League Rundown - Episode 625: Curses broken and curses continued

[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 game by game by game by should be. [00:00:27] Speaker B: Oh my God. [00:00:28] Speaker A: 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 625 of the League Rundown. This is your 2026 Summer Split LEC playoff week two review and week three preview and the LCS playoff week one review and week two preview. This episode is lovingly entitled Curse is Broken and Curses Continued. I'm your host Kangas and I'm joined by two esteemed co hosts. Up first, fresh out of the can, it's Badger. [00:01:27] Speaker C: We're starting to paint this picture of worlds. You know, we're starting to get teams established. We're figuring out who's representing their regions at Demacia cup and we're figuring out Brush. [00:01:40] Speaker A: Brush strokes are hitting the canvas. [00:01:42] Speaker C: Bob Ross has entered the building with how close to the painting is being complete for the last internationals of the year. [00:01:51] Speaker A: Now will any happy little accidents get any unfavored teams in? That's what playoffs is here to decide. Also to talk about it, we got [00:02:00] Speaker B: and the big Bickle pickle. I'm fairly certain multiple teams are going in to Demacia cup just completely mentally boomed and not wanting to be there. [00:02:10] Speaker A: Yeah, we were talking about that at the LCS meeting earlier today as we're recording this on Wednesday. And basically Demac up is like the losers tournament. [00:02:20] Speaker B: Yes. [00:02:20] Speaker C: Well, yeah, that's exactly what it is. [00:02:22] Speaker A: That's what it's always been for LCK fans. But like for the. The regions that are the fans that will now be paying attention for the first time. That's like kind of a tough to swallow. It's like oh yeah, no, this is the international tournament for the losers at this point. [00:02:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:37] Speaker A: So probably not gonna be the highest morale but still good experience for teams. Like presumably if you're looking at lcs it'd be like Sentinels and Fly Quest would probably get like a really good experience there. Maybe Shopify if they can make a push. And then the lec, you know like your. Your Giant X's which I think already locked. Right. [00:02:54] Speaker B: No Giant X is eliminated. They're not going to. [00:02:57] Speaker A: Well, wasn't it Their fourth fifth are going. [00:03:01] Speaker B: It would have been. But the second place team in regular season finished in. In fifth place. So therefore Giant X got knocked down to sixth place and is eliminated. [00:03:11] Speaker A: Yes. [00:03:13] Speaker C: Choked it. [00:03:14] Speaker B: Yep. [00:03:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:15] Speaker A: That's unfortunate. Okay, well, bye gx. Well, either way, it's gonna be the tournament for the international losers. We'll keep our eyes on that as games start happening the week before worlds play ins. Right. I think it's the week leading up to worlds. [00:03:33] Speaker B: Yes. [00:03:33] Speaker A: Yes. [00:03:34] Speaker B: Starts October 3rd. [00:03:37] Speaker A: Love that. We're all super prepared for that question. I threw out as I was not prepared for any statement on it. But cool. We got the. Some of the information there. All right. But let's start with news around the horn. Well, let's just keep it international because we're already starting international with conversation about Demacia cup and Worlds. We have one more team qualified for Worlds. Bickle, who is. [00:04:00] Speaker B: Is anyone's legend who qualified two worlds. The second, they beat IG in that lower bracket finals. They then went on to play BLG in the finals where because of points they had both already qualified in the finals. Was just for seating. So Al, by making finals qualified for [00:04:17] Speaker A: worlds and did they win that finals? Did I see that already or did they. [00:04:24] Speaker B: No, they. They won finals. Pay no attention to the fact that they got three zeroed in the upper bracket finals rather convincingly. They kind of curb stomped BLG in [00:04:37] Speaker C: a. I think kind of is putting it nicely. [00:04:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Tarazan did some things that weren't safe for work. [00:04:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:04:46] Speaker A: Classic. [00:04:46] Speaker B: So yeah. LPL has BLG and AL now qualified for Worlds. And they have two more seeds left to be decided by their regional finals which start tonight. Four teams in that regional finals. We have top esports versus IG fighting for third seed. Then in the lower bracket portion, we have WE versus jdg. Loser goes home or technically goes to Demacia Cup. And then the winner of we vs. JDG faces the loser of Top Esports vs. Ignition. Winner gets the fourth seed at Worlds. Loser goes to Demacia Cup. So all four of them will be going to an international event. It's just two of them go to Worlds. Two of them go to Demacia Cup. Come on, igwe. Don't let me down. [00:05:27] Speaker A: Are those the ones that you think. Are you just fans of them or do you think that they're going to be the best for the LPL to send? [00:05:33] Speaker B: I do not want to live in a world where we send top esports to another international event. [00:05:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:05:39] Speaker A: Fair. Fair. No, if you had. I didn't even know. Yeah, I didn't register. I didn't clock it. That that was the other team topping [00:05:45] Speaker C: G. Are the other two team contending? I mean, I. I personally want to see Honky back on the international stage, but at the same time, I also don't want to see Hongq in this form, in this region back on the international stage. So it's a weird give me dichotomy. [00:06:01] Speaker A: Was it Team Secret Whales, Hong Kong? Was that who the team? [00:06:03] Speaker B: You're thinking Flying Oysters? [00:06:05] Speaker A: Flying Oysters. There we go. Yeah, Give me Flying Oysters. Honky again. Oh, Honky Doggo. That was a great roster. [00:06:11] Speaker B: Give me Monkey at Worlds. [00:06:14] Speaker A: Yeah, well, he's on it. He's on W. Anyone's legend, he's on [00:06:19] Speaker B: W. Monkey's on W. So he still got a chance. And IG with the shy and rookie are making a run. They look so good at times. [00:06:30] Speaker C: And then you remember who the shy and rookie are. [00:06:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:35] Speaker C: And you're like, oh, I know. [00:06:37] Speaker A: And then I know what's gonna happen. [00:06:39] Speaker B: They look so good in summer playoffs. Made a run to third place. They're gonna face Top Esports and Rio tonight. It's just what's going to happen. And it's going to make me crumbles. It's going to make me so sad. [00:06:53] Speaker A: Hey, well, hey, that's a win win then. No, it's not. Well, kind of. It's either you're right or you're wrong and happy. There we go. [00:07:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:04] Speaker A: Either your prediction is correct and you get, you know, tap yourself on the back or you can go to sleep without crying. I'd say both of those are positives. All right, what about. So that's the one world Steam. And is that pretty much the LPL update as well? I feel like we kind of got. [00:07:21] Speaker B: That's the lpl. Basically, the update was Finals happens. Anyone's legend one. We have the regional finals coming up. [00:07:27] Speaker A: Sweet. Badger, what's the LCK update before we get into roster news? [00:07:31] Speaker C: Yeah, so LCK is done because they don't do regional gauntlet and surprise. Wait, quick. Hold on, everyone. Put your surprise face on here for a second. [00:07:43] Speaker A: What? [00:07:44] Speaker C: Gen G won the lck. [00:07:48] Speaker A: That's wild. [00:07:49] Speaker C: Tommy, stop me if you've heard this story before. [00:07:52] Speaker A: I can't believe it. Chovy beat Zeka. That's nuts. [00:07:55] Speaker C: Shovi is once again. [00:07:57] Speaker A: I hear shower. [00:07:58] Speaker C: Yeah. Chokey. [00:08:00] Speaker B: Surely this is Gen G's year, right? [00:08:02] Speaker C: Surely this is Gen G's year, right, so Gen G is the one seed Han was the two seed. T1 is the three seed. And of course the artist formerly known as DK Dom1D plus is the fourth seed going into Worlds. So that's the LCK update. Yeah. [00:08:21] Speaker A: Love it. Well, hey, at least their seating is locked. We know the four teams. We've known the four teams already, but now we know that it's going to be Genji in first seed. Shout out to them. And also shout out to poor Shocks who. Oh yeah, Jack put out like a video about analyzing if Chovy is a choker and kind of like looking at all of his world appearances and like why he would lose so many finals and like what the situations were. Check that content out. Very interesting content. Just kind of like doing an eye test of all the finals and how he contributed to wins or losses. But then