10 Things We Learned on Day 3 of Worlds 2016
Day 3 of the 2016 World Championship was a gift that kept on giving.
We got to see another International Wildcard upset, games weren’t one-sided stomp after one-sided stomp, and there were plenty of comeback victories. After Day 1, people were making some pretty outrageous claims about the competition, which were then completely ruined by Day 2 playing out exactly like everyone expected.
So what did we learn from Day 3, and what, if anything, should we look out for as Week 1 of the Group Stage wraps up this Sunday?
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1. The wildcard region now has more wins than the LMS. Let that sink in for a little bit. The International Wildcard teams now have more collective wins than a top seeded region at Worlds. Sunk in? Okay, good.
2. The wildcard region now has more wins than Europe. You what mate? Europe, with three teams here in competition, has had less success as of Day 3 than a two teams from from minor regions. Didn’t think I’d be writing that at the start of the day, but here we are.
3. Counter Logic Gaming are truly counter logic. I’m not really sure if I should be surprised or not at this point. CLG now hold the nebulous honor of losing to a wildcard team in three consecutive tournaments, from three different regions.
4. Smeb is actually a god. I could probably do a shameless plug to our Top20 list here, but I won’t… whoops, too late. His play on Kennen is arguably the play of the tournament so far. That kind of composure is the stuff of legends.
5. Nobody can hype up a Zz’Rot Portal like Quickshot. I don’t care what game you’re watching, how long it’s going, or how many kills per minute there were -- when you get this kind of reaction over a Zz’Rot Portal you know you’re getting some S tier casting.
6. Skarner’s viable in competitive play. You can take Dominion out of the client, but you can’t take the client out of… oh, never mind. The point is, we’ve been seeing plenty of Skarner and the Dominion fan here at Worlds must be loving it.
7. Group D is heading for an explosive ending. Royal Never Give up has beaten TSM. TSM has beaten Samsung Galaxy. Samsung Galaxy has now beaten Royal Never Give Up. With all games in Week 1 played out for the group, it’s going to be one hell of a game of rock/paper/scissors to see who goes through.
8. This Sencux guy is pretty good! Speaking of Group D, I think it’s worth giving an honorable mention to the boys from Splyce. This is a VERY tough group, and yeah, they’ve gone 0-3. But Sencux has put on some good showings. While thoughts of making it out of the group are long gone, they may still shape the future of the group.
9. The Worlds meta is actually pretty fun. Teams are running comps without any true tanks. There are Proto Belts flying all over the place. We saw a Nocturne, Jayce is back, and we mentioned the viability of Skarner earlier. Not sure what all you guys at home think of it, but I’m having a ball of a time.
10. The only person to get out of the Group Stage with Pick Em’s will probably be that one drunk guy again.
Don't forget to check out some photos from Day 3, and be sure to tune in as Week 1 of the Worlds 2016 Group Stage comes to it’s conclusion. The action kicks off on Sunday at 4 PM PST with ahq e-Sports Club up against INTZ e-Sports.
