The quarter-finals of the Worlds 2018 in League of Legends mark the end of the two favorites. Both the Koreans from KT Rolster and the Chinese from Royal Never Give Up are heading home. They were the two top favorites for the crown of League of Legends.
These were the favorites to win the tournament: Before the Worlds in League of Legends started, the bookmakers identified two favorites to win the tournament:
- Royal Never Give Up with star player Uzi – the team hails from China
- and KT Rolster from South Korea
Both spectacularly exited in the quarter-finals today. Previously, the South Korean top team Gen G. had also fallen in the group stage. They had won the Worlds in 2017 as Samsung Galaxy.
Famous teams like SKT 1 with Faker or Team Solo Mid did not even qualify for the Worlds 2018 in League of Legends.
Update 21.10: It got even worse for South Korea.
This is how KT Rolster was eliminated: The Koreans played against the Chinese team Invictus Gaming and had a classic false start. They quickly fell behind 0:2 but managed to draw level at 2-2.
A final 5th game had to bring the decision.
In the last match, it was Invictus’ ADC, JackeyLove, who decided the game and thus the series for the underdogs with stats of 7/0/2 (via matchhistory.na.lol). He had 7 kills with no deaths. JackeyLove played as Xayah.
The victory of Invictus Gaming was still considered the “greatest underdog victory in Worlds history” this morning.
The top laner of Invictus Gaming, TheShy, told the gaming site Inven that they felt good and felt little pressure because they had looked good in practice matches (scrimmages) against KT Rolster.
G2 says: We had nothing to lose – and they had everything to lose
This is how Royal Never Give Up was eliminated: The highly favored Chinese from RNG lost against the Spanish team G2 Esports with 2:3.
G2 qualified by eliminating Schalke 04 at the last opportunity to secure the ticket as the third and final European team.G2 Esports even had to play the qualification but managed to prevail.
Now they had the chance to face the top favorites.
After RNG won the first game confidently, G2 surprisingly equalized. Games 3 and 4 were split between the two teams.
In game 5, G2’s mid laner, Perkz, turned it on and dominated RNG with LeBlanc. He achieved stats of 11/0/4 (via matchhistory.lol.na). He had 11 kills, no deaths, and 4 kill participations.
The Korean gaming site Inven quoted Perkz later saying, “We had nothing to lose – and RNG could lose everything.” RNG had by then won almost everything there was to win this year.
The victory of G2 in the series is already being considered the greatest upset victory in the 8 years of LoL Worlds. You can see how Korean casters practically freak out over the victory.
Europe and USA are doing quite well in LoL Worlds
Who is still in the competition? In the first semi-final, the two victorious teams from today will face each other: G2 Esports will then meet Invictus Gaming.
The second semi-final will be contested by the winners from Cloud 9 (USA) vs. Afreeca Freecs (Korea) and Fnatic (Europe) vs. Edward Gaming (China).
It was thought that European and North American teams would play no role in the LoL Worlds 2018 again. G2 Esports disproved this. The quarter-finals are already being dubbed the “rise of the West”. Let’s see how Cloud 9 and Fnatic perform.