Shocks also had like a stream reaction to it and everyone's dog piling on that as opposed to like the Jad video which also has got a rage rating in the title. So sorry, Shocks. She gets so much hate from so many people for no reason. Yeah, I love Shock. She's the goat. But yeah, it's. Hey, it got clicks, it got. It got a lot of people. [00:09:23] Speaker C: It got engagement. That's all that matters. [00:09:25] Speaker B: It got the reactions exactly. [00:09:28] Speaker A: So say nice things about Shocks on socials for the next couple days. There we go. Even it out. Try and try and balance the world. Okay, Roster news. Usually we start with that. We're gonna end with that. This episode. Not a ton of things happening. But Bickle, there was one bit of news from EU fanatic put out a little statement talking, giving a preview of what their offseason could look like. Can you kind of summarize? Essentially the TLDR FNATIC gave a pretty [00:09:56] Speaker B: long post that came out like a article they'll be doing, I think a Twitter stage or whatever the hell it's called now where they talk about their plans for the future. But the TLDR of the article is they're getting a new gm. That's it. [00:10:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:10:14] Speaker A: And that's the start of a rebuild. Typically a new GM means new decisions to be made for coaching staff and then after the coaching staff, new decisions be made for the roster. Typically that's how it goes. Not always. Sometimes they try and draft like a star player and then ask what coaches do you like working with. I never like it when GMs handle it that way. I prefer the coach first mentality. [00:10:36] Speaker B: I'd be shocked. [00:10:37] Speaker A: It's always the first domino to fall. For a rebuild. [00:10:40] Speaker B: I'd be shocked if they don't burn that roster to the ground. There's going to be, like, one or two players left, I think. [00:10:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:46] Speaker C: Who would you keep most likely to stay? [00:10:48] Speaker A: Don't say Razork. Please don't say who do I think [00:10:51] Speaker B: they should keep or who do I think they will keep? [00:10:54] Speaker C: Who do you think they will keep? [00:10:56] Speaker B: I think they're gonna keep. I think they're going to build around Flatty. [00:11:01] Speaker A: I could see that. [00:11:02] Speaker C: I, you know, that's not the name that I had thinking initially. [00:11:08] Speaker B: Most likely players to stay are their solo laners. [00:11:11] Speaker C: Yeah, see, I was gonna say Soboro. [00:11:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:14] Speaker C: And then you build a roster around that. [00:11:18] Speaker B: I get that. I just think it's tough when your foundational piece is an importance [00:11:25] Speaker C: fair. [00:11:25] Speaker A: Yeah, it's tough to build around. [00:11:28] Speaker B: I think they made such a push for Jackie's this past off season. Not Jackie, Sorry. That, that they made such a push for Vladdy this past offseason. They kind of just gotta stick with it and ride it out. Even if for like two thirds of the season. He looked horrendous. Hear me out. [00:11:47] Speaker A: Hear me out. I'm curious. Go. [00:11:49] Speaker C: You go. [00:11:50] Speaker A: Oh, actually, you, you do yours. [00:11:51] Speaker C: No, you go first. You go first. [00:11:52] Speaker A: Because mine's a post. Mine's on serious. [00:11:53] Speaker C: Mine's also a post. [00:11:56] Speaker A: Okay, let's say Larson on three together. How about that? Hear me out. [00:12:00] Speaker C: No, that's not the name that I was thinking of. [00:12:03] Speaker A: I was like, razork upset. Larson, think about that. What if we. [00:12:07] Speaker C: I was thinking, what about Noah and June? Back to fanatic. [00:12:11] Speaker B: Oh, the only issue with that one is June has said he's going back for military service. [00:12:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I, I, Where's Noah? [00:12:19] Speaker A: Even at, like, can we fight Noah? Is he just warming a bench? [00:12:22] Speaker B: I think he's on GX's bench. [00:12:25] Speaker C: He's on the bench at Gian X. Yeah. [00:12:29] Speaker A: Sag. All right, well, either way, big rebuild expected. A Fnatic, a new gm, similar to what happened with Shopify this past year. If you remember, Shopify hired a gm and he kind of said, yeah, everyone on the roster at this point is playing for their roles for next year, and there's going to be big changes. I'm expecting a very similar position for Fnatic, except they're not playing for positions anymore. The positions have already been played for. [00:12:55] Speaker B: And now dual role. Dylan Falco, coach and gm. [00:12:59] Speaker A: Oh. I mean, if an addict, if a team like Fnatic is not hard, hard pushing and going deep into the coffers. For a coach like Dylan Falco, that's just a mistake. [00:13:12] Speaker B: I know that Fnatic has that brand name recognition. My question for you is this what coffers we've heard them trying to sell for like the past two years actually. [00:13:24] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. A lot of the European teams are struggling. I've also heard rumors. I didn't put this in, but rumors that JoJo is close to reaching. [00:13:32] Speaker B: Oh yeah, that agreement. [00:13:33] Speaker A: There's that whole. [00:13:34] Speaker B: JoJo has an offer on the table and the deadline for that is like next week before they have to wait until like after Worlds or something to start negotiations. [00:13:45] Speaker A: But I just. Man, I. I've also heard all the financial reports around mcoid. We talked about that briefly on the podcast on a previous episode. They don't have money either. So, like they're gonna have to get funding somewhere to get these players. But that's just the one. Over in Europe, there's two in N A Badger. Dignitas already making some roster moves in the off season. There were two pieces of information. Catch the audience up on them. [00:14:11] Speaker C: Yeah, there's an addition and a subtraction essentially with the roster. So I guess we'll start with the. The positive one. We'll say the positive one first because I think the negative one kind of creates a little bit less discussion. But Denethor has been extended by Dignitas to play for the team next season, which I think is the right move. You know, rookie player coming in weird circumstances about joining the team when he did so good on him, had, I mean, good enough showings for a rookie that I think that the potential is there. I mean, just having another year, having the stability of the off season, of knowing that you're going to have a solidified position is just going to be so important for Dennis or as a player and his growth. But on the other side of it, the expected news, I would say, just based on the fact that it was just kind of a contract until the season ended, is that Dardoch Dard's contract with Dignitas has expired. I. I can't imagine a world where they don't at least throw an offer or have discussions with him going into the next season. Just based on the fact that like he came in and the team, it's. It's the liveliest the team has been all season long. Am I going to say that that's a good thing at times? [00:15:40] Speaker A: Yes. [00:15:40] Speaker C: Like the fact that he was able to get the best out of this team in such a short time frame with his little practices he got with them. Yeah. Is that good for the prospects of Dignitas based on who they can pick up most likely Tier two players, maybe a couple of Korean challengers players coming over, maybe, who knows. [00:16:03] Speaker B: I mean they can start looking at a lot of tier 2 players now because NACL wrapped up their playoffs. So we know who's in the promotion tournament now. [00:16:13] Speaker A: Yes, true. [00:16:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:16:15] Speaker A: And also support players as well, notably speaker who if you haven't heard about it, we've been talking about this for briefly here and there on the podcast he roll swapped a support and his team NRG did not make it. Speak had been kind of gung ho publicly. Like you know I want to qualify to LCS through nrg. So if they had gotten into the promotion tournament, he's not talking to any teams about contracts or maybe he would like have the conversation but he's not like considering he's focused on getting into the lcs. But now a player like him as a role swap support could be like a HUHI situation where you know, Golden Guardians took the gamble, put who he support. It worked out, it paid off great. Maybe a team like Dig would do that with a player like Spica as well. He the return of Dignita Spica [00:17:00] Speaker C: would speak of want to go back to DEG is the real question. [00:17:03] Speaker B: Yeah, if they're looking for a different Jungler they might look the Kizno angle. [00:17:11] Speaker A: True. Yeah, I I do. There's a lot of options. Dignitas on their podcast that they put out had all kinds of stuff to say on