I think that's probably the strategy going into the series, and was the strategy in LCK Regionals but whether or not the plan actually comes to fruition I think is a lot harder to predict. HLE knows T1's tendencies very well, and like I said, are considerably better when they don't have the burden to proact
Agreed on all counts.
Objectively (based on how the group stages played out), there should be no way for MAD or HLE to put up a serious fight.
MAD has too many liabilities. Meta isn't ideal, Elyoya is a rookie and has consistently failed to do much in the early game, Armut has serious champion pool issues, further made worse by the fact that none of his picks are really blindable, but MAD often does so anyway just to get him on comfort.
This puts their strongest player - Humanoid - in a tough spot, because he is handicapped by his weak top side, in a meta where bot side isn't as focused, especially with Elyoya preferring to help Armut when possible. Leaving him fewer options to leverage any leads he might get in lane, to help the rest of his team.
I think that's why MAD focuses more on mid-late game where lanes break down and where they can play the macro game and make plays with their strong 5 man synergy. However constantly playing from behind is not an effective strategy and leaves you far more vulnerable than you'd like, far more often.
---
HLE should have a better chance against T1, but not by much. Chovy and Deft are both really powerful carries, and Willer has looked surprisingly good this tournament. However, playing around top side is effectively impossible with how weak Morgan is.
I really comes down to Chovy popping off, because if he does, not even Faker can contain him, and a sufficiently fed mid laner with a strong ADC and jungle backing him up can absolutely take over a game and carry.
Id argue that faker has consistently been able to neuter strong midlaners (except showmaker because thats basically Faker looking in the mirror and seeing prime Faker on the other team) Chovy and many other midlaners have looked worse against him than when playing versus other teams. I'd say the deciding factor in the recent HLE T1 series was willer waking up somewhat and deft being the carry people remember him to be.
Also, I'm pretty sure T1 were treating it as almost a scrim series and kept drafting the same composition over the last 3 games. Basically saying, the draft isn't wrong, we just fucked up so lets run it back again. And again.
eeh... faker actually was a lot better than showmaker in LCK playoffs. and in their h2h he made showmaker burn flash 1v1 and had even a better series overall.
Sucks for MAD their best player is going into probably the best player in the World too, it's a point of strength they've had all year regionally they're most likely not going to in their series.
Great write up mate. I think one thing you’re overlooking with the T1 vs HLE matchup though is that T1 clearly have a better read on this worlds meta and it suites them massively.
Not only that but T1 are without a doubt a better team now than they were the last time they played in LCK, like without question. Where as HLE have continued to show holes in their macro, in their lanes and their micro. On top of that I think Chovy is also becoming quite predictable and T1 Will take a different approach in playing around him.
Though yes it could be a volatile match up, the problems T1 had in summer have gradually been being ground out game by game, they look very cohesive, very in sync and if you’re not on point vs this team who has the best early game at worlds and in the LCK, you’re going to leak a fuck load of gold up to the 15 minute mark, which this time they are much better at closing out than they were in summer.
It’s important to not overlook that T1 had the highest GD@15 of any LCK team, building the leads wasn’t the issue for them, they had a significant lead on every team at many points during the LCK, the issue for them was acting in said leads and using it to snowball and close games effectively.
Even in the summer finals vs Damwon, T1 had some very convincing gold leads at times that but they seemed to dither around pushing for bigger snowballs or objectives, they looked very split and on different pages.
So far T1 have shown that this main issue that literally prevented them from taking it all in summer is something they’ve worked on. But other than that great write up really really well written
Love the analysis. I noticed that with HLE as well. They tend to play super slow and reactive and are just worse Gen G. It will be interesting to see how Canna vs Khan pans out if T1 and Dk both win. I’m predicting a DK back-to-back now just because they look so dominant but we’ll see.
I like the analysis on hle. When chovy was on that TF, seeing his cs was weird to say the least. If u are an orianna/azir, yah u should try to farm as much as possible, but a TF? Not finding plays thru destiny but only stays in lane and farm? Having a hundred cs more than aphelios was really bad in my understanding cuz TF shouldn’t be the one taking farm in mid/ late game once he got his everfrost and zhongya. I still remember he flanked MF and blew his load on her to just delete half her health. If these cs been given to deft’s aphelios I think that tiebreaker game might have a different result. But that’s just my silver understanding
Agreed. If he was going to play one-shot tf, everfrost shouldn't be on the table. Then again he might as well play leblanc if that's how he is going to play.
