Analysis and Opinion

NIGHT VISION: Play-Ins, Day 2

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

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Game 1: V3 def. R7
R7 Sion Nidalee Tristana Twitch Rakan
V3 Renekton Elise Zoe Ashe Sett

Bugi can’t make his ganks/dive setups stick reliably. Aloned is fed early; R7 are scaling. But R7 are not crisp in their rotations or team fights, rushing their engages without proper map setups, giving V3 free 2nd/3rd/4th chances to snowball.

Game 2: SUP def. INTZ
INTZ Renekton Nidalee Sylas Jhin Leona
SUP Shen Hecarim Lulu Senna Nautilus

INTZ comp can’t handle Hecarim, has to play very assertively. KaKAO’s 3:15 top lane First Blood gank denies that win condition immediately. Then INTZ botch a desperate 5-man dive trying to claw it back, but the game was already doomed. Armut pulls an Impact, strong Shen game.

Game 3: UOL def. V3
V3 Sion Karthus Galio Caitlyn Sett
UOL Camille Graves Kassadin Orianna Nautilus

Crazy game. Big lvl 1 fight, matched lane swap. V3 over-rotation to Herald 1 lets Nomanz scale easily with free plates; he takes over in mid game. V3 have no tools to match split push, get overrun by UOL’s aggression.

Game 4: R7 def. LGD
LGD Camille Lee Sin Twisted Fate Twitch Rakan
R7 Ornn Nidalee Orianna Ezreal Nautilus

LGD’s mid+jungle plays, top/supp roams are active but inefficient. R7 leverage 5v5 comp for dragon stacking; LGD can’t exert enough side lane pressure. Kramer doesn’t Flash.

Game 5: UOL def. PSG
UOL Renekton Hecarim Swain Orianna Rakan
PSG Volibear Ekko Sett Jhin Alistar

Nomanz resists lots of predictable early jungle/support pressure, carries UOL in key team fights. UOL struggle to close but eventually get it done.

Game 6: SUP def. MAD
SUP Wukong Nidalee Azir Senna Leona
MAD Mordekaiser Hecarim Zoe Twitch Rakan

Shad0w risky pressuring jungle early, SUP not able to punish. Armut kills Orome, SUP start winning hard through top. Humanoid and Orome give up some bad picks; SUP roll one into Baron.

Game 7: TL def. LGC
TL Ornn Graves Orianna Ashe Rakan
LGC Sylas Jarvan IV Lucian Ziggs Thresh

Impact survived two early dive attempts. Jensen and Broxah crushed the mid matchup, then transferred the lead into top lane to confirm the win. TL were clean start to finish.

Takeaways

  • SUP’s 2-0 start is a great way to position themselves to finish top 2 in Group A, but they had a relatively easy path to those two wins. Neither INTZ nor MAD put up the best fight; I’ll need to see a lot more before I’m convinced that SUP can challenge TL for 1st in Group A or beat whatever team comes out of Group B for the crossover Bo5.
  • LGD look awful, with mechanical mistakes and an inability to execute their team comps cleanly enough to achieve their win conditions. There has been plenty of caution and even doubt about LGD, including from Dignitas coach Invert on the True Sight Podcast, but mostly to the level of “they will be the weakest team of their group in the Group Stage”, definitely not to tune of “they might struggle to get through Play-Ins.” There’s a very real chance that they’ll face MAD in a Bo5 and one of those teams will go home. That’s pretty crazy.
  • PSG’s Support, Kaiwing, had another strong performance despite losing to UOL, with good Alistar mechanics. PSG started to look a little predictable, with similar set plays from day 1, which isn’t surprising since they’ve had to bring this roster together in such a short amount of time. I think they’re going to keep losing momentum over the next couple days, but I’d love to see Kaiwing lead the way and prove me wrong.

Night to Remember

Nomanz lived up to the pre-tournament hype with an excellent Kassadin game and a good Orianna. He made several smart choices in the first game, such as staying bot without TP when his opponent was running up to help with Rift Herald, which earned him free turret plates, then keeping his bearings at the second Rift Herald and securing it for himself despite his team losing the fight. And he showed up mechanically, too, with the long Kassadin escape after the play on second Herald, and lots of strong Orianna ults against V3.

I’m looking forward to watching more Nomanz games as the tournament goes on, and it looks like we’ll be seeing him in the Group Stage unless Play-Ins take an even wilder turn.