The qualifying round is here for these four teams: two proceed into the group stage, and two fall here, and punch their ticket home. LGD surged against R7 yesterday, and look to play against the Australian team Legacy. On the other side of the bracket, Supermassive looked shaky in defeating MAD Lions, and they face off against the Russian powerhouse Unicorns of Love.

Captain

Nomanz ($10,800)

Nomanz faces off against Bolulu on Wednesday. While Supermassive did defeat MAD Lions, they had apparent weaknesses in the mid lane: while a lot of this is attributable to Humanoid just generally playing really well at worlds this year, I do think Bolulu is a weakness for Supermassive. The four other players are solid, and Armut has shown that he’s a serious force to be reckoned with alongside worlds mainstays Zeitnot, KaKAO, and Snowflower. However, Bolulu generally left much to be desired. On the other hand, Nomanz has appeared world class despite coming from a wildcard region. His pool is primarily composed of mages, which Bolulu doesn’t seem capable of punishing, apparent by his poor Akali game versus Jensen’s Sylas. Nomanz is dominant in lane, and is a very strong side laner- allowing him to accrue plentiful resources in the mid game. Bolulu is typically stuck on utility or tank duty in contrast. I think the mid match-up is strongly in the favor of Nomanz. If you’re looking for an alternative captain to Nomanz, I would recommend Gadget since he’s been playing incredibly well, but Zeitnot is a strong player on Supermassive, so I would tread with caution.

Alternatives to consider: Gadget ($11,100)

 

Top Lane

LangX ($6,200)

I really don’t have the highest opinion of LangX across his career, I thought he got a free ride on RNG courtesy of Uzi, and getting to play with LGD’s squad of talent was a blessing. Truthfully, I still hold a lot of these to be true, but the thing is he did show up very well against Acce, and I haven’t been impressed by LGC’s Topoon. I thought Topoon was very one-note and while it was smart of him to identify the strength of Ornn early into the tournament, all of his good performances were on the champion. On the other hand, LangX just seems more versatile as a top laner, and he’s put up some solid performances against top laners who I believe are better than Topoon. I’m not sure if I’m convinced that LGD will beat LGC, but I do think top lane is firmly in the favor of LGD. Between Armut and BOSS, I think UOL has an easy time against SUP, but I do lean in the favor of SUP for the top lane: Armut has been genuinely impressive, and he gets my secondary pick for top lane.

Alternatives to consider: Armut ($6,200)

 

Jungle

AHaHaCiK ($6,600)

Betting against KaKAO is betting against Supermassive, but I have a very simple reason why I prefer AHaHaCiK over KaKAO: the mid lane is firmly in the favor of UOL, which greatly distorts how KaKAO is capable of playing the game. While this happened once before against MAD Lions, I think BOSS is a better top laner than Orome, Gadget is more flexible than Carzzy, and I don’t think AHaHaCiK will get run over like Shad0w did. The pieces surrounding AHaHaCiK are just much more solid than MAD Lions had, and AHaHaCiK has proved his worth so far on picks like Nidalee, Hecarim and Graves. If you’re not convinced by the Russian, I think Peanut has shown a return to form against R7’s Josedeodo and I believe he can continue this streak against LGC’s Babip.

Alternatives to consider: Peanut ($7,000)

 

Mid Lane:

Xiye ($7,400)

I don’t necessarily think Tally is bad, but I think the mid laners in group A were generally poor: an underperforming Humanoid, Envy, and Bolulu. Jensen absolutely smashed Tally both times they met, and I think Xiye will do something similar to Tally. Xiye played really well into Aloned, and the top performers of group B had solid mid laners in Nomanz and Uniboy. Tally looks like he really struggles against mid laners who know what they’re doing, and Xiye has certainly been world class across his career- if things go according to plan, Xiye will run over mid lane and LGC will have to turn to their bottom lane for a carry. If you’re looking for a different mid lane pick, it’ll have to be Nomanz- I don’t have enough faith in Tally or Bolulu.

Alternatives to consider: Nomanz ($7,200)

 

ADC:

Gadget ($7,400)

Despite LGD’s good performance against R7, I thought Kramer still left much to be desired. I’ve really lost faith in the ADC, despite his former status. On the other hand, Gadget’s versatility was valuable to UOL in play-ins. The last time UOL met LGD, UOL ran them over. Gadget’s Twitch was instrumental: the ADC posted a 8.5 KDA and had a generally fantastic performance. The only way I see Kramer beating Gadget is by throwing him a curveball he can’t react to- but throughout his career, Kramer has been a more orthodox ADC with perhaps a few unorthodox builds (Righteous glory Kog’maw, anyone?). Otherwise, I’d recommend Raes over Zeitnot actually, nothing against Zeitnot, but I think Raes is a more “complete” ADC, while Zeitnot’s domain is primarily in mid to late game.