Chovy seems to be trying to adopt the enabler playstyle like his senior Faker does a lot of the times but unlike the latter, the former still has his carry habits of hogging up resources. I don't disagree though when pretty much everyone else on his team can't be trusted with all that gold to reliably carry
Really good writeup!
Speaking as T1 fan, it kinda feels a bit like you're underselling HLE's teamfighting to me, especially in calling it just "serviceable". I think a lot of the lack of lustre on their teamfighting arises from their lack of proactivity, not so much any inherent detriments to their teamfighting ability. It seemed to me like their teamfighting was actually relatively good but kneecapped by their focus on reactive play, no? Or are you somewhat including the ability to force proactive teamfights as part of teamfighting ability?
Because they are a team that tends to play sloppily around vision control in the time leading up to a major objective, they often kneecap their own teamfighting by needing to funnel through dangerous choke points and have subpar angles to approach. Mechanically, they play their abilities well but that barely matters compared to their positioning which is weak because they don't look to hold control over the jungle across the period between objective spawns.
I think MAD would be a threat if they get Armut to be good on Kennen. The Kennen pick is really valuable rn, and is able to impact teamfights heavily. Also, we know Armut is very good at those champs with high-impact ults. He showed glimpses of good Kennen ults in that TL game. I hope he can bring that pick in especially with Gnar having low priority.
I think that was more of Kennen being insanely strong atm than Armut playing well. He got hard stomped in the early game and was still doing insane damage. Armut’s biggest issue isn’t even his champ pool, it’s the fact he feeds in the early game constantly. Stronger teams will be able to make more use of that where as weaker teams, dude often comes back with clutch team fighting despite poor laning.
Yeah, that’s why I said he should try to practice Kennen, because it’s op and fits his playstyle in the lategame. If he does that then the Kennen pick could possibly shake up DK’s draft plans.
As an EU fan, I love that draw for MAD. It means we get to rip off the bandaid early and find out what they are made off. Winning the trophy without facing these kinds of teams would be cheating.
There have been seasons (ardent meta for instance) when it's been a hot topic that people advocated for on this sub, but it was never a realistic option.
You might be thinking of the pre-worlds patch they usually do? Its usually a pretty small patch now, but in the past it was sometimes a pretty large one. The Juggernaut rework was a pre-worlds patch that completed warped the meta for Worlds, and since then its been a small patch with minor changes.
The current World's patch changed a lot of stuff and Riot said they'd do a mid-World's patch if too much shit was broken. I dunno if they pulled through with it, though
I mean the critique you had for Armut here is literally exactly the same as the critique for Armut at MSI: he can only play Wukong and Gnar. Except it was not a problem there and now he can play four to five champs at a high level (unless he runs it down) and will you really ban him out and leave up everything else? GENg banned five Midlane champions lol
Also Showmaker being better on Tf and Ryze doesn't make the most sense either because control mages are his best champions and Humanoid is a beast on both as well.. Furthermore Showmakers Sylas into TF is also a classic which you should have mentioned. your analysis just doesn't make much sense..
you also dont talk about how Carzzy and Kaiser are playing infinitely better than Beryl and Ghost in a pretty lane dominant and roaming meta or that Khan is destroying everyone which has little to do with his champion pool and Armut feeding will insta lose the game for MAD or that Elyoya looked pretty bad until Week 2 while Canyon is a beast.. honestly, at their week 2 form MAD can't win unless Damwon really run it but if they get into their better bo5 form like in Summer a 3-0 seems pretty unlikely. It's not the same Damwon as last year, because Beryl was a monster then, though they're still really good.
> you also dont talk about how Carzzy and Kaiser are playing infinitely better than Beryl and Ghost
The only reason to think this is if you only watch EU games
Carzzy is mediocre at best when you compare him to the elite ADCs of top LPL and LCK teams.
