Yesterday, the 2020 League of Legends World Championship group stage finished with a tension-filled match for first place between DRX and Top Esports. Overall, the group stage didn’t seem to wow fans as much as the play-ins due to the lack of upsets.
Our pick’ems went pretty well, getting almost everything right. What we hadn’t accounted for was G2 getting second place. We’d forgotten that China was the LEC champions’ kryptonite. Thankfully during the group stage G2 was able to take a game off Suning, but still fell short and ended up in second place.
So now begs the question: Who do we predict will move onto the semi-finals?
Top of the Bracket: The Chinese Bracket
TES vs FNC
Oh boy… Fnatic it’s been fun. Top Esports showed their dominance throughout the group stage, practically running over every opponent in their group. There is a reason why this team is one of the favorites to win the whole tournament. Top Esports can play through any lane with incredible talent, such as Zhuo “Knight” Ding in the mid lane and Bai “369” Jia-Hao in the top lane. But FNC is also quite skilled. They managed to take games off Gen.G in the group stage thanks to some sneaky level 1 plays, as well as through plays of their jungler Oskar “Selfmade” Boderek. We think that Fnatic will be able to take a game off TES who might come in and underestimate them – the team did lose a game in groups to North America’s FlyQuest – but in the end, we believe that TES will just be too strong and FNC will have to go packing. We predict TES 3 - 1 FNC.
SN vs JDG
These two Chinese powerhouse teams are set to take the stage on Friday and these games are going to be nail biters. JDG hasn’t shown us their full potential in the group stage. They looked amazing in their last game against Damwon but faltered against a much weaker PSG Talon. In comparison, Suning just seemed to get better with every single game they played throughout the tournament. The key to Suning's’ success was their Jungler Lê “SoFM” Quang Duy, the sole Vietnamese representative in the tournament. The way he enabled his team was truly mind-boggling. This series is going to be tough to judge, but we believe that Suning could be the dark horse to make it through. Our prediction is SN 3 - 2 JDG.
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Bottom of the Bracket: The Korean Bracket
Gen.G vs G2
G2 really lucked out with their bracket pull. While Chinese teams seem to be their kryptonite, G2 always manages to perform against Korean teams. They kicked out T1 last year to get to the finals in Paris. So, who has the upper hand? G2 did stumble in groups a few times, especially against Suning. The key for them to move on is not to underestimate their opponent. We saw this happen during groups when G2 didn’t take Team Liquid seriously and got crushed. G2 has to stay focused against Gen.G even if the Korean third seed seems to be the easiest opponent. It was the bot lane and the jungle which were struggling for G2, but we believe that Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski and Luka “Perkz” Perkowić will be able to get back in form until next week to take the series. Overall, this will be a close match, but we believe that G2 will be able to take the win. We predict Gen.G 2-3 G2.
DWG vs DRX
This one is simple. Damwon completely stomped DRX during the LCK finals and with the way they dominated groups, we do not see this result changing. DRX couldn’t win against TES, even though they had great early game leads. The Korean second seed just wasn’t able to play in the late game against a strong opponent, throwing the leads they’d worked so hard for in the early game. Damwon is similar to TES and will punish even the slightest mistake and DRX doesn’t seem like they’ll be able to overcome such a strong opponent. This will probably be the most lopsided of games. We predict an easy DWG 3-0 DRX result.
There you have it. We have made some bold predictions, as well as put our faith in the LEC to move on and make it to the semi-finals. This is the perfect bracket for G2 to make it back onto the Worlds’ final stage, while Fnatic has an upwards battle to face. We do hope to see some upsets and most of all, no more 3-0 results.
Who do you think will make it to the semi-finals? Are you as hopeful about G2 as we are? Let us know on Twitter and Facebook! For more news regarding League of Legends, like Morello leaving Riot, make sure to check back to EarlyGame.