Who: ROX Tigers (South Korea, 5-2) vs. Edward Gaming (China, 4-3)
When: Saturday, Oct. 15 at 6:00 PM Eastern/3:00 PM Pacific
Where: Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois
What's at stake
Neither of these teams thought its journey at Worlds would end before the Grand Final, but one of them will see its dreams of holding its first Summoner's Cup come to an end in Chicago.
ROX Tigers and EDward Gaming were two of the biggest favorites entering the tournament. This is a matchup of two teams that have shown glimpses of the domestic play that made them champions of their respective regions but who have also shown weak spots in their armor. For ROX, the sore spot has been its early-game phase, where the team has repeatedly fallen behind in the laning portion of the game. The Tigers, being the Tigers, have been able to pull themselves out of large deficits; however, in a best-of-five series where a team can plan against you for a war of attrition, giving up early leads again and again spells the end.
China's champion EDward Gaming has stars at almost every position except in the top lane with Chen "Mouse" Yu-Hao. If the Tigers want to turn around their laning phase, Mouse is the most vulnerable and therefore the best opponent for them in that position. He is averaging -22 CS at the 10 minute mark compared to his laning opponent, and the Tigers, to the horror of EDG, have the best top laner in the world: Song "Smeb" Kyung-ho.
The current South Korean and Chinese champions both came close to bowing out in the group stage. ROX needed to win its final group stage game against Counter Logic Gaming to avoid elimination, and EDG needed to do the same against ahq e-Sports Club. The only difference was that ROX was able to fix its early-game issues and take control from almost the very start in its final game while EDG needed a massive comeback against the Taiwanese club to make it into the bracket stage.
By the end of groups, ROX appeared to resemble its old self: a team worth fearing.
EDG, though, was bailed out due to ahq's passivity in the late-game and then lost to H2k in a tiebreaker for the top spot in the group. A team worth fearing? Not so much, at least not yet.
Matchup to Watch: Song "Smeb" Kyung-ho (ROX) vs. Chen "Mouse" Yu-Hao (EDG)
It might be too unfair highlighting this as the 'Matchup to Watch,' since it's likely to be a blowout, but this is where Mouse needs to prove himself on the largest stage possible. He was an albatross for his team for a majority of the group stage, and now he's facing the best top laner in the world with his team's dreams of the Summoner's Cup on the line.
Mouse doesn't need to defeat Smeb or even stay even with the tyrannical top laner, but he does need to make sure to keep his deaths to a minimum and make himself useful in the later stages of the game. While Mouse was slapped around in the early parts of the win-or-go-home game against ahq, his Poppy ultimates late in the game were a big factor for the way EDG was able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
David vs. Goliath? Rename it Mouse vs. Smeb entering Saturday's best-of-five.