Speaker C: It's, it's fine. I, I, I'm, I'm as inactive as Castle is on the lion roster right now. [00:01:46] Speaker A: Who was notably for some reason updated in the player contract database. Crazy to think about. We'll see if anything actually comes of that. Also we have joining us on this week's episode, Mr. Mizelle Pl. [00:01:58] Speaker B: Hello. Nice to be back. Get to talk about some. [00:02:01] Speaker A: Happy to have you back, man. [00:02:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:02:04] Speaker A: League of Legends. We're going to talk a lot about that. Not only how LCS regular season wrapped up for summer alongside the LEC first week of playoffs, but also a lot of news to go around. This is maybe going to be a heavier news episode just because there's a couple of big ticket items to cover. So let's start off with those. Up first roster news. This is less of like active roster news and more of just a regular mainstay in the league scene retiring that being coach and narrow Most recently on C9. He was on organizations like Golden Guardians before finding great success deep playoff runs there. I'm trying to remember was he on like the original Fly Quest? I I'm blanking on an arrows like full resume of all the different teams he's coached for, but he's been around forever. I think it's like 11 years of coaching and unfortunately he will be hanging up the hat for now. Badger, as a coach yourself, you've coached colleg teams across different titles. What are your thoughts on seeing a mainstay coach in the league scene. Leave. [00:03:11] Speaker B: It sucks. [00:03:12] Speaker C: I mean he's a guy who's been a staple of like coaches in North America for the longest time at this point. I mean he's had successful runs pretty much. It felt like most places he went. So just seeing, seeing him just be like, you know what, it's time for me to step back, take my time, do my thing and it's like good for him. Honestly, it's, it's a very stressful thing. I mean they work long hours just based on the idea of trying to get your team ready to go because they. Especially in like a head coaching position and I mean he was in C9 last, so the infrastructure was there, but it just felt like towards the end it was a little bit rough for him between like his disguise time, his Immortals time and then all the time that he had on C9. [00:04:10] Speaker A: There was yeah, rough patches and unfortunately he was kind of at the forefront of a lot of the C9 curse that's been going on where they like missed out on worlds many years in a row. He's been the head coach for two years at C9. It was basically like January 2025. So LTA era was an arrow and then this past year has been an arrow until display where he stepped down and Dom took over as head coach. Before that Immortals disguised. I actually forget he was the coach of disguise for a bit. Golden Guardians before that, Echo Fox was like one of the first or actually was the first LCS one. He did some like OS and some, some challenger teams before that. But yeah, it's gonna be sad to see him go. He's a cool guy. I gotten the pleasure of interacting with him outside of the studio and he's always been super nice and inviting. Mizelle, do you have any thoughts on seeing one of the goats leave the competitive scene? [00:05:05] Speaker B: Glad he's like prioritizing his own life in a lot of ways. I, I think it's so funny because this situation feels very akin to the G2 situation with Falco where like they had, they were on the the squad at the same time and then slowly gets edged out and uses excuses as he's. He's going to take a back seat. Sucks that he's leaving and I think you know he was one of the major drivers in the LCs of like multi coach teams with like positional coaches everywhere. I know that's something he strongly talked about on the Golden Guardian squad and like trying to figure out like how you can get each position to improve Individually while also improving the whole goal. I think that concept is really cool and something maybe isn't as explored anymore because of budgets and things along those lines, but it was really nice to see at the time and I think he was innovative for his approach. So very happy to have had the memories of watching him coach a bunch of teams and be like GM on different teams, but sucks that he's heading out. [00:06:04] Speaker A: Yeah, it's just gonna be weird seeing rosters or seeing teams and an arrow is not on the coaching staff of any of them because he has just been such a. A mainstay in the scene. He's been coaching for as long as I've been watching. Essentially. He came in Echo Fox in May of 2017 and I started watching in I guess January of 20, about a year after, a year and a half after. So almost as long as I've been watching. He's been a coach for an LCS team. Yeah, just gonna be weird, but best of luck. An Arrow on your future endeavors. Somebody else who will need a little luck in their future endeavors. Cb. Lol. Had a bit of an incident happen during their playoffs. Badger. What's going on with Tatu over in cb? Lol. [00:06:51] Speaker C: So Tatu, after game two against Red Cannons, he's the jungler for Furia, if I remember correctly. He walks over to the other team and just gets in the face of one of the players and just starts talking mad like to the point that like he had to be pulled away and pulled off stage to go back and go to the conference for like. Or like go to like the meeting between game two and Game three for his team. But the CB LOL came out today and said that he was suspended for a series following unsportsmanlike conduct. And I, I for one, I'm here for it, honestly. Let it, let him, let him talk. You know, it's got to be. I mean it's got to be too like so far. Only so far. Like, I mean, do I think that he crossed a little bit of a line here? Yeah, but the personality just has to be. It feels like it's missing from league. And yeah, Brazil brings the fire when it comes to stuff like that. I mean we've seen brands in the past, right? Bot gap when he killed like NA bot lanes or EU bot lanes and in World's Play ins in the past. [00:08:09] Speaker B: So [00:08:12] Speaker C: I'm here for it. [00:08:13] Speaker A: It's a fun example of like passion overtaking a moment for a player. Something we don't see a lot of. I am a little Split in the. Like, what is the line of what's acceptable for. Oh, like this is something to cheer for. Versus. Nah, that was like, a little too much. Because for me, I love it when there's that passion they show, that excitement. But it does feel a little odd to see, like, a player get up in front somebody's face during after game two of a best of five. It's like they didn't even win this series in that moment. And it's like, I feel like if you're gonna have that big of a celebration, it's gotta be like you win the series, right? Like, in the middle of a series feels more unsportsmanlike because it's like, that can affect the mentality of the player during the game, the next game. Because, like, he was pretty up in his face. Like, he was animated. He didn't like, make physical contact or anything, but he, like, got up in his face. And I feel like that's in a way you can interpret as, like, that's kind of intimidation. That's like, that's you're trying to psych out your opponent before another game. And if, like, I've heard some takes, like, Raz has talked about this. Like, if you're trying to mentally handicap your opponent before another game, that's not okay. Like, it's fine to celebrate, but, like, you gotta make sure that you're doing it. If he just stood up on his side and was, like, waving his arms around or something, like, that's one thing, but, like, the way he went about it was a little aggressive. Again, I'm a little in the middle. I'm like, I don't know if it was too aggressive. I kind of liked it because it was fun. Mazal, did you have a thought on this? Do you think it was too much? Do you think it was, like, just fine? It's overblown. Where are you at on it? [00:10:01] Speaker B: I really think that it's a little bit too far. I think, like, if you stick to staying on your side of the computers, like we see in Val and see us and stuff like that, I think it's fine. I think getting like, getting up into the face, that's. That's almost assault. And I don't want to see anything happen because emotions can flare if you get somebody into somebody's personal space, especially a bunch of games. Like, I think that is very dangerous. And again, I think the timing of it is really stupid. I. I love this kind of stuff for personality stuff. I don't think this was the moment To. To hang on the shelf of this kind of passion and stuff. I think it's cool. And, like, if he stayed on his side and was talking smack across the room, I think that's fine, especially even in that. That moment of the series. But I think getting up into his face was a little bit too far. [00:10:48] Speaker A: Or again, if it was at the end of the series and he, like, gets up, runs over and like, talk some then, like, handshakes his teammates or something like