In the LoL Worlds, G2 Esports is considered the best team in Europe. They faced off against the Koreans from DAMWON Gaming today – and made it to the semifinals. The individual skills of Wunder, Jankos, Caps, and Perkz were too much for the Koreans. G2 Esports is in the semifinals of the League of Legends Worlds.
This was played today: This afternoon into the early evening, the last quarterfinal took place between G2 Esports and DAMWON Gaming. The match was played in Madrid.
G2 Esports are the best team in Europe and thus the best team in the West. They have stars in almost every position:
- The Dane Martin “Wunder” Hansen can determine a game from the top lane – the team took it with humor when they received a fine from Riot because Wunder was caught playing WoW Classic
- Caps belongs to the elite in the mid lane.
- Jankos is currently considered one of the best junglers in the world.
- And Perkz is an ADC who can wonderfully play the currently strong mage picks, as he was previously a midlaner.
The team is known for its creative style and is the big rising star of the last few years. However, they lost the last two games against the Korean team Griffin and only came second in their group.
Sometimes G2 Esports is too confident and makes minor mistakes: From the outside, it even looks like G2 Esports is messing around a bit.
The Koreans from DAMWON Gaming are only the third strongest team from Korea, yet they won their group at the Worlds.
Actually, this was supposed to be the WM where Western fans would get to know names like Nuguri (Top Lane) or Nuclear (Bot Lane).
Here’s how the match went: G2 Esports managed to win the series 3:1. However, at times it didn’t look very secure.
The second match was clearly won by DAMWON Gaming with 23:12 and was carried by a strong Kai’sa after 44 minutes.
There the Koreans showed that they are individually strong and disciplined as a team – they are especially patient. They waited for the mistakes of G2 Esports and let them practically beat themselves.
But ultimately, DAMWON Gaming played too conservatively. The midlaner ShowMaker was glued to his lane, while Caps was constantly moving to roam.
This allowed him to apply pressure on the bot lane at times, and at other times on the top lane. In general, it seemed like G2 Esports was intent on keeping the Koreans as unsteady as possible, not giving them any breathing room.
In game 3, Nuclear had to play Yasuo and he struggled with it. The momentum that seemed to be on DAMWON Gaming’s side after game 2 was lost.
Isolated Top Laner Becomes the Downfall of DAMWON Gaming
The conservative play of the midlaner ShowMaker had to be paid for bitterly in game 4 by the top laner of DAMWON Gaming, Nuguri. He became the punching bag for Wunder, Jankos, and Caps, who early collected their kills on the top lane – and continually executed them using the same pattern.
DAMWON Gaming could not react here, they simply let it happen.
In match 4, G2 Esports had already built a gigantic gold lead in the first 12 minutes, mostly at the expense of the poor Nuguri, who became the sacrificial lamb with Irelia. This already reminded of how Invictus Gaming took down the top laner of Griffin.
Individual Class of EU Stars is Too High
G2 Esports showed some weaknesses in their strategy regarding when to seek teamfights and when not, but the individual skill of Wunder, Jankos, Caps, and Perkz is extremely high. Therefore, they were able to master difficult situations clearly and win the series.
Against the concentrated firepower of the 4 star players, DAMWON Gaming had too little to counter. As soon as G2 Esports was able to sow enough chaos and throw the orderly Koreans off balance, the match ran in their favor.
This leads to a clash of giants in the semifinals: G2 Esports will take on SKT1 on November 3rd. The winner will then play in the final against a Chinese team – this will happen on November 10th.
“Favorites” Prevail at the WM
Will the LoL WM go as planned? On reddit people are criticizing a bit because supposedly the exact 4 teams are in the semifinals that Riot Games prominently featured in a “Twitter trailer” before the group stage began.
The LoL Worlds have thus gone “exactly according to script.”
But that’s not quite true: Fnatic was featured in the trailer – they couldn’t hold their own against FunPlus Phoenix.
However, in 2019, there are indeed no major surprises: The 4 favourites for the World Championship title are in the semifinals of the LoL Worlds. How it will proceed now seems quite open.