the last episode. I haven't watched the most recent one, but the one before Slayer was on that shout out. Slayer, who also had guested on our podcast the same day that that episode came out for Digging Deep. But basically Jonathan the GM had this whole breakdown of like all the Tier two players that he's got his eyes on. So yes, expecting a lot of call ups from tier 2. Also expecting Dardoch will have an offer from Dig. It's just he's gonna want to get on a better team if he can because I think Dardoch has upward oh 100 get on a team like Sentinels or well Sentinels probably wants to hold on to Habakk for a while but like maybe shop for Rebellion if Contracts is looking for a change or wants to move around. I'm sure Shopify would want a player like Dardoch. Okay, that's it for roster news and that is it for the global news as well. A reminder as always, if we missed something that you wish we had talked about. Let us know in the community discord. And then also shout out anybody who is already in there. If you're not, go find the link to join in the description wherever you are listening. Also shout out to anybody who supports a POD through the Patreon or through our merch shop. Links to both of those are also in the description. World's right around the corner, but we still have playoffs for LCS and lec, so let's talk about them. Let's kick things off with the lec. I believe we started with LCS last week, so we're up for Europe to start off this time around. We have our week two of playoffs already wrapped and week three preview to start talking about. I'll be fully transparent here though. I did not have a lot of time this weekend to watch lec, so I only caught a bit of the Vitality MCO series. Both went the full five games though. So Bickle, I'm gonna toss you up to you up for the LEC intro. What did I miss and what were some of the key takeaways that you saw from LEC along with just kind of updating people who who beat who and who's out of the playoff race now? [00:19:13] Speaker B: So this is just a really fun weekend. Honestly. It was a tale of two regions. Two two threes and two three zeros. But over in the LEC we got double five game series with both the underdogs winning. GX Navi went to five with NAVI coming out on top and mcoid vitality went to 5 with with mcoi coming out on top. That means Vitality again has choked. [00:19:40] Speaker A: Yeah. At least they won games this time. Two to be precise. Yeah, two games. [00:19:47] Speaker B: I put something in the community discord about this. Let me see what it is. So Vitality in the regular season finished third place in winter, first place in spring, second place in summer. [00:20:00] Speaker A: What was their threes all regular seasons. [00:20:03] Speaker B: What was their we know they won zero playoff series the entire year. What was their game record in playoffs? [00:20:10] Speaker A: Oh God. Well yeah. Badger, let's break this down. So last split it would have been 06. Then this split it it was 03 and then now a 2 3. [00:20:20] Speaker C: So that's so that's 2 and 12 right now. [00:20:23] Speaker A: Now what was lock in or that? Not the locking but they're equivalent the the winter split. [00:20:27] Speaker C: Oh God, why do I feel like it's four? It was it single elimination or double elimination. [00:20:34] Speaker A: I thought that they were below because they were third seed going into that. [00:20:40] Speaker C: Yeah, they were. [00:20:40] Speaker A: I think they started lower bracket. Didn't they just lose immediately and bomb out there too? [00:20:45] Speaker C: They have like three one, I think. Is it three and 15? [00:20:49] Speaker B: It is two and 16. [00:20:51] Speaker A: Oh, my God. Wait. They didn't win a game in the lock in tournament. [00:20:56] Speaker B: Oh, wait. No. Oh, wait, I'm. I'm stupid. I don't know where I got my numbers from. They won two. Yeah, I'm completely wrong. Somebody told me they didn't win anything in the lock and they did. Never mind. [00:21:05] Speaker C: Okay. [00:21:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I thought I had looked it up. [00:21:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Because right. Lock in was this big stupid tournament thingy. They won nothing in the upper bracket. They went oh two against mco, but then they somehow beat Fnatic and lost to Casey back when. Yeah, this was all. Basically, Vitality's really bad in playoffs. [00:21:25] Speaker A: So what was their game record? Let's piece it together because now I'm curious. What was the game record for winter? [00:21:31] Speaker B: For winter, they went 3 and 3, [00:21:39] Speaker A: so 3, 5 and 15. [00:21:40] Speaker B: 3 and 4. [00:21:42] Speaker A: 3 and 4. So 5 and 16 is their game record in playoffs in 2026. [00:21:48] Speaker B: Still abysmal when you consider their regular season finishes. That's horrendous. [00:21:52] Speaker C: Yes. [00:21:53] Speaker A: Yeah. 5 and 16. Holy nuts. Yeah, they're cursed, man. Their playoffs are straight up cursed. [00:22:00] Speaker B: And now they have to play Demacia cup, which I don't think any of them want to do. [00:22:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm especially like, man, could you imagine being Knock Knocko and being like. [00:22:12] Speaker B: That's the thing. There's literally a quote from. I can't remember when it was. I think it was after their abysmal performance in spring. He's like, yeah, if we do this again in summer, I hope we just lose quickly so that we don't have to play anymore after we're done. [00:22:28] Speaker A: And now they might have to play a little. [00:22:30] Speaker C: I hate to introduce this thing called Demacia cup to you, but in all honesty, unfortunate. [00:22:36] Speaker B: There were two really good series. We're kind of talking about Vitality MK right now. And I can't believe this. The story of it. I think the reason Vitality lost that series was Knock Knocko. [00:22:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:22:50] Speaker A: Yeah. He ch. That was the only series I was able to catch him from. And that was my assumption. That was my interpretation as well. [00:22:55] Speaker B: He had one of the worst canon games I've ever seen and made some [00:23:00] Speaker A: of the most picked Renekton. [00:23:02] Speaker C: Yeah. Was unable to do anything. It was awful. [00:23:07] Speaker B: Has a chance to turn a 2v1, but fat fingers leveling up his E at level 6. So he doesn't have his alt to turn the play. [00:23:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:23:15] Speaker A: Yep. [00:23:16] Speaker C: Because they're like, why isn't he alting? And then they looked and they're like, he never leveled. Oh, no. [00:23:22] Speaker B: Yeah, two points, which was just rough. And. [00:23:26] Speaker A: And I gotta give. [00:23:27] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I was gonna say something. And then game five, he's a great lead on Camille, but just does nothing with it and throws himself away and gets caught multiple times. Taking bad fights. [00:23:39] Speaker C: Wasn't sidelining like he was. He wasn't playing well in the side lanes. It was just an awful. I don't want to say it was. I mean, it was awful, but, like, it was just not as strong of a performance as you would expect from a player like that. [00:23:54] Speaker A: Yeah. I gotta give shout out, though, to Dragos on the desk for not pulling his punches. This is something I've been thinking about and kind of struggle. It's always a struggle as a broadcaster to know how truthful should you be about your opinion or impression of a player in a series. In a moment, I thought that that wasn't a moment where it was appropriate for Dracos to kind of go in and be like, look, he's choking. This is now back to back. Like, Knock Knocko is choking. Like, that's one of those things that. It's a tough thing to say as a broadcaster. I want the best for all of the players that I cover. I'm sure that Dragos does as well, especially in a region like Europe where you get flamed a lot as a caster. But that. That is kind of what was happening. And if, as long as it's truthful what you're saying and not just, you know, flame for the sake of flame, I think it's always appropriate. So it's tough to walk that line. But even when even, like, the Happy Go Lucky Casters are saying, yeah, you're throwing, you know, it's bad. So what do we think this means for Vitality going forward, though? Like, is it. Are they gonna keep Knock Knocko? Like, does he need a change of environment, of scenery? Like, what. What does this mean for them, do you think? [00:25:09] Speaker B: I mean, this organization is cursed, but there's no other way around it. [00:25:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:25:20] Speaker A: When's the last time they made worlds? [00:25:22] Speaker B: 2018. [00:25:23] Speaker C: 2018. [00:25:24] Speaker B: It was. Yeah. [00:25:28] Speaker A: Oh, my God. That's so much further behind [00:25:34] Speaker C: Attila. Yeah. [00:25:38] Speaker B: So Jack Troll, kick us. [00:25:40] Speaker C: Kick