that. And the. The whole catalyst for this, essentially, like, why he was so animated and so passionate, it was against a player steps on red canids. And apparently they had been arguing on socials before the match. And then that escalated on socials because Furious Jungler Tatu saw like, a screenshot from a solo queue game that somebody else had sent him where Steps was calling him a dog and was like, oh, no, Tatu's a dog. I got shit. And since then, somebody in that solo queue game screenshot, it sent it to Tatu. So then Tatu started talking shit Steps, and then, like, that escalated up to the. To the. In person. So it also was Steps. That kind of air quotes started it. But then it. Yeah, it's like once it gets into the physical world, as opposed to just talking online, it's. It's a little different. But we'll let you decide at home if you think it was too much. Go check out the video. If you have no idea what we're talking about, just search like Tatu on Twitter. You'll be able to find it pretty quickly. Yeah, it's. Again, it's not like he goes up and, like, pushes the guy or anything. He just, like, really gets up in his face and is, like, clearly talking and then walks back as, like, playing to the camera too. So Tatoo was having fun with it. You could tell the. The look on the other guy's face. He was not happy about it. So, yeah, you can decide for yourself if you think it was too much. All right. Either way, though, Tatu will be suspended. I guess that's the big takeaway here. I don't know if we mentioned that at the beginning. He is suspended for his next match. That is what Riot Games has ruled. And that next match is a playoffs match. That is tough that he will not be able to play in the next playoffs match. I don't remember offhand, because they won that series. I would assume that means that they're in the upper bracket. [00:12:39] Speaker C: Upper. They're in round two in the upper bracket. [00:12:42] Speaker A: Round two of the Upper bracket, they [00:12:43] Speaker C: play lows, which is the second seed for playoffs. [00:12:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. So they have a second life. So even if they get smashed there because they don't have tattoo, like they could make a lower bracket run. But that's not ideal when you know there's only two spots at Worlds for cb. Lol. It's not like you get that many opportunities to still earn a spot. It's. It's not going to be free for them by any stretch. [00:13:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. One other roster ish news. We kind of joked about it. Badger Castle got updated on the global contract database, the player contract database to be back on Lion. But you. You looked at it a little closer. He's inactive, correct? [00:13:29] Speaker C: Yeah. So the global contract database is something that you actually look up if you've ever been curious about when players are. Have their deals expire, coaches or stuff like that. All of that is openly available, which is one of the good things about Riot. They. They give that opportunity for everybody to have that information at their fingertips. So if you Google global contract database lol, it'll actually pull up several different ways to get access to it. But when I was checking Leaguepedia today to see what news was leading into it because I thought there was a retirement that we missed. So if you. If you met, if we missed some news, please let us know. But it said that Castle was added back to the global contract database and I was like, huh, that's weird. And it's got the lion tag next to it. So I went and I looked and I scrolled over to the Americas won. And of course lo and behold, Castle is on the lion section of it. It's just he's marked as inactive at this point. I'm not inactive or and not eligible. So he's actually not eligible to play in playoffs at this point. But. [00:14:40] Speaker A: But interesting regardless that he would be updated to be joining lion again because I didn't even like really remember if he had officially left or had been dropped. [00:14:50] Speaker C: They post about it. So that's why I was just really confused seeing it. [00:14:56] Speaker A: Yeah, well, we'll keep our eyes on it because maybe that means lion are trying to invest in him for next year potentially. Maybe that could be bad news for Dokla on. On lion for 2027. But yeah, we'll have to. We'll have to see. All we know is that Inactive not gonna be playing the playoffs, but it's notable regardless. So what you wanted to bring it up. A couple teams have also now joined Worlds qualification, it's starting to shape up more and more. The only regions that still have yet to lock in any representatives are LCS and cb lol. So as we start bringing our attention to Worlds as we get closer and closer, we can update you this week with three new teams that have joined it's DK at the lck meaning that all four LCK representatives have been determined just seeding to be fought for now G2 and KC from the LEC based on this last weekend's game's performance. Sorry if that's spoilers and you were waiting to hear when we broke down LC who beat who but. [00:15:54] Speaker C: Oh crazy. [00:15:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't think there's anybody who actually does that. I would be very surprised. But sorry if if that was spoilers for you but G2 and KC both won their first best of fives this past weekend. Meaning that they both qualified and are fighting for seating as well. G2 in fact I believe guaranteed dodges play ins. Because then again spoiler and are going to be in the grand finals. Which means guaranteed the lowest they would have is second seed which will go straight to Swiss stage as opposed to plans. So G2 locked in for Swiss. Well done to them. That's it. Reminder, LPL only has BLG as their team locked in. And then LCP has TSW Flying Oysters and mkv. So that's team Seeker wheels. Fine. Oysters and the Vikings have locked in LCS and Siebel still waiting to see who does well enough in playoffs there. But it's not the only world celebration happening as a second Worlds has hit the yearly calendar. [00:16:59] Speaker B: I knew you were. [00:17:00] Speaker A: That's right, you heard me. [00:17:01] Speaker C: I knew you were gonna do that. [00:17:04] Speaker A: And you might be wondering Kangas, how do you fit two worlds in one calendar? That doesn't make sense. We have msi. We have. We have first stand. And I gotta say to break it down, mazel. What's going on? What is wsci? [00:17:23] Speaker B: World Star? No, that is what it stands for. [00:17:27] Speaker A: The Ws. [00:17:28] Speaker B: At least TMZ wouldn't even be a thing anyways. The 2026 World Star Challengers Invitational. It's gonna be an invite from all the tier 2 regions around the world to China to play all each other in a double round robin group stage. All the way to knockouts. Should be a pretty big deal. It's really nice. Give some of the teams at least something to look forward to. I know Whooply, the mastermind of NACL has been pushing towards something like this for a Long time. So it's very nice to see it finally kind of kick up a little bit and at least find some traction. It is going to be weird just because, you know, it's going to be a weird split between western teams and eastern teams because Korea has three seeds, China has three seeds. Honestly it's going to be a shock where they get those three seeds because LDL wasn't a thing this year. Yeah, APAC has three seeds, EMEA has three seeds. But then na they get one seed for a bit. ACL and Brazil gets one seed as well. And then you get the one member of the LRN or LR s coming through as well. And then the final invite goes to a team from Asia Masters which will be interesting. Yeah, very interesting. Around things out. It'll be 16 total teams. It'll be really cool. I hope it's well done. Biggest caveat here is we have got an official word that it will be carried out by co streamers only. There will be a Chinese broadcast I guess. But Riot has resigned to doing all these tournaments non officially with co streamers and it kind of highlights a little bit of the fact that it's like it's in combination with Riot Games. But this is kind of what. If you remember that update to the terms of how people can use League of Legends a while back, this is one of those effects where there's a lot more organizers that are getting opened up to be able to put on tournaments. And so these are one of them. That's the why we also have the B Worlds as well. So it'll be really interesting to see how this kind of pans out and, and how works and if the teams really feel motivated by it. Because that's I think my biggest worry. But I think it's, it's awesome to have and I know that something has been being worked towards for tier 2. I just hope it's not like let's distract you from all the bad things that are happening with Tier twos around the world with this nice shiny object. But hey, I know the teams are excited and I know especially for the NaCl it adds that much more at least prize at the end of the road. Right. Because