BERLIN, GERMANY - The fight for a spot in LoL World Championship Quarterfinals nears its conclusion as SK Telecom and FNATIC from Group C, emerged victorious to claim their spot and a chance prove their dominance on Summoners Rift in the knockout stage which will be held at the Palacio Vistalegre, Spain.
The three time world champions and LCK representative, SK Telecom, took the fist seed in the group in a convincing fashion, dropping only a single game to garner a 5-1 record as they enter the knockout stage of the tournament.
Led by their superstar mid laner, Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok, SKT dismantled the other teams with their superior macro game and individual mechanics, losing only against FNATIC in a nail-biter match while they easily managed to win against the Chinese team, RNG with their teamfight prowess and North-American representative Clutch Gaming with their superior vision control over the neutral objectives.
Coming in as the top seed from Korea, SKT are once against poised to hoist the world cup in their hands for the fourth time after their slump last year to further solidify their legacy as the best team to grace the LoL eSports scene.
With a poor performance on the first round robin, not many people expected FNATIC to come out of the group and many fans heavily favored RNG to become the second seed. But the EU representatives stepped up their game and managed to win all games in the second round robin to hold on to their spot for the quarterfinals.
FNC started their miracle run with a sloppy win against Clutch Gaming, wining the base race against the NA representatives in a sub 48 minute game. Once they were up against one of the tournament favorites, SKT, people were starting to count them out of the tournament, but with an unexpected champion counter picks and FNC mid laner Tim "Nemesis" Lipovšek and AD Carry Martin "Rekkles" Larsson playing out of their minds, FNC took out SKT under 30 mins and people were starting to believe the impossible.
To get out of the groups and secure the second seed, FNC had one final obstacle to overcome and it's name is RNG. The chinese representatives from LPL led by superstar AD Carry Jian "Uzi" Zi-Hao, have a winning record of 9-1 against FNC and Rekkles and have eliminated FNC a couple of times in the tournament in the past. The odds were not in favor of the EU team. The match was the highlight of the day for the fans and everyone held their breath when the game started. With their early aggression converting into champion kills and neutral objectives, FNC got early mountain and infernal drakes to snowball them into the game and take control of the vision around the Baron pit and river and ultimately, securing the Baron objective and methodically demolishing the structures of RNG with a 1-3-1 split pushing to choke the defense of the LPL representatives and after a 32 minute power struggle, FNC destroyed the nexus, eliminating RNG out of the tournament and their inner demons along with them.
With this win, FNC became the third EU team to qualify for the quarterfinals. This is the first and only time all three EU teams went out of groups in the world stage, marking history in the LoL eSport scene.
THE OLD KINGS ARE BACK
The three time world champions and LCK representative, SK Telecom, took the fist seed in the group in a convincing fashion, dropping only a single game to garner a 5-1 record as they enter the knockout stage of the tournament.
Led by their superstar mid laner, Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok, SKT dismantled the other teams with their superior macro game and individual mechanics, losing only against FNATIC in a nail-biter match while they easily managed to win against the Chinese team, RNG with their teamfight prowess and North-American representative Clutch Gaming with their superior vision control over the neutral objectives.
Coming in as the top seed from Korea, SKT are once against poised to hoist the world cup in their hands for the fourth time after their slump last year to further solidify their legacy as the best team to grace the LoL eSports scene.
With a poor performance on the first round robin, not many people expected FNATIC to come out of the group and many fans heavily favored RNG to become the second seed. But the EU representatives stepped up their game and managed to win all games in the second round robin to hold on to their spot for the quarterfinals.
FNC started their miracle run with a sloppy win against Clutch Gaming, wining the base race against the NA representatives in a sub 48 minute game. Once they were up against one of the tournament favorites, SKT, people were starting to count them out of the tournament, but with an unexpected champion counter picks and FNC mid laner Tim "Nemesis" Lipovšek and AD Carry Martin "Rekkles" Larsson playing out of their minds, FNC took out SKT under 30 mins and people were starting to believe the impossible.
To get out of the groups and secure the second seed, FNC had one final obstacle to overcome and it's name is RNG. The chinese representatives from LPL led by superstar AD Carry Jian "Uzi" Zi-Hao, have a winning record of 9-1 against FNC and Rekkles and have eliminated FNC a couple of times in the tournament in the past. The odds were not in favor of the EU team. The match was the highlight of the day for the fans and everyone held their breath when the game started. With their early aggression converting into champion kills and neutral objectives, FNC got early mountain and infernal drakes to snowball them into the game and take control of the vision around the Baron pit and river and ultimately, securing the Baron objective and methodically demolishing the structures of RNG with a 1-3-1 split pushing to choke the defense of the LPL representatives and after a 32 minute power struggle, FNC destroyed the nexus, eliminating RNG out of the tournament and their inner demons along with them.
With this win, FNC became the third EU team to qualify for the quarterfinals. This is the first and only time all three EU teams went out of groups in the world stage, marking history in the LoL eSport scene.
