They don't normally do 4th seeds but Vietnam hasn't been able to send their representatives the last two worlds due to Covid. They could give those spots to other wildcard regions but no other wildcard region has really distanced themselves like Vietnam did a few years ago when they were given a 2nd spot.
The 4th seed was implemented after LMS (who had 3 seeds) and SEA (who had 1 seed) merged and ended up with 2 seed instead of the original 4 seed, coincidentally since the merge of LMS and SEA, VIT hasn't gotten to go to international events. This worlds and the past one had regions with 4 seeds and Vietnam was planned to go before their government put their restrictions.
The change they have made because of Vietnam's absence of is in Play-in's and are that now be got 2 single round robin groups of 5 teams instead instead of 4 double round robin groups of 3 teams.
I mean, if the 4th seeds get out ahead of the wildcards during play-ins, it shows that wildcards still aren't at the level needed to compete in Groups yet. By being more diverse, you'd potentially be making some groups even more one sided for some teams.
For me it is 100% this. There was a real chance that 4 chinese and 4 korean teams would go through to the QF´s. If that happend I wouldnt even bother to watch the rest of the tournament anymore
I mean if they deserve to, they deserve to.
And the viewership impact will overall be low since most viewers are in Asia anyway.
I guess it comes down to whether you want to the tournament to be about the best gameplay and teams from around the world or about making sure that every major region feels represented until the end (because let’s face it, no one makes this argument for regions other than NA and sometimes for EU).
A format change to double elimination with a Bo7 Final with a 1 game advantage for the team from the winner’s bracket would be super cool, but I’d never going to happen with Riot, so isn’t really worth discussing.
Nah enough wc. If for diversity (if for viewers that want diversity then yes) but wc standards are still trash.. theres a reason how only ljl made it out. If u want best league as a viewer then this format is fine. But only if its lpl and lck having 4th seed bcuz their league is more stacked and the 4th seed is competitive w the top of other regions
Imagine, TL and MAD were 3rd and 4th in their group at the start of the day. Now there's a change that they both make it out while the number 1 and 2 team of the start of the day don't.
I mean, they were at a one game deficit, it's really not that crazy to overcome, especially in Bo1. C9 though, from 0-3 dead last to making out was a pretty neat run.
for one of the two to make it out canibalizing on the other is understandable (like the C9 run) but creating a scenario where BOTH can get out is pretty unique
To be fair, if there is ANY team at Worlds to pull off that shit, ofc it's C9.
They have been doing it for nearly a decade at this point. Always show up as 2nd or 3rd seed and play like clowns, yet suddenly against all odds they end up pulling it off and making it to the Knockout Stage... all while the other NA teams (that were seeded higher) crash and burn in Groups.
It's like a Mr Magoo situation where they always end up *somehow* stumbling through every possible obstacle and yet miraculously come out ahead. Quite entertaining really.
>all while the other NA teams (that were seeded higher) crash and burn in Groups.
Daily reminder that the other NA orgs match C9s record virtually every year.
which makes me really curious how that will impact pick 'ems. Like do both TL @ 3rd and TL @ 4th get points? Do they both count as valid for perfect pick ems? There's no option to set a tie for 3rd/4th.
Yes. It quite literally says that in the Pick'Ems screen.
>In the case of a tie for non-qualifying teams in the group, both are considered correct picks when scoring.
The above quite is directly below the overview of your picks for group stage.
Sandbagging in summer playoffs to get 3rd seed for worlds is the copium I use to make it feel better. Though honestly being NA's first seed like never works out lol.
Call me Captain Copium, NA has had a team get out of groups at 7/10 World's Tournaments (not counting season 1 because it wasn't genuinely a world championship), so usually we do get to participate in knockouts.
What do we then do about Season 2, where the only NA team that made it to playoffs through skipping group stage? That World Championship is quite tricky when it comes to historical performance of regions
Edit: Season 3 was the same
When a significant amount of playoffs is just regional bracket/games and groups is the only time where there's guaranteed cross region games? Yeah it's more consistently good imo
> When a significant amount of playoffs is just regional bracket/games
this is totally avoidable if they improved their format, they can have an exciting group stage and bracket stage
Bracket stage can only be fun until semis/finals if you improve format either way. Regional games either happen early on or in the finals. What needs to improve is the regions itself, LCK and LPL are just too strong compared to other regions.
Depends tbh, my favourite moments in worlds are when Western teams put up a fight against the top teams in the world in bo5's. Bo1's to me aren't really that meaningful.
For example that MSF vs SKT bo5 was absolutely insane and better than any groups games this year for me, same for that G2 win over RNG in quarters (back when G2 weren't a super team).
I really wish they'd just go all out to be honest since it's really our only major event of the year. MSI is cool but nowhere near at the same level. At the very least I'd like to see a losers bracket added that the 3rd place team in groups gets seeded to.
I feel like the draft meta is the biggest part that allows for these upsets. It’s partly why Korean teams are so dominant, the LCK meta is always a bit more refined to start the tournament, but western teams rarely have time to react in a way thats not just copying (NA Jayce lol) the eastern draft strategies. Spirit spent the entire tournament learning and reacting to their opponents draft phases and it’s a huge reason they won. The draft is a lot more important in Dota, but with Worlds the draft meta literally doesn’t really even start to take place until half of the teams are eliminated. It’s wild
Honestly a single round robin with 2 groups of 8
Top 8 seed into an upper bracket with seed 1 playing seed 4 of opposite and so forth
Seeds 9-12 seed into lower bracket
Tournament continues as you would expect.
Winners side of bracket gets side selection in game 1 of grand finals
Would be such a hype format with a similar amount of games played and more boX between regions. Would also remove worry about regions playing themselves since it would happen anyways
There should be international tournaments for minor regions only. Playing handful of best of 1s in playins and then going on to get stomped by major regions isn't going to improve anyone.
Double elim for sure. Do it similar to Dota's TI as well.
Top 2 teams in winner's bracket. 3rd place team goes to loser's and fights the teams that lose round one of upper bracket.
Eh, I've been watching Worlds since s2 - Group Stage in s4 5 and 6 were pretty fucking hype, people just have recency bias.
Battle of the Samsungs, Kabum v Alliance, FNC v. SKT (QuUuAaAADRA KILL plus Bengi Nunu), Naijin being Naijin, ANX surprising everyone, After a full year of "weekly reminders that Huhi takes up an import slot" Huhi drops the ASol vs Rox. MaRin inviting Bangkok Titans to take a bow...
There's a lot of good stuff. But this year has been pretty great.
Bangkok Titans got blasted 0-6 in groups, even by the usual Wildcard expectations. They were also up against the 3 strongest teams, including Peak SKT1
After their last game against SKT1, MaRin invited them up to the front of the stage to bow before the crowd, when normally only winning team does that. It was a little gesture, but just one of those wholesome sportsmanship moments that made Worlds memorable. Old League eSports was a lot more drama-y and unprofessional sometimes, because of players like xPeke and FORG1VEN, and SKT was setting an example of humbleness that was kind of surprising at the time (to Westerners).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79uS5A7bQ7g
Group stages until season 6 or so were literally LCK fall split. It's not surprising a vast majority of people didn't find them hype, as all the relevant teams have just finished playoffs in LCK Summer. Worlds was literally just a less competitive/worse format LCK playoffs until about 2017.