the winner of an ACL also gets a spot there and gets to try themselves against teams around the world. Which is something I've been fighting for for so long. Since all the way back at Collegiate Worlds. Back in back. [00:20:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Dude, that was fun. [00:20:18] Speaker B: Yeah. World Star. World star. [00:20:21] Speaker A: Also, I'll say it for you since you're I Don't know how comfortable you would be saying this, but only co streaming for English viewers. [00:20:29] Speaker B: Boo. Yeah. Yep. [00:20:35] Speaker A: Yeah, that'd be really cool. But if you do plan on streaming it, Lennon, let us know. We'll plug it on the podcast, of course. And then if we find out any other guys that are trying to like. [00:20:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I think all the NACL guys are planning on. I think we're gonna be trying to put together some casts. [00:20:51] Speaker A: Oh, that'd be cool. Hell yeah. [00:20:53] Speaker B: That's not just co streaming vibes. [00:20:56] Speaker A: Yeah, that would. That would be ideal because costume vibes is fine, but like it's not. [00:21:02] Speaker C: It's weird for like an international. For like. Yeah, the only way to access it because like, the only way to access this is be like co streamers. Like an actual cast would be fantastic. [00:21:14] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So hopefully we can get some of those rocking in yalls co streams again. Let us know when, if. When those are happening because we can let everyone know. [00:21:25] Speaker B: Dude, League of Legends is going to be packed for the next like two months. Yeah, they literally just. There was already like a full can of biscuit dough and they just like put a whole nother biscuit dough can into that singular pan because my God, it's literally like. It's literally going from which. First of all, I think it's hilarious that LPL is literally finishing before LCS even kicks off their playoffs. But anyways, that. That may be a conversation for later. [00:21:53] Speaker C: I mean, LCK finals are the. This weekend as well. [00:21:56] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyways, but like, you literally go for the end of the split for everybody to instantaneously going to Demasia cup, which is the B Worlds, which then crest into world and World Star happening at the same time. It's going to be. [00:22:14] Speaker A: And on top of that, we got KESPA cup coming up here. And Badger cup also made an interesting announcement of varying excitement levels depending on how much you like watching NA players get on. [00:22:32] Speaker C: So. So Esports Nation cup was supposed to happen in like November or something like that, but they've already stated that given the circumstances of everything going on in the world at this point, that it's delayed. We don't know how long. Or maybe they'll just do the same thing that the World cup did and just have it in like Paris or something like that. I. I would assume the president of France, who's very, very open to it. I mean, he. He had dinner with the president of South Korea and one of the Tekken players for vitality the other day and they were all posting about it, which is really fucking weird to think about. But hey, that's where we're at at this point. So there's Kespa is doing hosting matches for the Korean national team and they're [00:23:19] Speaker A: playing which was going to be playing in the enc, I believe. Is this the same team? [00:23:24] Speaker C: Yes, yes, yes, the ENC team. So I can't remember who Korea is putting out for the. The nations cup, but it's like the main team, it's like the people you would expect. [00:23:40] Speaker A: It's essentially 2024 T1. [00:23:42] Speaker C: T1. [00:23:43] Speaker A: It's like, it's like Zayas owner. I think it's owner like faker Carrier. [00:23:50] Speaker C: Yeah, Guma and carrier. So like it's basically 2024 T1 and they're like, oh, okay. And so unfortunately, NA doesn't have the point where they can actually get a proper team over, per se. [00:24:11] Speaker A: Yeah, it's gonna be happening, I believe during our playoffs for LCS and like the team that was gonna rep the US was kind of exciting as players like Blabber Jungle and you know, like Dog's Top. [00:24:25] Speaker B: Wait, well, you're telling me, you're telling me that this isn't the best week? Dude, this is the Avengers, the Navengers. This is the best of the best. This is everybody you could ask for. Calling up the first ring. All right, miss. [00:24:40] Speaker A: Oh, give us the roster. What's. [00:24:41] Speaker B: Are you ready? His big daddy Denny. In the top lane, baby, is Dennis Thor is excited. [00:24:48] Speaker A: I. I like that one. [00:24:50] Speaker B: He hasn't played so far in the summer, but it's Perry in the Jungle. I guess he played for like three weeks when he subbed in for non paid players on conviction. [00:25:01] Speaker A: Retired player, though. Other otherwise retired Jungler. [00:25:04] Speaker B: Yes, otherwise retired. Then you have a couple Maryville University pieces who are playing right now as we speak. As we record. Al June is playing, which he's a very fresh and very new mid laner who has been bouncing around a little bit between teams. You got Scary Jerry who got put back down into tier two, unfortunately with not a great run in the lcs. And then you got Zyko, an old favorite from Maryville University who also played with Scary Jerry. Yep. [00:25:36] Speaker A: So Al June's gonna play against Faker. [00:25:38] Speaker B: Yep. [00:25:39] Speaker A: And Or Zeka because they have two mid laners. Zeka is on the backup and it's Canyon Jungle, not owner. [00:25:45] Speaker B: So. [00:25:45] Speaker C: Oh yes. [00:25:46] Speaker A: Shout out Perry versus Canyon. [00:25:48] Speaker B: So even better. [00:25:48] Speaker A: Umayushi Karia, arguably the most dominant bot lane in Korean history. It's going up against Scary Jerry And [00:25:57] Speaker B: Psycho Bro, Does Scary Jerry get an instant job if he beats Guma in lane one time? [00:26:04] Speaker C: Dude, yes. [00:26:07] Speaker A: If he can win a game or even just like be up in Gold at 15 minutes versus Guma Carria, I would say sign him to Dignitas, bring him back. [00:26:17] Speaker B: So I'm gonna. I'm gonna let my idea fly a little bit here and don't steal it. But if Scary Jerry for some reason finds a kill on Guma, I'm gonna make a video that's the. The Cage roll spoof of Smoke, the whole pack. But it's gonna be Scary Jerry and it's gonna be great. [00:26:34] Speaker C: Okay. [00:26:35] Speaker B: No, he only needs to do like one good thing against Goomba and I'm gonna. I'm gonna. That's. [00:26:42] Speaker A: I think the appropriate time to post it is the first time something good happens for a Scary J. [00:26:47] Speaker B: Anything. [00:26:48] Speaker A: But. Yeah, Badger, this is essentially going to be like. From my understanding, it's almost like exhibition matches, right? Or is this like anything? Is there any scale or scope to this? [00:26:58] Speaker C: It's just exhibition matches. Okay. So, no, I'm not going to take anything too serious. I. I imagine that there's going to be some funnier picks that can come out of this potentially. [00:27:14] Speaker A: Yeah. I hope that we get some entertaining games is all I'm gonna say. But again, the. The reason our USA team looks like this is simply because it's going to be during playoffs and they weren't really able to make like the team that they wanted. Clerk on the Team USA for the enc. Put out a post kind of explaining it. [00:27:35] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:27:35] Speaker A: Essentially saying like, yeah, like the roster that we were gonna field for ENC was just not available. So this was the best that we were able to come up with. It's just gonna be some good, good experience for these developing players, which if you look at it from that view. Yeah. Hell yeah, dude. Denethor, go play against Zayas. [00:27:49] Speaker C: Go. [00:27:50] Speaker A: Go get smashed a bit. Hopefully learn and then come back with some more knowledge. And maybe you can clip farm some cool moments as well. So Mazel can make a hype edit for them. Speaking of Mazel, that's it for our global news. So it's time for the LPL update. And then we'll do the LCK update afterwards. What's going on in the lpl? Where are we in playoffs and what are the big storylines? [00:28:13] Speaker B: Well, it's shocking to say. I foreshadowed to it earlier. We are five days away from the finals being played. Four days away from the finals being played. That's very going to happen before LCS plays this weekend. So we will officially actually finished the actual playoffs before LCS even plays their first playoff series. Which I don't in my recollection. I don't think it's ever happened. I know we've always been a little bit ahead in some regard but I I don't this is like the latest I've ever seen LCS go. But that being said, we are in the final rounds as this week we played a lot of games in a row. It was like four days with three of them being double best of fives. We have some not as many known names in the bot run here in the lower bracket. BLG had already booked their ticket this week to the grand finals. They three zeroed Al and one of the games was 0 to 20 in about 23 minutes. Whoa. It was one of the biggest shellackings that I have seen in recent history and that's how the upper bracket was. But Tom B Sports and JDG lost out a little while ago in the first round of the playoffs to IG and nip and that was group nirvana. Teams taking down some of the top rung of group Ascend. Obviously TES and jdg, they did a good enough job throughout the year to be able to still make it to regional qualifiers. That's a whole nother can of worms that we will talk about in the future hopefully. But it was then IG and NIP moving forward. Two two group Ascend teams that may be a little bit less known in LGD and we and LGD beat NIP to make it the top four for the first time in years and it had been six years actually since LGD had made it to regional qualifiers. Unfortunately they did fall to IG in that very next series. 