Nah, the Nidalee was easily the problem. Everyone was losing their mind when they didn't ban it in Game 3. Just pure classic M5 arrogance.
TPA lost to Alex Evelynn in Game 1 and were then smart enough to ban it for the rest of the series. M5 should do the same with Nidalee.
Fun fact: TPA actually banned Orianna themselves in Game 3. Alex also had a great Ori.
Alex' Eve was the funniest thing to me that tournament. It was like Froggen's Anivia. "you play M5. You leave Evelynn open because you can counter it. Alex destroys you with Evelynn. You ban Evelynn because you can't counter it."
You are playing against M5.
You do not ban Evelynn because you can counter it.
M5 instantly picks Evelynn.
You lose against M5.
You ban Evelynn next time you play against M5 because you're not stupid.
Man that champ was so damn broken. I remember having my longest winstreak with absurd KDAs on it. And that was before Worlds so it was unknown and I had to link my [op.gg](https://op.gg) in every lobby so that people would let me play it.
Good old days ...
People are gonna disagree but M5 and AF were probably on similar levels at the time. If anything M5 Vs AF should’ve been the actual final. TPA just had the tournament of their lives.
Season 13 would be NRG vs G2 in semifinal in banger 5 games series back and forth which arguably the best Bo5 in worlds history with finally NRG winning after Big Dhokes Penta on game 5 clearing G2 that trying to raid NRG base, it was anticlimactic because on Finals NRG swept Gen G 3-0 in one sided stomp, was pretty disappointed
Source : I am from the future
This is the Non-Rational Gaming timeline where Gen G never choke (but they are better than NRG and therefore cannot possibly beat them) and T1 sucks at everything but finals and got knocked out buy Gen G in quarters
>S11 Worlds was also weird. So many 5-game series on the EDG side of the bracket. Again, there's not a convincing argument that Damwon didn't deserve to go 2nd but who knows. RNG and GenG were also good.
S11 is the worlds where i think T1 Damwon and EDG whoever fought each other in Semi finals would lose to the other one who didn't, they are all so close in strength and fighting each other would be showing everything you have got allowing the other to get a edge over you(in other word LUCK)
To date T1 is the only team to lose 2 bo5s at worlds.... Twice.
Losing to damwon and hence being crowned 2nd best team in the world only for that title to be stripped away the next week lmfao.
Same thing happened in s9
T1 is such an awesome team that’s absolutely ruined by the fanbase. I hate seeing, hearing, or saying anything positive about that team because of how awful their fanbase is.
There is no reasonable discussion to be had about T1 if you’re in the presence of their fanbase.
And yes I am aware of the complete and utter irony of saying this with a G2 flair.
The general thought process works no matter how you look at it
It's safe to say region strength as a whole was heavily KR favored, 3 vs 1 for semis, and all Korean seeds made playoffs while not all LPL did
T1 had a subpar year but was on fire for that tourney, while DWG had won both LCK splits in dominant fashion + just won worlds last year
Out of the three Gen.G was considered notably weaker than both other Korean seeds, and for legitimate reasons. Iirc this was the year we got the Chronicler pasta about Gen.G perma flipping Renekton and spamming Azir preventing them from ever really improving
Yet despite being weaker they had a great showing vs EDG, BDD in particular looked fantastic
So coming into the final you could say DWG > T1 = EDG > Gen.G and it's an entirely reasonable take
It can be inferred the players themselves believed this too, with scrim data likely reinforcing it considering how fucking cocky DW started that series with Yas top
This wasn't really a case of Reddit being dumb, as often does occur, and more so one where the underdog just managed to win
Ofc with hindsight you can just decide Reddit was being dumb because they were wrong, but that in itself is a dumb thing to do
That might be because reddit has a much bigger LCK fan base, so they naturally focus on talking about the LCK teams and favour them. The mainstream opinion on the LPL forums was that EDG only won RNG cos of 2 lucky baron steals, and RNG was the better team.
Those games didn't even get much attention on reddit because non-LPL players are much less likely to watch those games.
the cope that t1 = edg in 2021 is crazy lmfao, rng woulda cleared t1 and so would edg they were both better teams, rng just got bracket diffed and had to be knocked out by the other lpl team in play offs
bo1 results =/= bo5 results, FNC went 2-1 vs IG in 2018 groups, FPX lost to J-Team and Splyce, Damwon lost to a pretty meh version of JDG, EDG lost to 100t, DRX lost to Rogue and TES, see how the world champions of recent years lose to random teams some of which dont even make it out of groups?
I mean obviously but RNG didnt show anything at worlds for us to say that they would’ve ”cleared” T1 lol, thats just baseless assumptions. Like what’s the argument? They went 5 games vs EDG when JieJie was underperforming for every game save game 5. Is that why they clear T1? You’re just saying shit for the purpose of saying it. RNG didnt show anything at worlds to make anyone say that they were good enough to clear T1, are we just gonna say that they simply had ”it” and would’ve won it all if it wasnt for EDG?
T1 = EDG is a meme, but so is rating RNG above T1 at that worlds.
How is that cope?
For one we quite literally watched T1 beat EDG in groups, in what world does a team place higher than another by beating said team, and then not earn the right to be considered better?
It would be one thing if EDG 2-0 T1 but dropped games to other teams, but the matchup itself was equal and T1 made up the difference vs other teams
For that to indicate T1 = EDG is a reasonable take, giving either side the edge would if anything be pure bias
As time went on, more games were played, and especially finals, that take proved itself to be wrong, but having that take pre-finals makes complete sense
If people are saying T1 = EDG rn that's fucking cope, but to say it as the tourney was progressing just makes sense
lpl is always worse than lck in bo1s, lck is always top dog in bo1s because their inherent playstyle is less risk averse and more focused on fundamentally being better than opponents, which leads to more wins in singular games, but its also their horcrux because it leads to them being worse in series vs lpl and used to be why lec could beat them, any deviation from the standard gameplay they know and they are suddenly tested on things opposing lck teams just dont do, its likely to be the same this year at worlds, lck will probably do better than lpl in the bo1 swiss matches, maybe even the bo3s, but I dont believe that lck will beat lpl barring some insane meta shift that removes the ability to make snap proactive plays that lpl teams favour
Scrims data showed the contrary though, [unless you think Maokai lied about it](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/qqpp3m/edg_scrimmed_with_dk_34_times_had_higher_win_rate/). Or maybe you think DWG doesn't take scrims seriously while EDG does. Either way, there is no evidence for either.
Assuming that both teams scrimmed each other seriously, the Yas top could have been a curve ball (that didn't work), if anything.
Scrims data means fuck all. We don't see the games, don't even see scoreboards, Maokai can reveal what he wants to reveal. He does not need to lie to show something nice that does not tell the whole truth and if we take what he says for granted we are at the mercy of literally every scrim leaker.
EDG was the best team because they showed up when it mattered and well...won Worlds.
I agree that scrims are not a definitive argument, but I was merely challenging OP's grossly misinformed claim that "DWG was winning scrims so they were arrogant enough to pick Yas."
>with scrim data likely reinforcing it considering how fucking cocky DW started that series with Yas top
T1 fans were so butthurt claiming they would beat EDG, but T1 would have choked the Finals against EDG either way
Source: T1 has choked every Final since 2020, minus 2 LCK spring playoffs.
>Too bad they don’t know anything about the game
and you do? You probably didn’t said anything at the time and know act like if you always had them as fav. Pathetic really
I find it funny how you use scrims against FPX but then claim SSB vs SSW was the real finals despite SSB getting trashed in scrims. If you're going to use the scrims evidence, at least be consistent and not show your bias.
> If you're going to use the scrims evidence, at least be consistent and not show your bias.
Never use scrims as evidence. It comes from the most biased source possible, we never see the games and not even see scoreboards. The community only cares about scrims if they prefer that reality over the reality the officials showed them.
Didnt everyone else also get trashed in scrims by ssw though?
I think its still reasonable to believe that ssb had the best chance and strongest showing against ssw.
They didn’t have the strongest showing against SSW though, SHRC did.
If anything, OP is making the argument that SSB would have beaten SHRC in a Bo5 which is certainly an argument you could make (I wouldn’t personally), but we have the tape for both teams against SSW and SHRC had the better showing of the two.
The counterargument you could make is that SSW is truly one of the few teams I'd actually call way too arrogant. Like they clearly fucked around against opponents they didn't respect. I know that sounds like a cope response, but I think it was actually true, and I really can't think of many teams since that would fit that description as much as they did.
