Since NA lost their #1 seed at MSI and who ever wins the NA Summer Playoffs will be the #1 NA team to face potentially a #1 LCK team and a #2 Lpl, Eu and/or Lms team. My question is why would any of the NA teams want to win the Summer Playoffs now ?
C9 is a better team
TSM may have a better track record vs C9 but overall C9 performs better internationally. Every worlds, TSM gets an pretty easy group and they can't manage to get out....
To be fair C9 had to play vs SKT, FW, and I May, and managed to make it out of groups.
I mean it sucks, but it didn't actually screw EU over last year. The only team that really suffered for them was splyce. G2 got drawn into a a group they could get out of, eventhough they underperformed and lost it. H2k actually ended up getting the easiest group out of the western teams. There's still a chance it could be beneficial.
[{quoted}](name=III BAKURYU III ,realm=NA,application-id=9hBQwnEU,discussion-id=HeN3sjlE,comment-id=,timestamp=2017-05-15T02:12:29.137+0000)
Since NA lost their #1 seed at MSI and who ever wins the NA Summer Playoffs will be the #1 NA team to face potentially a #1 LCK team and a #2 Lpl, Eu and/or Lms team. My question is why would any of the NA teams want to win the Summer Playoffs now ?
Let's face it. #1, #2, #3. Doesn't really matter. The bottom line is there are four groups of four and only three Korean teams. No Korean teams can be in the same group. So therefore, Four teams will get lucky and not have a Korean team in their group. The rest will be unlucky and get a Korean team in their group and be playing for a second seed. And once we get out of groups two teams will get lucky and play each other in the quarters. One of them will go into the Semis. Three teams will be unlucky and play a Korean team in the quarters. Those three unlucky teams will be going home along with the loser of the lucky draw match.
Who knows. The group draw may end up #1 G2, #2 NA champ, #2 Taiwan, #3 some wildcard team. G2 was in the same boat last year and got a group that in theory, they should have easily gotten out of. They went 1-5.
I actually just watched that tiebreaker waking up early this morning. I can genuinely say I'm not even mad; they deserved that freaking loss.
But as for your question, I think this will just light fuel for hate/fear among fans as one of those teams will be put against the expected SKT should they not absolutely choke and other more efficient talents.
I don't think any team should necessarily fear the lesser seed with winning summer. I mean what all does it really mean? Equate it to G2's position last Worlds when put in group with ROX. Granted they were chokers as predicted by many and fell out last. But the result speaks to what teams were willing to put up to the competition. The trend of worrying makes it sound like the #1 NA team with the Pool 2 seed will replicate G2 record wise and we all know that's not remotely possible of more seasoned teams.
Don't worry too much. H2K still made it to semis last year after G2 lost the EU #1 seed on last year's MSI. For the record: I think C9 would have done better than TSM at MSI, but we'll never know about that.
A) Prize money is still a thing B) Because worlds still gives prize money regardless of finish (from what I can understand, even g2 made like $150k off it and they finished dead last in groups) C) Wouldn't it be nice to see a team other than TSM/CLG/C9 not make it out of groups?
MSI doesn't really really mean anything and I think most teams are actually happy that they didn't go. In theory it gives your region a slightly better chance at victory at worlds, but it hasn't really shown to matter much and still only benefits one team.