3 0. It was completely one sided. It felt really bad for LGD who felt like they had put together a much better performance than what was displayed on the last day there for them. So they will be going to Demacia cup more than likely. But ig the miracle moments keep happening. They need to get further to really guarantee themselves, but they have guaranteed at least the entrance into the regional qualifiers for a team that puts it back together. The shine rookie in the third split of the year to make the run. It's been really really fun. It's been really cool. They've been actually pretty good in the playoffs which has been a really nice ramp up and they'll be facing off against Al and I in that matchup Next up in the lower bracket finals, and that will be on the 12th, where we have our finals on the 13th. And then if. If IG wins the split for some odd reason. First of all, it'd be the first time that a team has ever made it from Group Nirvana all the way to winning the championship. This is already the first time that we've seen a Group Nirvana team make it this far in the playoffs and let alone make it to regional qualifiers. Which is hilarious because when we started split three, I was making jokes. I was like, IG and Wavo put themselves there on purpose because they want to get the more dramatic run all the way to Worlds. They want to break happening. But they are going to be facing off against Al and wonder what's going to happen in that series. But I'm believing in IG magic from here on out. [00:31:36] Speaker A: Okay, well, that would be fun. If they can make it happen. [00:31:39] Speaker C: We'll. [00:31:40] Speaker A: So we'll know by this weekend, right? Like that's. That's happening soon. Sheesh. So by next week we'll actually have the lpl. Is that gonna be all the world's [00:31:48] Speaker B: teams locked in though? We have the regional qualifiers because we're the only good region that's still those championship points. Right. And so we still have another tournament. [00:31:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:31:56] Speaker B: Based on a lot of things. Based on the championship points to round out the year. And that'll be three best of fives. [00:32:05] Speaker A: Okay. All right, Fair enough. Well, to. To give a rebuttal for that statement, Badger, what's going on in the lck? [00:32:14] Speaker C: Oh, wait. [00:32:14] Speaker A: Oh, did you give the LDL restructuring there? [00:32:18] Speaker B: Yeah. So the rumor is. And it's just rumors right now. We'll see if it actually changes. But LDL was pretty non existent this year. Four teams they didn't even play. And most of if they did play it was online. But there are rumors that LDL is going to get restructured next year and that the format for LPL return to the much loved double round robin for every team format that we had many years ago. We'll see if that actually comes true. But it would be cool to return to some normalcy at least. [00:32:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:47] Speaker C: The. [00:32:47] Speaker A: The LDL fall off has been said because of specifically just how good that region had seemed to be developing players historically over the last couple of years. [00:32:57] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:32:58] Speaker A: Tier 2. You need a good Tier 2 system in order to keep up a good Tier 1 system, turns out. Yeah. Okay, Cool. Now it is time for the segue Badger LCK update. What's going on over in Liquic League. [00:33:12] Speaker C: I'm trying to think of all the. All the series that have been played since then, because it was what we recorded on Wednesday last week, right after Hanwha beat T1 and upper bracket. So let me paint the picture lower. The lower bracket is some people's best friend. So Damwon, the artist formerly known as. The artist formerly known as Domwon DK lost 3.0to KT Rolster. Times are looking bleak. They play Fear X in the lower bracket and it's. Oh, no, it's. It's not good that they go to five games. Oh, no, they have a rematch against kt and this is the first spot at Worlds. Whatever will they do on the day or maybe the day after Lore's child is born. Oh, congratulations, Lauren Odo Amne. By the way, if we haven't said that yet, at this point, that kid gets to experience the first KT Rolster heartbreak with a. With a shellacking at the hands of Damon. And Damon qualifies to worlds as the fourth seed for Korea. Upper side of the bracket. Gen G3 owed KT Hanwa 32 T1, T1 31 Dom 1 in the lowers. Gen G is in the finals. Surprise, surprise, with a 31 over Hanwha. And then on Saturday morning, Hanwha and T1 play. Loser is the third seed at Worlds. Winner goes on to play Gen G the very next day. So Sunday morning, we will know all of the seating and all of the. Well, we already know all the teams. We'll know all of the seating confirmed for the LCK going into Worlds before. [00:35:07] Speaker A: By this weekend, both of the top two regions in the world, which are realistically the two with chances of winning Worlds, will have all of their world seeds locked in before LCS has finished week one of its playoffs. [00:35:21] Speaker B: LPL will not have their World Series [00:35:23] Speaker C: because they have the top. [00:35:24] Speaker A: Oh, right. [00:35:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:35:26] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. [00:35:27] Speaker C: They'll have the two, which it should be BLG and maybe ig. Well, BLG is already qualified, so. Yeah. [00:35:39] Speaker B: Okay. [00:35:39] Speaker C: What are we doing? [00:35:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:35:41] Speaker A: What are we doing? Well, how about we. Let's talk about it. That's a good segue right there, Badger, because that's it for the news. Like I said, it was gonna be a longer news setup. That was already like 30 minutes plus of just talking about that and getting everybody updated. But thanks for bearing with us. There's. With playoffs here, there's actually less games to cover, so that's where we have a little more. More room to talk news. And a reminder, if we missed anything. If. If there was a segment you wanted to hear our thoughts on that we did not get to Sometimes you do miss stuff. Let us know in the Community Discord. Hopefully we can cover it the next week. And also if you're not in the Community Discord yet, you can still join it. Link is in the description wherever you are listening to this podcast. Also, shout out to anybody who supports the podcast, either through Patreon or through our Merch Shop. Links to both of those are also in the description. And with that said, it's time to hop into this last week of games. We had LCS end of the regular season and LEC beginning of their postseason. The playoffs have begun and now LCS is gearing up for that this coming weekend. Let's start in the LCS just because that way we can wrap up the last regular season narratives and then we're into all playoffs for both regions. And I'm gonna throw it over to Mizell first. Mizel, can you give me the standings from top to bottom, the final standings for the regular season in the lcs? [00:37:02] Speaker B: Sure. So we've got lion and Team liquid both at 6 and 1. But I do believe because of the way that things panned out in terms of the priority of winning and game score and things along those lines, I do Believe lion is first. [00:37:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:18] Speaker B: Going to be second. Then we have Cloud 9 rounding it out at third, 5 and 2. Sentinels at fourth at 4 and 3. Fly Quest unfortunately at fifth at 3 and 4. Shopify Rebellion rounding it out in the top six with the 3 and 4 as well. But the head to head as we had said. And it is Disguised and Dignitas who will be rounding out 7th and 8th respectively. 