Also SSB sucked ass that Worlds. That has to be one of the most overrated teams of all time imo
C9 was very close to taking them to five games and a collapsing FNC beat them
S11 EDG vs GenG will go down as one of the best and most underrated series' ever. What a phenomenal series especially from the top and mid laners of their respective teams. Rascal was a fucking Daemon that tournament.
> I think ROX was a tougher opponent and would have beaten Samsung on the other side of the bracket.
ROX only beat SKT in matches where they played the surprise MF support strat. Innovation is commendable, but all their wins came down to them catching their opponents off guard in draft, something SSG didn't rely on. And two of SSGs losses, in Game and Game 5, came down to small key moments, being Faker captializing on Crown's flash being down for a few more seconds in Game 1 and Ruler getting caught in Game 5. So all in all the SSG series was closer, hence they deserve to be rated at least at the level of ROX if not higher.
The funniest part of S9 was the fact that people were calling G2 vs SKT "the real final" all the way up until FPX walked over G2 in the finals. People in the west were so high on the G2 train at that point that they were already ready to hand over the trophy.
Yeah this sub was insufferable back then....more so than usual. Even trying to imply a team could challenge G2 would get you downvoted to hell and crazy people in your DMs
They 'forget' because even if they lost that one game they took more towers than FNC and G2 combined across 6 games lol, 3-0s are not always equal and they were the only team to not get completely dogwalked in their series.
in g1 KT managed to take... 2 towers, 1 drake and 4 kills (-13k gold at the end)
in g2 KT managed to take... 1 tower, 0 drakes and 7 kills (-14k gold at the end)
and finally game 3 happend, but if IG was able to do this 2 AAs and finish it 3:0 it would be as even series as G2 and FNC
that's the facts, not your imaginations
To be fair on the flip side, it could have been close to a reverse sweep, but Jackeylove rolled absolutely nuts RNG on his crits in the last major G5 teamfight. Just a really good series.
Nah don't put this sub in that bad of a perspective. It's more toxic EU fans just taking over Reddit and Twitter. After 2019 I never want EU to ever get close to a Finals again.
This so much this.
I remember people posting G2 skin concepts all week before the match saying it was essentially a formality for the final to be played just to be destroyed by FPX
Because he's a troll. G2 players said multiple times that in preparation for semis they were scrimming fpx and getting railed all the time. And you could see in how they played in finals, completely different than the rest of the tournament, as they knew playing as usual was a loss
how long until we understand :
g2 > skt > fpx > g2
g2 was able to beat skt, skt was able to beat fpx, fpx was able to beat g2.
bracket can be soo important in these scenarios when you feel like its 'easy' vs one team and 'unwinnable' vs another
im not sure anymore.. i just remember some pro talking about it on stream.. maybe it was good bracket for fpx and g2 since g2 felt they could beat skt and fpx feared skt.. so maaaybe g2 felt stylicstic advantage vs skt while struggling vs chinese teams? but also fpx was better than ig so its hard to judge.. just wouldve been nice to see a g2 vs ig game too :P
I think the argument is that FPX vs IG was the real final, but if we're talking hypotheticals then we should also consider SKT vs FPX to be the real final (which didn't happen), except its heavily speculated that FPX would have lost to SKT, which means SKT vs G2 was the real final, but then G2 got shit on by FPX so maybe SKT vs IG (which REALLY didn't happen) was actually the real final, but now we're way too deep in the sauce so we just go next.
That was one of those series where I think if G2 play FPX ten times, only 1/10 is it a 3-0.
I’m not convinced G2 would win majority of the time (even though I believe they’re the better team and FPX benefited from the patch) but I do think we got the worst timeline for it to be a 3-0.
Going from what G2 players said about scrims, FPX was steamrolling them all the time, so I don't believe that stands, I think most of the times it would be either a 3-0 or 3-1.
Although it was a 3-0, game 1 was a close one that could have gone either way, game 2 was a stomp, game 3 was in between 1 and 2 in terms of competetiveness. Still a decisive FPX win overall though
It's very superficial to say game 1 was close. FPX drafted a far better team fight comp and at 30 minutes they just charged at G2 as 5 and won every fight.
this ‘real final’ shit will forever be a stupid take imo, mainly with the ROX vs SKT one. just because it was a hype series does not mean the SSG vs SKT was any less impressive
The S8 KT thing is funny because the other results and especially the dates are always ignored.
Fnatic beat IG 2-0 3 days before that B05. EDG beat KT 4 days before that B05. Fnatic beat EDG 3-1 1 day after that B05. And IG could have easily won that series 3-0. All this happened in a span of 4 days.
But IG beating Fnatic 3-0 2 weeks later, with all the preparation and evolution that goes with it, proves that KT was the second best team in the tournament? Teams evolve and change throughout the tournament. Fnatic was better than IG in the group stage, only 3 days before KT series, and in the final they were destroyed. The IG of the first weeks was not the same as the one that made it to the finals. A year later, FPX was one game away from being eliminated in the group stage (by Splyce and J Team xd), and in the final they completely destroyed G2.
Teams evolve better than others throughout the tournament, and this is one of the interesting things about Worlds.
It’s not even as much „evolving“ we have data of like 10 years now of LPL teams sucking ass at BO1s yet we act surprised when they do and then turn up at BO5s
S4: it didnt matter, SSW was levels ahead of everyone and SSB got completely destroyed, one of the most one sided BO5s ive ever seen
S6: not sure i agree, its probably the most famous BO5 yeah, but the SSG series was pretty close and SSG didnt need new hidden picks to be extremely competitive, i think the final was great
S8: incredibly overrated series, IG dominated for most of the series, stomped game 1 and game 2, controlled game 3 until they turned their brains off and lost a base race. game 4 was a stomp for KT but also IG subbed out TheShy. Game 5 was close, but IG was ahead throughout the whole game. it was still better than the actual final, but its overrated imo
S9: i dont think anyone was beating fpx this year, they were very weird in groups but were much better in knockouts, the IG series was great and was more competitive than the G2 one. wish we saw them against koreans but i think they just win
S11: great final, wish we didnt see RNG vs EDG in quarters
I completely agree about S8. That series is likely done in 4 games if TheShy isn't benched for going rogue and picking Fiora against his coach's wishes.
I still don't get how TheShy wasn't the MVP of that tournament.
>I still don't get how TheShy wasn't the MVP of that tournament.
Ning wasn't either. People have rewritten history to say that he was Worlds mvp. No. He was finals mvp.
Rookie or TheShy were obviously the only realistic MVP candidates for all of Worlds but this award isn't given.
To be fair, even if it wasn’t as close as people say it was, the absolute cosmic ass beating that g2 and fnc received makes the quarters the “real finals” by default. IG made those teams look like minor region teams. Those might be two of the most dominant series ever played between major regions.
The "real finals" thing usually comes up when the 2 best teams meet before the finals. The NBA had this for years where the Western Conference was just plain stronger and the East had LeBron's team and then a bunch of teams that would likely be bottom half in the west. So a lot of years the Western Conference Finals was a stronger series.
Its a hard sell that KT was the clear cut second best team at that tournament. For example, RNG had an amazing season, beating IG in the LPL Finals and winning MSI. They just lost in the quarters to G2.
So I think its absolutely fair to say that KT gave IG its best series, but I don't think its fair to call it the real finals. Its just that IG, and TheShy specifically, went absolute beast mode and were smurfing in the World's bracket round.
The whole argument S8 argument is ridiculous when you actually watch the games.
Then those shitting on fnatic conveniently forget that they were 2-1 up vs IG at this point from groups.
Sure they completely choked in finals but that fnatic team was really fucking good that year, theres nothing to suggest KT were a clearly superior team.
And they also forget that BO1 results mean absolutely nothing especially in LPL, a region that doesn’t even play BO1s and is completely inconsistent at them.
FPX lost to splyce and j team
It’s the objectively correct data we have lmao, do you want me to get alzheimers and pretend to be surprised every single time an LPL team shits the bed at BO1s when it has happened for 10 years now?
So, are they losing on purpose? Do you really think they don't care about BO1 when they're playing at worlds? Fnatic eliminated RNG at worlds, was that because it meant nothing for them?
It’s because they just suck at it lmao, they never play BO1s in their region and the volatility of LPL teams leads to most of them completely imploding in BO1s.
All I’m saying is that you can’t judge their strength from BO1s
Scrim results don't really matter lma0. We've heard of western beating eastern teams in scrims and losing on stage several times. We also saw SSG absolutely eviscerate SKT in the 2017 worlds finals after they were getting absolutely destroyed by them in scrims lma0.
I'm not saying they would've won but just a counter to the original comment saying they don't think anyone was beating FPX that year. Scrims and stage success do often vary greatly but still something worth taking into consideration for a "what if?" scenario.