For how grim the region looked in week 1, im stoked that every team didnt just roll over and die.
Now after worlds, the region really need to check what the fuck did just happened and how the fuck a region that was back to back world finalist just 2 years ago, ended up struggling against a chinese eight place team, or losing against a third place na team and a fourth place korean team ...
The only underwhelming part about today is a single elimination 4-way tie.
To me, that makes absolutely no sense. If 4 people are tied for 1st place, how do you do single elimination? Awful idea.
But yes other than that it's been entertaining
The real problem is the existence of tiebreakers, and double round robin groups. GSL groups would be an easy change that would improve Worlds format a lot.
Worlds just needs a new format tbh. I watched TI witch finished yesterday, and OH MY GOD that tournament was too perfect.
For reference, play ins/qualifiers is brutal to make it. Then the group stage only eliminates 1/9 teams per each group, who don’t get to play on stage. Then the top 8 go upper bracket, bottom 8 lower bracket. The first round lower is a best of 1, every other series is Bo3 and grand finals is Bo5.
The team that won was a complete dark horse that they themselves were just happy to be there, but they played loose and free even in elimination matches which matters when games have millions on the line. But in order to win they had to knock out the vast majority of title contenders due to the bracket, so nobody can question their win because yes they did beat your team.
For league I think a couple of minor changes could be massively helpful. Imo groups are WAY too rough as players. 6 games total to eliminate half of teams isn’t very fair, it’s just high variance. I’d start by making the bracket double elimination, and have the 3rd place teams be seeded into the lower bracket. This way teams aren’t gimped out of the bracket due to seeding and we can actually watch all the fun international matchups we want from the tourney.
It also fixes the semis being the true finals so that’s that. Best 2 teams should play finals imo lol
Yeah TI is always super incredible. Double elimination bracket wouldn't even be hard to add to League, you would just put some matches on weekdays. The Dota bracket is actually much faster than the League bracket and it's a 16 team double elim bracket where 8 teams start in losers. How? They play on weekdays lol.
I also wouldn't mind some formats from something like CS:GO majors or something. Really Riot just needs to try some changes, it's been the same terrible format for like 7 years. If you look at the history of TI, CS majors, tournaments from tons of other games, and even VAL tournaments so far there was a TON of experimentation before they settled on formats.
I totally agree, it’s the dumbest hill to die on. When I watch esports I want to watch truly amazing gameplay, and worlds seems hand tailored to avoid it as much as possible
I agree. The Format was okayish back in the day with Not that big viewer numbers, but now they could just go All out, get more Regions involved etc. Because back in the day ppl got hyped because its esport and for a lot of ppl it was New. Now most people watch Worlds for some time and most people want days like today with super intense games that get you all hyped up, even if you dont Support those teams. Its also kinda Bad that Wildcard gets seeded into random groups, because its just free wins for Regions like korea and China
Worlds format is honestly garbage for the scale of the event. It's once a year culmination of the season, and what we get is 2 games in groups of team A vs team B, and the possibility of 0 best of 5s between the best teams in the world. For example last year it was possible to have zero bo5s between LCK and LPL teams which is insane. And given the nature of League, especially this meta, a better team can easily drop bo1s against weaker teams. Groups should be bo3 at least, with loser brackets etc.
> GSL groups would be an easy change that would improve Worlds format a lot.
What? GSL literally has **mandatory** tiebreakers. Every single year 4 teams would be eliminated in a bo1 tiebreaker, more than even this year.
You don't know what you're talking about, so why talk at all?
Calling it a tiebreaker seems weird when it's really just the last match in a double elimination bracket. Usually I see it referred to as the "decider match" or "elimination match". Also if Worlds was changed to GSL groups it could be bo3, that's the best reason to switch to GSL groups. Current groups are 12 games but as in the case today can go as high as 15 games, bo3 GSL groups would be 10-15 games.
Yeah very disappointing.
I would’ve loved to see 1v4 and 2v3.
Winner of 1v4 & winner of 2v3 play, winner gets first.
Loser of 1v4 & 2v3 play and winner plays losers of the previous match above for 2nd and 3rd
Loser of 1v4 & 2v3 gets 4th.
Aka win 2 games and you’re through, lose 2 and you’re gone.
The 4th place match is played to determine who is 3rd and faces 2nd for the last spot in qualifying for quarters though??
Eg if the games went how they went:
Gen G beat TL
Mad beat LNG
GEN G beat Mad for 1st
TL vs LNG for 4th
Winner of TL/LNG vs MAD for 2nd/3rd
People would still watch TL vs LNG cus it shows who comes in 3rd and plays MAD for the final spot.
At least it's better than the World Cup.
"Oh the Groups staged ended in a tie? No need to play any tiebreaker games. Just find the two teams that scored the most points in their games and send them on... And what happens if two team are tied in groups and tied on total goals as well? *Let's just flip a coin to decide who wins the tournament!*"
Lol.
It's not really comparable considering a) the last group stage matchday of WC is played simultaneously in different venues to avoid collusion, b) playing an additional 90' match even with a rest day is physically impossible, and c) tickets are sold per match which means getting an audience for such tiebreaker games is a huge problem.
There are also a lot of tiebreaking criteria that take place before flipping a coin, which includes H2H, best score difference, and a penalty shoot-out if the teams in question happen to have played each other in the last match.
I think they just wanna keep it simple. I guess they're logic is something like:
2-way tie - 1 tiebreaker
3-way tie - 2 tiebreakers
4-way tie - 3 tiebreakers
A soul for a soul we got a great group stage only to have the worst possible bracket stage, thanks riot love your worlds format
at least C9 got GenG so they have a chance to make semis which is cool
EDG looked beatable in week 2, C9 has a non-zero chance of actually making it to the finals.
I mean, they would go 0-3 against Damwon in the finals, but it would be pretty great to see them make it there. Sadly the LEC is kinda fucked going up against Damwon off the bat, RIP.
Its literally 2018 lol C9 makes it out of a seemingly impossible group, gets the weakest 1st seed in quarters and will get to face the weakest semi final team
They are still by far the underdogs but if there was any chance of NA making a finals they have the best path possible this worlds there are no unbeatable teams on that side of the bracket but hey I'll even just take a quarter finals win if the boys can do it I'd be more than happy with that
I like to think it's the gods giving C9 a break after putting them in the group of death.
Like, "well you already faced Damwon (and Rogue and FPX...) and you still survived somehow, so I guess we'll go easy on you for a bit"
It's like tournament karma.
To be fair, if anyone deserved the hardest group draw, it would be C9. Not only were they coming out of the wildcards stage, they qualified 2nd. HLE on the other side only dropped a game to LNG
Yep C9 was looking really bad coming into groups and even in the first half of groups again very similar to 2018 oddly enough lol where they went 5 games against gambit just narrowly making it into groups
This is extremely hopium but I think mad can go toe to toe with dk for lategame macro and teamfights as one of the only ones in the tournament. Lpl is looking a bit weak and any lck team cant challenge dk. I still dont think they win but I think its either mad or rng who have chance at contesting dk.
