haven't played/watched in months but i'll be tuning in for this

YESSSS HYPE THREAD

looking forward to top lane this patch. hopefully gonna see some tahm kench and kennen (plus all the other OPs atm)

veigar should be super important too.

been fun games to watch so far, was expecting c9 to get dicked on but ahq didn't get enough picks earlier on so they just grouped and sieged so was a nice game from them.

i dont really play but its exciting to watch and fun to feel the excitement

should be some good games coming out, got tickets for the quarter finals in London so definitely keeping a close eye on who gets through.

surprisingly swift (and good!) result out from C9 there today

will doublelift be able to claim his throne?

I'd be okay if CLG didn't make it their goal to make attempts at my life with every single game.

no

fnatic did look surprisingly smooth in the early game tho, if they get out of this group as 1st seed I think they could legit make it to semis

im really excited to see all of the top laners play. there have been so many massive changes to top lane heroes its gonna be cool to see how impacting they are

tbf iG really fucked themselves over with the draft, giving up early aggression, relying solely on picks etc. fnatic just had to play around top lane (which they do anyway..) and it was an easy win

edit: also both teams REALLY fucked their level 1 holy shit lol

I am unfamiliar with the competitive league scene. Can anyone quickly explain or give a link to a general explanation of what tournament is going today, and what the stories of the teams competing are?

http://lol.esportspedia.com/wiki/2015_Season_World_Championship

Biggest League tournament of the year, basically TI but for League.

its the quarter finals in London and i am also going, hopefully i get a decent bo5 series and not a shitstomp.

breakdown of teams:

so traditionally korea is the most dominant region, and china is sort of at the level that it is in dota, ie better overall than the west but not so far ahead as to be totally incomparable. however, a bunch of the top korean players made a big exodus to china this season and so china and korea actually have a lot of parity.

there are 3 teams from korea, skt koo and kt. skt is one of the big favorites to win worlds, they have a consistent playstyle, great synergy, and most importantly they have faker who's the best player of all time. people are wondering if somewhat inconsistent players like bengi and wolf can remain strong at worlds, and if marin can play the new crop of carry top laners as well as his peers. most people believe the answer to those questions is yes, and we will see if reality bears that out.

koo is a strong shotcalling team whose main star players are gorilla at support and smeb in the top lane. their shotcalling and late game decision making are incredible, but they seem vulnerable in the laning phase, because kuro is a very mediocre mid laner and hojin a fairly nondescript jungler, with pray a somewhat erratic adc (although recently he's been very good again). they choked at iem katowice so a lot of westerners have totally written them off, I think they're a bit underrated but still not a mega favorite like skt.

finally, kt is a team that has been steadily improving, and really burst out when they picked up piccaboo. their main strengths are their jungle-support synergy of piccaboo and score, who get in the ass of the enemy jungler and then gank mid hella early, as well as ssumday who many people believe to be the most versatile top laner in the world, with an enormous champion pool and a ridiculous ability to snowball leads. kt dominates when they get a lead but are not great at coming back from a deficit, because piccaboo gets stuck staying in lane and their mid and adc are not really hard carries. they were considered very close to skt until playoffs, when they sort of got exposed. most would put them in the 2nd tier at worlds, capable of making it to the finals on a good day but not consistently.

china's 3 teams are lgd, edg, and ig. lgd is the recent mega breakout team, after taking edg to 5 games in the spring finals but losing. they have arguably the most stacked roster in the tournament, with superstars in 4/5 of positions. acorn is a really smart and versatile top laner who has shown a lot more carry potential this year than on samsung blue last year, godv is an insanely talented mid laner who sometimes goes a little too ham but has an enormous game impact and plays a lot of the nutty tp midlaners like diana, imp is the best adc in the world right now, and pyl is a really smart support player. their big weakness is their jungler tbq, but they do a good job of hiding him in their intelligent laneswaps and, to be honest, the jungle pool at this tourney is fairly weak so it might be hard to expose him. they're a tier 1 favorite for sure.