us. Was the. [00:25:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Yamato Cannon as the coach, because that was the big, crazy group where them and Cloud 9 ended up fighting for the final spot out of the group after Gen G absolutely collapsed. [00:25:55] Speaker A: Damn. [00:25:56] Speaker C: Tell me if you had a party before. Yeah. [00:25:59] Speaker A: Oh, God. [00:26:00] Speaker B: And that's how we got Cloud 9 to the semifinals. [00:26:03] Speaker A: Yeah. We don't talk about what happened in the semifinal. [00:26:06] Speaker B: Suzuki's Echo. [00:26:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:26:09] Speaker A: Yeah. All right. Well, if we had to recommend a series to watch then for Europe, long series. So a lot of games to cover, but which ones would you recommend? Pickle. [00:26:21] Speaker B: Honestly, both of them were pretty solid. We talked about MCOID vitality a lot. But Navi GX was back and forth too. You truly got to see what it looks like when two quote unquote franchise players try and put their teams on their back and battle back and forth because Jackie is in roulette. Were throwing haymakers back. [00:26:45] Speaker C: Oh my God. That game three, the Shyvana versus like lock. [00:26:50] Speaker B: Oh my God. [00:26:53] Speaker C: Who can carry the other? Who can carry their team harder between the two of them? [00:26:57] Speaker B: And both of them had some corpses on their team. Oh my God. [00:27:01] Speaker C: It's such. It's genuinely speaking on single game performances. Jackie's performance that he had in that game three might be one of the best performances I've seen in a losing effort all year long. [00:27:13] Speaker B: It's wow. Like if Jackie's demanded Isma's head on a pike, I wouldn't blame him. [00:27:22] Speaker C: Oh yeah. [00:27:24] Speaker B: Look, I don't know the last time I've seen a bink a battle. Bigger jungle gap. [00:27:30] Speaker C: Yes. [00:27:30] Speaker B: Oh, like this look like what you expect from like an LPL or LCK team in play ins against a minor region. Like it was. Yeah, the jungle gap was absurd. [00:27:42] Speaker A: Isma was that gap. That's crazy. [00:27:45] Speaker C: I mean roulette is good. Is Reletch the best jungler in Europe? Like, I mean it's hyperbolic to say, [00:27:51] Speaker B: but there's some pretty good junglers. But he's like, he's part of that young crop that's going to be the next generation. This is Navi's franchise player. They yeah. Cannot let him go. That. [00:28:04] Speaker A: That makes sense. Did he. Do they do rookie of the. [00:28:08] Speaker B: He won rookie. He run. He won rookie of the year. [00:28:11] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. Or rookie of the year. Okay, good. [00:28:13] Speaker B: Yeah, he won it and I think it was two years ago. Jackie's won it actually. So it was a battle of rookies of the year. Because last year was interesting. [00:28:24] Speaker A: That's funny. Yeah. All right, cool. Well, eyes will of course be on roulette going forward as well. Speaking of, we got a couple matches for LEC to round out their season one world spot. Still on the line, that's Gonna be Navi vs. McOhoy battling out for that in a best of five in the lower bracket. Loser will be going to Demacia cup as a consolation prize. Winner will face KC for a chance to face G2 in the finals. So we have one more spot for Worlds and then seeding from that position forward for the LEC. Let's talk about predictions. McCoy versus Na' VI is first up. This one, we're a little split. We got badger with a 3:1, Na' Vi Bickle with a 3:2, Navi, and I don't know why I have MCOI 3:2. I honestly couldn't explain it to you, but the fact that they somehow won last week means that maybe they have some miracle sauce. Now, the downside of this prediction is that they were against choking vitality. [00:29:27] Speaker B: Yeah, that was. [00:29:30] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe they still got some. [00:29:31] Speaker B: That was. My counterpoint is McOID looked better than their regular season, but not so, so much better. It was just they were playing vitality in playoffs. [00:29:42] Speaker C: You have to keep in mind that, like, if we see this level of performance coming out in this next series, it just feels like Navi's strengths are just better than Koi's MKOI strengths. And it feels like. I don't want to say the choking narrative is about to move over to McOil just based on prior history with stuff like that, but it just feels like this is the time that it's like JoJo's Last Dance potentially in. In this roster, maybe in Europe as a whole. Who knows what's going on? [00:30:17] Speaker A: This just feels like series that they. [00:30:20] Speaker C: That they're gonna lose. I don't know why going into it. I mean, I. I think Navi's the. I think Navi is the better team just based on the fact that I. I like the pieces of the team a lot more than I like the pieces of MCO right now. [00:30:38] Speaker B: Yep. [00:30:38] Speaker A: But when I think of the downside of MCO, when I think of the downside of McOHOY, I think Merwin's been shitting the bed this summer. He's against Mainter, who maybe can get [00:30:46] Speaker B: a lead, but just had a phenomenal series, in all honesty. [00:30:50] Speaker A: But was he smashing? Was he carrying? [00:30:52] Speaker C: He didn't need to. [00:30:53] Speaker B: He didn't need to carry, but he looked pretty good. [00:30:57] Speaker A: I don't think of Main Tour as a carry. So even if he looks good, I like Merwin being the weak link currently of McOil. I don't. Maybe Navi switched up the draft and goes for like cannons jaces like more carries for maintenance. But I feel like if it's just standard, what I've seen so far, the biggest weak link of McWay won't be as punished by Navi and JoJo. I have sweeping Poby. POV's great mechanically, but like, man, he just has a couple of moments every now and then where he's like, what are you doing? Like, why'd you flash forward? [00:31:29] Speaker C: I. [00:31:30] Speaker B: Yes, he has a few moments. McCoy has those moments, but everyone on the team has those moments. [00:31:37] Speaker A: Just let me believe, damn it. I want to believe. [00:31:41] Speaker C: We're just presenting our side of the argument as to why you're wrong, you know? [00:31:45] Speaker A: Yeah, that's fair. [00:31:47] Speaker C: But either way, it'll be really well when McCoy 3o's him and makes worlds. [00:31:52] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:31:52] Speaker C: So here's the thing. [00:31:53] Speaker B: Either McCoy wins and JoJo comes home for Worlds, which is a great story that McOid went on this crazy run, or we get to see new young talent in relation on the world stage, which would be really cool. [00:32:08] Speaker A: Yeah, that would be hype having the rookie go to Worlds. [00:32:11] Speaker C: Dude, think about the junglers that have already qualified to worlds at this point too. And think about this kid who's like one of the strongest carries we've seen out of the jungle in years at this point going all these other teams, [00:32:27] Speaker B: will we technically most likely not see it because he'll be in play inside 90 chance. Yes. [00:32:34] Speaker A: I was gonna say we're gonna see reluctance versus blabber, baby. Or Griffin. Actually, dude, if Fly Quest make world and we get Griffin releged that jungle, [00:32:46] Speaker B: give me Navi Fly Quest, please. I love it. [00:32:49] Speaker A: That would be pretty. [00:32:50] Speaker C: That might be. That might be a banger semi final matchup in the Demacia cup at this point. [00:32:55] Speaker A: But could could be there too. It could be there too. All right, let's move on though. KC versus the winner of the past series. We all have Casey taking it. Badger has a game going to Navi. But me and Bickle do not agree with a3.0 prediction. Yeah, Casey, Europe is a two team region, and the third team will be happy to participate at play ins. Maybe make it through plans. I. I honestly feel like play ons is so up in the air for me. Like NA's third seed versus used third seed I think will be close. I expect NA to be a little better. But if it's Fly Quest and not C9, I actually think it's very up in the air. [00:33:31] Speaker B: You trust Cloud 9? [00:33:33] Speaker A: I trust Cloud 9 in play ins at worlds. Yes. When's the last time C9 like truly shat the bed and disappointed you when they were at Worlds? If they make it though, you have [00:33:46] Speaker B: to count because they haven't. [00:33:48] Speaker C: They gotta make worlds in Florida. [00:33:49] Speaker A: Exactly. But whenever they haven't had the chance [00:33:52] Speaker B: because they've choked too many times in na. [00:33:56] Speaker A: Yeah, but you know, you can only choke so much until your body naturally just has to gasp for air. Like, you can't. You can't just die. Like, you're gonna get a breath in eventually. So this is maybe that year. [00:34:08] Speaker C: What? What an argument to make at this point. [00:34:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:12] Speaker