Night Vision is your nightly recap of the 2020 League of Legends World Championships.

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

Recaps

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G2 vs. TL: TL win
G2 Renekton Nidalee Jayce Ashe Alistar
TL Volibear Graves Orianna Kalista Sett

TL level 1 nets Broxah FB, stifles Jankos. CoreJJ roaming heavily with Broxah. G2 throw punches, Mikyx good playmaking, but TL out-macro, stack dragons, Jensen carries.

SN vs. MCX: SN win
SN Jax Nidalee Syndra Ezreal Bard
MCX Shen Volibear Azir Ashe Rakan

Gemini camps Bin but SofM punishes hard with pathing efficiency. Angel solo kills Mission. MCX land some punches, kill count is close, but game is not. SN win the map start to finish.

DRX vs. FLY: DRX win
DRX Maokai Kindred Zoe Caitlyn Lux
FLY Ornn Graves Orianna Ashe Pantheon

DRX get leads bot and mid, pressuring, but sloppy, fail to use map control to deny 2nd/3rd dragons. Team fights at neutrals decide it; DRX execute better.

TES vs. UOL: TES win
TES Jax Gragas Lucian Senna Tahm Kench
UOL Camille Lee Sin Syndra Karthus Nautilus

AHaHaCiK and BOSS get 369 for FB; 369 wins 1v2 next time. Karsa v. efficient. Knight hits sides repeatedly. Chaotic mid game; TES huge gold lead and skill is more than enough.

FNC vs. GEN: FNC win
FNC Ornn Graves Orianna Senna Leona
GEN Renekton Nidalee Azir Ezreal Rakan

Rekkles Hylissang kill Life in lane level 1. FNC dive bot twice before 5:00. FNC leading but GEN attacking hard. GEN give up dragons, engage in jungle instead. FNC punish, ace to win.

TSM vs. LGD: LGD win
TSM Shen Graves Leblanc Ezreal Bard
LGD Renekton Lillia Orianna Senna Nautilus

Kramer Mark wreck Doublelift Biofrost. Mark roams well. TSM proactive plays inefficient, chasing the game. LGD itemize & position to deny Bjergsen; LGD win the team fights.

Takeaways

• G2 Esports have always had the capacity to play some “happy” games, but if you write off their loss to Team Liquid as just a throwaway oopsy game, though, you’re both underselling with Team Liquid did, and failing to apply the level of criticism that G2 properly deserve. TL came in with a smart level 1 game plan, leveraged that lead to control the map, and punished G2’s over-rotations for Herald and other plays with heavy tower pressure and superior tempo from Tactical. G2 drafted themselves into a corner with a weak damage balance against a fairly tanky enemy team and couldn’t play their way out the hole. And CoreJJ was highly proactive on the map throughout, dying for some of his engages but making a huge positive difference on balance. This was a good win for Team Liquid, not a G2 hiccup or a game you can easily write off.
• The importance of efficiency was very much on display today. SN’s SofM and TES’s Karsa both punished enemy First Blood ganks with oppressive pathing. Some teams were punished for over-investments of tempo into Rift Heralds and dragons, as they have been all year long. TSM were punished for investing 5 bodies into a tower dive for a single kill while losing waves and plates in mid and top. Efficiency is looking like a crucial separator between the best teams and the challengers.

Night to Remember

Vietnamese Jungler SofM has been around forever, starting in the GPL and VCS before being imported to the LPL with Snake (my favourite LPL team back in the day!) in 2016. He’s been known as a strong player for a long time, and a fun player to watch for anyone who followed the LPL, but this tournament has been his first chance to really show himself off to a global audience. Today he delivered, and I hope he’s earning some more global fans!