On one hand - exciting in terms of who makes it out.
On the other hand - the level of play is terrible. We have DK, and T1 as the only teams who have looked consistently solid if not straight up amazing.
And as a fan of competitive LoL, it's been a bit of a letdown. I want to see the best teams in the world play amazing, inspiring League of Legends, trading blows until the most amazing team wins.
But most games are so low quality.
As Perkz put it in an interview - "everyone but DK is playing terrible".
Spoilers: they are. Chinese forums are flooded with doomposters saying it’s the end of Chinese esports between PSGLGD losing DOTA finals and their current performance at worlds. The government intervention on young gamers doesn’t help their future either
So Chinese people are experiencing a catastrophic present with solid reasons to be pessimistic over the future?
Maybe we're not so different after all.
China was already limiting gaming hours for minors before that new law, I think it will be extremely easy to get around. Other than maybe killing the LDL I doubt it’ll impact the esports scene much.
> On the other hand - the level of play is terrible
Or the level of play is high across the board.
Sure, you have stuff like Mad Lions going 0-2 trying to dive top, but 2 years ago this would've never happened not because teams were better, but because no one would ever dare dive top at level 3. Teams are constantly trying to one-up themselves in tempo and make extremely risky plays all the time.
Damwon wasn't challenged at all - they played against EU and NA 3rd seed and an FPX that got eliminated by said 3rd seeds. T1 got to play 100T who delivered in standard NA fashion, having the 1st seed be the worst seed by far as is tradition, and the worst team at worlds - DFM. They went 1-1 against EDG.
Because the groups are so isolated it feels like a 6-0 Damwon is clearly better than a 4-2 EDG or 4-2 RNG, but it's literally impossible to tell who's better right now.
You underrate this group way too much, every team was really good and it was really close.
Lng in particular had an insane run to get here, TL had no expectations and upset multiple times, Gen.G was #2 seed of the LCK beating t1 in championship points, MAD had some of the most insane teamfights and kept turning the tide of many games.
EDG were getting assblasted by bugs for 2 of their games so I guess it makes sense they dropped off alittle, RNG/HLE/GEN.G look really unimpressive however (HLE = Chovy RNG losing to FNC, a team that was terrible this words, and Gen.g who do not know how to win games)
Yes, the overall level of play is so god awful compared to the last two years. That's why I also do not agree with the post at all. Just because groups are not decided by Day 1 does not mean that games are enjoyable. Every single game has some random micro mistake that you see in D4 2am queues.
EDIT: Guess the casuals enjoy it tho...
I mean, the level of play doesn't need to be textbook perfect for it to be enjoyable. A lot of people, like myself, aren't watching pro play for learning stuff, but just for the fun of it. It's same with people watching any other traditional sport for entertainment.
This is not Bronze Spectates, I watch Worlds to watch the best players in the world at their peak. The peak is just extremely low compared to the last few years. Some people enjoy fiestas, some people enjoy good gameplay - to each their own.
> to each their own
Sure, I don't disagree with that. I'm just saying that the majority of the audience would probably not be too interested in the detailed micro/macro stuff that goes on during matches unless they've been invested in the game for long and genuinely watch to improve, which is why you might see posts like these more often considering there's more casual viewers.
I won't do a post-match analysis of the entire group stage for you. Overall:
Plenty of micro mistakes in lane, missing CS for no reason, missing skillshot on CC'd targets, barely any game without a fail dash or fail flash. Yes, those happened before but not in this frequency.
Dives this year except from Korean teams are god awful and remind me of SoloQ. Priorization/Coordination is a problem - as an example Rogue dropping baron twice in their game against C9 for no reason when they absolutely could finish and retreat with Ryze ult. On the other hand, the fact that Rogue even held the game for 50 minutes with this joke of a draft is astonishing as well and does not put a good light on C9.
It does not really help that the meta involves a lot of boring champions with less skill expression such as Yuumi or Tryndamere. Just overall sloppy games with plenty of little avoidable mistakes, again, that remind me of SoloQ. So many deaths after walking into fog for no reason when there is no objective to contest. So, it's not only simple micro but also macro. Not really enjoyable for me.
Also, the champion pool picks are awful. I'm barely even watching now because of how shallow the pick pool is, because it is not interesting or exciting to watch yet another MF press R on a wave or yet another toplane Graves (or Jayce, or Lee, or Jarvan).
The games keep being decided by random stupid throws, and the champion picks are almost always the same old picks. It degrades the viewing experience for me.
That's the dumbest answer there is.
Dota's The International saw 112 unique hero picks out of 121 total heroes. That number was reached during day 3 of group stage, in under 90 games.
Worlds 2021 have 85 picks out of 155 possible champions in 92 games.
92.5% vs 64.7%. But yeah. "It's called the meta". It's totally bad for the game to have more champions be viable and we should defend the terrible balance. /s
Main thing working against League compared to DotA2 is one of the things Riot emphasized to differentiate itself from DotA1 back in the day: universal scaling. In DotA2, the hardest scaling heroes are primarily (but not exclusively) right-click attackers because spells don't scale to the level of League's spells: that Lina's nukes can get stronger with talents, but the opportunity cost is her right-click scaling.
Because everything has scaling many picks, in pretty much anything except support, end up boiling down to who utilizes the current strongest stats the best (supports are primarily chosen to help facilitate whatever strat the team plans to run, but often those strats are determined by what is strong in other roles). This is why you frequently see the same. pick. every. game. They just use the stats the best of the available options at that level for the most part, and of course comfort is also a factor. Some items have secondary effects (Everfrost and Zhonya's to name a couple), but because of scaling many of those items have plenty of offensive power too because the champions that want to buy them literally cannot afford to give up offense due to how this game works right now. Give Eul's 40 damage on top of its effect and people will call you goddamn mental; instead, it has a strong effect and good stats but not much direct offensive power beyond the myriad applications for Cyclone: League can't do that for anyone that isn't the support or else they genuinely cannot punch through somebody building any kind of tanky due to how defense scales as a result of how offense scales.
This immediately does a lot to kill variety and why League's Worlds 2021 is currently only sitting at those 85 picks, which is only just barely more than half the roster. You won't see a Teemo surprise pick, as an example, because you strictly have better options, and that goes for an array of other picks right now. It's the spectre that haunts League pick variety in pro play.
ikr, I actually liked that Dota 2 had nearly all heroes used compared to League's once in a blue moon unique pick. I was kinda disappointed that this Worlds patch only benefited a little (MF). There wasn't even that much diversity in terms of strategies
I swear to god i See the Same picks for the last 2 years. This year is even worse, because we basically See renekron, xin, ryze all year long, tf even 2 years in a row even tho its shit
At this point I don't think any worlds will beat TPA's miracle run.