A: If all you do is choke your corpse after enough time, you know, it's like, come on. Okay. G2 versus I honestly, do we want to break down any of your argument pickle for a game going to Navi or are we all in agreement Casey's just too good? [00:34:29] Speaker B: It's. I will say you said, [00:34:35] Speaker C: I think Casey's just good to drop one game. Like at any point. I don't feel like they're the team that thrives off of sweeps. We've seen it before in these playoffs. They lost a game to Giant X. [00:34:47] Speaker A: Like, yeah, true. They do just drop games, so. But Bigelow, what are you. [00:34:52] Speaker B: I was gonna say you do. You did say one thing I strongly disagree with. You said Europe's a two team region. Europe is a one team region followed by another one team. And then there's the breadth of the region which comes into finals. [00:35:07] Speaker A: There's an S tier, an A tier, and then the rest are below. [00:35:10] Speaker B: Yep. [00:35:12] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, cool. Well, we have Casey advancing, I think. No surprise then. It's G2 versus Casey in the finals. The rematch of a rematch of a rematch. These two are building up a legacy against each other. Casey MCO is exciting when it's live in front of a French or Spanish crowd, but everybody knows the top dogs are these two teams. I have it. A sweep. I got G2 taking this one. I feel like G2 in finals is just inevitable. Badger almost agrees with a G231. Bickle has it going the distance with a G2.3 2. All right, Bickle, I'm going to toss it over to you again because you have it going the furthest. Why do you think Casey is able to step up so much to G2 in the finals? [00:35:59] Speaker B: The last time they played it was a 3 one. That G2 was pretty ahead in this time I expect to be closer for a big reason is they're in France. [00:36:10] Speaker C: Oh, wait. [00:36:12] Speaker A: They're actually Live? [00:36:12] Speaker B: Yeah, they're live in France. The final turn. France. [00:36:14] Speaker C: It's Leon. [00:36:17] Speaker A: Or is it nice? [00:36:19] Speaker B: That's a good question. [00:36:22] Speaker C: Where. Where in France are the finals? [00:36:25] Speaker A: Does that change your. Your opinion? [00:36:28] Speaker C: No, it's just. I'm curious. [00:36:29] Speaker B: They're in nature. They're a niece, which is. [00:36:36] Speaker A: All right, well, that will be the home crowd for Casey. [00:36:41] Speaker B: And also I just think Casey didn't show up as strong as they were last time and can do a bit better, but I just still think G2 is a step above and I just want a really good series. [00:36:55] Speaker A: Fair. Yeah. Voting with the heart is always a legitimate badger. Anything to add because you also have Casey getting a game. [00:37:03] Speaker C: GT is just good to drop a game. We saw it in the Nice, the upper finals, the game three. I. If I was their coach during game three, I would have just told them to surrender and come back. And we're having a heated, slightly heated discussion because what the fuck was that? They're. They're. They're just good for that every once in a while. So, you know, I have a feeling it's going to show up in Grand Finals again. It might be. It might be 1:1 after the first two. Like the semblance of just this idea that, oh, it's not a sweep, you know, maybe. Maybe we're gonna go the distance. Maybe Casey will get it and then G2 just shows up and, you know, CAPS is Hall of Legends for a region, so. [00:37:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. You know what could happen though? I'm just realizing looking at the graph or the bracket, if KC loses, we all have them winning. But just bear with me, if they lose, they would make it to Worlds with a negative win rate in playoffs because they're currently 4 and 4. The first series win guaranteed them qualification for Worlds, their second series. They only got one game, so they could actually have a negative win rate in playoffs, which I suppose kind of makes sense if you're like advancing through the upper bracket. It's like not a very long upper bracket. Like they won one series, lost two to make it to Worlds. That's that way, actually. That's crazy. What the hell? They won one series and lost two make it to Worlds. That would be nuts. [00:38:31] Speaker B: I will say the funniest timeline is that Casey loses to McCoy in France. [00:38:39] Speaker A: That would be objectively the fun. [00:38:41] Speaker C: That would be. That'd be. [00:38:43] Speaker A: And then the arena's empty for finals. Just all the French. [00:38:46] Speaker B: No, that. I don't know if that arena would have been more KC favored for that favor or going into finals. G2 versus MCOID. How G2 favored that arena would be because everyone would hate MKOI's guts. MC, the villain of this road show. [00:39:03] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Even Navi is gonna get cheers. [00:39:07] Speaker B: Navi's gonna get so cheered in round one. And then so in round two. [00:39:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:39:15] Speaker C: The Parisian or the nice crowd have two favorites. Casey and whoever's playing mcoh. [00:39:22] Speaker B: I mean, plus Mainter was top laner for KCB last year. [00:39:29] Speaker C: Oh, cool. A little. [00:39:32] Speaker A: Little connection there as well then. All right, that's our expectations for LEC Roadshow to close off the summer season. After that, it'll just be worlds prep for the LEC teams as well as some Demacia cup participants. And with their participation trophies, which we already know. Again, you said it is vitality going, right? So vitality is locked. [00:39:54] Speaker B: Vitality goes. And then Navi and Coy goes. [00:39:58] Speaker A: Exactly. Yep. And then over in na, we're going to determine our attendees for Demasi cup this weekend. Nice little segue right there. Let's talk about the LCs hopping across the pond to Santa Monica, where we had our first round of playoffs this past weekend. Just the first matches of the upper bracket. A reminder, our bracket looks very different in the LCS compared to the lec. Every team is in the upper bracket to start things off. If you're a top two seed, you get a buy for the first round. So it's still. For the top two teams, it's still like win a best of five, make worlds. But for the teams lower in the seating, it's more forgiving for them because they don't have to start in the lower bracket like we saw in the LEC. That being said, though, C9, Shopify, Sentinel's fly Quest. You looted it already, Pickle. Both sweeps. Badger, I'm gonna tee you up to intro LCs, though. Who beat who and what were some of your big takeaways from the weekend? [00:40:59] Speaker C: So we had a lovely weekend. A fast weekend of two three zeros. Cloud Nine dispatched a Shopify rebellion like it was nothing. And FlyQuest confirmed all of our suspicions that lion is potentially scared of them by absolutely demolishing sentinels in a 3, 0 fashion. Yep. Looking like the best team that played this weekend. Would you agree. Would you agree that they looked like the best team that played this weekend? [00:41:35] Speaker A: I think considering they were against Sentinels and C9 were against Shopify. Yeah, I would say that. Yeah. [00:41:40] Speaker C: I think the. I think how long it took for game three to get closed out and the fact that it took took, you know, Throws from Fudge and Zinni, which is unfortunate things to say because Zinni had a fantastic Silas game for the first 32 minutes of the game. And then it just became rough at that point. [00:41:57] Speaker A: And Fudge had also had a great series overall. [00:42:00] Speaker B: Fudge was super good. [00:42:02] Speaker A: A little bit of game three, but. [00:42:03] Speaker C: Yeah, so yeah. But Flyquest took care of business handedly against Sentinels and C9 took care of business against Shopify. Big performers, I'd say Geckos just playing three different styles. Had the Kazante, had the. The J Sch game and then had the top lane. Twisted Fate, which is something we haven't seen in a while. I kind of like that pick still, especially if you've got a strong team comp around it of like Pantheon with the point and click lockdown, you know, trying to isolate a member, pick somebody off in the side lane, turn the split push advantage into your favorite, and then work the map off of it. I think Griffin had a fantastic series as well. I think he was setting up the team fantastically, playing the map really well. Just out juggling Hambock in every aspect that you could whatsoever. And I mean, Tactical, we talked about it. We, we. The big narrative was, you know, B boy versus tactical. Oh, I can't beat this T2. This tier two NA80 carry coming over. I should just retire at this point. Tactical had his number the entire time. Had fantastic performances. [00:43:15] Speaker A: The C9 Shopify series, I was casting that one. That was one of, like, the weirder ones to cast in general because game one and two kind of win what you would expect watching Shopify