Riot Games has come up with something new in League of Legends: The fourth-placed teams from Europe and the USA will compete against each other on October 9 in a decisive match for the last free spot at Worlds 2023. However, things are looking worse for the LEC representatives. In addition to unfair competitive disadvantages, one of the EU candidates is now facing serious injury concerns. Only a miracle can help.
What kind of game is this?
- Riot Games has introduced some innovations in 2023 to improve eSports (via lolesports): With one innovation, they want to further fuel the long-standing feud between Europe and the USA, whose communities have been teasing each other for a decade about who really has the better players.
- While China and Korea send 4 teams to Worlds, Europe and the USA are only allowed to send 3.
- The respective number 4 of both Western leagues will face each other on October 9 at 6 AM in South Korea for the last free spot at Worlds.
But it increasingly looks like the USA has an unfair advantage.
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USA has 2 months to prepare – Europe’s team isn’t even confirmed yet
Why is it looking worse for Europe? One problem is that the leagues play on different schedules:
The US league LCS has been over for a few weeks: The Golden Guardians finished fourth and have had since August 13 to prepare for the final match. They have almost 2 months to train in South Korea, relax, and get ready for the decisive match. The move to South Korea should be easy for the team: After all, 3 of the 5 players are from South Korea.
In Europe, however, the “Season Finals” only started on August 19 and will last until September 10. At the moment, it’s not even clear who will represent Europe for the last Worlds spot. This will only be decided on September 2. The winner will have only about half the time to prepare for the duel with the Golden Guardians instead of 2 months.
Who from Europe can still qualify for Worlds? On September 2, it will come down to a duel between Schalke successor BDS and the highly decorated, and troubled team Fnatic:
- The winner of the match will at least be third and is directly qualified for Worlds.
- The loser of the match will take the unfortunate fourth place and must face the Golden Guardians in the finals.
Fnatic top-laner out due to injury – hand surgery
What makes the situation even more difficult? The top-laner of Fnatic, Oscar “Oscarin” Jiménez (20), has injured his hand and will surely miss the critical match for third place in the LEC.
He had already played in the last series against XL only with significant limitations, which went to the 5th match. Now, however, he must undergo surgery and will miss the match against BDS.
If Fnatic loses the match on September 2 without their starting top-laner, Europe would send a team to the final qualifying match that fields a weakened top-laner and enjoyed a month less preparation time than the opponents.
Fnatic needs a miracle now
The absurd thing is that none other than the top-laner “Wunder” (24) is set to replace the injured Oscarin, who was actually already sorted out because he seemed to be fed up with “the loser team Fnatic”. However, Wunder’s contract would expire on September 26 – he wouldn’t even be part of the team for the crucial match on October 9 against the Golden Guardians.
If Fnatic wins, Europe sends a team to the qualifying match that can’t even defeat a weakened Fnatic – that would also be a tough situation.
1 month of preparation, 1 flight to South Korea, 1 match and right back home?
Why is the match so brutal? The match in October will be critically discussed on reddit: Two teams would fly to Worlds in South Korea to determine in a single match, in a best-of-5 series, who gets to play at the World Championship and who flies back home.
It is generally seen as brutal and logistically unreasonable.
More about player Wunder: LoL pro is so disturbed by the loss that he takes his job seriously and finally deletes WoW
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