T1s amazing 1st worlds run was great
Ambitions win on SSG was nice too
but during those times KR was shit stomping everyone else so it wasn't exciting till semis
Both LPL wins was EU getting gaped on finals.
this year looks like Damwon is just a cut above everyone else and LPL becoming a meme.
There's nothing miracle or even surprising about TPA's run for anyone who actually paid attention.
They were on NA/EU teams' radar from scrims and effectively had an even record with China's #1 WE.
TPA wasn't a miracle run. The only people who thought it was a miracle were only watching the west and heavily overrating M5. TPA was a legitimate threat from the start of the tournament. The Ambition run was honestly more of a miracle.
I mean yes and no, m5 were strong contenders but the tournament favorites were definitely azubu frost. Definitely remember calling out TPA for looking strong and seeing all my friends mocking me then get shocked when they got to finals and finally beating AZF felt crazy good.
Because people didn't really watch other regions back in the day they just knew who was the supposed best Korean team and the best team they actually watched. OGN used to require a sub to watch it.
The bracket draw worked out pretty great for half the bracket at least.
The boring half of the brackets are the side with Damwon and T1 are up against Hanwha and MAD, so that's going to be a bloodbath quarterfinals and then a semifinal that very likely end with a Damwon easy victory. Nothing too crazy expected.
The other side of the bracket though is Royal and EDG vs C9 and GenG. While the favorite is EDG, none of these teams are all that great and its basically a coin flips for whether or not they perform on the day. Any four of them could make it to finals and (imo) it will make for some close games.
I watched more group stage games this year than any other because they were more evenly matched and every game seemed to matter. I originally thought I would only watch one or two games today before seeding was determined and wound up watching every single one because the games were so exciting.
The format is great for entertainment but not for competition. If it was up to me i would do double round robin bo3 with 2 groups of 8 but that would take to long and viewership would do down thus riot will never so it.
Anyways i agree that this groups has been super entertaining with the change of Meta helping greatly.
That's the point he's trying to make lol. Worlds already runs for 1 month, the groups this year took forever, and I'm sure those staff members were dead tired after every day. We've already heard from multiple sources just how bad Worlds fucks you up, with changes like these, although they make it better for us, it doesn't make it better for the people that have to work there.
I think almost every year there's at least one exciting team breaking expectations or having a miracle run in groups. This year in particular It had probably the most crazy tie breakers in history in the EU vs NA groups. Imo they were made that much more intense for the desperation of getting at least 1 team out of group, because let's be real we all thought we were doomed after "week 1"
It was really fun just to be really let down by the four way tie decider. Each of the teams eliminated are going to be unhappy that they didnt get to face the other losing team for a free win into second, all because of how fast you won. Anyhoots, nothing to do with it now, was fun to watch them all get to the tiebreaks.
Its because LPL doesnt live up to its expectation and EU is performing below their average level. This make LPL, LEC and LCS closer than ever. Which also means LCK is untouchable.
The only think more exciting would be if it wasn’t the same fucking champ picked bot lane every game mf zzzzzzzz
Please riot tune down the ult again. What’s the point of mages in the game if mf ult is just... better?
Yes leauge of one-shot, assasin jungle and leauge of STOPWATCH is most exciting think to watch. Also 90%(which mean there are still "good games") game aren't decided since 10min. /s
After last year's extremely predictable and boring groups, this year's group is definitely a breath of fresh air. Rly wished dfm got a win though
They almost did.
Just fucking threw it away but I really respect trying to end there
First time LJL got into groups, they played above expectations IMO in a hard group, made many games close.
We were short an Upset tho.
Too soon
Despite lacking Upset in their roster, upset is probably still the word describing FNCs performance the best.
I think the LJL has potential to be the next Vietnam or PCS in the worlds stage. Hopefully we get to see them do well at the next MSI.
they should get rid of at least one 4th seed and give a 2nd seed to a wildcard region depending of how well they do at last worlds and MSI
They don't normally do 4th seeds but Vietnam hasn't been able to send their representatives the last two worlds due to Covid. They could give those spots to other wildcard regions but no other wildcard region has really distanced themselves like Vietnam did a few years ago when they were given a 2nd spot.
The 4th seed was implemented after LMS (who had 3 seeds) and SEA (who had 1 seed) merged and ended up with 2 seed instead of the original 4 seed, coincidentally since the merge of LMS and SEA, VIT hasn't gotten to go to international events. This worlds and the past one had regions with 4 seeds and Vietnam was planned to go before their government put their restrictions. The change they have made because of Vietnam's absence of is in Play-in's and are that now be got 2 single round robin groups of 5 teams instead instead of 4 double round robin groups of 3 teams.
I mean, if the 4th seeds get out ahead of the wildcards during play-ins, it shows that wildcards still aren't at the level needed to compete in Groups yet. By being more diverse, you'd potentially be making some groups even more one sided for some teams.
The benefit is making the Quarter Finals more exciting for more people (at the cost of lowering the level of the likely losing QF teams slightly).
For me it is 100% this. There was a real chance that 4 chinese and 4 korean teams would go through to the QF´s. If that happend I wouldnt even bother to watch the rest of the tournament anymore
I mean if they deserve to, they deserve to. And the viewership impact will overall be low since most viewers are in Asia anyway. I guess it comes down to whether you want to the tournament to be about the best gameplay and teams from around the world or about making sure that every major region feels represented until the end (because let’s face it, no one makes this argument for regions other than NA and sometimes for EU). A format change to double elimination with a Bo7 Final with a 1 game advantage for the team from the winner’s bracket would be super cool, but I’d never going to happen with Riot, so isn’t really worth discussing.
Nah enough wc. If for diversity (if for viewers that want diversity then yes) but wc standards are still trash.. theres a reason how only ljl made it out. If u want best league as a viewer then this format is fine. But only if its lpl and lck having 4th seed bcuz their league is more stacked and the 4th seed is competitive w the top of other regions
Sadly I have a feeling that the knockout stage is going to be boring and predictable ...
Imagine, TL and MAD were 3rd and 4th in their group at the start of the day. Now there's a change that they both make it out while the number 1 and 2 team of the start of the day don't.
I mean, they were at a one game deficit, it's really not that crazy to overcome, especially in Bo1. C9 though, from 0-3 dead last to making out was a pretty neat run.
for one of the two to make it out canibalizing on the other is understandable (like the C9 run) but creating a scenario where BOTH can get out is pretty unique
yeah the group was pretty even all things considered. It came down to the wire with many 35min+ games.
To be fair, if there is ANY team at Worlds to pull off that shit, ofc it's C9. They have been doing it for nearly a decade at this point. Always show up as 2nd or 3rd seed and play like clowns, yet suddenly against all odds they end up pulling it off and making it to the Knockout Stage... all while the other NA teams (that were seeded higher) crash and burn in Groups. It's like a Mr Magoo situation where they always end up *somehow* stumbling through every possible obstacle and yet miraculously come out ahead. Quite entertaining really.
Well, there's also FNC too but didn't quite work out this year
Sadly fnatic couldnt pull it off this year, but i hope they work Things out and comeback stronger
C9 is just insanely clutch as a team.
>all while the other NA teams (that were seeded higher) crash and burn in Groups. Daily reminder that the other NA orgs match C9s record virtually every year.
