Analysis and Opinion

NIGHT VISION: Quarterfinals, TES vs. FNC

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

Awake during Worlds? Get these recaps live on Twitter.

Game 1: FNC win
TES Ornn Graves Zoe Ezreal Leona
FNC Singed Kindred Galio Senna Rakan

Rekkles Hylissang 2v2 FB kill. TES taking neutrals; FNC smart macro trades for turrets. Hylissang catches JackeyLove twice, first for Baron then to set up game-deciding team fight sequence.

Game 2: FNC win
FNC Gangplank Gragas Twisted Fate Senna Rakan
TES Vladimir Lee Sin Sylas Ezreal Leona

Early 5v5 goes 3-1 TES. Selfmade chain-ganking bot. FNC more smart macro trades, fearless, pick + fight at 21:00 -> Baron. FNC outscale, inf soul, close with team fights.

Game 3: TES win
TES Gangplank Jarvan IV Sylas Senna Tahm Kench
FNC Ornn Kindred Orianna Ashe Braum

369 solo kills Bwipo for FB. TES win hard through top side with early turret sequence. FNC early dragons are irrelevant against TES gold lead and scaling.

Game 4: TES win
FNC Ornn Graves Galio Ashe Sett
TES Sion Nidalee Jayce Senna Tahm Kench

Explosive bot skirmishes, FNC v. aggro. Selfmade Karsa both getting fed. FNC comp needed snowball through bot to win, didn’t get it. Karsa knight explosive carries; 369 invincible.

Game 5: TES win
FNC Gangplank Gragas Twisted Fate Senna Rakan
TES Vladimir Lee Sin Sylas Ezreal Leona

Karsa knight winning through mid. Bwipo scaling. FNC can’t find footing, Hylissang Selfmade desyncs; knight Karsa way too good. TES pressure with lead, execute well.

Takeaways

TES Win Through Mid

TES were the better team today because of their skill advantage in the mid lane (and their mental resilience to hold up far better from two straight losses than FNC did). In every role except Mid, the teams showed themselves quite evenly matched, but knight stepped up, with help from Karsa’s aggressive ganking, and really asserted himself over Nemesis in games 3 to 5.

This isn’t really a dig at Nemesis. It would be hard for just about anyone to look good against knight. But it has to be acknowledged that the laning phase in mid made a huge difference for the outcome of the series.

FNC Deserve Respect

FNC deserve a ton of credit for playing such a close series against TES. Who could have predicted they would press TES so hard?

FNC played without fear, making aggressive plays and opting in to fights with narrow margins, winning as many as they lost. They also played with poise, making great calls on objective trades when they couldn’t directly go head-to-head. If they couldn’t contest a dragon, they took a crossmap tower instead. If they could give up a Rift Herald while taking the bot lane turret, they went for it. Unfortunately, that ability to trade went away in the later games of the series, since they were playing from deficits rather than from relatively even footing. But their courage and intelligence were still on display throughout the series and they can hold their heads high.

The only way G2 Esports will be able to overshadow FNC’s achievement here today is to beat Damwon in the Semifinals, or at least play them to just as close of a 5-game series. Even if G2 beat GenG 3-0 and reach Semis, that won’t be as impressive as the show FNC put on here in Quarters.

Night to Remember

knight was the best player of the series. He was arguably the only player on TES who looked decent in the first two games, and then he took over in games 3 to 5 with consistent laning wins over Nemesis, prio that made Karsa’s pathing much easier, gank receptions, playmaking, and carry work. This is what we wanted to see from the player who led most of the “Top Players at Worlds” lists pre-tournament.

Shoutout to Hylissang for playing a great series, as well. He’s a highly underappreciated and misunderstood player and he earned a lot of respect today.