Surprise Upsets and Stormy Finale on Day 4

Riot·Sep 21, 2014·0 votes·30,405 views

Typhoon Fung-Wong descended upon Taipei on the last day of the first week of group stages, bringing with it turbulence and chaos. The dramatic, slashing winds and rains was the perfect backdrop, setting the mood for a final confrontation between the teams of Groups A and B. Even as relative skill and capabilities were established in the days prior, there were still surprises in store – not the least of which was North American esports' unexpected strength this year.

TEAM SOLOMID VS STAR HORN ROYAL CLUB – DANCING ON COALS

TSM was determined to get that prestigious #1 seed, and the first step towards achieving it was knocking down rivals Star Horn Royal Club at least once. Amazing's Lee Sin performance capped off Solomid's strong group stage run with a dynamic dragon theft out from under Royal Club's noses near 18 minutes in, triggering a fight that feeds WildTurtle a triple kill and ace. The real star of the match, however, is definitely Dyrus. The Equalizers from his Rumble were anything but equal, dropping on top of Star Horn Royal Club like a wave of bricks while Lustboy and Bjergsen worked to keep Royal Club pinned down in the fight.

AHQ E-SPORTS CLUB VS EDWARD GAMING – FORCE OF A TYPHOON

AHQ might be on the verge of getting knocked out, and facing China's top-seeded team was a challenge even for the seemingly invincible Samsung White back on day one. But the Taiwanese club dogged determination won respect, admiration -- and even a little fear. Things looked bad for AHQ as EDG attempted to siege their way onto their top lane inhibitor. But then, GreenTea's Death Sentence homed in on NaMei, and both Prydz and Naz capitalized instantly. Three minutes later, he does it again, winning two fights in a row to shatter EDG's will and take the game, eventually forcing a midnight hour tiebreaker amid the storms and surges of Typhoon Fung-Wong. Though they ultimately fell short of advancing past to the quarterfinal stages in Busan, AHQ e-Sports Club proved themselves among the worthiest adversaries of week one.

SK GAMING VS TEAM SOLOMID – WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN

Though SK Gaming's chance to advance through Worlds was effectively nil thanks to an incident that took Svenskeren out of contention in their first three games, the jungler made a very convincing statement against TSM, proving that though the American team had proved their mettle, they were lucky that SK was not in position to challenge them this year. Svenskeren's Kha'zix was a bewildering threat -- a constant, creeping menace to WildTurtle in particular. Even when TSM seemed on the verge of victory, as with their rush for the SK-side nexus turrets 49 minutes in, they were far from safe. Svenskeren safely survived Bjergsen's Unleashed Power, doubled back, and slammed the door on Lustboy and Amazing to lead SK towards a last-minute ace. SK pushed through mid and took the game. Svenskeren's parting gift for TSM: destroying their hopes for a tiebreaker set against Star Horn Royal Club and guaranteeing their quarterfinals match against the terrifying threat of Samsung White.

ONWARD TO SINGAPORE

The dramatics of the last day of the Taipei Group Stage were but a preview of what's to come. Groups C and D, commonly considered the most competitive of this year's World Championship tournament, have yet to take the stage, and will surely be using the information gleaned from this week in their preparations. And most importantly: they'll be adjusting their crosshairs for the survivors of Groups A and B as well as each other. The end-of-week brackets are as follows: Group A Samsung White (qualified): 6-0 AHQ Esports Club: 3-4 Dark Passage: 0-6 Edward Gaming (qualified): 4-3 Group B Star Horn Royal Club (qualified): 5-1 Team Solomid (qualified): 4-2 SK Gaming: 2-4 Taipei Assassins: 1-5 The first day of the Groups C and D matches commences with North America's LMQ and China's OMG, starting at 2 AM PDT/11AM CEST, on September 25th.

