Blog of Legends
Fansided

League of Legends Worlds 2019: Group C preview – how do the teams stack up lane by lane?

By Josh Tyler

Day 1 at the 2018 World Championship Group Stage at the Busan Exhibition and Convention Center in Busan, South Korea, on 10 October 2018.
Day 1 at the 2018 World Championship Group Stage at the Busan Exhibition and Convention Center in Busan, South Korea, on 10 October 2018. /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
3 of 4
Next
SKT Faker. League of Legends.
League of Legends. Photo courtesy of Riot Games. /

Mid lane

SKT: Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok
Fnatic: Tim “Nemesis” Lipovšek
RNG: Li “Xiaohu” Yuan-Hao
Clutch: Tanner “Damonte” Damonte

More from Blog of Legends

There is no doubt, based on historical performance, that Faker would not be able to best any of the mid laners in this group on any of the major meta mid laners. Once again, this summer, he’s shown a deep champion pool, with some stellar play on Akali, Sylas, and Leblanc. While most of his games during the regular split were on pre-nerfed Azir and Corki, he showed enough in the playoffs (including 2 wins in 2 games on Qiyana with a 5.33 KDA) to assuage any champion pool issues.

Xiaohu is another champion with a wide champion pool, although he does have the weaknesses of favoring safer picks like Karma a bit too high. He can play Akali and Qiyana, but strangely seems to have some aversion to Leblanc, having never played it during the LPL summer.

When we get to Nemesis and Damonte, though, we see two players who are a bit too constricted to their own unique styles. Nemesis, for instance, plays almost exclusively Akali and Twisted Fate, with TF being his better pick, along with some other picks like Cassiopeia. Damonte, of course, was one of the first to bring Qiyana’s full power onto the NA stage, but when pushed off her he tends to struggle on mages like Syndra and even assassins like Leblanc, preferring to shift onto Irelia or Sylas. These distinct styles should run into contrast with each other in an interesting way.

  • Pure power ranking: Faker > Nemesis > Xioahu >> Damonte
  • If playing Syndra: Faker > Xioahu >> Nemesis >> Damonte
  • If playing Qiyana: Damonte > Xioahu > Faker >> Nemesis
  • If playing Leblanc: Faker > Nemesis >> Xiohu > Damonte
  • If playing Akali: Faker > Xioahu >> Nemesis > Damonte
  • If on off-meta mids: Faker > Nemesis > Xiaohu >> Damonte

I would expect the highest priority mid laner in this group to be Qiyana or Akali.

Home/League of Legends