1 and 6 for disguised and 07 for dignitas. [00:37:46] Speaker A: Yep. Which unfortunately means history has been broken. Badger for the first time ever in recorded LCS history in a best of three format, a team has gone winless in back to back splits. [00:38:03] Speaker C: Yeah, that's not a good look. [00:38:04] Speaker B: Shout out to even Immortals couldn't do that. [00:38:07] Speaker A: Even. Even they picked up series here and there. [00:38:09] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, no, it's. It's unfortunately the. The curse of Dignitas at this point. Yeah, good luck. I mean time to revamp the roster. Maybe we were talking about it earlier. Maybe Scary Jerry, if he has a [00:38:26] Speaker A: pop off performance he could dethrone Gumayushi at that point. [00:38:32] Speaker C: Congratulations, you've signed yourself up for Dignitas. [00:38:36] Speaker A: GM Jonathan is going to be fighting who's the T1 coach right now. Is it still oh, God. Now I'm blanking on his name. The legendary coach. Yeah, there we go. Is that it? [00:38:47] Speaker C: Wait, is that it? It's not Coma. It's God. Vam for me real fast. I'll just randomly blurt it out here in a second. [00:38:54] Speaker A: Okay, if we're being honest, there's no shot that Scary Jerry gets picked up by T1. This is. But I will buy time. [00:39:01] Speaker B: Just wait for that video, bro. Just wait for that. [00:39:03] Speaker A: Wait for that one video to pop off. It's gonna get big on Hoya. [00:39:06] Speaker B: Is that. [00:39:07] Speaker A: Is that the China one or is that the hu. Okay, there we go. [00:39:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:10] Speaker A: I don't know what the Korean ones would be. [00:39:12] Speaker C: It is. Yeah. It's comma, still. [00:39:15] Speaker A: It is comma. There we go. All right. [00:39:16] Speaker B: Yep. [00:39:17] Speaker A: So Coma's gonna be fighting happy. We spent the time to get that joke in, but the. The sad reality is dignitized. [00:39:25] Speaker C: Actually, no, it's time looked. Oh, it's former T. Former Skt. T1 John joke is ruined. [00:39:32] Speaker A: The joke is ruined now. I can't believe it. Okay, all right, well, we'll move past that. Dignitas, they were the game one Merchants, man, they were always good for like a. Or not always, but most of the time they were good for a game in their series. They had a lot of three game series against good teams. They just couldn't win the full series, man. Like, it was kind of heartbreaking even bringing Dardoc in. Like, after week two of the summer split, they still could not turn things around. And I. I feel for this roster. I feel for this team. It's gonna be another rebuild for Dig, which will mean essentially, I think that's like every year for the past probably eight years. The Dig has rebuilt the roster, rebuild it again. [00:40:20] Speaker C: Constant rebuild. Trust the process. [00:40:23] Speaker B: We built it better. [00:40:24] Speaker A: I don't trust that process. That process is not yielding. [00:40:29] Speaker C: You know what? You know what? There's this. There's this basketball team called the Philadelphia 76ers, which is the group. [00:40:35] Speaker B: They get LeBron, you own. [00:40:37] Speaker C: Yeah. The process back in 2013 was getting the chips in place so that they could make a run for LeBron James in like 2014, 2015. It's 2026, and they finally got LeBron. You know what? Dignitas is one step away. They're going to get there eventually. [00:40:53] Speaker A: All right, maybe, maybe they trade Scary Jerry for Faker. [00:40:56] Speaker C: They get exactly. You know what? Maybe, maybe, maybe in 2041, Chovy will come play for Dignitas. [00:41:04] Speaker A: US only 15 years. Not bad. Not bad. He'll still be in. [00:41:10] Speaker B: I'm still waiting for Riot to open the floodgates and change the rules so that Faker can do, like a stop around the world at the end of his career. He just gets to play like one split in every single region for any team he chooses. [00:41:22] Speaker A: He is grandfathered into every. [00:41:24] Speaker B: Every region. He is the father of every region. [00:41:29] Speaker A: You know what? [00:41:31] Speaker B: The Father Tour. We'll call it the League of Legends Faker Father Tour. [00:41:37] Speaker A: Bothered by Faker? There we go. Dad's coming back home. [00:41:42] Speaker B: Dad is the world. All right, well, me up, bro. [00:41:50] Speaker A: Sign me up. That sounds great. Sounds better than this. Last week's games for the lcs. I'm not gonna lie to you guys. This was a full sweep weekend. Every Single series was 2, 0. Two of them were expected. We had Team Liquid versus Dig and lion versus DSG. Lion versus DSG was one of the hardest games to cast just because of how one sided it was and also how unwilling lion were to end the goddamn game. [00:42:18] Speaker C: They wanted to pass their stats, man. [00:42:21] Speaker A: They were literally playing with their food. And it was kind of sad to see, although call me, will forever have a solo kill on Saint, he legitimately solo killed Saint at like two and a half minutes while DSG also got a dive kill top lane. And then unfortunately, two minutes after that, lion had a gold lead again and we're back in the game. There's not a ton to talk about in terms of, like, competitively breaking down what had happened. I think the most important and impactful ones were Sentinel, C9 and then FlyQuest, Shopify. So that's really where I want to keep the focus here. C9 being able to body Sentinels was not on my bingo card. I actually had Sentinels winning that series on broadcast. I hedged my bets a little bit by predicting C9 on this podcast. So I was half right, but more wrong because C9 2.0'd it and it looks pretty good. Yeah. Badger, what do we think about C9As, like, coming into playoffs with this kind of energy and, like, really silencing one of the big teams that was like, in conversation to contest them for that third spot of Worlds? [00:43:30] Speaker C: I mean. Well, for starters, this ensures that you're not the fourth seed going into playoffs. You're the third seed. So good job. Good job by you for that. [00:43:39] Speaker A: But your reward is you get Shopify. [00:43:41] Speaker C: You get Shopify in the first round, which, I mean, is. Is such a better thing to do right now that actually, is it better to play Shopify or Flyquest right? Now, I mean game. We'll talk about that. [00:43:52] Speaker A: I mean after this past weekend I'd say yeah, like they did not look like they had a lot of fighting them. Yeah, I. God damn it. Zinni. [00:44:01] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:44:01] Speaker A: God damn it. [00:44:02] Speaker C: Yeah, I know, I know. That's. This is aging worse than the prince. The prince thoughts that I had back in the past. No, I just think C9 did a really good job of dispatching sentinels. The games were pretty quick. I mean it was like just under an hour of game time between both games. And this is exactly what you need for a team that hasn't made world since 2023 actually is a bit longer than that. [00:44:28] Speaker A: They're cursed though. They're cursed, man. I don't know if they're even gonna make it. I don't remember for 2023 or 2022. I just know that the curse has been like at least a couple of years now. And I gotta say it was kind of back to back individual pop off carry moments like they were winning both times. But then there were a couple of close fights that Sentinels actually gave them. It's just in the first game it was Thanatos in the mid lane. He has one of the most disgusting gnar team fights I think I've ever seen. [00:44:56] Speaker C: Oh my gosh. [00:44:56] Speaker A: Like they lose blabber to some bullshit idiot. Idiot. Idiocy. Idiotic. I'm trying to think of the word I'm looking for. Idiocy. That's not it. Anyway, blabber died in a dumb way and sentinels then snowball it into killing. I think it might have been taxable. They got two picks and then just keep fighting and Thanatosh just pulls a team fight win out of his ass. He sidesteps every one of dark wings is Cassiopeia Noxus blasts the prediction with [00:45:25] Speaker C: the wallop on the all out was. Was. I think that was the. The play of the weekend. Honestly. [00:45:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Impact. Kante olds through him and he like wallops behind him before the animation even comes out because he just knows it's coming. And then is able to land the stun through the Kazante old. It was and then just smashes him. It was great. Thanatos hard carried that fight and then game two in the same position in mid lane. It was Thanatos on Kalista as like a team fight and looks really, really clutch. At least I think that was the callistic game. I'm now maybe conflating the two but either way he. He like it carries hard in the Mid game in the same position. So Yeah, I think C9 showed that their team fighting is back. They had a little bit better, like objective priority compared to the last time because that was our focus going into this past weekend was like, is C9 just gonna throw a Dragons again like they did in Mexico City? They didn't and it looked much better. So shout out to