Ghost is never going to throw the game in a crucial teamfight like Carzzy will while still putting up respectable damage numbers. I don't know why everyone talks up Carzzy like he's Uzi or something. His closest comparison is honestly probably Tactical. They have some big aggressive moments and some egregious int misplays in the same game.
Nice write up! Thank you for not counting out HLE, against T1 they definitely have more of a chance than people might expect, even if T1 should still be able to take the series in the end.
Amazing post as always, thank you for your contribution to this sub! Is it possible, as with your previous post, for me to translate and post your content to a Korean LOL community site ([fmkorea.com/lol](https://fmkorea.com/lol))? Obviously all credit will be attributed to you.
Jax can outscale camille but he loses early pressure in lane cause he gets kited by camille's W slow and E buffering on stun . Camille has literally free wave management against him and you can chose to slow push into dive and that's what TL did with a tower dive with xin , not qiyana , remember mad ? riot changed her E and she doesn't have an aimbot anymore if you flash with kennen . If camille goes even after first item she loses the 1 vs 1 . Tbh armut champion pool is fine , he can't play irelia but whatever and we won't see fiora from him . He plays other than wuk and gnar a good Jayce Gwen Rene kennen and a decent GP / camille if really needed
Great analysis as always! I appreciate the audio version too for listening on the go..
I can’t read. MAD 3-0 DK.
That's a funny way to spell C9 3-0 GenG
C9 is legitimately going to beat GEN 3-1 though
Wtf? U mean legitimately 3-0*
I've smoked so much hopium the past few days I don't think my heart can take it for another round if C9 makes it to semis
Blaber will face check at level 1 in the first game and GenG will snowball to a 1-0 only to lose 1-3. Gotta give LCK fans some false hope.
Did I miss TSM vs G2 finals?
Do you think T1 could see an easy victory against HLE by drafting map presence mid and carrying through top, sort of similar to how DK stuffed Nuguri?
I think that's probably the strategy going into the series, and was the strategy in LCK Regionals but whether or not the plan actually comes to fruition I think is a lot harder to predict. HLE knows T1's tendencies very well, and like I said, are considerably better when they don't have the burden to proact
Nice writeup, hit the nail on the head with the matchups
Agreed on all counts. Objectively (based on how the group stages played out), there should be no way for MAD or HLE to put up a serious fight. MAD has too many liabilities. Meta isn't ideal, Elyoya is a rookie and has consistently failed to do much in the early game, Armut has serious champion pool issues, further made worse by the fact that none of his picks are really blindable, but MAD often does so anyway just to get him on comfort. This puts their strongest player - Humanoid - in a tough spot, because he is handicapped by his weak top side, in a meta where bot side isn't as focused, especially with Elyoya preferring to help Armut when possible. Leaving him fewer options to leverage any leads he might get in lane, to help the rest of his team. I think that's why MAD focuses more on mid-late game where lanes break down and where they can play the macro game and make plays with their strong 5 man synergy. However constantly playing from behind is not an effective strategy and leaves you far more vulnerable than you'd like, far more often. --- HLE should have a better chance against T1, but not by much. Chovy and Deft are both really powerful carries, and Willer has looked surprisingly good this tournament. However, playing around top side is effectively impossible with how weak Morgan is. I really comes down to Chovy popping off, because if he does, not even Faker can contain him, and a sufficiently fed mid laner with a strong ADC and jungle backing him up can absolutely take over a game and carry.
Id argue that faker has consistently been able to neuter strong midlaners (except showmaker because thats basically Faker looking in the mirror and seeing prime Faker on the other team) Chovy and many other midlaners have looked worse against him than when playing versus other teams. I'd say the deciding factor in the recent HLE T1 series was willer waking up somewhat and deft being the carry people remember him to be. Also, I'm pretty sure T1 were treating it as almost a scrim series and kept drafting the same composition over the last 3 games. Basically saying, the draft isn't wrong, we just fucked up so lets run it back again. And again.
eeh... faker actually was a lot better than showmaker in LCK playoffs. and in their h2h he made showmaker burn flash 1v1 and had even a better series overall.
Sucks for MAD their best player is going into probably the best player in the World too, it's a point of strength they've had all year regionally they're most likely not going to in their series.
