The main regions have been covered, and now it’s time to look at which players from wildcard regions fans should keep an eye on throughout the Play-In stage. With a chance to fight for a spot at Worlds, the wildcard region teams will do everything they can to sneak into a 1st seed placement for a BO5 showdown against another wildcard team.
Courtesy of: LoL Esports Flickr
While Unicorns Of Love come into the Play-In stage as one of the best wildcard teams at the tournament, they will have to face off against a strong Clutch Gaming to try and steal the 1st seed. In order to do so, one player that needs to step up and neutralize their counterpart will be top laner BOSS. If he can have a good showing during the group stages and keep up against Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon while ensuring he is unable to build any huge leads during the laning phase then UOL could have a great shot of beating out Clutch.
So, while the rest of UOL will need to play at a top level as well, BOSS will have the toughest task in the group stage of shutting down Huni.
Courtesy of: LoL Esports Flickr
You knew who it had to be. While DetonatioN FocusMe has become one of the fan-favorite wildcard teams in recent memory, their results have not been amazing. For the team to have a chance to finally take the next step and improve their results Ceros needs to step up. With some amazing mid laners in his group such as Splyce’s Marek “Humanoid” Brázda and Édgar Ali “Seiya” Bracamontes Munguía from Isurus Gaming, Ceros could be the difference maker for DFM.
However, if Ceros is unable to hold his own against the rest of the field, it could be another short showing for DFM.
Courtesy of: Lowkey Esports Youtube
Much like Chen “M1ssion” Hsiao-Hsien for Hong Kong Attitude, Group C will be decided heavily by the mid laners. As such, this will be a great chance for Artifact and the rest of Lowkey Esports to take advantage of a fairly weaker group to take the 1st seed.
While HKA is the weakest group 1 team, they’re still not a team to be underestimated, if Lowkey doesn’t play at their best, an early exit could still be in their future. Overall. with a great shot for Lowkey to join their region champ in GAM Esports on the main stage, can Artifact have a strong enough performance to lead Lowkey to the promised land?
“Once a Jin Air ADC, Always a Jin Air ADC.” These words best describe why Pilot will be a key player to watch out for if Royal Youth wants to make their way into the main stage. With the strongest group in the Play-In stage with DAMWON Gaming and Flamengo eSports as opponents, Royal Youth will have a very tough road ahead of them.
As such Pilot will need to work some of the classic Jin Air magic and bring the team into the main stage. If Pilot struggles, then it could be a very painful Play-In stage for the fans of Royal Youth to watch.
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