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League of Legends Worlds 2019: stock up/stock down after Day 3 of group stage

By Josh Tyler

League of Legends. Courtesy of Riot Games.
League of Legends. Courtesy of Riot Games. /
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After Day 3 of the League of Legends 2019 Worlds, which teams and players’ stock are up?

Day 3 of Worlds group play gave teams an opportunity to take control over their group or catch up in the standings. Group D’s first round robin concluded with a three-way tie for first place. What stood out from today’s League of Legends action?

More from International Tournaments

Stock up

Baron steals

Two teams (FunPlus Phoenix and Team Liquid) won games that they had no business winning on the back of Baron steals. Team Liquid should be buying Xmithie a steak dinner for his steal on the second and final Baron of the game, which came when TL had their inhibitor already down. Had he not stolen that Baron, AHQ would have had a complete chokehold on the game.

On the other side, FunPlus Phoenix wasn’t in quite as dire a situation against Splyce when Tian pulled their butts out of the fire. Their base still hadn’t been cracked and they were just under 3k gold down, but Splyce had been in the driver’s seat throughout the game. After the steal, though, the game completely swung in FPX’s favor, leading to them taking the game just eight minutes later.

Licorice

I mean, how absolutely insane was Eric “Licorice” Ritchie in today’s loss to G2? He survived a 2v1 top lane, solo-killed Wunder twice, and carried the mail. He was basically the only reason that C9 had any glimpses of hope during the early game and kept their hope alive “late” into the game.

G2 Esports

On the other hand, it still cannot be overstated just how clean of a team G2 has been. After waxing Griffin yesterday, they smashed Cloud9 in just over 24 minutes. Despite getting put in a hole early, Wunder managed to recover and output more damage than any player on C9, Caps was a perfect 6/0/10, Mikyx had over 88% kill participation, and Perkz…well Perkz hard-carried during the lane phase. As good a fight as Licorice and Cloud9 put up today, G2 still made it look easy.

Stock down

Jensen

Liquid mid laner Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen did not have his best game today on Orianna. In fact, it was a nightmare. His 1/6/10 scoreline was due to multiple mispositionings which were punished by a Nautilus hook from Ysera or a stun from Rainbow‘s Qiyana. He was out-damaged by three melee carries on his own and the enemy team (Impact on Renekton, Alex on Sylas, and his lane opponent Qiyana) which is simply unacceptable on a champion with so much poke and safety. Jensen has to step up and be better if TL wants to make it out of groups because he very nearly cost them the game today.

Griffin
Griffin came into today’s game hoping to re-assert their dominance following their disappointing loss to G2 yesterday. Against the play-in team from the LMS, Hong Kong Attitude, Griffin certainly wasn’t thinking they would be struggling to close the game out at 35-minutes in.

Unfortunately, that is where Griffin did find themselves, thanks in large point to a very ill-advised face check into a Sion and the whole of HKA on an early invade that gave away three kills before the game was a minute old. Yes, Griffin managed to claw back and win, but they were definitely hoping that they would be able to shorten the LCK’s slower-than-average game time and gain some confidence against the weakest team in their group. That did not happen.

dark. Next. Ranking all 24 teams at Worlds

Sneaky and Nisqy

As I praised Licorice for carrying, I must also harp on the two players from C9 who were anchors on their team. That would be Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi and Yasin “Nisqy” Dinçer, who went a combined 1/12/5 against G2. Nisqy had a few misplays in mid lane on Tristana, while Sneaky looked like he was first timing Cassiopeia. Both of these players were out-damaged by their jungler Blaber (subbing in for Svenskeren) and had half the damage of top laner Licorice.

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