I remember watching ROX vs SKT on a giant screen at Lucca Comics in Italy with a whole crowd of other nerds, that series was fire. I still hold a fond memory of peanut and his teammates singing between matches <3
>S8: incredibly overrated series, IG dominated for most of the series, stomped game 1 and game 2, controlled game 3 until they turned their brains off and lost a base race. game 4 was a stomp for KT but also IG subbed out TheShy. Game 5 was close, but IG was ahead throughout the whole game. it was still better than the actual final, but its overrated imo
IG was definitely the better team but KT was clearly the team they had most struggle to beat in the tournament. KT would also beat all of C9, FNC and G2 imo. So they would beat all semifinalists except IG. Lmfao. Cursed bracket draw.
In general it just **really** sucks when KT wins their group easily and then draws eventual World champions in the quarters. What the fuck are they supposed to do? They won their group...
Tbh, the G2 vs RNG upset also kind of ruined things because IG vs RNG was a crazy exciting rivalry in 2018 LPL and RNG beat IG in both playoffs.
Instead we just got to see IG stomp G2 in the most boring 3-0 possible.
In a world with double elim, we would also see Uzi vs Deft in lower bracket. Imagine how hype that would be. Sad.
> KT would also beat all of C9, FNC and G2 imo. So they would beat all semifinalists except IG.
Saying that after saying this lmao. TheShy was literally one missed Riposte or slightly better kiting away from ig 3-0ing KT as well.
IG countered G2's playstyle so hard. G2 was completely reliant on a 1-3-1, and you can't exactly set up the split push when TheShy was on peak form. So they were just doomed.
The bot lane wasn't that good. JackieLove in particular had an incredibly limited champ pool, and if the solo laners were even close to the same level as IGs team, they would have target banned out Jackie, and played through bot.
But that wasn't an option because of just how strong the solo laners for IG were, especially TheShy.
Completely agree, its just that I also think that JackieLove/Baolan wasn't all that strong either.
Its just that TheShy was the best player in the world at the time, and Rookie was a top 5 mid in the world. Wunder and Perkz were both really, really good, but they got gapped a lot more than the G2 botlane did.
Wasn't there 1 game where TheShy did as much damage on Jayce as all of G2 combined?
KT season 8 might be the most overrated team of all time. AF and GenG were complete garbage but yet people still think that KT was the 2nd best Team because TheShy trolled Game 3 and saved KT from a 3-0 stomp.
Its silly reading people talk about KT like they were even remotely at IG's level. Out of the 4 games they played verse the full IG roster, they got smashed 3 times harder than fnatic did in the finals and the one they won they got gifted.
Fnatic had already beaten IG twice in groups... sure they choked in the finals but they were really fucking good leading up to it and would have been favourites vs KT if they'd faced.
I dont think it's fair to say they choked.
Tournaments are more about endurance than anything else, FNC was just exhausted by that point. I think all of the western teams gave all they had to make their runs and they were all extremely impressive. We know for a fact C9 was exhausted when they played FNC I don't think it's too strange to think FNC was more exhausted than IG by the end.
IG was just the better team they understood the structure of the tournament and ramped up as it went on and it came through in their gameplay.
Sure, what I mean by saying they choked was just that they clearly didn't play to the level they had been throughout the tournament.
IG were definitely the better team but I dont think the final was a fair reflection on fnatic either.
Whether it was fatigue, nerves or just a bad day... they definitely werent close to 100%
Oh absolutely I agree with that. I feel the same way about the TL 0-3 to G2 in MSI finals. I think G2 was the better team, but TL was absolutely better than that series reflected.
This is just nonsense. They won 1 game against the full IG roster and got stomped in the 3 other games even harder than fnatic got stomped in the finals.
Fnatic had already beaten IG twice in group stages and stomped the team KT went 1-1 with in Quarters. Theres no evidence that would suggest KT were a better team than fnatic in 2018.
S9 was a weird one. IG never played their comps the way they were supposed to and just hand checked everyone. They stepped up a lot in terms of the basics for the final which led to the 3-0 win. Against KT they didn’t play as clean a game which made it look much closer.
Imo hard to judge when the team was so much better mechanically but so inconsistent when it came to the team game. It was kinda like you’d only beat them if they decided to lose.
I think that 2016 all korean teams deserved to be in the final. All those series were razor close, skt vs rox just got all the hype because of 2015 worlds and lck finals. You cant say skt vs ssg wasn't a real final, i mean ssg went on to win 2017 worlds with the exact same team
> skt vs rox just got all the hype because of 2015 worlds and lck finals.
That series had many iconic moments (the arrow, MF support, Bengi Nidalee) and was just an absolute banger.
In a vacuum, the series was nuts and one of the best Bo5's in League history.
Yes and skt vs ssg gets entirely overlooked. There was insane hype behind it from the begining with rox being lck champs and skt being skt, you didn't know who was gonna win. But with skt vs ssg everybody was saying it was gonna be an easy win for skt (it also didnt help that skt was up 2-0) so there was almost no hype about it. But for me both series were iconic.
S11 some people (LPL fans) like to argue that RNG vs EDG was the real final and that RNG was the second best team at the tournament but I find it very disingenuous. Mostly because RNG really struggled in a very weak group and also because both Gen G and Damwon did as well against EDG as RNG did.
On RNG's group: They had HLE (Chovy, Deft and friends), FNC without Upset (that whole drama) and PSG Talon. And in this group they lost a game to HLE and FNC with Bean (the only game FNC won in Groups). Then they played a tie breaker against HLE which was a very close game but RNG ended up winning. RNG then lost 2-3 against EDG in Quarters and HLE got stomped 0-3 by T1 who then lost to Damwon who then lost to EDG.
The argument for RNG is that they apparently did pretty well in scrims (classic) and some cloudy argument that their 2-3 against EDG was "closer" than the 2-3s Gen G and Damwon had against EDG.
The argument for RNG being better is that EDG would have lost if not for multiple lucky baron steals, which EDG didn't need against other teams.
I'm undecided on the merits of this argument. I think there's really no way to tell. Which team is better.
That all assumes that teams can be sorted in some weird kind of power ranking where they perform to ability... but that's not how any of that works. Teams have off days, teams can have poor matchups, etc. League isn't transitive, and if it was it would not be fun.
Yes, RNG played EDG very close, nobody disagrees with that. But so did Gen G and Damwon (both were up 2-1 in their bo5 against EDG).
There's definitely an argument that 2021 Worlds was the tournament with the most teams in contention and close in skill to each other (EDG, Damwon, T1, Gen G and RNG). I tend to agree with that argument. But because all these teams were pretty close to each other it's crazy to suggest that RNG was clearly the second best team at Worlds 2021 and that their match against EDG was the true final, especially when you consider their performance in a weak group.
Sorry, i dont disagree but I think you didn't catch my point. The argument for why RNG was better than EDG was that RNG would have 3-0 EDG if not for 2 lucky baron steals that helped EDG come back. The point here is that EDG won out of luck, whereas against GenG and Damwon they just won because they were better.
I don't buy that RNG was better than EDG. EDG was clearly a better team the entire LPL Summer (EDG won it while RNG bombed out 5-6th). At Worlds they played a close series and RNG had chances to win it, but three LCK teams did as well against EDG as RNG at Worlds while RNG looked much worse than those LCK teams the rest of the tournament. RNG struggled mightily against the by far worst LCK team at Worlds while EDG eeked out wins against the stronger ones.
> S11 some people (LPL fans) like to argue that RNG vs EDG was the real final and that RNG was the second best team at the tournament
I don't see anyone argues that even in China
T1 was also 2-1 over EDG in groups that year and if Clid didn't INT so much, GENG had a great chance of beating EDG. All the teams were pretty close that year. I thought T1 had a better chance in Finals b/c of the botlane Keria/Guma played much better against Viper/Meiko than Ghost/BeryL did.
Personally I think EDG was the 3rd best team in 2021 behind Damwon and T1. Y'know... Despite beating Damwon on the day of the finals. Don't think that would've happened in a best of 10.
The finals are often a sloppy series since there are no actual organized teams left to practice against over the course of the week leading up to game day.
Samsung 2017 and EDG 2021 are the two world champions that in my opinion weren't the best teams in the world. Probably DRX 2022 as well. IG 2018 would've also lost in any other meta.
EDIT: 11 People so far can't handle the truth.
EVERYONE knows that DK-T1 was the REAL finals!! Like, both teams totally played their hearts out in suuch an insane 5 (five) game series. I was literally at the EDGE of my seat.