play this summer versus a team like C9. You're gonna contest every objective and Zinny's gonna throw at every objective. Like that's just kind of what happened. He's just decent from the team. Specifically the Annie game where he like walks into the dragon pit, past the line of scrimmage that his team has set up and just engaged on. Popped, he's dead. And then the rest of the team is a 4v5. It's like, God damn it, Zitty. Like, what are you doing? And then game five or game three. Like you said, he had a much better game on the Silas. They had Dragon Soul, Shopify had Dragon Soul. They win a fight, go to elder Dragon, go straight to the Baron, start sieging, get two turrets, two inhibs, and then they just expires before they commit. Yeah, they. They don't commit to the fight at the Nexus turrets. They like wait for a wave Let the other expire, fight with Baron, lose Tactical gets a quadra kill and then C9 in the game. [00:44:24] Speaker C: What the. [00:44:26] Speaker A: You should not be allowed to lose a professional game of League of Legends when you have a 4,000gold lead with Dragon soul with Elder, dragon with Baron buff. That should not statistically, mathematically be possible. What are we talking about? [00:44:37] Speaker B: Because not only was it a dragon soul, it's fucking hextech soul. [00:44:41] Speaker C: Yeah, that's Elder and Baron. And you lose with a comp that's really well at. Diving turrets, like all you need to do, get the. Get the waves in, you know, set it up, get the. Get the crash going. And you've got Wukong, you've got Silas, you've got Zyrakan, you've got Jace to poke at them while you're at range. And you just wait. I'm okay. Full context. They got the bear, they got the elder. They're pushing in. I'm like, I gotta make dinner real fast. I'm gonna get it started. I pause and I come back and I unpause. And you know how in the corner, because I was gonna catch up to live after it, I'm like, I want to see how this ends. And then kind of see, like, skip forward to the draft. The timer on the YouTube video, it's going down. And I'm like, what do you mean it's going down? What do you. [00:45:29] Speaker A: What? [00:45:30] Speaker C: What do you mean? It's the. It's the Jennifer Lawrence on Hot Ones. What do you mean? What do you mean? And I'm like, how? What How? [00:45:39] Speaker A: Huh? [00:45:40] Speaker C: And I start watching and I watch the collapse happen in real time. And I am on my feet, just hands on my knees, kind of bent over, just like looking and being like, what the hell am I watching? I. It was. It was one of the biggest throws that we've seen all year long. It was impressive. [00:46:00] Speaker A: It was fantastically played from Thanatos at the very end. He goes in and buys so much time. He's Camille. He just threw. Throws his ga away to set up Tactical. If you actually go back and re Watch it, Tactical basically walks up as Yunara and stands in place in autos for 5 seconds. And then they win the fight because he just does so much spread damage with his Runan's hurricane. But the thing is, Shopify, they just let the Elder expire. They. They would have popped Thanatos way faster. And then they just completely panic and choke in the moment. I actually pitched this today in the story meeting for this Friday. I'M gonna be on the desk with, with Kobe and Raz and I was like, one of you guys should do like a telestrator breakdown of that moment because that is a cataclysmic throw and that is all people can talk about from the Shopify C9 game is how hard Shopify threw an unlosable position. How did it happen? Like, we gotta break that down. So we're gonna have like a more in depth breakdown on broadcaster in the pre show. A little, little teaser for you. But essentially, yeah, it's like if you just look back at the clip yourself, Tactical has so much space because nobody has a threat, nobody's jumping on top of him and he just carries the fight. So shout out eddie. Taxable tier 280 carry, baby. He did it. The Fly Quest Sentinels 1. What I Want to highlight is Gat Ghost looked so much better. My goodness. Gagos night and day. From how he was looking earlier in the summer split. He did not know how to play the map when he had a support in his lane Level two Cryogen also did not know how to get around the map nearly as well as supports like Cora, GJ and Isles and Geckos in the 1v1. He's looking so much better, especially against Impact. [00:47:42] Speaker B: Who? [00:47:42] Speaker A: God, that's an old man. [00:47:43] Speaker B: I hate to say. Might be time. [00:47:47] Speaker C: It might be time. [00:47:48] Speaker B: It might be time to hang them up. [00:47:50] Speaker C: Last one. [00:47:51] Speaker A: I've been talking about it for two years now that it might be time. But every now and then he has like that one split where he had. Oh, actually that was a good one from Impact. Like maybe he still got it. This whole year has been pretty much tough. You look at what he wins on, it's Casante, it's Ornn Sion. You look what he loses on, it's Renekton, it's Jace, it's Kennen. His Yorick game was atrocious. He picked it into the counter in the Jace and yeah, it's just like you can't. If you're gonna have him on your team, you have to accept he's only gonna play Tanks and he's going to lose lane. We actually had a stat in Lane in that Fly Quest series. He averaged negative 35 CSD at 15 [00:48:37] Speaker B: minutes that York into. Jace is doing some heavy lifting there because that game was rough. I mean the second he TPS back and dies like a few minutes into Lane, it's over. Like you're just done. [00:48:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So if, if this is. If Geckos can do that To Morgan maybe Fly have a chance. I don't expect that. I don't think that's gonna happen personally. [00:49:10] Speaker B: But playoff Masu is hype. [00:49:13] Speaker A: Playoff Masu is very hype. Yeah he also had a great series and this is now kind of twice in a row that in playoffs because the whole thing about about like MASU and FlyQuest versus Sentinels this year is that they would lose him in the regular season but they three of them in sprint spring playoffs they just three of them again and both of them are off of Masu winning lane versus Rahel. So cool. Cool little tidbit there. And great to see Masu cryogen inform in the 2v2. Do we think after this weekend because the big next question and that'll kind of segue us into predictions coming up here. Do we think that fly quest or C9 gave us more reason to believe that they'll be the third seed team going into worlds again assuming TL lion don't choke and that everything goes according to plan and those two teams keep winning and they're in the finals versus each other. Who's the third team based on this past weekend? [00:50:02] Speaker B: Just based off this past weekend or overall plus this past weekend? [00:50:07] Speaker A: I'd say overall, including this past. Okay, so now that we've that makes it hard games how does that update? [00:50:12] Speaker B: Because I think if you're just talking purely off of this past weekend, it's Fly Quest hands down. But FlyQuest had a really rough regular season. [00:50:20] Speaker C: Yep. Yeah, I'm inclined to agree with that. What are your thoughts about I just, I mean I, I, you have to look at both sides of the argument of well c9 have been chokers this entire time. Like the definition of it at this point. But at the same time, what has what is FlyQuest done until these last two weeks to inspire you to think about them as a team that could make the run take out, you know, take out a C9 in the lower bracket. I, I, I think my Favor is towards FlyQuest just based on the fact that like there's a reason why lion didn't want to play them in the second round once they reached that point. [00:51:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Put a lot of stock into that. [00:51:14] Speaker C: Plus the fact that we saw them have such a impressive performance against a, against Sentinels. You can't discount that as well. [00:51:26] Speaker A: It just, I'm not discounting anything. I disagree. I actually have C9 overall being the third best. And a big part is I think Tactical and Vulcan are hitting their stride. It took a minute think about it this summer was the addition of tactical. And yes, C9 have dropped a lot of games in the regular season, but this last series gave me so much faith that like Tactical can be that carry C9 needs. He looked really bad leaving Team Liquid back in the day, losing Core JJ and the narrative was like, oh, Tactical can't win without Core. No, I think Tax will just can't win if he's got supports that int him which he had a lot of bad supports in a row. Now he's got Vulcan, the reigning MVP of the league. I actually think the Tactical looks so much better right now on C9 and Yamasu and Cryogen are a threat. But like I cryo or sorry, Masu Tactical, I probably give a slight edge to Masu, but Cryojin Vulcan? Nah, dude, I'm drinking Vulcan any day of the week when it comes to that bot line. And then on top of that, I