C9. Mizel, do you have any thoughts on C9? Is like the top three team in your mind? Are they definitively the top three or do you still think that there's argument that somebody can contest them? [00:46:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I favor them out of anybody else that's left in the field besides Team Liquid line. [00:46:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so too. After this past weekend, I think that they silenced a lot of my doubts. [00:46:41] Speaker C: If. If this C9, if this C9 roster doesn't make it it with the pieces they have and the how much everyone else is struggling around them, I. I think you just have to blow it up at this point. You. You have to burn it all down to the ground. [00:46:59] Speaker A: Prove yourself and burn it down to the ground. [00:47:02] Speaker C: Rise and rise. [00:47:03] Speaker A: Yes, there we go. The other close series this past weekend in the LCS was Fly Quest, Shopify. And by close, I don't mean in terms of how the games went. I mean in terms of expectations. Expectations. FlyQuest had been struggling. God, they look bad. They had not won a game against any of the other playoff teams. Azale. Shout out. Azale, who found this stat, or at least he asked for it, and Leo, our stats guy, confirmed it. It would be the first time in history that a team is in playoffs having never taken a game off another playoffs team. That would have happened if Shopify had two owed FlyQuest. The opposite happened. Fly Quest 2.0, Shopify, Rebellion. Yeah, it is crazy that they were close. So we almost broke history in two different ways this past weekend, but Flag was for good for it and they looked good doing it too. Masu in particular, I think really stepped up and it looked like the Carry. Yeah, Griffin as well had a much better series. And I just. I feel like if this is the Masu we're gonna get, Fly Quest actually is a threat again. And like, if you watched the last week's pros episod, Miles had a really cool quote where he was like, oh, yeah, I think Masu's the second best A.D. carry behind Berserker. He just hasn't been playing to his peak. And if he can get back to there, like, this Fly Quest team is scary and it's proven it Is actually I don't. Is this a. Is this a leak? Am I. Am I about to leak something? I'll leak it because sure the schedule is going to be going up soon. Lion being first seed get to choose which bracket opponent they have they had to submit by Tuesday and they have selected C9 Shopify side. They actually chose that side of the bracket. And if you listen to pros episode really like reading between the lines it's because they don't want to play against FlyQuest. They actually are a little intimidated. And I also think that there's an argument that like sentinels are more like stock standard team than C9 and like maybe if they just get their draft they could be better. So like there's arguments for it but the biggest one that we expect is that yeah flying we're trying to dodge Fly Quest side of the bracket it interesting. Okay let's get thoughts on that because I just I I info dumped. I maybe I leaked a little bit again. I don't think it's that big of a deal because it's just choosing side selection. We're going to have narratives built for it this next weekend on the 80 of course but let's start with Mizel here first and then we we'll get Badger's thoughts. Fly Quest taking down Shopify and then also the thought that lion might be trying to dodge them on the bracket. [00:49:30] Speaker B: Yeah. I think the dodge is interesting in terms of what what like what that could mean into in like scrims or like any prep or anything like that. But maybe that's a little bit of a conversation for later. [00:49:45] Speaker A: But I I do on pros Isles did echo that. Sorry to cut in but Isles did also say he was like yeah no Fly Quest is like I'm just wondering against them in scrims. [00:49:54] Speaker B: Yeah yeah. I just wonder what the picks what what old Griffin is doing to to Mr. Inspired in there. But it feels bad for for DSG to obviously finish out the way they did. I I think it's gonna be really really curious to be the promotion tournament and I don't know if that's something we're going to talk about in the future for these episodes but. [00:50:18] Speaker A: Oh, of course. [00:50:19] Speaker B: Yeah of course. Yeah. D DSG is they look better than I feel like they they put off there especially against lion. So I I'm. I still have faith that they will be a team that comes back to the LCS next year but sucks to go out on a little bit of a loss like that. They won one series at Least throughout the whole split, you know, better than Dignitas took down Dig. [00:50:39] Speaker A: They took down Dig. Yeah. And it. Lion. I think that that series, it showed me what I want to see from, like, the top team versus a bad team. Like, yeah, I already mentioned they're playing with their food. Badger, let's get your thoughts. So I. I want to hear more about the. The FlyQuest Shopify side there. Do you feel like FlyQuest proved more to you that, like, they are coming back into form? And. And what are your thoughts on the potential that Lion's trying to dodge them? [00:51:05] Speaker C: I mean, if. If that's a team that you have a mental block against, especially, like with scrims, if they've been scrimming them and it hasn't been going really well, especially when you're in the position of, hey, we're in playoffs at this point, we kind of need to, like, lock in and be in the best mental position that we are at this point. And. And so there's. There's that argument, and then there's also the argument of, like, well, we're gonna have to play him eventually if they win. So, like, let's just knock him down at this point. Because honestly, I think I would also take the. The Shopify C9 side of it because, you know, if the C9 curse just continues at this point, like, the mental block comes through on that side. If the team's not fully prepared or ready to go for the series series, and Shopify takes it, that means you're playing Shopify in the second round of playoffs. Like, yeah, you get a buy and you play Shopify going into finals weekend and basically secure your world spot at that point. [00:52:04] Speaker A: Like, I'm happy you bring that up because that is exactly my thought process. If I'm lion and I'm looking at sentinels, fly quest C9, I'm not seeing a giant difference in strength. I think I'm better than any three of them. So it's like, okay, would I rather have the guaranteed I'm playing against a good opponent in Fly Quest or Sentinels, or would I rather, like, still have a winning match versus C9 but maybe Shopify flip heads that day and take down C9 and then you get, like, a pretty easy opponent? Like, I actually think that that's kind of where I would assume the thought process was coming from. Again, I have no idea. [00:52:45] Speaker C: That's. [00:52:45] Speaker A: That's. That would be up to them to answer, like, why they chose that side of the bracket. [00:52:48] Speaker C: But. [00:52:49] Speaker A: But it feels like when your options are okay. One side of the bracket has two kind of scary teams. The other side has only one. And maybe the less scary team just like gets an upset. You could. You could bank on that a little bit when you expect to win no matter who you're against. Yeah. Okay. All that said, I think it's so funny that I just said the words Fly Quest a good team when they had looked pretty doo doo up until this last weekend. But I think that again they. They brought it online and if this is the. The form that they're in for the rest of playoffs, they could make it a push for. For top four. I still think that C9 is in my head. I agree with Lennon. I think that C9 is that third seed right now. But you never know what happens week over week. Yeah. Shopify were frauds. Man, I'm so sad. I really had high hopes for this team. Especially after Mexico weekend when they got games. [00:53:44] Speaker B: Well, didn't you? [00:53:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:45] Speaker B: Where were they on the preseason rankings at the beginning of the year? Where were they? [00:53:50] Speaker A: But it doesn't matter. It's okay. No, no. We don't need to worry about. [00:53:53] Speaker B: I think that was. [00:53:54] Speaker C: We ranked him in the preseason. [00:53:55] Speaker B: That's weird. [00:53:56] Speaker C: I don't. I don't remember that. [00:53:57] Speaker B: Oh yeah. [00:53:58] Speaker A: I think it says I'm looking at S tier and it says Mazelle. Shut up. [00:54:04] Speaker B: Okay. [00:54:11] Speaker A: But it is sad to see them fall off a little bit. I don't think. I. I have no faith in this team. Let's get into predictions because we can just kind of segue in. That's gonna be the first match. Shopify versus C9. I got C9 taking a three. One maybe contract slips, heads for one of the games and can have a pop off. Get Fudge off this roster. Though. I think Fudge deserves a much better team around him. Zinny has done nothing but disappoint except for like a couple of games