65 Comments

S3xylov3Sep 21, 201433 votes

I thought TSM beat Star Horn once. shouldnt Royal Club be 5-1

Hiroyuki SawanoSep 23, 20142 votes

royal club is 5/1 samsung white is 6/0 tsm is 4/2

Raise The GnarSep 23, 20141 votes

They were.

unBiasedGravitySep 22, 201429 votes

The fact that SK's Svenskeren COULD have helped them get out of groups just goes to show you how talking crap and being a racist jerk just never pays off. Despite being a great player, Sven showed really abysmal attitude and left his team out to dry because of it. Hopefully he is ashamed of his toxic behavior and learns from this experience to be nicer to his fellow players. Hopefully next year he can clean up his act and take his team out of the group stage.

nimariooSep 23, 20142 votes

The fact that ye, but just been unable to play at world was just cruel. Dry? how could he knew that he would end up not been able to play at world in 3 games. Agree that it could change the fact that they might had get out of the group stage and show the World that Eu is not uncountable when it´s time for world.

I don´t know how he did or said it. But the fact remains, that he didn't deserve it. That would be a good fact.

Are you talking to yourself or are you just saying you don't blaming or say unbehaving words? We all do. So don't blame other, like Svenskeren for behaving bad on it´s own, when you still do the same. He didn't leave the team to dry. It was decided by some lol international people.

Can´t believe the upvotes. Like why would Team SK have him if he wasn't nice enough. Maybe people agree with toxic player and bad behavior, but when you do behave the same you shouldn't say anything bad about it.

DamenateSep 23, 20148 votes

Well, when you make racist statements towards the country that is hosting you and you say things like "ChingChong ChingChong" to them, then yes you deserve to be banned. Unless Riot condones racism which I and many others are glad they don't, I think they handled this well.

AmazingMonkey0Sep 21, 201418 votes

Star Horn should be 5-1 not 6-0. EDG should be 4-3 and AHQ 3-4 or both 3-3 and something to signify that EDG advanced from the tie-breaker. Check your standings before submitting??

SsatanikoSep 21, 20147 votes

Yes they botched something as simple as the records of mere 6-game series.

KingBeastly1Sep 22, 20144 votes

Everyone makes mistakes

ABHIRSep 23, 20142 votes

Everybody has those days...

FrittatasSep 22, 201411 votes

"Svenskeren's parting gift for TSM: destroying their hopes for a tiebreaker set against Star Horn Royal Club and guaranteeing their quarterfinals match against the terrifying threat of Samsung White."

Get rekt tsm fanboys

Dane BelthoundSep 23, 20142 votes

Now they will just beat SSW and cruise to a world championship right? :):):) Take out the hardest team first! One can dream right?

Imperio EboySep 24, 20141 votes

and in the final they face KaBum right`?

HellraiseR007Sep 22, 20147 votes

Whoever made that last mid rush call in TSM vs SK gaming was really really indecisive. It was a cocky, impatience response and really underestimated SK. I really had high hopes for this game as TSM really had a good chance to skip the game against SSW. I still remember Amazing's and Dyrus's face after that game, it really tells that how much they didnt wanted that last mid rush :(

EDITOR, too much Soju bruh?? Your posted result in the article is as upset as the title of it.

TrollFan01Sep 22, 20144 votes

I hear ya and I was so disappointed in the outcome as TSM is the better team. Hopefully what happened here (overconfidence) will happen when TSM faces SSW and TSM can pull off the upset.

KSHarrisonSep 22, 20141 votes

SK finally decided to send Vayne splitpushing. What should TSM have done? Ziggs wavecleared every time they tried to siege and they had no one who could duel Vayne.

If TSM had played the fight in the base better and actually won it, they might have had a chance of victory. They had a 30s window to launch an attack before vayne's splitpush got too far down bot lane and they took it. They needed more than inhib; they needed to force a favorable fight to keep SK down.