still think that Thanatos is like the best top laner in lane that we have in the league and I don't think that Gakos is going to stand a chance against him. Quad Loki is about a wash and then maybe Griffin can be the wild card. But that's how Flycoast would win in my mind is being a wild card. If it's standard League of Legends, C9 takes it like 3:1 in my mind. [00:52:52] Speaker B: I think looking at purely the games we see would favor Flight would flavor up Cloud nine a lot. But lion is not a team to respect anybody. So the fact that they've come out and outright said, yeah, FlyQuest gives us the hardest time. It has to mean something. [00:53:13] Speaker A: So it's not the games we've seen, it's the games we haven't seen. [00:53:16] Speaker B: There's more to it. I feel like. I think FlyQuest has been scaling really well these past two weeks and with the fact that the playoffs are all on the same patch is very beneficial to them as it is A just a good patch for them and B gives them time to kind of stabilized themselves. [00:53:37] Speaker A: Yeah, man. I. I do just love though, because the deeper half of that narrative, which we haven't really talked about in a while is if you remember back in spring, split Dom on C9 was like, yeah, Fly Quests are frauds. Like productions gassing them up and they're straight up frauds. And then they have a rough start to summer and it's like, oh, maybe he was right. Maybe they did just get lucky on stage a couple times. But then I also have this voice in the back of my head during lock in tournament, Spawn coming up. And like, just behind the scenes catching up with him. It was like me spawning chat, I believe. And we were asking like, yeah, like, what do you think about Fly Quest? And he was like, dude, they're crushing us in scrims. I think they're actually really good. Then you hear lion and like, rumors being, yeah, they got crushed in scrims by FlyQuest the week before they had their selection. So they're like, yeah, let's not pick Fly Quest. So it's like Fly Quest have these moments where they can spike and, like, really pop off. And again, I think that's where the wild card side comes in for me. [00:54:34] Speaker B: But they have such variants, like, they can beat the best, they can lose to the worst. [00:54:42] Speaker A: Although they didn't drop a game to the worst. Positive the worst were really bad. Yeah, yeah, they. But they didn't drop a game to Shopify DSG or Dignitas. And you can't say the same for other teams above them in playoffs. [00:54:56] Speaker B: Looking at you, Cloud 9. [00:54:58] Speaker A: Yeah. So weirdly, they were actually consistent in the regular season where they beat the teams better or worse than them, lost the teams better than them. It just looks bad when you haven't won a game against the teams better than them. And now they just swept Sentinels. But Sentinels were only one place higher than them. They were barely like a fourth seed in playoffs, as opposed to seed. [00:55:18] Speaker B: So I forgot Cloud 9 was the team that lost a game to both of them. [00:55:23] Speaker C: Yep. [00:55:24] Speaker A: Dig in disguise. [00:55:25] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. [00:55:28] Speaker A: But again, Tactical is getting used to the roster. Loki had a couple happy games. He's getting used to the the team again. [00:55:34] Speaker B: Just give him rise. What could go wrong? [00:55:36] Speaker A: Just. No, no, we're not gonna do that. We're not gonna do it. There's a funny Easter egg that we're gonna have if he ever locks rise again. I'm not gonna spoil it for any listeners, but it's gonna be a moment if he locks rise. [00:55:48] Speaker B: I think it's just playoffs. I think it's just a Cloud 9 perma band now. Because, like, we don't want to play it. Yeah, we can't give it away. [00:55:55] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll address that weakness once Worlds is here. All right, let's talk about next week, though. And also for series to watch. I can't fully recommend either, except for maybe Shopify C9 game three, just because. God, you're just confused watching the end of that. [00:56:14] Speaker B: Yes, Sentinels Fly Quest Game one, maybe. [00:56:19] Speaker A: Okay. The closest of the the three. [00:56:22] Speaker C: Yeah, [00:56:24] Speaker A: fair enough. Well check those out then if you got some time. Otherwise EU had better quality series for the push and pull this past weekend. If you want a little league of legends but you don't have that much time, maybe go check out the LEC matches. Let's talk about this coming weekend though in the LCS because it's gonna be week two playoffs. We got to give our predictions. Starting things off in the lower bracket. The loser is out of any international appearance. They're out of playoffs. The winner can keep running the lower bracket and will at least lock in a spot at Demacia cup, which is the international of the losers. But at least it's something to look forward to in your postseason. Sentinels vs Shopify Rebellion kicks things off. Myself and badger both have Sentinels 3 1. Bickle has Shopify Rebellion 3 2. That is a bit of a surprise for me. I want to hear from Pickle first, actually. Why do you have Shopify taking this? [00:57:20] Speaker B: I think it comes down to a couple factors. What I'm really thinking is looking at this past weekend, Fudge was great. Impact was not. [00:57:31] Speaker A: Yeah, we actually didn't talk about that a lot for the Shopify stuff. We just talked about that game three, but Fudge crushed that series. He looked so good. [00:57:39] Speaker B: So I really think that could be an avenue for Shopify to exploit and I think it's been mentioned a lot. I think Sentinels is really vulnerable in draft. [00:57:52] Speaker C: Yeah, that's fair. [00:57:54] Speaker A: They play their style and when their style is not up, they struggle. [00:57:57] Speaker B: Yep. [00:57:59] Speaker A: But I think that in a even in a best of five, there's enough avenues, there's enough scaling bot laners, there's enough tank top laners, there's enough control mages. I think they'll be fine. I think that in my personal opinion is that that narrative is overblown a little bit because they have their S tier champs which all are those archetypes I described. Tank top control mage, Mid Hyper Hyper Carry bot. But there's enough of those across a fearless system that like you, you would have to ban out a lot of tank top laners to make sure Impact doesn't have a tank to play [00:58:34] Speaker C: because [00:58:34] Speaker A: yeah, he's gonna get his Cassante and his Orn and his Scion and his Mundo, maybe Cho Gath if they want to flex it around. Habox also willing to play it. Actually now I think about it, that's not that many tanks. Wait a minute, hold on, hold on. [00:58:49] Speaker B: Somebody else. [00:58:57] Speaker C: No, I don't think it's that ridiculous. [00:58:58] Speaker A: Am I gonna predict Shopify? No way, dude. [00:59:02] Speaker C: No, I. I'm. Unfortunately, I'm off the train at this point. I just think that the performance against C9, if you're. If you lose a game. Okay, Kangas, listen to me, voice of reason. [00:59:13] Speaker A: Yep. [00:59:13] Speaker C: Gonna. [00:59:14] Speaker B: Okay. [00:59:14] Speaker C: Yep, yep, yep. I. The. The. The angel on your shoulder is going to tell you that Shopify lost a game with Hextechel, Elder Dragon, and Baron Buff all at the same time. On a siege. [00:59:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Also, no, actually, that. You know what? That. First off, that is great to remind me of, but the second thing, which I think actually is more like strategically important. Top Lane. Doesn't matter, guys. Doesn't matter if you have a lead. Did Fudge win? Hey, Fudge smashed those lanes. Did he win a game? [00:59:46] Speaker B: No. [00:59:47] Speaker A: Look what happened bot Lane. B boy got bent over and spanked, and he is gonna have that happen again. Rahel is going to beat B boy in lane. I don't see Zazel. B boy being able to step up to Rahel and who. He's so. Boom. There we go. All right. All right. Thank you. Thank you for the confidence. I just needed that badger. I mean, remember what happened. [01:00:05] Speaker B: Shopify beat them in the regular season. [01:00:08] Speaker A: Damn it. [01:00:10] Speaker C: Regular season doesn't matter. It's playoffs. [01:00:13] Speaker A: I want Pickle. [01:00:14] Speaker B: You. [01:00:14] Speaker A: You have to understand. I want to believe, but I've been hurt so many times. [01:00:18] Speaker B: Oh, I. I know. [01:00:19] Speaker A: I did [01:00:23] Speaker B: pause. You're right. To predict Sentinels, they're more likely to win this series. I'm just calling the upset fair. [01:00:31] Speaker A: Fair. And I. I appreciate that we at least have some discrepancy here in our votes. They're not all the exact same. Either way, though, that has the high potential to be a banger series. Actually, all of these have high potential. That said, I got sweeps for the rest of my predictions. Lion versus C9 is. Is next. This is