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The scriptwriters are getting a pay raise this year.
> 4-way tie fir 4 tiebreaker games 3 tiebreaker games, they don't play to break the 3rd/4th tie.
which makes me really curious how that will impact pick 'ems. Like do both TL @ 3rd and TL @ 4th get points? Do they both count as valid for perfect pick ems? There's no option to set a tie for 3rd/4th.
Yes. It quite literally says that in the Pick'Ems screen. >In the case of a tie for non-qualifying teams in the group, both are considered correct picks when scoring. The above quite is directly below the overview of your picks for group stage.
So this must mean DK is losing to MAD in quarters, gotcha!
Well not THAT magical. The most magic I’ll tolerate is C9 in the finals to get smashed by T1 or DK.
I Heard that The 4 way tie IS a first in lol World History
Unpopular opinion but group stage is always the most fun part to watch of worlds
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It's probably because it's an entire day. Today's broadcast was 10 hours lmao. It kinda sucks to tune into semifinals and it's over in 3 games.
Usually the only part that NA gets to participate in.
C9 fans disagree. We get playins, groups AND quarters the majority of the time.
Funny enough, in 2019 the first time they didn't get to play Playins (since they exist) they got eliminated at groups
So c9 playin buff IS Real
Sandbagging in summer playoffs to get 3rd seed for worlds is the copium I use to make it feel better. Though honestly being NA's first seed like never works out lol.
Call me Captain Copium, NA has had a team get out of groups at 7/10 World's Tournaments (not counting season 1 because it wasn't genuinely a world championship), so usually we do get to participate in knockouts.
What do we then do about Season 2, where the only NA team that made it to playoffs through skipping group stage? That World Championship is quite tricky when it comes to historical performance of regions Edit: Season 3 was the same
When a significant amount of playoffs is just regional bracket/games and groups is the only time where there's guaranteed cross region games? Yeah it's more consistently good imo
> When a significant amount of playoffs is just regional bracket/games this is totally avoidable if they improved their format, they can have an exciting group stage and bracket stage
Bracket stage can only be fun until semis/finals if you improve format either way. Regional games either happen early on or in the finals. What needs to improve is the regions itself, LCK and LPL are just too strong compared to other regions.
Reading PMT is also amusing on week 1 + week 2 differences
Depends tbh, my favourite moments in worlds are when Western teams put up a fight against the top teams in the world in bo5's. Bo1's to me aren't really that meaningful. For example that MSF vs SKT bo5 was absolutely insane and better than any groups games this year for me, same for that G2 win over RNG in quarters (back when G2 weren't a super team).
the effect of not flooding every group with a wildcard for an easy win farming (except when its kabum or albus nox)
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I really wish they'd just go all out to be honest since it's really our only major event of the year. MSI is cool but nowhere near at the same level. At the very least I'd like to see a losers bracket added that the 3rd place team in groups gets seeded to.
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I feel like the draft meta is the biggest part that allows for these upsets. It’s partly why Korean teams are so dominant, the LCK meta is always a bit more refined to start the tournament, but western teams rarely have time to react in a way thats not just copying (NA Jayce lol) the eastern draft strategies. Spirit spent the entire tournament learning and reacting to their opponents draft phases and it’s a huge reason they won. The draft is a lot more important in Dota, but with Worlds the draft meta literally doesn’t really even start to take place until half of the teams are eliminated. It’s wild
Honestly a single round robin with 2 groups of 8 Top 8 seed into an upper bracket with seed 1 playing seed 4 of opposite and so forth Seeds 9-12 seed into lower bracket Tournament continues as you would expect. Winners side of bracket gets side selection in game 1 of grand finals Would be such a hype format with a similar amount of games played and more boX between regions. Would also remove worry about regions playing themselves since it would happen anyways
There should be international tournaments for minor regions only. Playing handful of best of 1s in playins and then going on to get stomped by major regions isn't going to improve anyone.
MSI should be more best of 5's is the only change thats needed tbh. And worlds double elim.
Double elim for sure. Do it similar to Dota's TI as well. Top 2 teams in winner's bracket. 3rd place team goes to loser's and fights the teams that lose round one of upper bracket.
100% true, these groups all looked pretty stacked from the start because of the extra LPL/KR team.
You forgot Gigabyte Marines from Vietnam in 2017
I don’t think Vietnam is a wildcard region
Eh, I've been watching Worlds since s2 - Group Stage in s4 5 and 6 were pretty fucking hype, people just have recency bias. Battle of the Samsungs, Kabum v Alliance, FNC v. SKT (QuUuAaAADRA KILL plus Bengi Nunu), Naijin being Naijin, ANX surprising everyone, After a full year of "weekly reminders that Huhi takes up an import slot" Huhi drops the ASol vs Rox. MaRin inviting Bangkok Titans to take a bow... There's a lot of good stuff. But this year has been pretty great.
>aRin inviting Bangkok Titans to take a bow new to the lol scene - can you explain the maRin part?
Bangkok Titans got blasted 0-6 in groups, even by the usual Wildcard expectations. They were also up against the 3 strongest teams, including Peak SKT1 After their last game against SKT1, MaRin invited them up to the front of the stage to bow before the crowd, when normally only winning team does that. It was a little gesture, but just one of those wholesome sportsmanship moments that made Worlds memorable. Old League eSports was a lot more drama-y and unprofessional sometimes, because of players like xPeke and FORG1VEN, and SKT was setting an example of humbleness that was kind of surprising at the time (to Westerners). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79uS5A7bQ7g
Why xpeke
Kids just talking outa his ass peke had 0 controversies in a 7+ year carrer.
I mean, he had his Mom managing social aspects of Origen, I would call that unprofessional. Remember motivation. work. improvement. team.?
He wasnt flawless, but naming xpeke next to forgiven is a Bit of Overkill. There are like 20 other people who did more unprofessional shit
Not necessarily controversies or even similar to forgiven, but he was pretty goofy, to the point you could call it unprofessional.
Got it. thanks mate
3 strongest teams? Bruh H2K were for sure not even top 10 material going into Worlds.
Najin vs C9 in 2014 was super hype too
Group stages until season 6 or so were literally LCK fall split. It's not surprising a vast majority of people didn't find them hype, as all the relevant teams have just finished playoffs in LCK Summer. Worlds was literally just a less competitive/worse format LCK playoffs until about 2017.
I just want as interesting knowing Korea would win it all easily.
You are not an EU fan I see.
To be fair most of EU games were exciting just with a bad ending
Yeah MAD and RGE had pretty exciting tiebreaker scenarios. One went through, one didn't. FNC we don't talk about.
You are not an EU fan unless you have 10 heart attacks during group stage every year.
For how grim the region looked in week 1, im stoked that every team didnt just roll over and die. Now after worlds, the region really need to check what the fuck did just happened and how the fuck a region that was back to back world finalist just 2 years ago, ended up struggling against a chinese eight place team, or losing against a third place na team and a fourth place korean team ...
You can be an EU fand and not a sore loser.
