Quick Results
- Team Vitality defeated Royal Never Give Up
2. Cloud9 defeated Gen.G Esports.
3. Team Vitality defeated Gen.G Esports
4. Cloud9 defeated Royal Never Give Up
5. Cloud9 defeated Team Vitality
6. Royal Never Give Up defeated Gen.G Esports
7. Tie Breaker – Royal Never Give Up defeated Cloud9
Team Vitality v Royal Never Give Up
Team Vitality (“VIT”) took a surprising win against Royal Never Give Up (“RNG”) in the first game of the day. With Attila locking in a signature Draven pick, VIT found exceptional team fights and outplays versus the tournament favorites. VIT wanted to find early advantages, but RNG punished their plays. Uzi got First Blood from a failed VIT tower dive. Jactroll and Kikis were caught out by various RNG members, and they went down too. Fortunately for VIT, they exploited Letme and executed multiple tower dives on him, one of which crucially gave Attila’s Draven a Cash In to start his snowball.
VIT found their first team fight win at 17 minutes. They engaged in the middle lane, and though it started off sketchy, VIT killed three members and lost only one. The Rift Herald was summoned and assisted VIT in taking two RNG towers. At 20 minutes, VIT had a three tower lead and were ahead in kills. This amounted to a 3k gold lead.
The game slowed down for a few minutes as VIT set up the Baron. The action resumed at 27 minutes when a team fight broke out. Jactroll’s Thresh found a great series of hooks and his team crushed RNG, killing three members with no losses, which translated to the Baron. When the team sieged mid a few minutes later, VIT put the final nail in RNG’s coffin. They started yet another team fight and every member outplayed RNG’s. VIT won this fight four-for-one, demolished RNG’s base as Uzi looked on helpless, and took the win at 32 minutes.
Gen.G Esports v Cloud9
In another super exciting game, Cloud9 (“C9”) defeated the defending World Champions Gen.G Esports (“GEN”). Their snowball was quite clean for the vast majority of this game. It all started with Jensen solo killing Crown in the mid lane. From here, Jensen and Svenskeren repeatedly dove and killed Crown’s Syndra. Licorice did give over a couple kills early on, but GEN couldn’t capitalize on him being behind at this point and his Hecarim was massive in team fights.
There were a large number of skirmishes all over the map, especially around the middle lane. C9 won out on almost every one of these and they found objectives from them. By 20 minutes, C9 collected a sizable 6k gold lead. This lead was utilized in a team fight at 25 minutes, which they won two-for-one and gained the Baron buff. Though the buff didn’t give C9 any Inhibitors, they brought down a few towers.
C9 faltered after this buff wore off a little bit. GEN found a couple decent fights,in the second of which they killed Svenskeren. As they went back to base, C9 rushed the Baron without their jungler. GEN tried to respond, but were too late. C9 secured the Baron, turned for the team fight and smashed GEN, killing four members. This buff did much more. Because of it, C9 quickly closed out the game and destroyed GEN’s Nexus at 36 minutes.
Team Vitality v Gen.G Esports
VIT continued their rampage with another win over GEN, effectively knocking GEN out of Worlds. Their aggressive play style is oppressive and they continued using it to cleanly close out games. This time, VIT started the snowball in the top lane, finding First Blood onto CuVee and the First Tower bonus in the same play. Seconds later, Jactroll secured a kill onto Crown when he ganked the middle lane. GEN did make plays of their own in the early game, catching out some members. They even won a team fight two-for-zero in a 15 minute skirmish. Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t amass any significant leads from these.
Cabochard’s Urgot was a monster on the side lane and found multiple towers from his overwhelming pressure. Just cresting the 20 minutes mark, the teams dueled in the mid lane. VIT won this team fight two-for-zero. The advantage prompted them to go for Baron Nashor, but when GEN contested it VIT found two more kills, propelling them to a 4k gold lead.
VIT continued to slowly build their advantage during the next 10 minutes. The actions started back up when a team fight erupted near Baron. Surprisingly, GEN won it, killing one VIT member. This allowed them to take two middle lane towers. A couple of minutes later though VIT had their revenge. They met in the middle lane for one last team fight. Attila’s Tristana popped off with multiple Rocket Jump resets, and VIT killed four GEN members. It wasn’t difficult for them to take GEN’s Inhibitor, kill Ruler’s Kai’Sa, then destroy the Nexus at 34 minutes.
Cloud9 v Royal Never Give up
NA’s third seed C9 got another win in their match versus tournament favorites RNG. Like their game earlier, C9 had rather clean execution with their composition. C9 started off with a two-for-one skirmish in the bottom lane, picking up First Blood here too. Svenskeren snagged a kill on Ming as well, which led to an Ocean Dragon. They lost the First Tower bonus to RNG’s Rift Herald, but made up for it with three towers of their own withing seven minutes.