a matchup that we never actually got to see in playoffs in spring. Right. Because they. It was TL C9. Oh, no, no. [01:00:56] Speaker B: We got lost. [01:00:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Because five games. [01:01:01] Speaker B: No, it went three. [01:01:03] Speaker A: It went three. Damn. Okay. [01:01:04] Speaker C: Wow. I just. [01:01:05] Speaker A: My memory's terrible. [01:01:06] Speaker B: There's a reason we all have predicted what we have. [01:01:10] Speaker A: Yeah. I got Lion3.0. Badge got Lion3.0. Pickles got Lion3.0. We all think it's a sweep. Lion have looked head and shoulders like the best team. Once they got inspired back, they already took down team Liquid, who are really the only team that could have a chance in my mind to step up to the kings of the jungle. So let's talk about the next series, Team Liquid versus Fly Quest. TL3.0 for myself. But the two of you have TL3 too. Man, you're putting a lot of stock in this Fly Quest hype. Badger, let's start with you. Why do you think it's gonna be such a close series? [01:01:44] Speaker C: I'm under the impression that I think that Fly Quest is carrying a lot of momentum into these playoffs. I mean they are the youngest team in the split so you figure they're going to get better with time. So it just feels like now's the natural progression for them to in a close loss put their name out there on the map as the, you know, as the team most likely to get the third seed out of the rest of the pack. All things considered, if lion and Teal are you know, 1 and 2 at this point, I, I think that there's gonna be a shock that happens. I mean all it takes is Griffin, you know, outpathing Jose Dioto very early on into the game making it a little bit uncomfortable for them once they get into these, these mid game plays and force yawn into situations where he's uncomfortable in team fights that they could force them into a situation where FlyQuest would have the upper hand. That being said, TL is the better of the two teams. So I think it's the TL wins are gonna look very convincing and the Fly Quest wins are not gonna be as much. [01:03:01] Speaker A: Okay, so a little scrappier for the Fly one. [01:03:02] Speaker C: Scrappier. I think that it's going to take a huge effort from Flyquest to reach the five games but I feel they have the ability to get to that point. [01:03:15] Speaker A: Okay, fair enough. [01:03:16] Speaker B: Team Liquid thrive in the calm consistency of they are just better laners getting advantages and pushing it from it. Fly Quest thrives in the chaos. [01:03:29] Speaker A: True. Well, I don't think that they've ever drafted up a game plan that went to plan post 20 minutes. Yeah, they just kind of like freestyle. They ad lib for the rest of the game. [01:03:41] Speaker B: They. I feel like they have the ability to just throw a wrench in some plans. Like they shouldn't fight here but they're going to and nobody expects it it and sometimes they're just going to out hands you and you can't plan for that. [01:04:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that that's where that wild card analogy came from that we've all kind of agreed on and that's what FlyQuest is known for at this point. I just think that Team Liquid, I give them more credit as a team that can Control chaos, because that's what historically they've been really good at, where they're like slow games down and avoid the chaos. They don't get sucked into the craziness, they just play their game. But this current version of Team Liquid has Morgan, who's pretty good for stomping top lanes. They got Jose Deodo who actually can, in my opinion, adapt to the chaos with quid. Those two are actually pretty good at it. And then Encore JJ to still be a stable bot lane. So they can do a little bit of both. I. I actually don't think that they. A weakness of theirs is turning the game chaotic. I think that they're fully willing to still step up and take crazy moments, but they're also able to slow it down so they kind of get the best of both worlds. [01:05:02] Speaker B: I agree with you. They're able to match the crazy at times, but I think as shown in their games against lion, that is where they are weaker as opposed to their calm consistency. So I think if Fly Questions just wants to win, they need to kind of take the crazy and then hope to out. Basically. I feel like they have a better chance of beating the crazy Team Liquid than consistent Team Liquid. [01:05:26] Speaker A: I personally, I chuck up that TL lion series to Yandin. Take his Adderall or something. Dude, I don't know what was going on. They got so smashed. Yeah, there's a. Masu's gonna be much closer. [01:05:36] Speaker B: There's a small part of me that really wants to predict Fly Quest just because I think it'd be really fun from narratively, if that means Cloud 9 loses to lion and then needs to try and beat Team Liquid and then they end up again losing both worlds qualifying series in a row. [01:05:54] Speaker A: God. [01:05:54] Speaker B: I think it's more Team Liquid. Yes. To Team Liquid. [01:05:57] Speaker A: Well, last year Worlds, I think they lost it to. [01:06:01] Speaker B: They lost it to Shopify and then they lost a Tundra Thieves. No one to Shopify wasn't even a World's qualifying. So yeah, they lost it. 100 thieves. [01:06:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:06:12] Speaker B: But let me think. What was I gonna say? Yeah, just be funny because that's what's happened in spring. Also for Cloud 9 is they lost to lion and then they lost Team Liquid. I don't think it will happen. I think we will end up at that Cloud 9 vs Fly quest final world spot battle. But I just think it'd be a fun narrative thing if FlyQuest managed to overcome Team Liquid here and lock and lock themselves into worlds and then lion have to face them off the team that they're that they've been the most afraid of this entire time in upper bracket. [01:06:45] Speaker A: The bracket still had to match them. That would be a very fun timeline. And that's the beauty of playoffs, man. That's the beauty of sports in general, is you don't know what's going to happen. We could get the upsets, we could get the crazy narratives. Does that mean that we're going to predict it? Probably not. But the fact that it could happen would make things very exciting. Any closing thoughts on LCS though? Pickle, it sounded like you might have had something that you ended up in there. [01:07:11] Speaker B: No, I think pretty consistent. Unfortunately, LCF's playoffs so far have been meh compared to a pretty exciting LEC playoffs, so hopefully they're able to pick it up. [01:07:24] Speaker A: I think so. I think so. I think that there's a high chance of this weekend. All three of these have the potential to be gigabang or is probably C9. Lion is the least close in my mind that even though I consider them both top three teams, I feel like Lion's just that good. [01:07:41] Speaker B: So what you're saying is we're going to get three. Three ohs. [01:07:45] Speaker A: Yeah. I did predict two three zeros and then a three one. So it's funny that I'm like there's the potential, but I don't. My predictions are going the other way. That's gonna do it for this week's episode of the League rundown. Thank you so much for tuning in, everybody. This was a lot of fun chatting about playoffs. A reminder, LEC is gonna be in France with Friday, Saturday, Sunday shows. And we will know the world's representatives along with the seating after that. Whereas for N A we will only know the top two teams that will lie NC9, TL Fly Quest. Two of those will be going to Worlds, but we don't. No seating yet. And then we'll know the Demacia cup participants at the very least. So yeah, that's gonna be it. Badger, if people wanted to leave a review if they had the time, if they're not too busy in the crazy hustle and bustle that is the digital age of 2026 to leave us a review, how many stars would you recommend that they leave? [01:08:42] Speaker C: I would recommend 5 stars. I have no idea what the tie in with the five stars is on this episode, but that's okay. [01:08:52] Speaker A: That's a good one. I'll give you high five. Wait a minute. A high five. There we go. One star for every finger on this high five. Which would actually be 10 because he would count both actually be eight stars. His thumbs, I don't think count is fingers. [01:09:06] Speaker C: I listen, you're getting technical at this point. I, I, I cannot imagine getting technical at a time like this, but, oh, well, it is what it is. [01:09:17] Speaker A: Look, man, if somebody can leave an 8 star review on a 5 star scale, I'll take it. That'll bump up the average. We can recreate the [01:09:25] Speaker C: aggregate. [01:09:25] Speaker A: We can recreate the five star in the aggregate. And with that being said, thanks for tuning in, everybody. If you made it to this part of the episode, just know, leave, depart with this one bit of information and that's that we love you and we'll see you next time. Bye bye, everybody. [01:09:42] Speaker B: Peace.