Cloud 9? Psshhhhh....

Couple comments here.

First, while i haven't been following the draws, I'm fairly confident we have more than a 25% chance at group A. I'd imagine at least 1 of the other qualifying teams would be ineligible for group A due to regional restrictions (i.e. two eu or two Chinese teams can't be in the same group, surely group A isn't missing all 3 of eu/chn/na?). In that case we'd have a 25% chance of being drawn first, plus whatever chance that an ineligible team is drawn first (25% let's say) times the chance we're drawn second given we weren't drawn first (33%). It simplifies to our chance being 1 over the number of eligible teams for group A (so if 1 ineligible then 33%, if two then 50%).

Second, i strongly disagree with the idea of throwing the kitchen sink at our first match, for any NA team. We've done it every world's and it has never worked for us. Remember (i think 2015) when NA had the lane swap meta and dominated week 1 of worlds (i believe our record equaled or maybe bettered even Korea!) but by week 2 they were already better than us at it. Go 3-0 then 0-3 and lose the tiebreaker game. If we instead threw week 1 and dominated week 2, we'd have won all 3 tiebreaker games and all 3 teams make it out of groups.

Likewise i think last year we had someone who dominated on Aurelion Sol. Take it out game 1 and beat Korea with it, then have it banned out. Does us no good, so Korea finishes 5-1, China still goes 4-2, and we go 3-3 and don't make it out of groups (I'm not sure if that actually happened, but the point is if we pull it out against China instead then Korea goes 6-0, and we tie China 3-3 and get a tiebreaker to try to make it out.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't try our best in every game. Just that if we want NA to perform at world's we need to save our one-offs for games that count. Making a statement by beating SKT in game 1 means a lot for our pride, but absolutely nothing for getting through groups. We still depend on either taking a game off another big region without it (which if we do anyways, we can use the strategy in the tiebreaker OR in the quarterfinals if we don't need it!) or having them get upset by the wildcard.

We've proven year after year that NA is capable of beating the best teams in a game where both teams can prepare secretly. Year after year we've also shown that Korea dominates us at adapting at world's, and the other major regions are often better at it too. So unless we intend to go in to world's with 5 different strategies that are all better than anything the other regions can come up with and bring a different one out each week, we need to stop burning our secret weapons in week 1 against the Korean powerhouse and save them for games that will get us out of groups or through a knockout stage.

All 3 NA teams face their top opponents in first game, Immortals face Longzhu Gaming, Cloud 9 vs SK Telecom T1 and Team Solomid face both Flash Wolves and WE in their next game. Like you said having the "pleasure" to face SKT; the top teams should come as an advantage for NA to face first because it gets the harder teams out of the way first.
Win your first game and not only are you 1-0, but you also beat the heavy favorite to win the group.

SKT v C9 the rematch; gotta go with C9 at least taking SKT to the limit this time, not only do I think Huni just isn't as good as Marin/Duke, I think Impact will actually have his way with him and in general be a better teamfighter. If there's a time for SKT to fall, this is it !
This is also NA's realist chance and best to win or come close to winning Worlds. If 2 out of 3 NA teams get eliminated in groups this year, or all 3 - I'm done with League of Legends, Dunkey Style !

Cause not only will it have been 7 years of being garbage on the international level but also a waste of time since NA has had advantage after advantage over the years such as; Playing a year longer than Korea until they got their server later on down the road. Auto-locked in the QT Finals of Worlds, only to get rekt by Fnatic 2-1.
Having the easiest group until H2K of 2016 in 2014 vs SK, TPA and RNG only to lose to SK on the last day, having to face SSW in the bracket stage. Having Worlds take place on home-court, only to lose to RNG twice, SKT twice, an IWC twice.

And the worst part for NA at Worlds, is the first half of Worlds !!!!!!! Each year, NA is up in some way in groups only to blow our leads.

2014 TSM 4-1 - lost final game 4-2. C9 up 2-0 only to lose 2 straight games, as well as their tie-breaker to avoid SSB. LMQ 2-0 - only to lose 4 straight games.

2015 CLG 2-0 - lost their last 4 games/ 2-4. TSM 1-5. C9 up 3-0 in groups, only to lose 3 games but also their tie-breaker(again) ending 3-4.

2016 All 3 NA teams CLG, TSM and C9 were up 2-1 in groups and all ending at 3-3.

It's so sad and annoying to actually cheer for this and want to be apart of something that's as predictable as say NFL(NE/DEN), NHL(PIT/CHI), NBA(CLE/GSW) for the same winners and for the same plot to unfold, year after year.

[{quoted}](name=Paleo Electro,realm=NA,application-id=9hBQwnEU,discussion-id=LwFEIEbh,comment-id=000300000000000000010000,timestamp=2017-09-29T09:59:45.860+0000)

God damn, did we luck out there. 25% chance for that to happen.

We also have the pleasure of facing SKT for our first game, which, I guess is both good and bad. We can throw the kitchen sink at them, and try to surprise them with any pocket picks we may have. However, any weakness are going to be torn asunder, and be made glaringly obvious.

I'd rather get them first. Might catch them before they've warmed up and shaken the rust off. Further, the chance was not 25%. It was 33% because one team was ineligible for group A.
Here is the math.

Chance to be picked on first draw .25 1/4.
Chance of a second draw if not picked on first draw. 1/4 Chance to be picked on second draw 1/3
1/4 times 1/3 is 1/12 So they had a 1/12 chance of being picked on a second draw.
There is no chance of a third draw with just one team ineligible for group A.

So the chance of c-9 being picked in total was the chance of being picked on the first draw plus the chance of being picked on the second draw 1/4 or 3/12 plus 1/12 = 4/12 which is 1/3 or .333333333

Time to shock the world!! #C9WIN over SKT!!

Not likely, but until SKT wins, I'll run with the dream.