edg was the best team in the world up until summer season, with a bit of a recent slump, and are looking to return to the top. their main focal point is their jungler and shotcaller, clearlove. he used to be criticized a lot for being a bit too much of an herbivore jungler, with amazing teamfighting but very very low early game pressure. however, he's developed a ton this year. he still hogs ridiculous amounts of gold, but he's a lot more aggressive early and is a candidate for best jungler at the tournament. deft was the best adc in spring, and has fallen off since then, but is still really scary and positionally sound and will be looking to rise to the occasion. meiko is a support who came out of nowhere this year but has been super solid. there is some debate over whether he is overrated or underrated or neither; I think he's prolly around the 4th or 5th best support at the tourney, which is really good considering the supports present. pawn is a crazy mid laner who will play weird off-meta picks and go ridiculously ham in lane; his mechanics are nuts but he benefits a lot from his team using him in a bit of a disposable role, sorta like jw from fnatic if anyone here follows csgo. he became infamous for being 'faker's kryptonite' as he seemed to solo kill faker a lot last year, but I find that to be a bit overblown. edg's top laner is amazingj for now; they used to have a guy named koro1 who was a god at the mid-season invitational, but they stopped fielding him for much of summer for reasons that have never been adequately explained, and when he appeared again he seemed rusty compared to that msi form. amazingj is known for splitpushing and playing carries like darius, so it makes sense, but he's fairly inexperienced so he MAY get exposed by the cream of the crop. still, edg is the final of the big 3 favorites this tournament (skt, lgd, and edg).

ig is the final team from china. their backbone is the mid-jungle synergy between rookie and kakao. rookie is a nuts laning midlaner, who has to be played safe against or else he can singlehandedly win a game; also his mid lane ekko is utterly unreal. kakao is a legend of jungler, who at his peak can be the best early-game and carry jungler at the tourney with champs like nidalee, elise, and even nocturne. however, sometimes he inexplicably just farms, so it's tough to say with him. their top laner zztai has a lot of flaws, but he's really well-suited to this meta; he loves to split push, and his biggest strength is learning new champions quickly. teams will need to focus him early and exploit the language barrier between him and kakao to win that particular 2v2. the weak point of ig is their botlane, as kid is a very safe adc and kitties is frankly the worst eastern support by far at the tournament. they need to just hold their own and go even, or ig will prolly lose. the team as a whole is super inconsistent and were not at all the favorites to make worlds from the regional gauntlet, with qiao gu and even snake receiving more props. their top level is super high, but can they achieve it?

I'll write up the western/wildcard teams next!!!

sorry for the lack of capitalization in this tl;dr piece l0l

Thanks a bunch. That's a lot of great info I'm only really familiar with the StarCraft scene so a bunch of the Korean teams are familiar, even if in name only. Guess I'll have to figure out who to root for now.

How come theres only 6 games per day?

groups are round robin with everyone in their respective groups playing each other twice. Every stage of the tournament is in a different part of the host region. (this year is EU) so groups are in paris (8 days), quarters in london, semis in brussels, finals in berlin.

just dont root for skt or tsm

ok KT's picks are mind fucking me, hopefully this game will be good ;o

edit: nm tsm did nothing with the advantage they got on WT or the lead they had from mid :D

WEST WEST WEST WEST. (fuck tsm)

wow OG comeback against LGD

crazy stuff

oh my god that game

from the showings so far do u think any more upsets can be caused/who will end up winning worlds

Crucial shockwave from xpeke. I think it was the best game so far.

Soaz definitely should change his name to xSoaz.

http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/TRLH3/1001380282?gameHash=eb79747e9c1c232e&tab=stats

tbq's damage to champions...

smh...

I'm just hoping/expecting more big games from Europe, they've all showed up so far. think H2K can take games from the other teams in their group, was fairly close early on vs SKT

also didn't make sense to send lulu mid :/ they lacked so much damage with that comp. would've much rather seen lulu top with high dmg mid lane, vi jungle was ok just tbq... sucks lol

9 flashes in one and half minute. Welcome to LoL World Championships 2015.

tbq and loulex battling to see who can be the biggest dead weight at worlds

and they're both winning

wow lgd completely crushed by kt rolster

poor early game bad decisions and bad comp

please lgd get your shit together