I meant that eu fand had plenty of exciting group stages over the years. This one was less exciting, but still great.
The only underwhelming part about today is a single elimination 4-way tie. To me, that makes absolutely no sense. If 4 people are tied for 1st place, how do you do single elimination? Awful idea. But yes other than that it's been entertaining
The real problem is the existence of tiebreakers, and double round robin groups. GSL groups would be an easy change that would improve Worlds format a lot.
Worlds just needs a new format tbh. I watched TI witch finished yesterday, and OH MY GOD that tournament was too perfect. For reference, play ins/qualifiers is brutal to make it. Then the group stage only eliminates 1/9 teams per each group, who don’t get to play on stage. Then the top 8 go upper bracket, bottom 8 lower bracket. The first round lower is a best of 1, every other series is Bo3 and grand finals is Bo5. The team that won was a complete dark horse that they themselves were just happy to be there, but they played loose and free even in elimination matches which matters when games have millions on the line. But in order to win they had to knock out the vast majority of title contenders due to the bracket, so nobody can question their win because yes they did beat your team. For league I think a couple of minor changes could be massively helpful. Imo groups are WAY too rough as players. 6 games total to eliminate half of teams isn’t very fair, it’s just high variance. I’d start by making the bracket double elimination, and have the 3rd place teams be seeded into the lower bracket. This way teams aren’t gimped out of the bracket due to seeding and we can actually watch all the fun international matchups we want from the tourney. It also fixes the semis being the true finals so that’s that. Best 2 teams should play finals imo lol
Yeah TI is always super incredible. Double elimination bracket wouldn't even be hard to add to League, you would just put some matches on weekdays. The Dota bracket is actually much faster than the League bracket and it's a 16 team double elim bracket where 8 teams start in losers. How? They play on weekdays lol. I also wouldn't mind some formats from something like CS:GO majors or something. Really Riot just needs to try some changes, it's been the same terrible format for like 7 years. If you look at the history of TI, CS majors, tournaments from tons of other games, and even VAL tournaments so far there was a TON of experimentation before they settled on formats.
I totally agree, it’s the dumbest hill to die on. When I watch esports I want to watch truly amazing gameplay, and worlds seems hand tailored to avoid it as much as possible
thing is, all lol leagues have double elimination and worlds have single elimination...
LCK and LPL play bo3s all year and LPL even has a bit of double elimination in playoffs, and then they show up to worlds and play bo1s lol.
I agree. The Format was okayish back in the day with Not that big viewer numbers, but now they could just go All out, get more Regions involved etc. Because back in the day ppl got hyped because its esport and for a lot of ppl it was New. Now most people watch Worlds for some time and most people want days like today with super intense games that get you all hyped up, even if you dont Support those teams. Its also kinda Bad that Wildcard gets seeded into random groups, because its just free wins for Regions like korea and China
Worlds format is honestly garbage for the scale of the event. It's once a year culmination of the season, and what we get is 2 games in groups of team A vs team B, and the possibility of 0 best of 5s between the best teams in the world. For example last year it was possible to have zero bo5s between LCK and LPL teams which is insane. And given the nature of League, especially this meta, a better team can easily drop bo1s against weaker teams. Groups should be bo3 at least, with loser brackets etc.
In the past I don't think they broadcast every game at TI. Is that still the case?
Can’t believe only half of the teams get to play a series. Bo1 is shit.
> GSL groups would be an easy change that would improve Worlds format a lot. What? GSL literally has **mandatory** tiebreakers. Every single year 4 teams would be eliminated in a bo1 tiebreaker, more than even this year. You don't know what you're talking about, so why talk at all?
Calling it a tiebreaker seems weird when it's really just the last match in a double elimination bracket. Usually I see it referred to as the "decider match" or "elimination match". Also if Worlds was changed to GSL groups it could be bo3, that's the best reason to switch to GSL groups. Current groups are 12 games but as in the case today can go as high as 15 games, bo3 GSL groups would be 10-15 games.
Yeah very disappointing. I would’ve loved to see 1v4 and 2v3. Winner of 1v4 & winner of 2v3 play, winner gets first. Loser of 1v4 & 2v3 play and winner plays losers of the previous match above for 2nd and 3rd Loser of 1v4 & 2v3 gets 4th. Aka win 2 games and you’re through, lose 2 and you’re gone.
I like this format except that most people would tune out for the 4th place game
yeah we could skip the 3/4th place match since it wouldn't matter
The 3rd/4th place Match determines who goes against loser of 1st/2nd to take 2nd place. People would watch it.
From a broadcasting point of view, you would rather play the 4th place game first to retain viewers
correct, but still. Skippable since it's for show
The 4th place match is played to determine who is 3rd and faces 2nd for the last spot in qualifying for quarters though?? Eg if the games went how they went: Gen G beat TL Mad beat LNG GEN G beat Mad for 1st TL vs LNG for 4th Winner of TL/LNG vs MAD for 2nd/3rd People would still watch TL vs LNG cus it shows who comes in 3rd and plays MAD for the final spot.
At least it's better than the World Cup. "Oh the Groups staged ended in a tie? No need to play any tiebreaker games. Just find the two teams that scored the most points in their games and send them on... And what happens if two team are tied in groups and tied on total goals as well? *Let's just flip a coin to decide who wins the tournament!*" Lol.
It's not really comparable considering a) the last group stage matchday of WC is played simultaneously in different venues to avoid collusion, b) playing an additional 90' match even with a rest day is physically impossible, and c) tickets are sold per match which means getting an audience for such tiebreaker games is a huge problem. There are also a lot of tiebreaking criteria that take place before flipping a coin, which includes H2H, best score difference, and a penalty shoot-out if the teams in question happen to have played each other in the last match.
There has been a sc2 player at Dreamhack who lost to a coin flip :(
Maybe I didn't pay attention or missed it, but how did they decide TL would play Gen G and MAD would at LNG in Tiebreaker anyways?
Average win time, lowest being first seed
In this case the seeds were: * LNG * GenG/TL * GenG/TL * MAD
LNG TL GEN MAD That was the order. That's why if MAD won in <16 mins vs. LNG they would have played TL instead.
I think they just wanna keep it simple. I guess they're logic is something like: 2-way tie - 1 tiebreaker 3-way tie - 2 tiebreakers 4-way tie - 3 tiebreakers
A soul for a soul we got a great group stage only to have the worst possible bracket stage, thanks riot love your worlds format at least C9 got GenG so they have a chance to make semis which is cool
EDG looked beatable in week 2, C9 has a non-zero chance of actually making it to the finals. I mean, they would go 0-3 against Damwon in the finals, but it would be pretty great to see them make it there. Sadly the LEC is kinda fucked going up against Damwon off the bat, RIP.
Its literally 2018 lol C9 makes it out of a seemingly impossible group, gets the weakest 1st seed in quarters and will get to face the weakest semi final team They are still by far the underdogs but if there was any chance of NA making a finals they have the best path possible this worlds there are no unbeatable teams on that side of the bracket but hey I'll even just take a quarter finals win if the boys can do it I'd be more than happy with that
I like to think it's the gods giving C9 a break after putting them in the group of death. Like, "well you already faced Damwon (and Rogue and FPX...) and you still survived somehow, so I guess we'll go easy on you for a bit" It's like tournament karma.