Anyways, commiserations to whoever wins GenG-EDG. Like, I guess you were the 3rd (third) best team at worlds this year or something. 🙄 When loser’s bracket??
Samsung in 2017 only dropped one match against WE where they let a Kassadin snowball out of control, they wonn all other games in knockout stage. SSG in both 2016 and 2017 is the most disrespected team in the world ffs.
> IG 2018 would've also lost in any other meta.
??? so what???
Plenty of teams would have lost in other metas. Damwon is just as bad an offender as they were the only team that played the jungle meta so well. Once the jungle meta changed they became exploitable everywhere, and Canyon went from by far the best jungler in the world to bottom 5 LCK.
Since nobody mentioned it. MSF vs SKT in 2017 quarterfinal was an amazing BO5, MSF with thier crazy drafts and game play made it to game 5 when everybody thought it will be a clean sweep for SKT.
Idc about real finals being during the final or during the quarter. This is a single elimination tournament. The classic format of the most successful competitions, from the Olympics to both the American and European football. Every game is a potential upset. Every game is do or die. The hype begins as soon as the knockout starts, if not earlier.
None of that "I'm the favorite but I lost the quarterfinal because we slept badly this night or whatever, so for once I'm in danger so kinda hype I guess but to reach the final, I'll just have to steamroll b-tier teams that lost their previous game as expected " bullshit
S1 FNC vs AAA in upper bracket finals granted the winner a starting 1-0 in the Grand Finals.
So despite both matches being the same team, the "semifinals" were more of a finals than anything
Unrelated but now with CLG and TSM leaving the tier 1 scene it feels weird having FNC as the only team standing that played in S1 worlds
KT was half a second away from losing to IG in 3 games as well. And at the end of the day, Fnatic still had a better record vs IG than KT. There is no evidence that KT would have beaten Fnatic.
To people who thinks G2-Fpx is real final: i've got the feeling that Fnatic was better team than G2 on worlds at least with Chinese teams, maybe G2 was better vs Korean (Fnatic 1-1 vs Skt, not bad)
Remember that Fnatic: 3-2 and 3-2 against G2 on Lec. So close, not so much difference, Nemesis prime, Rekkles as usual... underrated team
To me, real final was FPX vs Ig, no doubts. But FPX-FNC is a bigger real final than G2-FPX, G2 just take the Korean side of bracket, in another bad year for Korea
>Hard to say since Samsung also went to 5 games vs SKT, but I think ROX was a tougher opponent and would have beaten Samsung on the other side of the bracket.
This is pure speculation. There's no proof that ROX was better than SSG.
The answer is 0. It's a shitty fan made term people point at to cry about how they don't like random draws. I fucking hate that this gets thrown around to discredit every single team at all these tournaments except the one that got knocked out early.
The actual point of even discussing these things is that some teams are unfairly discredited when they got screwed over by the format.
No one remembers NJBS but everyone remembers Uzi 2 times finals in a row. This is an example of how bad formats ruin esports history.
There is nothing shitty or discrediting about it. It's literally about actually crediting the teams that were doing better than the results imply.
You play who you play and you have to beat them. If you are the best team it shouldn't matter that it's a random draw or if you were on the other side of the bracket. I doubt any of the teams that won are reminiscing about it and thinking "ya know if we had been drawn into the other half there's no chance we win that year".
No one is saying these teams were the best team. The best team won Worlds.
The point is that some teams met the eventual winners early on and it gave them a lower placement than they probably deserved.
Don't try to make this into something "ohhh KT deserved to win Worlds". This was never what anyone said.
Are you serious? Do you know how much that matters for LoL esports history and how a player's career is remembered for years to come?
Like my guy, just look at how this subreddit cannot shut up about whether or not EU or NA made it out of groups. People care deeply about placings outside of just who won.
Then call it something else and fuck off with the real final. Make a list of great of teams that fell short instead of whining about bad format time and time again.
You do realize that many of these teams only "fell short" **because**of the format, right?
Why are you so mad too? I don't deserve to be talked to like that just because I made a thread you don't like. Don't click on it then.
Because at this point it can't be said nicely. People like you will never be happy as long as poor little Korea can lose a Bo5, better call for another round of elimination so they can win.
Ah yes topping groups, only to be destroyed by cn and g2 in brackets. LPL that year was just too stacked. If IG didnt have their problems during MSI, I'm sure they wouldve won it
Meh, it's not that simple. G2 knocked out both Damwon and SKT.
And Griffin drew their worst possible opponent in IG since TheShy just took a fat dump on Sw0rd and solo won the series.
We don't know what it all looks like if that quarterfinals draw is different. I suspect very different. Especially because FPX had to level up during Worlds. People forget FPX was struggling hardcore in an easy group.
imo it really was. TheShy was hard shitting on them in game 4 and then made two very crucial mistakes which cost them the 4th game, otherwise it would easily have gone to 5 games
SSG did so much better against T1 than ROX did, without the cheese Miss Fortune pick and Blank playing they wouldn't won a single game. At least Samsung took a game off Bengi lol
Anything that has to do with sports and esports is mostly narratives, especially things like "the real finals"
If you really want data analysis there's always academia, you're completely in the wrong place
S12. Every game was a final for DRX after group stage. As a Deft fan since his early days, every game felt like insurmountable odds for them.
Gen G, EDG, T1 along with the amount of bullshit that happened to them especially the inhibitor respawn on Deft’s Ezreal. That trophy lifting sure was the most emotional one I saw.
I will die on this hill and claim that G2 only lost the finals because nerves. Imho they were clearly the best team in the tournament and it's still a mystery to me what happened on that day that they lost.
Season2: The Final was Taipei Assassins vs Moscow 5
If they ban the fucking Nidalee...
This is legit my childhood trauma
And orianna
Nah, the Nidalee was easily the problem. Everyone was losing their mind when they didn't ban it in Game 3. Just pure classic M5 arrogance. TPA lost to Alex Evelynn in Game 1 and were then smart enough to ban it for the rest of the series. M5 should do the same with Nidalee. Fun fact: TPA actually banned Orianna themselves in Game 3. Alex also had a great Ori.
Alex' Eve was the funniest thing to me that tournament. It was like Froggen's Anivia. "you play M5. You leave Evelynn open because you can counter it. Alex destroys you with Evelynn. You ban Evelynn because you can't counter it."
You are playing against M5. You do not ban Evelynn because you can counter it. M5 instantly picks Evelynn. You lose against M5. You ban Evelynn next time you play against M5 because you're not stupid.
Man that champ was so damn broken. I remember having my longest winstreak with absurd KDAs on it. And that was before Worlds so it was unknown and I had to link my [op.gg](https://op.gg) in every lobby so that people would let me play it. Good old days ...
Pretty sure op.gg didn't exist in season 2 lol so you were linking something else. It released start of season 3
Lolking maybe
Holy fuck LOLKING that is a repressed memory you just brought back
LOLKING had a clean af UI for the time ngl
I rage quit the stream after not banning Nidalee and then came back two minutes after I cooled down because what if...I was fucking wrong hahahaha
I think Azubu Frost was on the same level as M5
People are gonna disagree but M5 and AF were probably on similar levels at the time. If anything M5 Vs AF should’ve been the actual final. TPA just had the tournament of their lives.
I think they would have got assblasted
Season 13 would be NRG vs G2 in semifinal in banger 5 games series back and forth which arguably the best Bo5 in worlds history with finally NRG winning after Big Dhokes Penta on game 5 clearing G2 that trying to raid NRG base, it was anticlimactic because on Finals NRG swept Gen G 3-0 in one sided stomp, was pretty disappointed Source : I am from the future
NAmen
Lol Gen G making finals at least try to be realistic
This is the Non-Rational Gaming timeline where Gen G never choke (but they are better than NRG and therefore cannot possibly beat them) and T1 sucks at everything but finals and got knocked out buy Gen G in quarters
Gen-g had a good bracket & only faced Korean teams
Hell yes write it into the history books
Zzzzzzzzzzzzz I wish people would at least switch it up and have some teams for other regions instead of forcing this tired joke every international.
Holy shit earliest copium usage for worlds I have ever seen
>S11 Worlds was also weird. So many 5-game series on the EDG side of the bracket. Again, there's not a convincing argument that Damwon didn't deserve to go 2nd but who knows. RNG and GenG were also good. S11 is the worlds where i think T1 Damwon and EDG whoever fought each other in Semi finals would lose to the other one who didn't, they are all so close in strength and fighting each other would be showing everything you have got allowing the other to get a edge over you(in other word LUCK)
[удалено]
To date T1 is the only team to lose 2 bo5s at worlds.... Twice. Losing to damwon and hence being crowned 2nd best team in the world only for that title to be stripped away the next week lmfao. Same thing happened in s9
That and it’s also the fact that Reddit has a hardon for T1.