in the middle of the split. And B boy, I also am kind of over. Zazel's not coming back contracts. God, I love him so much, but he just doesn't always flip heads. Like he is the most 5050 jungler in the league. [00:54:53] Speaker C: Is this like, could they have like the TL 2018 to avoid relegation run or was it 20? Was 2018 the first year? [00:55:03] Speaker A: 7 was like 2018, wasn't it? [00:55:06] Speaker C: Whatever year they brought in Doublelift is like the mercenary for the team. [00:55:09] Speaker A: Yep. [00:55:10] Speaker C: Just be like, hey, we're not playing together in three months anyways. Just it we ball. Let's see what we can do like, it feels like there's a potential for a style like this run. I mean, they got to work on it pretty quickly, but there's a chance that they could do that right now. [00:55:25] Speaker A: Don't get my hopes up, Badger. Don't do it. [00:55:27] Speaker C: Listen, listen, I'm. I'm still huffing the copium at this point, all right? [00:55:31] Speaker A: You picked C930. What are you talking about? [00:55:33] Speaker C: Listen, you know, it's an emotional hedge, all right? Either I get the prediction right, or I'm actually happy when I watch the games. [00:55:41] Speaker A: Mizzell also has C9.30, so we. We're all lying. Seeing I should take that. Sentinels vs Fly quest is where it gets a little more interesting. I got Sentinels three. Two. I think this one's very close, but in my mind, Sentinels has had Fly Quests number all year. They have lost a singular series to Fly Quest and it was spring playoffs, lower bracket. They did get three zeroed. Not great. But they've won every other series versus FlyQuest this year. I think think stylistically it's just a tough matchup for Fly. Badger has three one for Sentinel, so agrees on the results. Even more in Sentinel's favors. Mizell, you are still holding true on Fly Quest with a 3:2. So, Mizal, I'm gonna throw it to you first. Actually, I kind of gave some of the defense for Sentinels at least, so. So why do you have Fly Quest taking the win? [00:56:26] Speaker B: I believe in the young gun. I believe they're gonna make it work. I think it is. Again, Griffin's on. I think the jungle. The jungle pool is. Is in his favor. [00:56:37] Speaker A: At least Humbach has his picks, but when he's not on his picks, he doesn't look as cohesive with the team. Also hilarious you bring up the age because it is still the youngest versus the oldest rosters in the LCS. And in fact, the youngest roster globally at tier one is still FlyQuest. And I think Sentinels is like the second oldest global. So pretty. Pretty big kind of disparity there. All right, well, that's it for lcs. That's the last week of regular season wrapped. And our predictions for week one of playoffs, heads up. It's going to be two matches this coming weekend, but then the next two weekends will be super weeks. So mark your calendar is appropriately. We got a lot of LCS action ahead of the U.S. speaking of playoff action, though, let's hop across the pond to the great country of Berlin. Actually, that's a city. Great country of Germany And a great city of Berlin in the city in the country of Germany. I'm just. Man, I'm struggling with that. We're going to the lec. Technically. [00:57:43] Speaker C: We're in Barcelona, though. [00:57:45] Speaker A: Damn it. You're right. I wasn't even in Berlin. [00:57:48] Speaker B: We're in Madrid. [00:57:49] Speaker C: Wow. That one. [00:57:49] Speaker A: Really? Somewhere in Spain. [00:57:50] Speaker C: We're not in Germany right now. Okay. [00:57:52] Speaker A: I'm in Spain without the S. Right now is where I am. All right, we want to playoffs Badger. What happened? What were the matchups? Who took the victories? And then we can break down our thoughts on. [00:58:02] Speaker C: All right, so we had the bar and partners of the weekend leading into the final day. Well, I guess it was two series on one day, and then the last day was the upper final, technically. Yeah. So the first series we had was G2 versus Vitality, and it was a G3O, as I put it last week. [00:58:27] Speaker A: Oh, you did put a G3. [00:58:28] Speaker B: Oh, look at you. [00:58:29] Speaker C: I did put a G3O. We all put a G3O. What are you talking about? [00:58:33] Speaker A: Well, yeah, but you put G3. [00:58:34] Speaker C: Yeah, I can't. It really doesn't work when I do G231. Like, it just. Yeah. Then it was Casey versus Giant X, and that was a 3:1 for KC and then it all culminated in this. The main event on Sunday. Or is it Saturday? No, Sunday. Yep. The Labor Day. Really up my days at this point. [00:59:00] Speaker A: Well, also, Saturday was two best of fives in a row. They started. That doesn't help. 2:00am our time. [00:59:05] Speaker C: That doesn't help you crazy. So it was David versus Goliath right now. Casey versus G2. And G2 pulls off a very convincing 3:1. Like. [00:59:19] Speaker A: Yes. Closer. [00:59:21] Speaker C: The. The 3:0 was closer in terms of games compared to the 3:1. [00:59:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Vitality actually put up a big fight versus G2 and had leads in, like, all the games that G2 had to come back from and pull it out of their ass. The KC series. It actually felt like the games G21 were pretty, like, in their control, and then they just dropped the one game to them. [00:59:46] Speaker C: Weird. [00:59:47] Speaker A: It was a weird series to walk away from. Weird. [00:59:49] Speaker C: It was. [00:59:50] Speaker A: Is Vitality better than, like, no way? [00:59:53] Speaker C: I mean, I would say no at this point, but it's still just the idea that, like, when it boiled down to it, G2 was just, like, the G23 over. Vitality was the least convincing sweep I've seen probably since, like, 20. Like, 2018. 2019, I would say. [01:00:18] Speaker A: Wow. Are you just kind of pulling something out? [01:00:22] Speaker C: Like, it's. I'M trying to think of like the IG like 30 in the finals versus Fnatic like because like, because like Fnatic played bad. But I don't think IG like had that great of a series too in 2018 world finals. That's a story for another time though. I mean they won worlds. I can't really say anything at this point but yeah, no, G2 just had like [01:00:50] Speaker A: just. [01:00:52] Speaker C: Oh man, it was a weird performance on Saturday and it kind of had me worried for Sunday because I'm like, oh, maybe it's going to be a 3. [01:00:58] Speaker A: 0. [01:00:58] Speaker C: I was, I was expecting you know, four games and maybe hoping for five, but it was just. It was four. [01:01:05] Speaker A: But it's always they show up in the team fights, man, like they are the best team fighting team in the lec. It doesn't matter if Vitality have a gold lead going into it doesn't matter if Fiesta solo killing Caps. He's still gonna come back. He played the LeBlanc which was pretty fun. Excited to see Caps kind of pulling out more and more of a shameful. We had a couple of fun picks in the LEC this past weekend that we can cover. Broken Blade still bringing out like the Camille top lane. I know at this point that's not that exciting or like new but yeah, it legitimately was just like team fight better G2 win game game. And it didn't matter that Vitality was, you know, keeping them on their toes for a lot of the games and I. It makes me excited for Vitality as the third seed. I think Vitality will be the third seed going into worlds for. For eu. I don't see them dropping to any of the teams in the lower bracket. But talking about from the the KC side because they also dropped a game to GX. So they picked up a game versus G2 but they dropped a game versus GX. So kind of like a wishy washy weekend from them overall. And Busia pulled out Velkoz. That was a fun pick. We got to see Connor get a pentakill on Jace. That was pretty exciting. So like cool moments from this team and it still feels like they are the second best team fight team in the LEC and the second most creative at drafting in the LEC and the second best in lane in the lec. And it's like all these things, they still just lose to G2 which was kind of evident in that series. [01:02:45] Speaker C: Okay, can I ask a quick question? I know because it's. It's kind of. It feels like the right time to ask this just based on everything that happened, is Chokath Jungle actually good? [01:02:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. [01:02:58] Speaker A: I think so. It got a lot. It got two losses this weekend. [01:03:03] Speaker C: It took a couple of Ls. That's why I know in the east, it's been. There's been some performances in the east that have been really good on it. It just feels like western junglers just don't understand how this pick works. [01:03:15] Speaker B: Because I have your solution. It's execution. Diff. [01:03:22] Speaker A: No, no. Don't say those words. [01:03:24] Speaker C: Is that the word? [01:03:25] Speaker A: How could he say something so brave? [01:03:27] Speaker C: Said the word of the day. [01:03:28] Speaker B: Ah. [01:03:29] Speaker A: Or whatever the meme is. I don't