C9 constantly had RNG’s number and made great plays. They found a huge pick onto Uzi and Jensen outplayed a tower dive to get a kill for his team. At 20 minutes C9 had significant objective and kill leads that amounted to a 3k gold advantage. Because of this, it was startling when RNG won a team fight at 22 minutes. This gave them pressure for the next two minutes to take down two towers and an Ocean Dragon of their own.
C9 made sure RNG couldn’t get more than that though. After evaporating Ming in his jungle, C9 pushed forward to fight RNG. The team fight that ensued resulted in three kills and a Baron for C9. They took a couple of towers and began the siege on the top Inhibitor Tower. It fell, and C9 rushed RNG. They blasted RNG’s base after finding one kill. They took the Nexus Towers, and amidst a messy fight, C9 demolished RNG’s Nexus to win at 30 minutes.
Cloud9 v Team Vitality
C9 qualified for the Quarterfinals with their win over VIT. The game was relatively close throughout, but C9 commanded the pressure for much of it. Kikis put Svenskeren quite far behind with a red buff steal and invade, but when Jiizuke tried to back his jungler up, Jensen killed him for First Blood. On the bottom side, VIT was ahead after Attila got an early kill. The bot lane pressure translated to an Infernal Dragon and First Blood Tower for Vitality eventually. Despite these objectives, C9 was the team finding more kills in the various skirmishes.
At 20 minutes the gold was near even. VIT took a middle lane tower, while C9 took an Ocean Dragon. The game exploded at the 26 minute mark. A series of fights erupted, and though Jiizuke came up huge initially, C9 won the extended play three kills to two. A minute later, C9 started Baron. First, they turned and killed Attila when he was in range to contest. Then they turned back to secure the Baron and get even two more kills. C9 ran to siege mid and took two towers. They couldn’t take the Inhibitor because of a Jiizuke flank starting a winning team fight for his squad, which stopped the push.
Sneaky was caught and killed in a side lane at 29 minutes, and VIT looked poised to take back the game. This didn’t last long though. C9 grouped top when he respawned and quickly took the Tier Two Tower. They continued on and initiated the final team fight. They obliterated two VIT members in the middle lane and took the Inhibitor. Still they pressed on, killed one more VIT member and finally ended the game just before 33 minutes.
Royal Never Give Up v Gen.G Esports
RNG dominated GEN in this match to qualify to play C9 for first seed in the group, while also knocking VIT out of Worlds. The Chinese representatives blew the match open before the minions even spawned, winning a level one skirmish and getting First Blood for Mlxg. He kept up the pressure all over the map, killing the mid laner and helping his team win a team fight three-for-zero in the bottom lane. All the while, Letme was crushing his top lane opponent, and took his First Tower bonus at 10 minutes. Every part of RNG was winning and they looked unstoppable.
Still in the early game, RNG lived in GEN’s jungle. They won a fight two-for-one at 12 minutes, which gave them the pressure to use Rift Herald mid and take the middle Tier One Tower. At 16 minutes, GEN did manage to find a decent fight and go two-for-two, but during this time Letme took two more towers in the top lane and exposed the Inhibitor.
At 19 minutes, RNG made another huge play. In a jungle invade, RNG tried to take a fight while GEN tried to retreat. Uzi used the Kalista ultimate to throw Thresh into the enemy team, and the RNG follow up was beautiful. They obliterated four members. The last fight came only two minutes later in the top lane. RNG engaged yet another fight, and found three easy kills. The top Inhibitor fell right after. Not hesitating a bit, RNG continued on to smash the base and take GEN’s final Nexus at 22 minutes.
Tiebreaker: Royal Never Give Up v Cloud9
In a game fit for a battle for first seed, RNG squeaked out a hard fought win versus C9. The gold was dead even for almost the entire game, and the many fights were often just as close. Svenskeren found First Blood onto Ming at 5 minutes, and C9 outplayed a dive, getting a kill onto Mlxg. After this, there were multiple skirmishes all over the map. The majority of these fights were even trades, both teams getting the same amount of kills as deaths. At 16 minutes, RNG’s dominant bottom lane brought down the First Tower bonus in their lane.
The Baron dance was back and forth. Still, skirmishes and team fights raged on every few minutes, keeping to the pattern of equal trade kills. That was until 26 minutes, where C9 found a fantastic fight, killing four RNG members and losing only one. Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t secure the Baron. After this, the teams made some objective trades and towers fell on both sides.
Past 30 minutes, everyone was on edge. C9 made repeat baits on Baron, and some fights started but with no kills. At 34 minutes they did eventually manage to find a quick pick onto Letme, which prompted them to start Baron again. RNG contested, and the ensuing team fight went four kills for two in the favor of C9. A couple of minutes later, C9 started Baron one last time. This time, RNG initiated a spectacular fight. Uzi was superb, and RNG won the fight with an Ace. With long death timers, C9 respawned only to see their Nexus explode in front of them at 39 minutes. With this victory, RNG took first place in Group B, and Cloud9 moves on in second place.
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