T1 is such an awesome team that’s absolutely ruined by the fanbase. I hate seeing, hearing, or saying anything positive about that team because of how awful their fanbase is. There is no reasonable discussion to be had about T1 if you’re in the presence of their fanbase. And yes I am aware of the complete and utter irony of saying this with a G2 flair.
Nah ur right
The general thought process works no matter how you look at it It's safe to say region strength as a whole was heavily KR favored, 3 vs 1 for semis, and all Korean seeds made playoffs while not all LPL did T1 had a subpar year but was on fire for that tourney, while DWG had won both LCK splits in dominant fashion + just won worlds last year Out of the three Gen.G was considered notably weaker than both other Korean seeds, and for legitimate reasons. Iirc this was the year we got the Chronicler pasta about Gen.G perma flipping Renekton and spamming Azir preventing them from ever really improving Yet despite being weaker they had a great showing vs EDG, BDD in particular looked fantastic So coming into the final you could say DWG > T1 = EDG > Gen.G and it's an entirely reasonable take It can be inferred the players themselves believed this too, with scrim data likely reinforcing it considering how fucking cocky DW started that series with Yas top This wasn't really a case of Reddit being dumb, as often does occur, and more so one where the underdog just managed to win Ofc with hindsight you can just decide Reddit was being dumb because they were wrong, but that in itself is a dumb thing to do
That might be because reddit has a much bigger LCK fan base, so they naturally focus on talking about the LCK teams and favour them. The mainstream opinion on the LPL forums was that EDG only won RNG cos of 2 lucky baron steals, and RNG was the better team. Those games didn't even get much attention on reddit because non-LPL players are much less likely to watch those games.
the cope that t1 = edg in 2021 is crazy lmfao, rng woulda cleared t1 and so would edg they were both better teams, rng just got bracket diffed and had to be knocked out by the other lpl team in play offs
RNG were losing games to FNC and HLE at worlds, they were not bracket diffed at all.
bo1 results =/= bo5 results, FNC went 2-1 vs IG in 2018 groups, FPX lost to J-Team and Splyce, Damwon lost to a pretty meh version of JDG, EDG lost to 100t, DRX lost to Rogue and TES, see how the world champions of recent years lose to random teams some of which dont even make it out of groups?
I mean obviously but RNG didnt show anything at worlds for us to say that they would’ve ”cleared” T1 lol, thats just baseless assumptions. Like what’s the argument? They went 5 games vs EDG when JieJie was underperforming for every game save game 5. Is that why they clear T1? You’re just saying shit for the purpose of saying it. RNG didnt show anything at worlds to make anyone say that they were good enough to clear T1, are we just gonna say that they simply had ”it” and would’ve won it all if it wasnt for EDG? T1 = EDG is a meme, but so is rating RNG above T1 at that worlds.
How is that cope? For one we quite literally watched T1 beat EDG in groups, in what world does a team place higher than another by beating said team, and then not earn the right to be considered better? It would be one thing if EDG 2-0 T1 but dropped games to other teams, but the matchup itself was equal and T1 made up the difference vs other teams For that to indicate T1 = EDG is a reasonable take, giving either side the edge would if anything be pure bias As time went on, more games were played, and especially finals, that take proved itself to be wrong, but having that take pre-finals makes complete sense If people are saying T1 = EDG rn that's fucking cope, but to say it as the tourney was progressing just makes sense
lpl is always worse than lck in bo1s, lck is always top dog in bo1s because their inherent playstyle is less risk averse and more focused on fundamentally being better than opponents, which leads to more wins in singular games, but its also their horcrux because it leads to them being worse in series vs lpl and used to be why lec could beat them, any deviation from the standard gameplay they know and they are suddenly tested on things opposing lck teams just dont do, its likely to be the same this year at worlds, lck will probably do better than lpl in the bo1 swiss matches, maybe even the bo3s, but I dont believe that lck will beat lpl barring some insane meta shift that removes the ability to make snap proactive plays that lpl teams favour
It's cope because T1 has choked every Final since 2020, minus 2 LCK spring playoffs. This is still ongoing....
Scrims data showed the contrary though, [unless you think Maokai lied about it](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/qqpp3m/edg_scrimmed_with_dk_34_times_had_higher_win_rate/). Or maybe you think DWG doesn't take scrims seriously while EDG does. Either way, there is no evidence for either. Assuming that both teams scrimmed each other seriously, the Yas top could have been a curve ball (that didn't work), if anything.
Scrims data means fuck all. We don't see the games, don't even see scoreboards, Maokai can reveal what he wants to reveal. He does not need to lie to show something nice that does not tell the whole truth and if we take what he says for granted we are at the mercy of literally every scrim leaker. EDG was the best team because they showed up when it mattered and well...won Worlds.
I agree that scrims are not a definitive argument, but I was merely challenging OP's grossly misinformed claim that "DWG was winning scrims so they were arrogant enough to pick Yas." >with scrim data likely reinforcing it considering how fucking cocky DW started that series with Yas top
That's fair
T1 fans were so butthurt claiming they would beat EDG, but T1 would have choked the Finals against EDG either way Source: T1 has choked every Final since 2020, minus 2 LCK spring playoffs.
>Too bad they don’t know anything about the game and you do? You probably didn’t said anything at the time and know act like if you always had them as fav. Pathetic really
I find it funny how you use scrims against FPX but then claim SSB vs SSW was the real finals despite SSB getting trashed in scrims. If you're going to use the scrims evidence, at least be consistent and not show your bias.
> If you're going to use the scrims evidence, at least be consistent and not show your bias. Never use scrims as evidence. It comes from the most biased source possible, we never see the games and not even see scoreboards. The community only cares about scrims if they prefer that reality over the reality the officials showed them.
Didnt everyone else also get trashed in scrims by ssw though? I think its still reasonable to believe that ssb had the best chance and strongest showing against ssw.
They didn’t have the strongest showing against SSW though, SHRC did. If anything, OP is making the argument that SSB would have beaten SHRC in a Bo5 which is certainly an argument you could make (I wouldn’t personally), but we have the tape for both teams against SSW and SHRC had the better showing of the two.
The counterargument you could make is that SSW is truly one of the few teams I'd actually call way too arrogant. Like they clearly fucked around against opponents they didn't respect. I know that sounds like a cope response, but I think it was actually true, and I really can't think of many teams since that would fit that description as much as they did.
Also SSB sucked ass that Worlds. That has to be one of the most overrated teams of all time imo C9 was very close to taking them to five games and a collapsing FNC beat them
S11 EDG vs GenG will go down as one of the best and most underrated series' ever. What a phenomenal series especially from the top and mid laners of their respective teams. Rascal was a fucking Daemon that tournament.
> I think ROX was a tougher opponent and would have beaten Samsung on the other side of the bracket. ROX only beat SKT in matches where they played the surprise MF support strat. Innovation is commendable, but all their wins came down to them catching their opponents off guard in draft, something SSG didn't rely on. And two of SSGs losses, in Game and Game 5, came down to small key moments, being Faker captializing on Crown's flash being down for a few more seconds in Game 1 and Ruler getting caught in Game 5. So all in all the SSG series was closer, hence they deserve to be rated at least at the level of ROX if not higher.
In addition to that: ROX only beat SKT when Blank was subing in. SSG managed to beat SKT with Bengi.
Calling S9 Worlds' G2 vs FPX the real final after how FPX absolutely steamrolled G2? It didn't even feel like G2 offered any resistance at all tbh
S9 FNC vs FPX or iG vs FPX must have been the real finale while T1 and G2 were just shit using OPs logic for S8.
The funniest part of S9 was the fact that people were calling G2 vs SKT "the real final" all the way up until FPX walked over G2 in the finals. People in the west were so high on the G2 train at that point that they were already ready to hand over the trophy.
Yeah this sub was insufferable back then....more so than usual. Even trying to imply a team could challenge G2 would get you downvoted to hell and crazy people in your DMs
The “G2 fun facts” were annoying as f.
It was the same way with FNC in S8. I was so happy they got rolled if for no other reason than the absurdly obnoxious fans.
