Analysis and Opinion

NIGHT VISION: Play-Ins, Day 1

Welcome to Night Vision, your nightly recap of the 2020 League of Legends World Championship.

Look below for Recaps, Takeaways, and my pick for which player had a Night to Remember.

Recaps

Awake during Worlds? Get these recaps live on Twitter.

Game 1: MAD def. INTZ
MAD Renekton Evelynn Lucian Jhin Pantheon
INTZ Urgot Gragas Tristana Ashe Alistar

MAD wrote the game’s script with wave management, objective prioritization, aggression, but didn’t snowball cleanly; sloppy execution, giving up picks. Tay Urgot pop-off wasn’t enough.

Game 2: PSG def. R7
PSG Camille Ekko Sett Senna Bard
R7 Mordekaiser Hecarim Zoe Ashe Leona

Kaiwing early defensive outplay, good Bard ults. Kongyue huge carry despite tempo disadvantage. Hanabi good, mostly under the radar. R7 had opportunity to win through bot, couldn’t seize it.

Game 3: LGC def. INTZ
LGC Camille Nidalee Sett Tristana Nautilus
INTZ Vladimir Volibear Zoe Ezreal Bard

LGC play through top, Tally/Babip -> Topoon, Herald bot to snowball Raes, then split push. Raes couldn’t deke RedBert Bard ults. Tally/Babip save it with late-game team fighting.

Game 4: PSG def. LGD
LGD Volibear Lillia Lucian Ashe Braum
PSG Ornn Graves Orianna Jhin Rakan

LGD 3 lanes of prio, clean early dragon+Herald but not pressing anywhere near enough given the win conditions of the team comps. PSG passively scale, win via team fights at neutrals.

Game 5: TL def. MAD
TL Mordekaiser Lee Sin Twisted Fate Twitch Rakan
MAD Camille Evelynn Syndra Ashe Leona

MAD great vision game, helps Shad0w outpace Broxah; MAD win 3 lanes, Humanoid very fed. But: “Top die.” MAD NARAMing (ironic!). CoreJJ good engages; Tactical aggressive carry.

Takeaways

  • Tactical has no chill. Aren’t rookies supposed to get intimidated on such a big stage? The guy showed zero signs of nerves (unlike the MAD Lions, particularly in their first game), busting out some classic WildTurtle-style forward Flashes
  • Impact finally got his “important games” buff, which we’d seen brief flashes of during the playoffs but not nearly to the extent Team Liquid needed. He stepped up big time and was the best player in TL’s win over MAD.
  • LGD played a more stereotypically North American game than Team Liquid did, drafting a win-early comp and using it to slowly control neutral objectives without setting up the tower dives and vision blind spots that should have accelerated the game for them. This is mostly an indictment of LGD, though, not of the “NA play style”, because if LGD had a comp with a bit better balance and one more late-game tool, their approach could have been completely fine. Disappoint to see this poor recognition of win conditions from an LPL seed.
  • Kongyue may not have earned Player of the Game against R7, but he could have, with a lot of great Ekko plays and a big-time carry performance. The main knock against him is how badly he fell behind in early pathing due to spending all his tempo for an early mid lane gank that didn’t pan out, and the only reason he caught back up was because he got to catch a big wave of farm after his bot lane got killed. But from that point onwards, he popped off and deserves a lot of praise.
  • LGC vs. INTZ was a bit of an ugly game, but LGC showed some decent macro awareness and recognition of their win conditions. Topoon‘s split push influence was pretty good, and Tally and Babip were usually in the right place at the right time.
  • How about that augmented reality stage!? Wow, very cool. Still not as cool as a stadium full of fans, but given the limitations, very impressive.

Night to Remember

Kaiwing led PSG Talon to a surprising 2-0 start, with an excellent Bard that must have connected on an ult count almost in the double digits against Rainbow7, and a Rakan that secured some very important fights against LGD with secondary engages. With Kongyue and Dee standing front and centre as the carries of each game, respectively, it was easy to overlook the ways Kaiwing drove his team’s success.

Given all the narrative around PSG playing with three substitutes due to visa- and quarantine-related delays caused by COVID-19 regulations, it’s exciting to see one of PSG’s “actual” players leading the charge.