Well, that sure was interesting. What can only be described as the wildest group stage in League of Legends' six year history, we've cut down the six region champions down to four and enter a brief intermission before the semifinals next weekend.
The heavy favorites and reigning Riot world champions, SK Telecom T1 from Korea, went through a stunning four-game losing streak in the middle of the week. G2 Esports, another favorite, enraged the European faithful by announcing it had insufficiently prepared for the second biggest competition of the year, and then finishing with a dismal 2-8 record to place outside the playoffs.
On the positive side of things, it was Europe's main rival, North America, who became the head turners of the group stages. Counter Logic Gaming triumphed with an overall record of 7-3 in the group stage, advancing it to the semifinals as the second seed. A team built on ultimate teamwork and belief in one another, the American champions came in as underdogs and now enter the final four expected favorites versus a team it swept in the group stages, Taiwan's representative, Flash Wolves.
Atop of even CLG, however, was the home team -- China's Royal Never Give Up. Similar to CLG, China had to watch as its region was harshly criticized for poor international performances since winning the 2015 edition of MSI with Edward Gaming. A year of lazy, uninspired play has been wiped away in the form of RNG, the LPL champions slicing through the first round as the top seed with an 8-2 scoreline. Royal, and the entire region of China, will look to fully win back its pride this coming Friday when it takes on SK Telecom T1 in what is shaping up to be one of the most anticipated best-of-five series in the game's history.
Upsets. Surprises. Vacationing. Anguish. One week ago, your household pet had as much of a chance of predicting the eventual rankings of this group stage as the entire esports community did. Thankfully for a majority, they don't publicly release their rankings for thousands upon thousands of people to read and dissect.
I'm not part of that majority.
And I was very, very wrong.
Seeing as the group stages have come to a close and I'll need a few days to process the semifinals before previewing them, let's whip up some delicious schadenfreude and see how wrong I truly was with my pre-tournament rankings. It's not like I could have been that off, right?
Royal Never Give Up (China)
Fionn's Pre-Tournament Ranking: 5th (B Tier)
Royal's Group Stage Performance: 8-2 (1st)
Retroactive Rank: 1st (A Tier)
Wow, I really was that off.
Royal Never Give Up came into this competition as the ultimate wildcard for pundits. Some had it finishing as high as second, and then you had geniuses like me who had it slated to not even make the playoff. To be fair, that's just how Royal, and China by extension, is. RNG is an erratic team that has peaks and valleys you can't really expect.
What we did know coming into this tournament is how talented all its players were. Li "Xiaohu" Yuan-Hao was a prodigious ace, Liu "MLXG" Shi-yu was a mechanically-intensive star in the jungle, and a former World champion and MVP, Cho "Mata" Se-hyeong was the team's authoritative in-game leader and captain. The parts were there for a championship-level team, but like I said in my pre-tournament rankings, I didn't know if Mata could get them to a level where their macro play and teamwork was consistent enough to succeed.
I'll admit right now I was dead wrong. Mata was the clear MVP of the group stages, and the team is rallying behind the all-time great to create a world-class starting five. No team has come close to RNG's early-game this tournament. The Chinese champions' cheeky invades and ganks at the initial levels left teams flat-footed. RNG has been the master of the opening minutes of games and the late-game team-fights, winning off its flair in the early stages and strength later on in large scale brawls.
The unsung hero of the team in the first round was Mata's teammate, Jang "Looper" Hyeong-seok. In a tournament where Poppy, Maokai, and Ekko have ruled the top lane position, Looper has been the best on Poppy and Ekko through the first five days. His Poppy coming in was already regarded as one of the best in the world, and his Ekko play has been just as good. Xiaohu is the ace of the squad and Mata is the brilliant maestro that brings everyone together, but Looper has been the one continuously doing the necessary engages -- flanks, stuns, peels, split-pushing -- to get RNG where it sits currently.
RNG still has a knack for taking its foot off the pedal when it comes to map play, and there were times in the mid-game where blood lust took over intelligent, patient play. Both matches against SKT T1 in the group stages were as close as they could be, and while I rank RNG as the strongest team coming out of the best-of-one stage, don't be mistaken: SKT T1 are the champions coming into the bracket stage. It's up to RNG to prove it's the best team in the world when the setting moves to a best-of-five format, where the real champions shine.
Counter Logic Gaming (North America)
Fionn's Pre-Tournament Ranking: 4th (B Tier)
CLG's Group Stage Performance: 7-3 (2nd)
Retroactive Rank: 2nd (A Tier)
It's funny how things work out sometimes. When pre-tournament ranking RNG and CLG, I spent an entire night debating which team to place fourth and which to place fifth. I liked both teams, and earnestly believe if they added one more layer to their games the pair could be stronger than the teams I ranked above them at second and third.
