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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PSG vs. DWG: DWG win
PSG Gangplank Kindred Syndra Ashe Tahm Kench
DWG Ornn Graves Ekko Jhin Bard
River FBs Nuguri’s Ornn, v. early lead for PSG but not targeting right win cons. River solo kills ShowMaker. DWG recover with better team fighting and targeting Tahm Kench for picks.
RGE vs. JDG: JDG win
RGE Ornn Graves Orianna Kalista Pantheon
JDG Camille Sylas Ekko Jhin Sett
Dueling tower dives; dueling rotations. Zoom split push making the difference but vulnerably, Larssen attacking. JDG team fight better (much better).
DWG vs. RGE: DWG win
DWG Kennen Graves Twisted Fate Senna Leona
RGE Sion Lillia Ryze Ashe Nautilus
RGE lane swap. A million scrappy tower dives. DWG control neutrals, out-skirmish, Canyon ShowMaker hard snowball.
JDG vs. PSG: PSG win
JDG Kayle Graves Galio Ezreal Karma
PSG Ornn Kindred Syndra Caitlyn Lux
PSG lvl 1 FB for River, punish JDG blue buff contest, huge tempo lead -> early 1st dragon. PSG stack dragons, JDG don’t contest until soul, have no comp tools to fight with.
PSG vs. RGE: PSG win
PSG Ornn Graves Syndra Aphelios Thresh
RGE Irelia Lillia Orianna Senna Braum
Unified Kaiwing strong in lane. RGE messy top dive; no Irelia snowball. Finn side lane pressure isn’t enough, PSG stronger rotations. Vander caught, Hanabi big engage into Baron into soul.
JDG vs. DWG: JDG win
JDG Camille Lillia Twisted Fate Miss Fortune Bard
DWG Sett Graves Galio Kalista Alistar
Explosive start, Zoom 3 kills but cost is DWG taking FT at 10:00. JDG rotating for picks/outmans. Great back-and-forth team fights. JDG Baron sneak regains control.
Takeaways
- This group was supposed to be an intense battle between Damwon Gaming and JD Gaming, with both teams holding spots in the “big three” as favourites for the tournament. After JDG dropped a game to PSG, most of that intensity evaporated, which was a real shame since the final game of the day was one of the best of the tournament, with JDG finally showing up as the contenders we expected them to be. Team fighting was front and centre for the LPL 2 seed, helped by a gold lead they earned from early skirmishing and cemented with mid-game rotational plays and punishing some DWG aggression mistakes. I’m so much more excited for the knockout stage after seeing JDG perform at this level!
- It was a rough day for Rogue, going 0-3. They were scrappy and reasonably competitive in the first 10 minutes of their games, but the mid-games ran away from them. RGE were typically either chasing the game or applying pressure in awkward ways that made it a bit too easy for the opponent to resist one prong of their push while attacking the other. It hurts for now, but RGE’s accomplishments this year on the whole are worth celebrating and I hope they’re able to reset well this offseason and build into 2021.
- PSG Talon can have pride in their performance, not only because they took a game off JDG but because of the way they did it, with a smart level 1 advantage and punishes on JDG oversteps, leading into clear use of a lead to accelerate and close. Their wins were strong, clean wins; they acquitted themselves well against very tough competition. My respect for the PCS has grown based on what this team, and Machi in Group A, showed at Worlds.
Night to Remember
There wasn’t one clear star of the day, for me, so I’ll give smaller shoutouts to LokeN for his team fighting on Miss Fortune and Jhin, and to Nuguri for a very strong Sett in the loss to JDG and for playing a diverse set of champions (Ornn, Kennen, Sett) throughout the day.