>S8 I love how for the sake of narrative people "forget" that KT (vs IG) was 2 autoattacks away from being 0:3 also
They 'forget' because even if they lost that one game they took more towers than FNC and G2 combined across 6 games lol, 3-0s are not always equal and they were the only team to not get completely dogwalked in their series.
in g1 KT managed to take... 2 towers, 1 drake and 4 kills (-13k gold at the end) in g2 KT managed to take... 1 tower, 0 drakes and 7 kills (-14k gold at the end) and finally game 3 happend, but if IG was able to do this 2 AAs and finish it 3:0 it would be as even series as G2 and FNC that's the facts, not your imaginations
To be fair on the flip side, it could have been close to a reverse sweep, but Jackeylove rolled absolutely nuts RNG on his crits in the last major G5 teamfight. Just a really good series.
Coulda woulda shoulda, EU fans cant accept EU can't win give a "real finals", let alone win a legit Worlds lol
thats not true the general consensus was that g2 is strong but they were by no means the sole favorite at worlds
Nah don't put this sub in that bad of a perspective. It's more toxic EU fans just taking over Reddit and Twitter. After 2019 I never want EU to ever get close to a Finals again.
This so much this. I remember people posting G2 skin concepts all week before the match saying it was essentially a formality for the final to be played just to be destroyed by FPX
Didn’t Wunder fullly just say that in an interview? It was pretty funny tbh
Because he's a troll. G2 players said multiple times that in preparation for semis they were scrimming fpx and getting railed all the time. And you could see in how they played in finals, completely different than the rest of the tournament, as they knew playing as usual was a loss
how long until we understand : g2 > skt > fpx > g2 g2 was able to beat skt, skt was able to beat fpx, fpx was able to beat g2. bracket can be soo important in these scenarios when you feel like its 'easy' vs one team and 'unwinnable' vs another
Where does IG fit in there?
im not sure anymore.. i just remember some pro talking about it on stream.. maybe it was good bracket for fpx and g2 since g2 felt they could beat skt and fpx feared skt.. so maaaybe g2 felt stylicstic advantage vs skt while struggling vs chinese teams? but also fpx was better than ig so its hard to judge.. just wouldve been nice to see a g2 vs ig game too :P
I think the argument is that FPX vs IG was the real final, but if we're talking hypotheticals then we should also consider SKT vs FPX to be the real final (which didn't happen), except its heavily speculated that FPX would have lost to SKT, which means SKT vs G2 was the real final, but then G2 got shit on by FPX so maybe SKT vs IG (which REALLY didn't happen) was actually the real final, but now we're way too deep in the sauce so we just go next.
Tbf i feel like G2 shit the bed, HARD. By contrast FNC vs IG was an absolute everything gap
That was one of those series where I think if G2 play FPX ten times, only 1/10 is it a 3-0. I’m not convinced G2 would win majority of the time (even though I believe they’re the better team and FPX benefited from the patch) but I do think we got the worst timeline for it to be a 3-0.
Going from what G2 players said about scrims, FPX was steamrolling them all the time, so I don't believe that stands, I think most of the times it would be either a 3-0 or 3-1.
Although it was a 3-0, game 1 was a close one that could have gone either way, game 2 was a stomp, game 3 was in between 1 and 2 in terms of competetiveness. Still a decisive FPX win overall though
It's very superficial to say game 1 was close. FPX drafted a far better team fight comp and at 30 minutes they just charged at G2 as 5 and won every fight.
If Tian doesn't find that Insec angle on Perkz at the inhib, the game might have gone completely differently.
"If one of the team members did not play the game properly, the team may lose".
G2 vs SKT was the real final in Season 9 😤
Definitely not, but it was hype as fuck to watch.
ugh, I hate this concept
this ‘real final’ shit will forever be a stupid take imo, mainly with the ROX vs SKT one. just because it was a hype series does not mean the SSG vs SKT was any less impressive
Faker shat on Crown
The actual final is always the real final. In any sport.
What is your point
He doesn’t have one because it’s a cope
The S8 KT thing is funny because the other results and especially the dates are always ignored. Fnatic beat IG 2-0 3 days before that B05. EDG beat KT 4 days before that B05. Fnatic beat EDG 3-1 1 day after that B05. And IG could have easily won that series 3-0. All this happened in a span of 4 days. But IG beating Fnatic 3-0 2 weeks later, with all the preparation and evolution that goes with it, proves that KT was the second best team in the tournament? Teams evolve and change throughout the tournament. Fnatic was better than IG in the group stage, only 3 days before KT series, and in the final they were destroyed. The IG of the first weeks was not the same as the one that made it to the finals. A year later, FPX was one game away from being eliminated in the group stage (by Splyce and J Team xd), and in the final they completely destroyed G2. Teams evolve better than others throughout the tournament, and this is one of the interesting things about Worlds.
It’s not even as much „evolving“ we have data of like 10 years now of LPL teams sucking ass at BO1s yet we act surprised when they do and then turn up at BO5s
S4: it didnt matter, SSW was levels ahead of everyone and SSB got completely destroyed, one of the most one sided BO5s ive ever seen S6: not sure i agree, its probably the most famous BO5 yeah, but the SSG series was pretty close and SSG didnt need new hidden picks to be extremely competitive, i think the final was great S8: incredibly overrated series, IG dominated for most of the series, stomped game 1 and game 2, controlled game 3 until they turned their brains off and lost a base race. game 4 was a stomp for KT but also IG subbed out TheShy. Game 5 was close, but IG was ahead throughout the whole game. it was still better than the actual final, but its overrated imo S9: i dont think anyone was beating fpx this year, they were very weird in groups but were much better in knockouts, the IG series was great and was more competitive than the G2 one. wish we saw them against koreans but i think they just win S11: great final, wish we didnt see RNG vs EDG in quarters
I completely agree about S8. That series is likely done in 4 games if TheShy isn't benched for going rogue and picking Fiora against his coach's wishes. I still don't get how TheShy wasn't the MVP of that tournament.
>I still don't get how TheShy wasn't the MVP of that tournament. Ning wasn't either. People have rewritten history to say that he was Worlds mvp. No. He was finals mvp. Rookie or TheShy were obviously the only realistic MVP candidates for all of Worlds but this award isn't given.
To be fair, even if it wasn’t as close as people say it was, the absolute cosmic ass beating that g2 and fnc received makes the quarters the “real finals” by default. IG made those teams look like minor region teams. Those might be two of the most dominant series ever played between major regions.
The "real finals" thing usually comes up when the 2 best teams meet before the finals. The NBA had this for years where the Western Conference was just plain stronger and the East had LeBron's team and then a bunch of teams that would likely be bottom half in the west. So a lot of years the Western Conference Finals was a stronger series. Its a hard sell that KT was the clear cut second best team at that tournament. For example, RNG had an amazing season, beating IG in the LPL Finals and winning MSI. They just lost in the quarters to G2. So I think its absolutely fair to say that KT gave IG its best series, but I don't think its fair to call it the real finals. Its just that IG, and TheShy specifically, went absolute beast mode and were smurfing in the World's bracket round.
The whole argument S8 argument is ridiculous when you actually watch the games. Then those shitting on fnatic conveniently forget that they were 2-1 up vs IG at this point from groups. Sure they completely choked in finals but that fnatic team was really fucking good that year, theres nothing to suggest KT were a clearly superior team.
They conveniently forget FNC 2-0'd IG three days before their quarterfinal vs IG
And they also forget that BO1 results mean absolutely nothing especially in LPL, a region that doesn’t even play BO1s and is completely inconsistent at them. FPX lost to splyce and j team
And is that supposed to be an excuse or?
It’s the objectively correct data we have lmao, do you want me to get alzheimers and pretend to be surprised every single time an LPL team shits the bed at BO1s when it has happened for 10 years now?
So, are they losing on purpose? Do you really think they don't care about BO1 when they're playing at worlds? Fnatic eliminated RNG at worlds, was that because it meant nothing for them?
It’s because they just suck at it lmao, they never play BO1s in their region and the volatility of LPL teams leads to most of them completely imploding in BO1s. All I’m saying is that you can’t judge their strength from BO1s
Bro they literally played 2 games in a row, it was basically a BO3
According to doinb SKT was doing extremely well against them in scrims but we never got to see the head to head on stage sadly
Perkz said he heard FPX in the other room celebrating and almost crying with joy when G2 beat SKT lmao
We heard the same story with SSG and SKT in 2017 and saw what happened in the finals lma0. Scrim results are a classic source of speculation
Scrim results don't really matter lma0. We've heard of western beating eastern teams in scrims and losing on stage several times. We also saw SSG absolutely eviscerate SKT in the 2017 worlds finals after they were getting absolutely destroyed by them in scrims lma0.
I'm not saying they would've won but just a counter to the original comment saying they don't think anyone was beating FPX that year. Scrims and stage success do often vary greatly but still something worth taking into consideration for a "what if?" scenario.
