League of Legends Worlds: Top 5 quarterfinals story lines

Mythical Beasts

Yes G2, Fnatic, SKT, and the other usual suspects have advanced to the quarterfinal round. Joining them are a couple of new teams making their debuts in the quarterfinals. These teams share a naming theme in the form of animals of mythic lore. I’m referring to Griffin and FunPlus Phoenix.

FunPlus Phoenix were the favorites to advance out of Group B and did so despite needing a tiebreaker game against Splyce. They might have benefitted from having an easy group draw, but even so, they held on and won enough games to get this far, which for a team at your first World Championship could be counted as an accomplishment. FunPlus might have a slightly easier draw in the quarters since they won their group, but should they underestimate a G2 or Fnatic the mythical bird could become ash.

Griffin was a 50/50 to get out of Group A expecting to battle Cloud9 for the second spot behind G2. Yet, Griffin made short work of Cloud9 in the first game of Day 6 nearly scoring a perfect game against them to set the tone for the day.  Griffin would not lose again on the day collecting two more wins to tie G2 at 5-1. The tiebreaker game was one-sided in favor of Griffin to give them the one seed over G2.

Griffin is going into the bracket after playing three of their best games at Worlds. I feel like if they play like that in the bracket I would be very afraid. They just might go from mythical to legendary, or Immortal with a World Championship win.

Title Defense

2018 World Champion Invictus Gaming had a tough group to deal with against Team Liquid and Damwon Gaming. It all came down to a Team Liquid vs. Invictus head to head battle to get a spot in quarterfinals.  It was no contest as IG blasted Liquid to take the final spot in the bracket.

Only one team has defended a World Championship and that was SKT in 2015 and 2016. The 2017 World Champion Samsung Galaxy, rebranded as Gen.G and competed at 2018 Worlds, but didn’t get out of the group stage.

Invictus is matched up against Griffin in the quarterfinals and  Fnatic and FunPlus Phoenix are the other two teams on their side of the bracket. This draw has a lot of powerhouse matches, including a potential rematch of 2018 Worlds Grand Finals if Fnatic and Invictus both win. A matchup with SKT or G2 will have to wait till finals though. Invictus might not be a one seed, but a return trip to finals is absolutely possible and not really surprising if they make it that far.