Blog of Legends
Fansided

League of Legends: Worlds 2019 Group D preview – which lanes match up well?

By Josh Tyler

Hanoi, Vietnam - May 10: --- during the 2019 League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational Group Stage at the National Convention Center on May 10, 2019 in Hanoi, Vietnam. (Photo by David Lee/Riot Games)
Hanoi, Vietnam - May 10: --- during the 2019 League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational Group Stage at the National Convention Center on May 10, 2019 in Hanoi, Vietnam. (Photo by David Lee/Riot Games) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
1 of 4
Next

Previewing Group D of the League of Legends 2019 Worlds, how do we think each of the four teams stack up lane by lane?

With the main event action for 2019 Worlds set to begin, each of the sixteen remaining League of Legends teams will be studying up and making their final preparations for the group stage. Each team will have their own distinct strengths and weaknesses that we can look at to see how they will fare at Worlds. Going position by position, we’ll evaluate which teams should have the advantage in terms of talent and how it applies to the champion pool in each lane that we saw in the play-in stage.

More from International Tournaments

We’ll start with Group D, a group that most NA fans were probably initially thrilled to see Team Liquid in, but many are now balking with the addition of Damwon Gaming. But should NA fans really be worried?

Top lane

Liquid: Jung “Impact” Eon-yeong
Invictus: Kang “TheShy” Seung-lok
AHQ: Chen “Ziv” Yi
Damwon: Jang “Nuguri” Ha-gwon

By pure rankings, this group is a tale of Haves and Have Nots. We have, by my ratings, two of the three best top laners in the world in TheShy (rated third) and Nuguri (rated first). On the other hand, Impact now slips into our top 10 top laners at Worlds with the elimination of Royal Youth’s Armut, but Ziv is second-worst among remaining top laners (only ahead of Hong Kong Attitude’s 3z).

Looking at champion pools, it’s quite clear that the players who have a wide champion pool will have an advantage. Only two champions – Gangplank and Renekton – had over a 50% pick/ban presence during the group stage and only three – the two we just mentioned and Gnar – were picked more than 10 times.

Looking at these champions, I think Impact is the only one that can be considered a standout on GP, while TheShy and Ziv should both be feared for their Gnar play. However, Renekton is an interesting pick because two of the top laners in this group (Nuguri and TheShy) really don’t play him and the other two have been underwhelming on the croc.

  • Pure power ranking: Nuguri >> TheShy >> Impact > Ziv.
  • If playing Renekton: Nuguri > TheShy > Impact > Ziv
  • If playing Gangplank: Impact >> Nuguri > TheShy > Ziv
  • If playing Gnar: TheShy >> Impact > Ziv > Nuguri
  • If playing off-meta champions: Nuguri >> TheShy >> Impact > Ziv

I would expect for the highest priority pick to be Gnar.

Home/League of Legends