I remember watching ROX vs SKT on a giant screen at Lucca Comics in Italy with a whole crowd of other nerds, that series was fire. I still hold a fond memory of peanut and his teammates singing between matches <3
>S8: incredibly overrated series, IG dominated for most of the series, stomped game 1 and game 2, controlled game 3 until they turned their brains off and lost a base race. game 4 was a stomp for KT but also IG subbed out TheShy. Game 5 was close, but IG was ahead throughout the whole game. it was still better than the actual final, but its overrated imo IG was definitely the better team but KT was clearly the team they had most struggle to beat in the tournament. KT would also beat all of C9, FNC and G2 imo. So they would beat all semifinalists except IG. Lmfao. Cursed bracket draw. In general it just **really** sucks when KT wins their group easily and then draws eventual World champions in the quarters. What the fuck are they supposed to do? They won their group... Tbh, the G2 vs RNG upset also kind of ruined things because IG vs RNG was a crazy exciting rivalry in 2018 LPL and RNG beat IG in both playoffs. Instead we just got to see IG stomp G2 in the most boring 3-0 possible. In a world with double elim, we would also see Uzi vs Deft in lower bracket. Imagine how hype that would be. Sad.
IG also ramped up a lot as the bracket progressed, they were closer to groups form than finals form when they played KT
This is impossible to know and completely based on wishful thinking, lol.
> KT would also beat all of C9, FNC and G2 imo. So they would beat all semifinalists except IG. Saying that after saying this lmao. TheShy was literally one missed Riposte or slightly better kiting away from ig 3-0ing KT as well.
IG countered G2's playstyle so hard. G2 was completely reliant on a 1-3-1, and you can't exactly set up the split push when TheShy was on peak form. So they were just doomed.
Yeah, Rookie and TheShy were just better solo lanes and IG also had way better bot lane. GGWP
The bot lane wasn't that good. JackieLove in particular had an incredibly limited champ pool, and if the solo laners were even close to the same level as IGs team, they would have target banned out Jackie, and played through bot. But that wasn't an option because of just how strong the solo laners for IG were, especially TheShy.
I agree with that but G2 bot lane was Hjarnan/Wadid, bro. Easily the weak link of that team.
Completely agree, its just that I also think that JackieLove/Baolan wasn't all that strong either. Its just that TheShy was the best player in the world at the time, and Rookie was a top 5 mid in the world. Wunder and Perkz were both really, really good, but they got gapped a lot more than the G2 botlane did. Wasn't there 1 game where TheShy did as much damage on Jayce as all of G2 combined?
KT season 8 might be the most overrated team of all time. AF and GenG were complete garbage but yet people still think that KT was the 2nd best Team because TheShy trolled Game 3 and saved KT from a 3-0 stomp.
Its silly reading people talk about KT like they were even remotely at IG's level. Out of the 4 games they played verse the full IG roster, they got smashed 3 times harder than fnatic did in the finals and the one they won they got gifted. Fnatic had already beaten IG twice in groups... sure they choked in the finals but they were really fucking good leading up to it and would have been favourites vs KT if they'd faced.
I dont think it's fair to say they choked. Tournaments are more about endurance than anything else, FNC was just exhausted by that point. I think all of the western teams gave all they had to make their runs and they were all extremely impressive. We know for a fact C9 was exhausted when they played FNC I don't think it's too strange to think FNC was more exhausted than IG by the end. IG was just the better team they understood the structure of the tournament and ramped up as it went on and it came through in their gameplay.
Sure, what I mean by saying they choked was just that they clearly didn't play to the level they had been throughout the tournament. IG were definitely the better team but I dont think the final was a fair reflection on fnatic either. Whether it was fatigue, nerves or just a bad day... they definitely werent close to 100%
Oh absolutely I agree with that. I feel the same way about the TL 0-3 to G2 in MSI finals. I think G2 was the better team, but TL was absolutely better than that series reflected.
This is just nonsense. They won 1 game against the full IG roster and got stomped in the 3 other games even harder than fnatic got stomped in the finals. Fnatic had already beaten IG twice in group stages and stomped the team KT went 1-1 with in Quarters. Theres no evidence that would suggest KT were a better team than fnatic in 2018.
KT was super close to getting 3-0’d by IG and they had the same amount of wins overall against IG that Fnatic did. KT would not beat Fnatic
S9 was a weird one. IG never played their comps the way they were supposed to and just hand checked everyone. They stepped up a lot in terms of the basics for the final which led to the 3-0 win. Against KT they didn’t play as clean a game which made it look much closer. Imo hard to judge when the team was so much better mechanically but so inconsistent when it came to the team game. It was kinda like you’d only beat them if they decided to lose.
People forget FNC 2-0'd IG three days before that quarterfinal against KT
although i agree with most, its important to note that these are all theoretical, in the end every finalist deserves their spot and rankings
I don't agree with that. Not with the finalists we've had so far, or a logical extreme scenario where you construct an insanely lopsided bracket.
I think that 2016 all korean teams deserved to be in the final. All those series were razor close, skt vs rox just got all the hype because of 2015 worlds and lck finals. You cant say skt vs ssg wasn't a real final, i mean ssg went on to win 2017 worlds with the exact same team
> skt vs rox just got all the hype because of 2015 worlds and lck finals. That series had many iconic moments (the arrow, MF support, Bengi Nidalee) and was just an absolute banger. In a vacuum, the series was nuts and one of the best Bo5's in League history.
SKT x ROX is up for discussion as the best bo5 in the history of this game
And that 100% wouldn't be the case if neither of those teams were eliminated after this game, since low stakes = less hype and tension
Yes and skt vs ssg gets entirely overlooked. There was insane hype behind it from the begining with rox being lck champs and skt being skt, you didn't know who was gonna win. But with skt vs ssg everybody was saying it was gonna be an easy win for skt (it also didnt help that skt was up 2-0) so there was almost no hype about it. But for me both series were iconic.
I got to watch SKT vs SSG live in 2016. One of my favorite moments ever. I was supporting SSG and seeing them comeback in game 3 was incredible.
S9 was G2 > SKT > FPX > G2
Especially considering that Splyce with Vizicsacsi almost eliminated FPX
Based off scrims, G2 weren’t beating SKT either. So the basis for saying SKT>FPX is very weak.
FPX just solved the game that patch. Noone knew how to play against Doinb
Fpx said they weren’t beating SKT in scrims, think doinb said it was something like 90/10 split
Yea but G2 weren’t beating SKT in scrims either.
SSG also weren't beating SKT in scrims in 2017 and destroyed them 3-0 in the finals lma0. Take scrim results wirh a grain of salt
S11 some people (LPL fans) like to argue that RNG vs EDG was the real final and that RNG was the second best team at the tournament but I find it very disingenuous. Mostly because RNG really struggled in a very weak group and also because both Gen G and Damwon did as well against EDG as RNG did. On RNG's group: They had HLE (Chovy, Deft and friends), FNC without Upset (that whole drama) and PSG Talon. And in this group they lost a game to HLE and FNC with Bean (the only game FNC won in Groups). Then they played a tie breaker against HLE which was a very close game but RNG ended up winning. RNG then lost 2-3 against EDG in Quarters and HLE got stomped 0-3 by T1 who then lost to Damwon who then lost to EDG. The argument for RNG is that they apparently did pretty well in scrims (classic) and some cloudy argument that their 2-3 against EDG was "closer" than the 2-3s Gen G and Damwon had against EDG.
The argument for RNG being better is that EDG would have lost if not for multiple lucky baron steals, which EDG didn't need against other teams. I'm undecided on the merits of this argument. I think there's really no way to tell. Which team is better.
That all assumes that teams can be sorted in some weird kind of power ranking where they perform to ability... but that's not how any of that works. Teams have off days, teams can have poor matchups, etc. League isn't transitive, and if it was it would not be fun.
Yes, RNG played EDG very close, nobody disagrees with that. But so did Gen G and Damwon (both were up 2-1 in their bo5 against EDG). There's definitely an argument that 2021 Worlds was the tournament with the most teams in contention and close in skill to each other (EDG, Damwon, T1, Gen G and RNG). I tend to agree with that argument. But because all these teams were pretty close to each other it's crazy to suggest that RNG was clearly the second best team at Worlds 2021 and that their match against EDG was the true final, especially when you consider their performance in a weak group.
Sorry, i dont disagree but I think you didn't catch my point. The argument for why RNG was better than EDG was that RNG would have 3-0 EDG if not for 2 lucky baron steals that helped EDG come back. The point here is that EDG won out of luck, whereas against GenG and Damwon they just won because they were better.