OrnateSep 22, 20146 votes

Can't even correctly list the bracket results despite writing a full article on it. I commented on another post, I believe that THIS is the reason why esports in NA are a joke.They are being brought to us by a group of individuals that are sloppy in their work and truly do not care about bringing the best in terms of content.

MrOrangeLizardSep 23, 20144 votes

If anyone from RIOT is reading the above post, i just want to let you know that this individual is the only one that thinks that.

amardil94Sep 23, 20142 votes

TSM beat SHRC who are probably the best Chinese team at Worlds atm (given EDG's performance). Does that mean esports in China are a joke too?

And what does that make TPA who went 1-5?

Imperio EboySep 24, 20141 votes

TSM also lost againstr them and went 1/1 against SK who themselves got 0/2 against SHRC.... i would more say, that CHina,EU and NA are probably on the same phase atm.

amardil94Sep 25, 20141 votes

True but it can also be argued that SHRC almost dropped a game to TPA while TSM didn't have much trouble with them.

I'm not sure about China being on the same level as NA/EU at the moment. Besides SHRC, the Chinese teams have failed to impress so far. I don't think EDG would have made it out of a tougher group and OMG's performance so far hasn't been great. In my opinion its Korea > NA > EU > China, although OMG could still turn things around depending on how they do against Fnatic

Dane BelthoundSep 23, 20142 votes

I have seen sports writers, hell I have seen PUBLISHED BEST SELLING NOVELS with typos. You are just an overly critical arse.

carlosownsallSep 21, 20144 votes

yea wtf these editors sleeping or something?

StiffTheJiffSep 22, 20142 votes

Joe Miller and Damen are the best casters by far wow

JaegybombSep 22, 20141 votes

Who do I have to blow to get DoA and Monte back casting games again?

Chaotic Nyan CatSep 22, 20142 votes

Even with Svenskeren i think the group would have played out the same except the games would have been a little closer.

amardil94Sep 23, 20143 votes

With Sven SK probably would've won their first game against TPA

Flame4762Sep 23, 20142 votes

Rumble Dyrus so good at dis champ

Lewd BunnnySep 23, 20142 votes

What is with all the booing after a non-american team win lately. the booing after the win for sk vs tsm and lmq vs crs is just really disgraceful this just shows how racially intolerant and a bad sport the na fans are. sure some might not be a fan of the other team but that is no reason to do that. man I am starting to feel ashamed of being a na fan

KSHarrisonSep 23, 20145 votes

The booing for SK vs. TSM was for Sven (camera had shown his face) because of his remarks, because btw this was not an NA crowd but a Taiwanese one.

Not sure about Crs.

Imperio EboySep 24, 20141 votes

still its wrong to boo and make the whole SK-Squad feel bad... its the same like everyone say its shit to boo out e.g Lewandowski in Dortmund I mean his suspension ruined SKs chance of reall challenge TSM and i think thats enough...

God of FailureSep 24, 20142 votes

you dont understand, he was racist towards the taiwanese, they were the ones booing probably plus people tend to dislike racists, who cares if hes been punished, he is a repeat offender. you reap what you sow.

amardil94Sep 23, 20143 votes

The reason many NA fans boo LMQ is because they feel its unfair that a Chinese team can come to NA and take a spot for Worlds away from an American team. It's not about racism, if it were all the Asian American players would get booed too.

im CrisSep 22, 20141 votes

Why TSM, FailFish. All you had to do was play safe and slow like you did all game. *Sigh

KSHarrisonSep 22, 20148 votes

Nah, TSM was lost from pick/ban when they instalocked Maokai. It was the same thing they had done against SHRC, instalock power picks like Ryze/Zed and get full countered.

The fact that TSM lasted as long as they did was because they played better than SK. There was literally nothing TSM's comp could do against SK: SK had guaranteed Vayne free farm because the Swain pick full-countered Maokai in a 1v1 and Kog can't solo lane; meanwhile, TSM had no one who could handle the Vayne split push after she got farmed. Based on team comps, the game should have been over by 35-40 mins in a decisive SK victory.

