League of Legends 2019 Worlds: Group A lane by lane preview

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Wunder, G2 Esports, LEC, League of Legends.

League of Legends. Photo courtesy of Riot Games. /

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

While 2019 Worlds kicked off yesterday, four teams still have yet to start their quest for the title of best League of Legends team in the World. After the play-ins, and with the added knowledge of how priority picks have shifted after Day 1 of groups, how do the players in Group A synergize with what the Worlds meta?

Top lane

HKA: Chen “3z” Han
G2: Martin “Wunder” Hansen
Griffin: Choi “Sword” Sung-won
C9: Eric “Licorice” Ritchie

During the play-in stage, 3z played mostly Gnar and Gangplank, both of whom are very strong picks. However, he also showed an ability to play Renekton domestically, so he has just about the entire top lane champion pool locked down other than the newest pick to emerge during Day 1, Kayle.

Wunder, who is probably the best pure player of the group, is also the man who has played the least games on those meta champions. He dumped a lot of games onto off-meta picks like Viktor, Kled, and Akali. While that makes him hard to predict and ban out, Wunder has not shown any significant amount of experience on the meta champions other than a couple games on Gnar.

The same, ironically, can be said for the top laner from the most standard region in the world, Sword in the LCK. He played almost exclusively Jayce and Aatrox during the summer split, never playing more than a game on any other champion. Yes, he split time with Doran in the top lane but given his lack of experience playing the champions that are now dominating the meta that could be a concern for Griffin’s weak link.

Finally, we have Licorice from NA, who played a champion pool very similar to Wunder. Lots of games on Kled and Akali, but none on Gnar or Renekton (he has one on GP). It’s quite interesting that of the three top laners we’d consider the best, none of them play games on the most popular champions in their lane.

Pure power ranking: Wunder > Sword > Licorice >> 3z
If playing Renekton: Wunder > Sword > Licorice >> 3z
If playing Gangplank: 3z > Wunder > Sword > Licorice
If playing Gnar: 3z > Wunder > Sword > Licorice
If playing Kayle: Wunder > Sword > Licorice >> 3z
If playing off-meta champions: Wunder >> Sword > Licorice >> 3z

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

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