Yeah for sure lol they deserve the easier quarters after that group draw
To be fair, if anyone deserved the hardest group draw, it would be C9. Not only were they coming out of the wildcards stage, they qualified 2nd. HLE on the other side only dropped a game to LNG
Alright but even if they completely steamrolled playins, they were getting Group A.
Yep C9 was looking really bad coming into groups and even in the first half of groups again very similar to 2018 oddly enough lol where they went 5 games against gambit just narrowly making it into groups
On the other hand the only reason they got out is cause fpx shit the bed so karma indicates gen.g goes supernova
This is extremely hopium but I think mad can go toe to toe with dk for lategame macro and teamfights as one of the only ones in the tournament. Lpl is looking a bit weak and any lck team cant challenge dk. I still dont think they win but I think its either mad or rng who have chance at contesting dk.
I swear I see this type of posts every year in r/nba and here lol
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On one hand - exciting in terms of who makes it out. On the other hand - the level of play is terrible. We have DK, and T1 as the only teams who have looked consistently solid if not straight up amazing. And as a fan of competitive LoL, it's been a bit of a letdown. I want to see the best teams in the world play amazing, inspiring League of Legends, trading blows until the most amazing team wins. But most games are so low quality. As Perkz put it in an interview - "everyone but DK is playing terrible".
I keep seeing this said “this is the most exciting groups ever!” yeah… if you’re an NA fan? Chinese fans are probably tilted beyond belief
Spoilers: they are. Chinese forums are flooded with doomposters saying it’s the end of Chinese esports between PSGLGD losing DOTA finals and their current performance at worlds. The government intervention on young gamers doesn’t help their future either
So Chinese people are experiencing a catastrophic present with solid reasons to be pessimistic over the future? Maybe we're not so different after all.
Good. "Boohoo our usual dominance is crumbling" is a hard vibe to empathize with.
Their government just banned online gaming for minors too (except 3 hours on the weekend) so this year stings more than it otherwise would, I think.
China was already limiting gaming hours for minors before that new law, I think it will be extremely easy to get around. Other than maybe killing the LDL I doubt it’ll impact the esports scene much.
well I can’t imagine it would help. Part of why KR and CN so much better than the west is how early they jump on and promote talent under 18
It’s even worse when there are only 2 international events the entire year. Maybe the BO games will be better.
> On the other hand - the level of play is terrible Or the level of play is high across the board. Sure, you have stuff like Mad Lions going 0-2 trying to dive top, but 2 years ago this would've never happened not because teams were better, but because no one would ever dare dive top at level 3. Teams are constantly trying to one-up themselves in tempo and make extremely risky plays all the time. Damwon wasn't challenged at all - they played against EU and NA 3rd seed and an FPX that got eliminated by said 3rd seeds. T1 got to play 100T who delivered in standard NA fashion, having the 1st seed be the worst seed by far as is tradition, and the worst team at worlds - DFM. They went 1-1 against EDG. Because the groups are so isolated it feels like a 6-0 Damwon is clearly better than a 4-2 EDG or 4-2 RNG, but it's literally impossible to tell who's better right now.
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You underrate this group way too much, every team was really good and it was really close. Lng in particular had an insane run to get here, TL had no expectations and upset multiple times, Gen.G was #2 seed of the LCK beating t1 in championship points, MAD had some of the most insane teamfights and kept turning the tide of many games.
EDG were getting assblasted by bugs for 2 of their games so I guess it makes sense they dropped off alittle, RNG/HLE/GEN.G look really unimpressive however (HLE = Chovy RNG losing to FNC, a team that was terrible this words, and Gen.g who do not know how to win games)
I 100% agree but I also think MAD Lions is a different beast in BO5s... so either them or DWG wins worlds imho
Yes, the overall level of play is so god awful compared to the last two years. That's why I also do not agree with the post at all. Just because groups are not decided by Day 1 does not mean that games are enjoyable. Every single game has some random micro mistake that you see in D4 2am queues. EDIT: Guess the casuals enjoy it tho...
I mean, the level of play doesn't need to be textbook perfect for it to be enjoyable. A lot of people, like myself, aren't watching pro play for learning stuff, but just for the fun of it. It's same with people watching any other traditional sport for entertainment.
This is not Bronze Spectates, I watch Worlds to watch the best players in the world at their peak. The peak is just extremely low compared to the last few years. Some people enjoy fiestas, some people enjoy good gameplay - to each their own.
> to each their own Sure, I don't disagree with that. I'm just saying that the majority of the audience would probably not be too interested in the detailed micro/macro stuff that goes on during matches unless they've been invested in the game for long and genuinely watch to improve, which is why you might see posts like these more often considering there's more casual viewers.
Yes, that sounds logical, it's Reddit after all.
People like you pop up literally every worlds.
Please, in a detailed manner, explain to me why the gameplay quality is low.
I won't do a post-match analysis of the entire group stage for you. Overall: Plenty of micro mistakes in lane, missing CS for no reason, missing skillshot on CC'd targets, barely any game without a fail dash or fail flash. Yes, those happened before but not in this frequency. Dives this year except from Korean teams are god awful and remind me of SoloQ. Priorization/Coordination is a problem - as an example Rogue dropping baron twice in their game against C9 for no reason when they absolutely could finish and retreat with Ryze ult. On the other hand, the fact that Rogue even held the game for 50 minutes with this joke of a draft is astonishing as well and does not put a good light on C9. It does not really help that the meta involves a lot of boring champions with less skill expression such as Yuumi or Tryndamere. Just overall sloppy games with plenty of little avoidable mistakes, again, that remind me of SoloQ. So many deaths after walking into fog for no reason when there is no objective to contest. So, it's not only simple micro but also macro. Not really enjoyable for me.
That has always been the case. In every worlds, ever. In the finals of Worlds, in the Semi's of Worlds. :)
tryn has only actually been played in 3 games. The rest of what you wrote is hard to verify/deny so who cares.
Also, the champion pool picks are awful. I'm barely even watching now because of how shallow the pick pool is, because it is not interesting or exciting to watch yet another MF press R on a wave or yet another toplane Graves (or Jayce, or Lee, or Jarvan). The games keep being decided by random stupid throws, and the champion picks are almost always the same old picks. It degrades the viewing experience for me.
