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League of Legends 2019 Worlds play-in Day 6 stock up/stock down – an ode to Buggax

By Josh Tyler

Riot Games
Riot Games /
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As the play-in stage of the 2019 League of Legends Worlds tournament concludes, whose stock is on the rise and decline?

The play-in stage of 2019 Worlds has concluded and the four expected League of Legends teams – Clutch, Damwon, Hong Kong Attitude, and Splyce – have been drawn into the group stage of the main event. As the play-ins end, though, which players, teams, and champions are looking good (or bad)?

More from International Tournaments

Stock up

Buggax

Isurus Gaming fell to Hong Kong Attitude in the first series of the day and showed a lot of problems that you would expect from a team from a minor region. They managed to jump out to some early leads through smart laning and skirmishing…only to throw them due to basic macro mishaps in the mid and late game. One player, though, who constantly looked good was top laner Mateo Alejandro “Buggax” Aroztegui Zamora.

In the four-game series, Buggax went a combined 15/10/8, which isn’t exactly staggering, but it included two pop-off games on Irelia in Game 3 (6/3/5) and Game 4 on Gangplank (5/2/1). With many commentators noting that he could be the next player from a minor region to turn his performance into an opportunity in a major region (much like CLG’s Ruin), it’s hard not to heap praise on Buggax even in defeat.

Nomanz

Finishing the series 21/20/31 (a 2.6 KDA) doesn’t seem that impressive, as is the fact that Lev “Nomanz” Yakshin’s champion pool is apparently an ocean since he picked Kayle, Corki, Ryze, Qiyana, and Orianna in the five games today.

But Nomanz actually smurfed in Game 4 on Qiyana. Not only did he go 13/5/5 with several solo kills, at times he looked like he was actually toying with Splyce players. At the end of the game he did 33.5% of his team’s damage and a staggering 1,000 damage per minute, which is almost 1,100 adjusted DPM.

Now, yes he got bodied in lane during Game 5 (thanks in large part to Xerxe camping him), but there’s a reason I had him as one the five best mid laners at Worlds. I wouldn’t be surprised if he also gets a look from a team in a major region next year.

EU fans

I may not have been in the arena to witness it firsthand, but even over broadcast, you could tell that there was a ton of hype in that arena for the matchup between two storied EU rosters, even if UOL hasn’t played an EU LCS/LEC game in a year. There were dueling chants for each team, shirtless men wearing horns on their heads, and tons of hyped moments. This has been the best day of League of Legends action we’ve seen at Worlds, easily.

Stock down

Nocturne

There were three games of Nocturne played today – one in the HKA/Isurus series by Sebastián “Oddie” Alonso Niño Zavaleta and twice in the UOL/Splyce series by Andrei “Xerxe” Dragomir – and all were losses. In the case of Isurus, Oddie rarely used the ultimate to initiate fights, preferring to use it defensively to deny vision.

Now, in Splyce’s Game 1 loss, the Nocturne pick wasn’t the reason for Splyce’s struggles, but Xerxe definitely didn’t use it to accelerate the game, which Splyce ended up throwing. In Game 4, Xerxe just plain got out-pressured by Kirill “AHaHaCiK” Skvortsov’s Karthus jungle, though he did manage to use the Nocturne ult to steal a Baron.

Early candidates for the Dade Award. dark. Next

AHaHaCiK’s smites

Twice AHaHaCiK saw the Baron stolen by Xerxe because of early smites. It’s not completely his fault, on the second Baron his team didn’t coordinate their burst damage properly, but it’s still not encouraging for EU’s great hope.

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