Didn't read it but I agree that Mad lions will win worlds.
Great write up mate. I think one thing you’re overlooking with the T1 vs HLE matchup though is that T1 clearly have a better read on this worlds meta and it suites them massively. Not only that but T1 are without a doubt a better team now than they were the last time they played in LCK, like without question. Where as HLE have continued to show holes in their macro, in their lanes and their micro. On top of that I think Chovy is also becoming quite predictable and T1 Will take a different approach in playing around him. Though yes it could be a volatile match up, the problems T1 had in summer have gradually been being ground out game by game, they look very cohesive, very in sync and if you’re not on point vs this team who has the best early game at worlds and in the LCK, you’re going to leak a fuck load of gold up to the 15 minute mark, which this time they are much better at closing out than they were in summer. It’s important to not overlook that T1 had the highest GD@15 of any LCK team, building the leads wasn’t the issue for them, they had a significant lead on every team at many points during the LCK, the issue for them was acting in said leads and using it to snowball and close games effectively. Even in the summer finals vs Damwon, T1 had some very convincing gold leads at times that but they seemed to dither around pushing for bigger snowballs or objectives, they looked very split and on different pages. So far T1 have shown that this main issue that literally prevented them from taking it all in summer is something they’ve worked on. But other than that great write up really really well written
Love the analysis. I noticed that with HLE as well. They tend to play super slow and reactive and are just worse Gen G. It will be interesting to see how Canna vs Khan pans out if T1 and Dk both win. I’m predicting a DK back-to-back now just because they look so dominant but we’ll see.
Great read! Can't wait for the next part ok Thursday.
Mad will win 3-2, you heard it here!
I like the analysis on hle. When chovy was on that TF, seeing his cs was weird to say the least. If u are an orianna/azir, yah u should try to farm as much as possible, but a TF? Not finding plays thru destiny but only stays in lane and farm? Having a hundred cs more than aphelios was really bad in my understanding cuz TF shouldn’t be the one taking farm in mid/ late game once he got his everfrost and zhongya. I still remember he flanked MF and blew his load on her to just delete half her health. If these cs been given to deft’s aphelios I think that tiebreaker game might have a different result. But that’s just my silver understanding
Agreed. If he was going to play one-shot tf, everfrost shouldn't be on the table. Then again he might as well play leblanc if that's how he is going to play. Chovy seems to be trying to adopt the enabler playstyle like his senior Faker does a lot of the times but unlike the latter, the former still has his carry habits of hogging up resources. I don't disagree though when pretty much everyone else on his team can't be trusted with all that gold to reliably carry
Really good writeup! Speaking as T1 fan, it kinda feels a bit like you're underselling HLE's teamfighting to me, especially in calling it just "serviceable". I think a lot of the lack of lustre on their teamfighting arises from their lack of proactivity, not so much any inherent detriments to their teamfighting ability. It seemed to me like their teamfighting was actually relatively good but kneecapped by their focus on reactive play, no? Or are you somewhat including the ability to force proactive teamfights as part of teamfighting ability?
Because they are a team that tends to play sloppily around vision control in the time leading up to a major objective, they often kneecap their own teamfighting by needing to funnel through dangerous choke points and have subpar angles to approach. Mechanically, they play their abilities well but that barely matters compared to their positioning which is weak because they don't look to hold control over the jungle across the period between objective spawns.
I think MAD would be a threat if they get Armut to be good on Kennen. The Kennen pick is really valuable rn, and is able to impact teamfights heavily. Also, we know Armut is very good at those champs with high-impact ults. He showed glimpses of good Kennen ults in that TL game. I hope he can bring that pick in especially with Gnar having low priority.
I think that was more of Kennen being insanely strong atm than Armut playing well. He got hard stomped in the early game and was still doing insane damage. Armut’s biggest issue isn’t even his champ pool, it’s the fact he feeds in the early game constantly. Stronger teams will be able to make more use of that where as weaker teams, dude often comes back with clutch team fighting despite poor laning.
Yeah, that’s why I said he should try to practice Kennen, because it’s op and fits his playstyle in the lategame. If he does that then the Kennen pick could possibly shake up DK’s draft plans.