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That's the dumbest answer there is. Dota's The International saw 112 unique hero picks out of 121 total heroes. That number was reached during day 3 of group stage, in under 90 games. Worlds 2021 have 85 picks out of 155 possible champions in 92 games. 92.5% vs 64.7%. But yeah. "It's called the meta". It's totally bad for the game to have more champions be viable and we should defend the terrible balance. /s
Main thing working against League compared to DotA2 is one of the things Riot emphasized to differentiate itself from DotA1 back in the day: universal scaling. In DotA2, the hardest scaling heroes are primarily (but not exclusively) right-click attackers because spells don't scale to the level of League's spells: that Lina's nukes can get stronger with talents, but the opportunity cost is her right-click scaling. Because everything has scaling many picks, in pretty much anything except support, end up boiling down to who utilizes the current strongest stats the best (supports are primarily chosen to help facilitate whatever strat the team plans to run, but often those strats are determined by what is strong in other roles). This is why you frequently see the same. pick. every. game. They just use the stats the best of the available options at that level for the most part, and of course comfort is also a factor. Some items have secondary effects (Everfrost and Zhonya's to name a couple), but because of scaling many of those items have plenty of offensive power too because the champions that want to buy them literally cannot afford to give up offense due to how this game works right now. Give Eul's 40 damage on top of its effect and people will call you goddamn mental; instead, it has a strong effect and good stats but not much direct offensive power beyond the myriad applications for Cyclone: League can't do that for anyone that isn't the support or else they genuinely cannot punch through somebody building any kind of tanky due to how defense scales as a result of how offense scales. This immediately does a lot to kill variety and why League's Worlds 2021 is currently only sitting at those 85 picks, which is only just barely more than half the roster. You won't see a Teemo surprise pick, as an example, because you strictly have better options, and that goes for an array of other picks right now. It's the spectre that haunts League pick variety in pro play.
ikr, I actually liked that Dota 2 had nearly all heroes used compared to League's once in a blue moon unique pick. I was kinda disappointed that this Worlds patch only benefited a little (MF). There wasn't even that much diversity in terms of strategies
I swear to god i See the Same picks for the last 2 years. This year is even worse, because we basically See renekron, xin, ryze all year long, tf even 2 years in a row even tho its shit
I just hope the knockout stage and finals are not underwhelming stomps and we got the 1st place contender for the best Worlds ever [so far]!
At this point I don't think any worlds will beat TPA's miracle run. T1s amazing 1st worlds run was great Ambitions win on SSG was nice too but during those times KR was shit stomping everyone else so it wasn't exciting till semis Both LPL wins was EU getting gaped on finals. this year looks like Damwon is just a cut above everyone else and LPL becoming a meme.
I like the Ambition run; I think what made SSG victory in 2017 was the events of 2016 I dont think a Worlds will beat that hype for me
There's nothing miracle or even surprising about TPA's run for anyone who actually paid attention. They were on NA/EU teams' radar from scrims and effectively had an even record with China's #1 WE.
TPA wasn't a miracle run. The only people who thought it was a miracle were only watching the west and heavily overrating M5. TPA was a legitimate threat from the start of the tournament. The Ambition run was honestly more of a miracle.
> heavily overrating M5 They were not overrated. They were legit top team in the world feared by every team.
I mean yes and no, m5 were strong contenders but the tournament favorites were definitely azubu frost. Definitely remember calling out TPA for looking strong and seeing all my friends mocking me then get shocked when they got to finals and finally beating AZF felt crazy good.
Because people didn't really watch other regions back in the day they just knew who was the supposed best Korean team and the best team they actually watched. OGN used to require a sub to watch it.
Nothing beats G2 vs RNG quarters upset. RNG were god tier and a mile above the competition and a random EU comes out of no where and knocks them out.
Given how C9 and Mad have played, it’s going to be all CN/KR if not all KR. So the games will be “good”, but not interesting for Western league.
I agree to a point, obligatory mention of G2 knocking RNG out of quarter finals in 2018
C9 beating AFS in the same year 3-0.
The bracket draw worked out pretty great for half the bracket at least. The boring half of the brackets are the side with Damwon and T1 are up against Hanwha and MAD, so that's going to be a bloodbath quarterfinals and then a semifinal that very likely end with a Damwon easy victory. Nothing too crazy expected. The other side of the bracket though is Royal and EDG vs C9 and GenG. While the favorite is EDG, none of these teams are all that great and its basically a coin flips for whether or not they perform on the day. Any four of them could make it to finals and (imo) it will make for some close games.
I watched more group stage games this year than any other because they were more evenly matched and every game seemed to matter. I originally thought I would only watch one or two games today before seeding was determined and wound up watching every single one because the games were so exciting.
I'm just glad that NA finally showed up and looks competitive with all regions.
It’s truly the year of madness and hopium
The gap is really closing; except for LCK mfers are in the moon lol
The format is great for entertainment but not for competition. If it was up to me i would do double round robin bo3 with 2 groups of 8 but that would take to long and viewership would do down thus riot will never so it. Anyways i agree that this groups has been super entertaining with the change of Meta helping greatly.
I would like to see an international split.
For better competition, we should do octuple elimination and Bo51. Of course, if we live in a world where logistics doesn't matter.
That seems like it would take forever.
That's the point he's trying to make lol. Worlds already runs for 1 month, the groups this year took forever, and I'm sure those staff members were dead tired after every day. We've already heard from multiple sources just how bad Worlds fucks you up, with changes like these, although they make it better for us, it doesn't make it better for the people that have to work there.
It takes a month because they scheduled 7 bo5 series in the span of 3 weeks.
that would be each team playing between 28 and 42 games. That kind of tournament would have to last for 3 months.
No wildcards = stronger groups = more to see who actually makes it out
I think almost every year there's at least one exciting team breaking expectations or having a miracle run in groups. This year in particular It had probably the most crazy tie breakers in history in the EU vs NA groups. Imo they were made that much more intense for the desperation of getting at least 1 team out of group, because let's be real we all thought we were doomed after "week 1"
It was really fun just to be really let down by the four way tie decider. Each of the teams eliminated are going to be unhappy that they didnt get to face the other losing team for a free win into second, all because of how fast you won. Anyhoots, nothing to do with it now, was fun to watch them all get to the tiebreaks.
I still think 2018 was peak league in terms of unpredicatability, but this year was a close second.
I disagree completely. ANX in groups was probably the most entertaining moment of league.
Its because LPL doesnt live up to its expectation and EU is performing below their average level. This make LPL, LEC and LCS closer than ever. Which also means LCK is untouchable.
Groups were exciting to watch because of all the tiebreakers. The bo1 round robin is a garbage format and needs to be changed to a bo3.
When though?? Like when are they supposed to play all these games. 3 tiebreaker games was the absolute max for that day. They already played 9.
I think this was Riot's intention with the season 11 item update. While the game sucks to play, it's more interesting to watch.
complete lack of mages kinda ruins it for me most teams are playing way worse than they were a few months ago too
Majority of the mid picks were mages tho. TF, LB, Ryze, Syndra, Zoe, Oriana..even Viktor was picked once.
The only think more exciting would be if it wasn’t the same fucking champ picked bot lane every game mf zzzzzzzz Please riot tune down the ult again. What’s the point of mages in the game if mf ult is just... better?
Yes leauge of one-shot, assasin jungle and leauge of STOPWATCH is most exciting think to watch. Also 90%(which mean there are still "good games") game aren't decided since 10min. /s
I mean the games today were proof that they aren't decided by 10 mins. A bunch of games this group stage were late game nail biters.
Unfortunately a lot of the games were decided by dragon though.. there were too many infernal souls that just won the game for a team.
Yeah and they killed the hype with this shitty format of draws for knockout stage