Alternatives to consider: Raes ($6,800)

 

Support

Snowflower ($5,400)

Between Snowflower and Mark, I’d firmly choose Snowflower. Mark has just been underwhelming and has looked disjointed with his team, meanwhile Snowflower and KaKAO’s synergy is the driving force of SUP. I don’t think Supermassive will win, but I do think Snowflower may be capable of bringing a challenge to SaNTaS, especially considering the weak strength of support in the LCL. Edward was exploited historically at international events, and while SaNTaS has held up well, I don’t think he’s been challenged by the support in his group outside of Kaiwing. Snowflower isn’t necessarily amazing- he looked firmly mid to bottom tier in Korea the last time he played in KT- but his veterancy lends him a valuable edge. Otherwise, I’d just recommend Mark, I don’t think Isles is worth taking and SaNTaS takes a spot away from other UOL players.

Alternatives to consider: Mark ($6,000)

 

Team:

Unicorns of Love ($5,200)

I think Supermassive’s performance against MAD Lions is indicative of their fall; they simply look too one dimensional. I praised Bolulu’s versatility to an extent, but it’s a sort of pseudo-versatility: he’s versatile in the regard that he looks mediocre on almost anything he plays. It’s clear that MAD lacked a jungler that was capable of punishing this sort of mediocrity on what is arguably the most important position on a team, but AHaHaCiK leaves no bad player unpunished. Nomanz is more than willing to simply lock in Kassadin and scale away the game as well. Stylistically, I think Supermassive will lose since KaKAO will be unable to make Bolulu competitive against Nomanz. LGD vs LGC is a coinflip, but since LGD looked on top of it on Tuesday, I don’t see a reason why they should suddenly explode again on Wednesday, but you never really know with teams like this.

Alternatives to consider: LGD Gaming ($5,600)

 

Top Stacks:

AHaHaCiK & Nomanz

I’m a big fan of Nomanz. The Russian mid laner earned global acclaim following his impressive international debut at the last world championship, and he only looks improved relative to his last showing. On the other hand, I was skeptical about AHaHaCiK coming into the event, and argued that Diamondprox may actually be the better jungler- while that may be true, there’s no question that AHaHaCiK is world class in his own right. I think these two will be capable of running over the KaKAO led Supermassive by virtue of being more complete than Supermassive’s 2v2- Bolulu is a glaring weakness for KaKAO, and Nomanz will be capable of exploiting him, unlike Humanoid who was playing without a jungler for MAD versus SUP.

Armut & KaKAO

On the other hand, I do think there’s some chance SUP can win. Both games can be close, depending on the conditions. I have nothing against BOSS- he’s usually solid, but as seen in their game against R7, he does have some strange pool issues, picking Wukong into Camille- a match-up conventionally seen as Camille favored. Armut has looked very promising for Supermassive, and his tank play has been outstanding. His Shen has been great, and his Malphite won Supermassive their game 5 versus MAD in the draft phase. He’s worked very well with his jungler KaKAO, who is the superstar of SUP. These two are great together, and if SUP can win over UOL, it’ll likely be through these two.

 

Top Picks

Nomanz, AHaHaCiK, Armut

It’s kind of strange to have 3 players on the top picks all from the same match, but not from the same team. I think it’s sensible though: no one knows what to think about LGD, and it’s best to avoid the volatility that comes with choosing them. What sort of form is Peanut in, actually? Why gamble on him, when Nomanz and AHaHaCiK are present and cheaper than their Chinese counterparts? These three target weak spots on the enemy roster, aside from AHaHaCiK, who benefits as a jungler from having strong lanes around him.

 

Top Value 

Armut, KaKAO, Raes

We’ve talked about Armut and KaKAO at lengths, but despite my doubts on Raes after having a mediocre day 1, Raes showed his mettle on day 2 and revealed that he truly did follow in the dynasty of Australian marksmen, demolishing SUP and MAD, posting a 6.15 KDA on the day outside of the unfortunate tiebreaker versus TL. Furthermore, Raes posted relatively solid CS differentials, and looked like the real primary carry for LGC. I think if LGC are to defeat LGD, it’ll be through an off form Peanut and a powerful ADC in Raes demolishing Kramer: he’s well worth his value.