For Royal, I wanted to see it play as a team. Not just as five talented individuals who occasionally had a game where they all played together well. If Mata could get the team to buy into a less cluttered style of play and have them spread out on the map during the late-game, RNG could win any tournament it entered. It was the classic case of an all-star team needing to find a way to play cohesively.
When analyzing CLG, it was the complete opposite. The team was selfless as it could be. Everyone played for the other four players in the starting lineup, and their teamwork with one another was what made me believe CLG was stronger than RNG entering the competition. The reason I had it below Flash Wolves and G2 Esports was because it lacked an ace carry who could take over a game in a matter of seconds with individual plays. When CLG dropped Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng, it gained a better overall team dynamic but lost a true superstar who could put a team on his back if the situation called for it.
Shockingly, it was Doublelift's replacement, rookie Trevor "Stixxay" Hayes, who emerged as the team's ace this group stages. Seen as a utility piece of the CLG puzzle for his first few months of professional play, Stixxay has come up big time and time again this tournament with heroic bursts of kills. Soft-spoken and expressionless in-game, the rookie has shown zero fear against the world's best teams, dashing over walls even when outnumbered to gun down opponents in emergency situations.
As RNG has found its teamwork, CLG, for at least the time being, has a true ace that can compliment its ironclad teamwork. Opposing players like SKT T1's Kang "Blank" Sun-gu have come out singing the praises for the American-born AD carry. From being brushed aside as a utility piece to NA LCS MVP to now performing as the best AD carry at MSI, Stixxay's evolution is something usually reserved for a two-to-three year period.
He's gotten to this point in less than six months.
SK Telecom T1 (Korea)
Fionn's Pre-Tournament Ranking: 1st (S Tier)
SKT's Group Stage Performance: 6-4 (4th)
Retroactive Rank: 3rd (A Tier)
What was believed to be a nice two week expedition that was assuredly going to end in a MSI title has now turned into the world champions entering the semifinals into a new position: underdogs against another region. SK Telecom T1 has been a long shot before, though it was always against a Korean rival like Samsung White or the Tigers.
This is the first time where T1 will enter the playoff stage of an international tournament and not be looked at as the odds on favorite to take it all. Back in 2015, China was seemingly the better region going into the World Championships, but T1 rampaged through the group stages and the Chinese teams fell on their faces. By the time SKT ultimately made it into the quarterfinals, it was again the top dog with everyone trying to knock it off.
In the final four, SKT isn't unbeatable. It easily handled the likes of G2 (2-8) and SuperMassive (1-9); however, when it came to the top teams at the event, it split the best-of-ones against RNG and CLG, while also getting swept by Taiwan's Flash Wolves. Assuredly, SKT will be a better team with a few days of practice and the stage moving into a best-of-five format, but RNG and the other semifinalists won't fear T1 like they possibly did entering the tournament.
When the tournament began, a lot of the player interviews were them explaining how they wanted to finish in the top two. Make it to the finals. Make it to the last stage of a major Riot tournament and eventually lose to SK Telecom T1, the undisputed kings of League of Legends. Yet, as the tournament went along and T1 faltered, the words of wanting to make top four and top two turned into players believing they could win the whole thing.
Ranking T1 again, I can't put them above either CLG or RNG. I still have them in the A Tier class -- S Tier, to me, is only for teams who have an aura of invincibility around them. But I can't put them any higher when looking at its results in the group stages. In the best-of-five format, I predict (subject to change following a massive group stage review season) T1 will beat RNG due to the coaching staff's ability to adapt and the team's flexibility. For now, though, the Korean champions are on the same level as China and North America.
T1 is good at team-fighting, but I wouldn't rank it above RNG's, especially if the latter can craft an equal or better brawling composition.
T1 is good at map play, but I wouldn't rank it -- I never thought I'd write this -- above current CLG's rotational play and teamwork. T1, at its best, can surpass any team in the world when it comes to rotational macro play. T1 hasn't been its best at MSI so far; CLG, on the other hand, is playing like a team that knows its roles perfectly and where each teammate is going to be at every stage of the game.
If I were to pencil in a winner of MSI today, it would still be SKT. Five days is a lot of practice time for T1, and no one should be surprised if we see an evolved version of this iteration of this team come Friday's monumental showdown against RNG.
