At the World Championships of League of Legends, the LoL Worlds 2018, a sensation occurred in the quarterfinals: only one team from Asia remains. Europe and the USA suddenly dominate the Asians and advance to the semifinals. The eSports in League of Legends is turned upside down.
This is what happened in the quarterfinals: We have already reported that the two big favorites from Asia were eliminated on the first day of the quarterfinals. RNG and KT Rolster were eliminated yesterday.
This morning, the favorite elimination continued in South Korea:
- with the Afreeca Freecs, the last hope for Korea was eliminated. Cloud 9 defeated them dominantly 3:0.
- the second team from China was eliminated with Edward Gaming. Fnatic from Europe is indeed making it to the semifinals.
These teams are in the LoL Worlds Semifinal 2018: Thus, two European teams (G2 and Fnatic), as well as Cloud 9 (USA) will compete in the semifinals. From Asia, only Invictus Gaming (China) is still in it.
- On October 27, G2 eSports will play against Invictus Gaming
- On October 28, Cloud 9 will face Fnatic
The absolute underdogs win
This is how Cloud 9 won: The US team Cloud 9 went into the quarterfinals as underdogs against the highly favored Afreeca Freecs. Cloud 9 even had to fight their way through the Play-In phase into the main round of the LoL Worlds 2018.
But Cloud 9 clearly won against Afreeca Freecs with 3-0.
The amazing thing is how dominant Cloud 9 appeared. They hardly gave Afreeca a chance and completely overran them.
Thus, for the first time in 7 years, a team from North America has reached the semifinals of the LoL Worlds. The last time this happened was in 2011 with TSM, practically in the early days of LoL.
Danish players rock for US team
The strongest players at Cloud 9 were identified as:
- The jungler Dennis „Svenskeren“ Johnsen, a Dane
- Midlaner Nicolaj „Jensen“ Jensen, the second Dane at Cloud 9
- and ADC Zachary „Sneaky“ Scuderi, an American
Better team fights secure Fnatic the victory
This is how Fnatic advanced: Fnatic was in a somewhat different role than Cloud 9. They were lightly favored against the Chinese team “Edward Gaming.” However, there was a tough blow right from the first match.
With aggressive play, Edward Gaming quickly secured the 1st match.
However, from Game 2 onwards, the tide turned. Led by Martin “Rekkles” Larsson, Fnatic consistently had the edge in team fights and managed to exploit the mistakes of Edward Gaming to ultimately win, even though the Chinese team always had a gold lead.
Although things looked good for Edward Gaming in the early phases of the games, Fnatic was able to assert itself later in the matches.
Korea weeps
This is how Korea reacts: After in 2017, two Korean teams decided the World Champion between themselves, this time, two South Korean teams were already eliminated in the quarterfinals. Last year’s winner Gen G. was even eliminated in the main round.
Thus all Korean teams are eliminated before it really starts.
The Korean gaming site Inven has summarized reactions from fans on the defeat of KT Rolster against Invictus Gaming (China). The usually dominating South Koreans in League of Legends are quite shocked at how KT Rolster performed in the LoL Worlds 2018.
- One person says: “In a tiger’s den left by the tiger, foxes play a game of who is the best. When they left the den, they were devoured by lions alive.”
- Many seem to miss the SKT team with Faker from earlier: “Sigh, if SKT would play, even in the worst form, they would at least make it to the finals.”
- Overall, the sentiment appears to be: “This would not have happened with Faker.“
This was yesterday after the defeat of KT Rolster. At that time, South Korean fans feared that the Chinese would be dominant at the Worlds 2018. The Koreans did not yet know that the Europeans would play such a strong role.
Betting offices misjudged the favorites of the LoL Worlds 2018
Who will win now? The betting offices (via Nicerodds) have now highly favored the Chinese team Invictus Gaming to win the LoL Worlds 2018. Following them are Fnatic and G2 Esports with outsider chances. Cloud 9 is far behind.
But at these Worlds, the betting offices have been so wrong so far that anything seems possible.
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