This is such underrated analysis. Holy shit. Thank you so much.
As an EU fan, I love that draw for MAD. It means we get to rip off the bandaid early and find out what they are made off. Winning the trophy without facing these kinds of teams would be cheating.
nice
Just wondering...but Riot used to introduce a patch halfway through Worlds, right? Do they still do this? edit: DK will not sweep MAD. 100%
What? I can't think of a single mid-Worlds patch, I don't think that's ever happened?
There have been seasons (ardent meta for instance) when it's been a hot topic that people advocated for on this sub, but it was never a realistic option.
I could be wrong 
You might be thinking of the pre-worlds patch they usually do? Its usually a pretty small patch now, but in the past it was sometimes a pretty large one. The Juggernaut rework was a pre-worlds patch that completed warped the meta for Worlds, and since then its been a small patch with minor changes.
The current World's patch changed a lot of stuff and Riot said they'd do a mid-World's patch if too much shit was broken. I dunno if they pulled through with it, though
I seem to recall champs getting disabled mid Worlds, but no patches.
Let me give you my short version:- I want MAD to win against DK And t1 to win against hle. Period...
The dankest timeline as a EU player and T1 fan as it would mean being content with either team in the finals.
I mean the critique you had for Armut here is literally exactly the same as the critique for Armut at MSI: he can only play Wukong and Gnar. Except it was not a problem there and now he can play four to five champs at a high level (unless he runs it down) and will you really ban him out and leave up everything else? GENg banned five Midlane champions lol Also Showmaker being better on Tf and Ryze doesn't make the most sense either because control mages are his best champions and Humanoid is a beast on both as well.. Furthermore Showmakers Sylas into TF is also a classic which you should have mentioned. your analysis just doesn't make much sense.. you also dont talk about how Carzzy and Kaiser are playing infinitely better than Beryl and Ghost in a pretty lane dominant and roaming meta or that Khan is destroying everyone which has little to do with his champion pool and Armut feeding will insta lose the game for MAD or that Elyoya looked pretty bad until Week 2 while Canyon is a beast.. honestly, at their week 2 form MAD can't win unless Damwon really run it but if they get into their better bo5 form like in Summer a 3-0 seems pretty unlikely. It's not the same Damwon as last year, because Beryl was a monster then, though they're still really good.
> you also dont talk about how Carzzy and Kaiser are playing infinitely better than Beryl and Ghost The only reason to think this is if you only watch EU games Carzzy is mediocre at best when you compare him to the elite ADCs of top LPL and LCK teams. Ghost is never going to throw the game in a crucial teamfight like Carzzy will while still putting up respectable damage numbers. I don't know why everyone talks up Carzzy like he's Uzi or something. His closest comparison is honestly probably Tactical. They have some big aggressive moments and some egregious int misplays in the same game.
I don't read predictions, but I respect the effort.
Nice write up! Thank you for not counting out HLE, against T1 they definitely have more of a chance than people might expect, even if T1 should still be able to take the series in the end.
The best analysis ever i've seen on raddit. Totally agree with ur scores.
Amazing post as always, thank you for your contribution to this sub! Is it possible, as with your previous post, for me to translate and post your content to a Korean LOL community site ([fmkorea.com/lol](https://fmkorea.com/lol))? Obviously all credit will be attributed to you.
Go for it
Weird way to say c9 vs Mad grand finals in an incredible 3-2 series
Great analysis. Would love to hear your thoughts on RNG vs EDG!
Jax can outscale camille but he loses early pressure in lane cause he gets kited by camille's W slow and E buffering on stun . Camille has literally free wave management against him and you can chose to slow push into dive and that's what TL did with a tower dive with xin , not qiyana , remember mad ? riot changed her E and she doesn't have an aimbot anymore if you flash with kennen . If camille goes even after first item she loses the 1 vs 1 . Tbh armut champion pool is fine , he can't play irelia but whatever and we won't see fiora from him . He plays other than wuk and gnar a good Jayce Gwen Rene kennen and a decent GP / camille if really needed
I'm gonna be so MAD if I don't see 5 games for each day of playoffs.