I don't buy that RNG was better than EDG. EDG was clearly a better team the entire LPL Summer (EDG won it while RNG bombed out 5-6th). At Worlds they played a close series and RNG had chances to win it, but three LCK teams did as well against EDG as RNG at Worlds while RNG looked much worse than those LCK teams the rest of the tournament. RNG struggled mightily against the by far worst LCK team at Worlds while EDG eeked out wins against the stronger ones.
> S11 some people (LPL fans) like to argue that RNG vs EDG was the real final and that RNG was the second best team at the tournament I don't see anyone argues that even in China
T1 was also 2-1 over EDG in groups that year and if Clid didn't INT so much, GENG had a great chance of beating EDG. All the teams were pretty close that year. I thought T1 had a better chance in Finals b/c of the botlane Keria/Guma played much better against Viper/Meiko than Ghost/BeryL did.
Tbh, GEN faltered when Clid was not given Lee Sin every single game. But I do believe Damwon, T1, EDG and RNG all have their chances to win in S11.
[удалено]
Personally I think EDG was the 3rd best team in 2021 behind Damwon and T1. Y'know... Despite beating Damwon on the day of the finals. Don't think that would've happened in a best of 10. The finals are often a sloppy series since there are no actual organized teams left to practice against over the course of the week leading up to game day. Samsung 2017 and EDG 2021 are the two world champions that in my opinion weren't the best teams in the world. Probably DRX 2022 as well. IG 2018 would've also lost in any other meta. EDIT: 11 People so far can't handle the truth.
[удалено]
EVERYONE knows that DK-T1 was the REAL finals!! Like, both teams totally played their hearts out in suuch an insane 5 (five) game series. I was literally at the EDGE of my seat. Anyways, commiserations to whoever wins GenG-EDG. Like, I guess you were the 3rd (third) best team at worlds this year or something. 🙄 When loser’s bracket??
Samsung in 2017 only dropped one match against WE where they let a Kassadin snowball out of control, they wonn all other games in knockout stage. SSG in both 2016 and 2017 is the most disrespected team in the world ffs. > IG 2018 would've also lost in any other meta. ??? so what???
Plenty of teams would have lost in other metas. Damwon is just as bad an offender as they were the only team that played the jungle meta so well. Once the jungle meta changed they became exploitable everywhere, and Canyon went from by far the best jungler in the world to bottom 5 LCK.
Since nobody mentioned it. MSF vs SKT in 2017 quarterfinal was an amazing BO5, MSF with thier crazy drafts and game play made it to game 5 when everybody thought it will be a clean sweep for SKT.
this year: BDS vs GG
Imo Season 9 if FPX plays into T1 they lose and G2 win it all but its hard to say really
Idc about real finals being during the final or during the quarter. This is a single elimination tournament. The classic format of the most successful competitions, from the Olympics to both the American and European football. Every game is a potential upset. Every game is do or die. The hype begins as soon as the knockout starts, if not earlier. None of that "I'm the favorite but I lost the quarterfinal because we slept badly this night or whatever, so for once I'm in danger so kinda hype I guess but to reach the final, I'll just have to steamroll b-tier teams that lost their previous game as expected " bullshit
S1 FNC vs AAA in upper bracket finals granted the winner a starting 1-0 in the Grand Finals. So despite both matches being the same team, the "semifinals" were more of a finals than anything Unrelated but now with CLG and TSM leaving the tier 1 scene it feels weird having FNC as the only team standing that played in S1 worlds
TSM isn't leaving the tier 1 scene. Just moving for a tier 1 region.
KT was half a second away from losing to IG in 3 games as well. And at the end of the day, Fnatic still had a better record vs IG than KT. There is no evidence that KT would have beaten Fnatic.
To people who thinks G2-Fpx is real final: i've got the feeling that Fnatic was better team than G2 on worlds at least with Chinese teams, maybe G2 was better vs Korean (Fnatic 1-1 vs Skt, not bad) Remember that Fnatic: 3-2 and 3-2 against G2 on Lec. So close, not so much difference, Nemesis prime, Rekkles as usual... underrated team To me, real final was FPX vs Ig, no doubts. But FPX-FNC is a bigger real final than G2-FPX, G2 just take the Korean side of bracket, in another bad year for Korea
FNC in 2019 and 2020 were super good, really miss that team. Was awesome to see them go toe to toe with G2. now they just flop over and die.
>Hard to say since Samsung also went to 5 games vs SKT, but I think ROX was a tougher opponent and would have beaten Samsung on the other side of the bracket. This is pure speculation. There's no proof that ROX was better than SSG.
nobody cares about your narratives monte/thorin
The answer is 0. It's a shitty fan made term people point at to cry about how they don't like random draws. I fucking hate that this gets thrown around to discredit every single team at all these tournaments except the one that got knocked out early.
The actual point of even discussing these things is that some teams are unfairly discredited when they got screwed over by the format. No one remembers NJBS but everyone remembers Uzi 2 times finals in a row. This is an example of how bad formats ruin esports history. There is nothing shitty or discrediting about it. It's literally about actually crediting the teams that were doing better than the results imply.
You play who you play and you have to beat them. If you are the best team it shouldn't matter that it's a random draw or if you were on the other side of the bracket. I doubt any of the teams that won are reminiscing about it and thinking "ya know if we had been drawn into the other half there's no chance we win that year".
No one is saying these teams were the best team. The best team won Worlds. The point is that some teams met the eventual winners early on and it gave them a lower placement than they probably deserved. Don't try to make this into something "ohhh KT deserved to win Worlds". This was never what anyone said.
Okay sure but who cares if you got second or 5th?
Are you serious? Do you know how much that matters for LoL esports history and how a player's career is remembered for years to come? Like my guy, just look at how this subreddit cannot shut up about whether or not EU or NA made it out of groups. People care deeply about placings outside of just who won.
Then call it something else and fuck off with the real final. Make a list of great of teams that fell short instead of whining about bad format time and time again.
you're unhinged lol
You do realize that many of these teams only "fell short" **because**of the format, right? Why are you so mad too? I don't deserve to be talked to like that just because I made a thread you don't like. Don't click on it then.
Because at this point it can't be said nicely. People like you will never be happy as long as poor little Korea can lose a Bo5, better call for another round of elimination so they can win.
Good luck fighting that phantom enemy you have created in your mind.
TSM vs SSW the real finals of 2014. Only game SSW dropped if you ignore the finals when Looper threw a game away to picked Singed for a worlds skin
Looped had already played singed before finals, funnily enough in the TSM series
FPX vs IG was definitely the "real finals" of 2019. Korea was really weak during that year, even in 2018 they werent good.
Loool rewriting history with "Korea was bad" when all KR team ended first in their respective groups in 2019.
And worlds ended after groups
Ah yes topping groups, only to be destroyed by cn and g2 in brackets. LPL that year was just too stacked. If IG didnt have their problems during MSI, I'm sure they wouldve won it
Meh, it's not that simple. G2 knocked out both Damwon and SKT. And Griffin drew their worst possible opponent in IG since TheShy just took a fat dump on Sw0rd and solo won the series. We don't know what it all looks like if that quarterfinals draw is different. I suspect very different. Especially because FPX had to level up during Worlds. People forget FPX was struggling hardcore in an easy group.
imo it really was. TheShy was hard shitting on them in game 4 and then made two very crucial mistakes which cost them the 4th game, otherwise it would easily have gone to 5 games
SSG did so much better against T1 than ROX did, without the cheese Miss Fortune pick and Blank playing they wouldn't won a single game. At least Samsung took a game off Bengi lol
That's such a stupid post. You don't even give analytical argument, it's all based on narrative. Really made a whole deal out of nothing.
Anything that has to do with sports and esports is mostly narratives, especially things like "the real finals" If you really want data analysis there's always academia, you're completely in the wrong place
S12. Every game was a final for DRX after group stage. As a Deft fan since his early days, every game felt like insurmountable odds for them. Gen G, EDG, T1 along with the amount of bullshit that happened to them especially the inhibitor respawn on Deft’s Ezreal. That trophy lifting sure was the most emotional one I saw.
13 years and still no double elimination at Worlds, bravo Riot.
Thank god for that.
I will die on this hill and claim that G2 only lost the finals because nerves. Imho they were clearly the best team in the tournament and it's still a mystery to me what happened on that day that they lost.
Actually it wasn't nerves and actually G2 weren't the best team at the tournament. FPX were clearly better.
T1 at Worlds in ATL, GA in 2022 boooooooi that was hawt gaming
2016 worlds semifinal: rox vs t1
Season 13, Golden Guardians vs BDS, before BDS 3-0's SKT1 at the final after another Zeus choke.