Flash Wolves (Taiwan)
Fionn's Pre-Tournament Ranking: 3rd (A Tier)
Flash Wolves Group Stage Performance: 6-4 (3rd)
Retroactive Rank: 4th (B Tier)
We finally got to the see the enigma of the international world, Taiwan's champion Flash Wolves, perform on the world stage. It was a mixed bag for Flash Wolves following the first five days of competition.
First, regardless of how its semifinal with CLG ends, it'll be considered a big victory for Taiwan just due to the fact that it took away Europe's number one pool seed at the World Championships. That means when Worlds comes around, Taiwan's top team, most likely either Flash Wolves or AHQ Esports, will not have to worry about the champions from Korea, China, or North America. For the first time since the Taipei Assassins won the Summoner's Cup in 2012, Taiwan will enter Worlds as a contender and not just seen as a step above the International Wildcard teams.
Looking at Flash Wolves' actual play, there were two different teams: Regular Form Flash Wolves and versus T1 Flash Wolves. When Flash Wolves was in its regular form, the team was ordinary. I would rank it vastly below the likes of CLG and RNG, the group leading squads that swept the LMS champion in the first round. Its play wasn't bad, but there was nothing inspiring about it. Outside of Huang "Maple" Yi-Tang, nothing is special about Regular Form Flash Wolves.
Versus SKT Flash Wolves, though, those guys are scary. When the Wolves played T1, it was like watching an entirely different team. Macro play was on point. Collapsing and flanking was perfect. Maple went from an above average mid laner to being the best mid laner in the world. Hu "SwordArt" Shuo-Jie was Mata-esque in his engagement skills. The team played at several levels higher against T1 than it did against every other team in the competition.
Flash Wolves did the same thing at the 2015 World Championships when it went 2-0 against the eventual runners-up to SK Telecom T1, the KOO Tigers. So maybe it's less about its versus SKT T1 form and more about a versus Korea form that buffs up the Flash Wolves when it takes on a world-class Korean opponent. Almost exactly like Worlds, Flash Wolves was amazing against the highly ranked Korean team, and then above average to flat against everyone else. And just like Worlds, the Wolves might have to watch as SKT T1, a team it knows it can beat, goes into the finals while possibly losing to CLG in the semifinals.
If Flash Wolves can get through CLG and SKT T1 beat RNG, the Wolves will have complete belief it can topple the Korean giants once again. The team will need to play at the level it performed against T1 versus CLG (plus RNG losing) for that scenario to happen, though.
G2 Esports (Europe)
Fionn's Pre-Tournament Ranking: 2nd (A Tier)
G2's Group Stage Performance: 2-8
Retroactive Rank: 5th (C Tier)
For the first ten minutes of G2 Esports' run at MSI, the team was really fun to watch. The team played its loose, calculated aggression style, and it was a joy to behold. Then, around the time things started going south and that calculated aggression turned into a series of blunders, G2 stopped being fun to watch for the entire tournament.
It was a fall off a mountain -- one second everything seeming normal, and the next second everything is dark and you're falling at a million miles per hour to the ground. There will be a lot of talk about G2 not performing to its optimal level due to its 'vacation' in Shanghai and not practicing before the event, but its performance was a lot more than just rust.
The team's antics and explosive, devil-may-care way of playing wasn't punished in a more open European league, and it was punished severely against the likes of Korea, who play a controlled style. On top of that, the team's synergy was completely off -- Kim "Emperor" Jin-hyun going one way and the rest of the team going another -- and you have the makings of an already wild team spiraling out of control on the biggest stage imaginable.
You could compare G2's way of playing to a F1 racer. Fast car, hard to control, and it sometimes looks like it's going to flip off the track and crash due to how fast it's moving around the narrow, winding track. At the tournament, G2 was thrown onto a track against opponents it wasn't used to, and the team repeatedly crashed. Again. And again. And again, until the pretty car it drove to the victory circle in Europe was nothing more than a hunk of scrap metal.
SuperMassive (Turkey)
Fionn's Pre-Tournament Ranking: 6th (C Tier)
SuperMassive's Group Stage Performance: 1-9 (6th)
Retroactive Rank: 6th (C Tier)
The one ranking that stays the same! It was no surprise SuperMassive finished last but it was surprising how well the Turkish champions performed. One win might look like nothing to outside viewers and even laughable to some, but that one win against the second place CLG will last forever for all the players who compete in the International Wildcard qualifiers.
SuperMassive showed with enough work, effort and infrastructure, it can compete and trade punches with the best teams in the world. Looking forward, there are five months before the World Championships commence in San Francisco, and SuperMassive will go back to drawing board in its home region of Turkey.
One win and playing every team close at MSI could be the experience it needs to push for International Wildcard's first quarterfinal spot come this fall.