There's just no ADC pick who beats Vayne in a solo lane and keeps up in scaling. Maybe Bjerg could have gone Talon last pick and try to snowball. He needed some assassin who could 1v1 Vayne's split push. Or they could have tried a full engage comp with an Annie support or something

This is what happens in Bo1 matches where pick/ban phase is disproportionately important, as you can get countered by a comp you've never seen or expected and don't have any subsequent matches to adapt.

warpedmindSep 22, 20142 votes

never underestimate SK's pickban phase, i think they showed why

Chaotic Nyan CatSep 22, 20142 votes

TSM made bad calls all game and still almost won. But I agree that they lost it at pick/ban and that last call that Bjerg made.

Raise The GnarSep 23, 20141 votes

You say there isn't any other ADC that keeps up in scaling that can fight a Vayne Vayne ... Tristana . Unless she was banned (as I didn't get to watch the game, and haven't had the chance to watch it yet) there is almost nothing that beats a 4-6 ( item 3031 item 3006 item 3087 item 3035 item 3072 item 3026 or item 3102 ) item Tristana around mid-late game.

KSHarrisonSep 23, 20141 votes

Yep she was second blue side ban. I realized after that I didn't word it correctly and thought of editing it, but then I realized that I'm still not sure a Tristana can solo lane a Vayne. I have a feeling Trist would easily win it, but I don't know enough to say. The question was TSM sending someone who could challenge Vayne in a solo lane so she couldn't free farm, although in hindsight I'm not sure that mattered because Maokai would still have to deal with Swain.

Even late game, Vayne technically gets better dps steroids; the question is whether she can get within range and condemn stun.

Either way, Trist was banned.

KazooeySep 23, 20141 votes

Graves could've dueled a vayne, although you would have to consider both players equal skill. Graves burst is more than a vaynes if she doesn't get a wall stun, graves has bonus MR and Armor the longer he stays in a fight, and an attack speed steroid and relocation to dodge vayne's condemn. Too bad pro players don't dip outside of the meta champion pool! It was the same thing when tsm lost to royal, dyrus first picked ryze and got shut down, instead of picking something that wasn't weak early and could have matched his ideal tank champion, (RENEKTONRENEKTONRENEKTON)he picked Ryze because all other teams prioritize him. Just my opinion. Renekton vs a rengar shuts him the hell down man it just looked like a stupid oversight.

KSHarrisonSep 23, 20143 votes

Hmm yeah Graves could work. TSM would still be on a clock to win the game though, and Ziggs stalls so effortlessly it's one of the most overpowered things in the game right now. I agree TSM in both their losses in the group phase rushed for power picks without thinking of comp. I'm sure that's something they'll be working on. The thing with Renekton in this meta is that we haven't seen evenly matched teams snowball finish matches by 30 minutes. It's actually really easy to stall in this meta because of top lane teleport and the rise of disengage and waveclear champs, which is why champions who scale are so important. Except for jungler, every single lane's meta picks typically scale well.

Imperio EboySep 24, 20141 votes

after all these banns against Fredy they finally decided to have a strategy against TSM that almost have to work.... SK was in the lead until the fight in mid and than TSM didnt know what to do against Candy as he was 5/1 (or something) and had second most farm. They couldnt sent Bjergsen, the only one that could kill Candy because if they do, they would lose 4 man and probably the game aswell. If everyone goes to base SK would take 1 or 2 towers from it... they decided to go for the win but LustBoy was bad positioned and died even before he could defend Wildturtle. Bjergsen wasted his ultimate and Wildturtle was solo. The Kha,Vayne and Ziggs damage is to much for the misstakes...

KSHarrisonSep 25, 20141 votes

Agree. WT was out of position too and had blown his attack steroid on the buildings. Going for the Nexus turrets was too greedy.