remember how that goes. So, so hurtful but true. Something like that. [01:03:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:34] Speaker A: Yeah. It could be execution. I think that, like the games that we saw it lose, it did lose in weird fashion. Like that G2 loss to KC. It kind of felt like they lost the first couple of plays and we're just like, okay, this game's over. Let's just go next. Let them end. Just let him run. Because that one was Stompy from kc and that was Skumon legitimately looking useless on the Cho Gas. But also beyond that, it was like Kana and and Yike just connecting really well on the map together. Callisto went. An interesting build. I had not seen this Varys build before. It was hex plate, I guess. At first it was static shiv, then hex plate terminus. Really interesting. It's like you're getting some attack speed. Some like AD hex plate makes sense because, like, you old and then you get the extra tax beat. But like, I've never seen anything exactly like that before. And then he went QSS and Negatron cloak. So just like full magic resist. Because he didn't want to get one shot by Caps, I suppose. But like, Broken Blade was on the head, Hansama was on Zaya. So I just. I saw this build. I was like, I don't. I've never seen anything like this before. I don't know if this is like, normal. Have you guys seen anything like this on Varus Bot Lane? [01:04:54] Speaker C: No. [01:04:54] Speaker A: It's like quasi Tank early. No, because you get HP from the hex plate, you get the resistances from Terminus. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm not sure what it was. I'd never seen anything like that. I assume he was going into the. If the game had continued, it would have been the adaptive helm, which the Negatron cloak would have gone into. But yeah, just caught my eye. I think Casey if they can blow up the early game on G2, G2 sometimes will just give them a happy game. But then once G2 lost that one game, they came back with a vengeance and we're like, all right, let's just smash them. [01:05:28] Speaker C: G2 is good for a happy game. And, and yeah, once it gets the best of times time, like even with like Dylan Falco like they were always good for like you know, hey, we're up 20 in a series. Game three. Haha. Guys, it's so funny. They're. They're the most. I don't want to say that the most unreliable sweep sweep team out there [01:05:47] Speaker A: but like until it's finals, once this [01:05:49] Speaker C: finals then they kind of lock in. [01:05:52] Speaker A: But like yeah, funny you mentioned the coaching staff because Perks actually I got to. I listened to the mic like the comms listen in the mic check and they had a couple of moments where during this series where he was talking to the team and I actually was kind of impressed. I will say I was a bit of a perks hater with like replacing Dylan Falco and like not really knowing the whole story there and being like that feels like shenanigans. But then hearing what he was saying to the team during pick and ban, I actually was like, you know what? Okay, maybe he could be a good coach. He also was the one that was wholeheartedly like all right, Skewmon believes in it and I believe in Sku Mond lock in the Maokai Tristana and they, they go Maokai Tristana Trist mid lane for Cavs. He's playing the skin or the champion with his kid. Right? But then Skewmont also on the Maokai which is just something that had not been played very much. But just hearing the coach be like, skewmont thinks it's real and I trust Skumon. We should trust Qmont. And then the whole team being like yeah, lock it in. And then like they smashed and it looked really good. So yeah, shout out to Mike. Listening. I love hearing that type of stuff. Any final thoughts? Badger on LEC and how playoff week one went over in Europe. [01:07:08] Speaker C: They really are just a one team region, aren't they? [01:07:11] Speaker A: Kind of, yeah. And their third team because Casey would be the second. The third team still yet to win a game in playoffs since the winter split or whatever they called their winter split because if you remember Vitality reverse seed last spring and then went 06 in playoffs. They just went 03 in their first round. I really hope they don't bomb out. That would Be so sad for knock Knocko and squad. Yeah. Predictions for this coming weekend. It's going to be a weird schedule. It's going to be Friday and Saturday is when we have LEC games. It's gonna be GX versus Navi. On Friday we have GX for myself. 3, 2. Badger agrees. 3, 2. Mazel agrees. 3 1. Bickle put his predictions in and actually put navi. So we do have some split there. But I was convinced enough by gx. I feel like the. The June bot lane with Flock it is actually working better than I expected. And Oscar in even though the Vayne left some to be desired. Like the fact that they trust him to play carries top lane I think is pretty cool. Vitality McOil is the second series on Saturday. I got Vitality 3 1. Badger has 3 2. Mazel has McOi. 3 2. Mizel, I hate to put you on the spot. [01:08:24] Speaker B: I believe. [01:08:25] Speaker A: Have you watched an MCOID game? [01:08:29] Speaker C: Yep. [01:08:29] Speaker A: Okay. There we go. That makes sense. Badger, I'm surprised you even have this going. Five games. I struggled to give MCO a game. I was like, they have like Merwin has. My goat is washed. Their jungler does not have a brain. Like, JoJo is the only one on the team. Like, he's the only person on the team right now. [01:08:49] Speaker C: Jojo. [01:08:50] Speaker A: Will. [01:08:50] Speaker C: Will this team do a game five? He's just. Okay. I have. [01:08:54] Speaker A: I guess, you know, he's coming home, baby. Let's get JoJo back to NA. [01:08:59] Speaker B: He's. [01:09:00] Speaker A: He's the only one that looks good at F K right now. Super. Every third game. Okay, cool. Well, that's our predictions for LEC this coming weekend. Again, just remember a bit of an odd schedule. I didn't even see this on the broadcast. So I'm just going off of Leaguepedia. But Leaguepedia listed as Friday and then Saturday games. So mark your calendars appropriately and wow, look at that. That's it. We made it through the episode. Just a little over an hour here. Thank you so much, guys for sticking with us. Mazel. If somebody wanted to, if they felt inclined, if they were emotionally motivated to leave a review, how many stars would you recommend? [01:09:40] Speaker B: Well, I would say I would like to see world star come back five times throughout the next five years. So I would really like to see five stars to kind of represent my wants and needs of the League of Legends community. And if you don't know, the world Star challenger invitation. Fictional. [01:09:58] Speaker C: Yes. Yes, exactly. [01:10:02] Speaker B: TMZ of old. Not that one. [01:10:05] Speaker A: I don't even. I. I know What? Like the words are. And in that exact cadence, like the emotion behind it. I never watched it. I don't even know what that show is. Was it like a bat? It was a basketball thing, right? Oh, was it not a basketball? [01:10:22] Speaker B: You know how like TMZ watches like famous people fight people at bars and stuff? And it was like. I thought it was like stuff like that. [01:10:28] Speaker A: Damn it. I thought world. Okay, so World Star. Hip hop or World Star. Which one is it? Because there's websites for both that have the same symbol. [01:10:38] Speaker C: So there's. It's a brand essentially that people would scream before they would get into fights or like if they. If you took a video of a fight back in like the late. Oh, the late 2000s. Early. Yeah, early 2000s. [01:10:53] Speaker A: Okay. [01:10:54] Speaker C: Like, you would see a fight and you would just scream world Star. And check it out. [01:10:59] Speaker A: Worldstar.com first off, 212 trackers blocked by Mozilla. When I. That's crazy. Second of all, first article, 3D Puppet World viral Lil Durk Animation Series exposes OTF Jam as the alleged fed wearing a wireless. I don't know what half those things meant or who have those people were. [01:11:27] Speaker B: But you know what? [01:11:27] Speaker A: This is another one. Woman with rare macro maestia condition causes her breasts to never stop growing. They weigh nearly 60 pounds. All right, I got an idea for what world Star reports on. [01:11:40] Speaker B: Cool. [01:11:42] Speaker C: What the. [01:11:43] Speaker B: Can we. [01:11:44] Speaker C: Thank you everybody for listening. [01:11:45] Speaker A: Thank you for watching everybody or listening. [01:11:48] Speaker C: Five stars. [01:11:48] Speaker A: Remember? [01:11:49] Speaker B: Five stars. [01:11:50] Speaker A: Five stars for the World's championship series coming back for League of Legends and [01:11:56] Speaker B: not just being five more years. America's challengers was. [01:12:00] Speaker A: Yeah, we love you. We'll see you next time. [01:12:03] Speaker C: Goodbye, everybody. [01:12:06] Speaker A: Oh, yes, Daddy. I didn't even want to hit the button that time. That felt inappropriate. It. Sam.