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League of Legends: stock up and stock down after Day 1 of Worlds play-ins

By Josh Tyler

Riot Games
Riot Games /
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After Day 1 of the League of Legends 2019 Worlds play-in stage, who impressed and who disappointed?

Worlds is finally upon us and the quest to crown the best League of Legends team of 2019 has begun. Day 1 of the play-in stage brought us several upsets, wonky champion picks, and one incredible Baron steal. We play “stock up/stock down” to break down what impressed and what disappointed from the first day of Worlds action.

More from International Tournaments

Stock up

The OPL

Tusks up folks! Even though they were ranked the worst team at Worlds by our pre-Worlds ranking, Mammoth was incredibly impressive on Day 1 of play-ins.

They kicked off their Worlds run by pulling off a massive upset over Unicorns of Love, who themselves had just shocked Clutch to open the play-in stage. While they did fall to that Clutch team later in the day, Mammoth still kept the game far closer than most would have predicted before the game. This team goes into the second day of games with a 1-1 record, very much in the mix to make it to the knockout rounds.

Spicy champion picks

Among the champion picks that we saw on just the first day of Worlds play were Kayle, Ekko jungle, Heimerdinger ADC, and Nocturne mid. 33 different champions were picked in the first six games of the tournament, and only four champions (Pantheon, Qiyana, Xayah, and Rakan) had 100% pick/ban presence across those games.

Chaos

Group A is the leader in the clubhouse for the title of the “Group of Chaos.” The group kicked off with a massive upset as the Unicorns of Love dominated Clutch Gaming, seeming to indicate that the expectations that Clutch would easily pace the group were being undermined.

Yet, in the very next game, UoL was equally shocked and lost at the hands of Mammoth, who were considered to be the worst team in the tournament. However, the circle of winning came full circle as Clutch took down Mammoth, tying the three teams with 1-1 records after one day of play. Who is the best team in this group?

Stock Down

DetonatioN FocusMe

Boy, I am really looking dumb having put DFM in the top 20 teams at Worlds right now. The only team to go winless on the first day of Worlds play, DetonatioN FocusMe looked completely out of sorts. They tried to play off-meta and to play standard, but in both instances, they were massively outclassed by Splyce and Isurus Gaming.

Ekko jungle

I mentioned in my champion pick preview that we would be seeing a lot of Ekko jungle in Worlds and indeed we did today. Unfortunately, it was not to any meaningful success.

Four games of Ekko jungle picked, four losses. And it’s not even that the Ekko players performed well while the rest of the team failed around them. Across the four games, Ekko averaged a 10.5 CS deficit at 15 minutes and a 1.2 KDA.

Next. Ranking all the supports at Worlds. dark

Lira’s smiting ability

It didn’t take too long for the first Baron steal to come through at Worlds, but for NA fans it was definitely not a good early indicator for the tournament. In Clutch’s second game of the day, jungler Nam “Lira” Tae-yoo and Clutch made a move to Baron after getting a couple of picks, but he inexplicably smited at just over 1000 HP, leaving the Baron at sub-200 HP for several seconds. This gave Mammoth ADC K1ng the opportunity to steal the Baron with a Qiyana W.

Although Clutch did end up winning the game, it’s definitely not a vote of confidence in Lira that he miss-timed his smite that badly. Against better teams, that kind of mistake could be game-losing.

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