The group stages at the 2020 League of Legends World Championship are complete. The quarterfinals have been drawn. Here are the highlights from the final day of groups.

With the League of Legends 2020 World Championship on the horizon, the group stage brackets will soon be decided so all spectators of League of Legends professional play can participate in the Worlds Pick’em action. Fans will have a chance at unique rewards this year if they guess the brackets of the tournament correctly. The chance of Korean teams facing each other in the finals of League of Legends World Championships went to ashes Sunday as the quarterfinals draw put all three Korean teams on the same side of.

Check out our daily coverage of the League of Legends World Championship knockout stage if you're looking for the most recent info on bracket play.

Group D Results:

Top Esports: 5-1
DRX: 4-2
FlyQuest: 3-3
Unicorns of Love: 0-6

I fully admit that I was pretty down on DRX coming into this tournament due to their shaky playoff gauntlet performances. Their group stage showed a DRX that was more coordinated with stronger teamfighting and map play. The only team they were unable to beat in this single-game round robin was Top Esports, and DRX played them closely in both games.

Hopefully DRX can continue these improvements in the best-of-five quarterfinals. They've shown more flaws in their best-of-five playoff series than their regular season best-of-threes, but even in the latter, the occasional wonky draft would either win or cost DRX their games. I'm curious to see more of this team considering how good they looked against TES in their losses.

With all of the North American doom and gloom, FlyQuest finished a respectable 3-3 in their group. Is this the end of the conversation about how terrible LCS is? Probably not. The context around LCS' performance, and more specifically each of these individual teams' performances, is as important as the context around, say, what happened to all three Chinese teams in 2015. Yes, there are infrastructure problems in North America, some of which are completely out of organizations' or even Riot's control. Yes, there are other facets of this disappointing performance that are completely within organizations' or Riot's purview. Yes, a lot of the overreaction does come from a single-game round robin group stage where people will only remember results rather than context.

Ultimately, FlyQuest and Team Liquid performed about as expected and Team SoloMid had a really bad showing in their group. North America is still ahead of teams from minor regions (even with those regions drawing closer) and in an odd position as visibly worse than the other three major regions. So basically nothing new to see here.

Top Esports performed to most LoL Pro League fans and analysts' expectations. After watching LPL for so long, it's difficult to imagine a Chinese team, even one as strong as TES looks to be, not dropping at least one match in a single-game group stage. That being said, the best and the worst of TES were on full display - their remarkable laning and teamfighting alongside their overconfidence in picking fights or extending trades that they shouldn't.

Quarterfinals Draw

All three Chinese teams are on the same side of the bracket stage, as are all three South Korean teams. Fnatic is the lone European team on the top half of the bracket taking on Top Esports while G2 will face Gen.G in the bottom side of the bracket. This means that we are guaranteed a final between two different regions.

It also means that we have two interregional matchups in quarterfinals with JD Gaming taking on Suning and DAMWON Gaming taking on DRX. The latter will be a rematch of the 2020 LoL Champions Korea finals where DWG promptly swept DRX in three games. Meanwhile, Suning and JDG haven't faced each other for a bit - certainly not since Suning has looked stronger and more well-coordinated in the regional finals - but JDG should still be favored here.

Quote of the Day

After their disappointing main event group stage performance, I talked to Unicorns of Love bot laner Ilya 'Gadget' Makavchuk about how much pressure minor region teams can be under being the only team representing their region at worlds. Here's what he had to say.

'Honestly it's like almost no pressure at all because when we come into the tournament people don't really expect, our regional fans did not expect that much, because before we would just get knocked out of play-in stage and they'd be like, 'Yeah, that's fine.' But because we made it into groups they were like, 'Wow. That's progress.'

Gadget added that while the gap between the lower major region seeds and top minor region seeds continues to narrow, the distance between the top seeds from major regions like Top Esports and DRX, both of which were in Group D with UOL, is still massive.

Every Game A Sentence

DRX 1, FlyQuest 0: FlyQuest try to make some early moves and don't look too bad even with DRX's plays top side until some questionable lane assignments and a few skirmishes allow DRX to fully take over the game.

Top Esports 1, Unicorns of Love 0: The TES bot lane of JackeyLove and Yuyanjia take over from Level 1 and TES handily snowball the game early and easily.

DRX 1, Unicorns of Love 0: Unicorns of Love fight back in the mid game, but this is pretty much all DRX from then on.

FlyQuest 1, Top Esports 0: A strong Level 1 gives the FlyQuest bot lane the edge and they use that along with a failed early top lane dive from TES to snowball and win the game.

FlyQuest 1, Unicorns of Love 0: FlyQuest take over early again and while Unicorns' late-game composition did get a few punches in, FlyQuest bring their group stage winrate to .500.

Top Esports 1, DRX 0: DRX and TES both focus on Kindred marks for Pyosik, leaving the game remarkably tense despite the lack of kills until Knight lands a clutch Shockwave in mid to blow the game open for TES.

Group Stage Day 7

The 2020 League of Legends World Championship rolls on after Group C completed with some of the most fun and surprising games of the tournament -- not in results but in general teamfighting and execution. Here's the highlights from the third day of quarterfinals qualification.

Jump to: Play-in recaps

Group C Results:

• Gen.G: 5-1

• Fnatic: 4-2

• LGD Gaming: 2-4

• Team SoloMid: 0-6

Usually I would begin this writeup with a rundown of each team, but I'll get to how Fnatic still look like they're the strongest team in this group (even with Gen.G's early-game composition stomp over them in their final game) later.

First, Team SoloMid.

TSM now have the dubious honor of being the only major region No. 1 seed to go winless in their own group. It's the worst performance from one of the four major regions' (CN, EU, KR, NA) No.1 seeds since LGD Gaming's 2015 collapse in groups or 2016 G2 Esports' 1-5. TSM's performances, particularly in their first game against Fnatic on Saturday, showcased an unwillingness to fight over any objective -- an extension of their lackluster turret dive against LGD in the first round robin that made its way to Reddit as a microcosm of NA's problems. This TSM did well to get hot at the right time (in a way, they're similar to fellow Group C team LGD Gaming) to make it as NA's No. 1 seed, but were generally overwhelmed by the rest of the teams in this group. Unlike TL, they were not able to rally until after they were eliminated from further contention and found themselves outclassed in teamfights and laning.

Despite Gen.G's dominating single-game performance over Fnatic in the final game of the day, Fnatic actually look like the most well-rounded team of Group C, even with a few of their own oddball moments and over-aggression. Arguably, Fnatic are the best when they're constantly pushing forward, especially with support Zdravets 'Hylissang' Iliev Galabov on engage picks and the rest of the team ready to support Oskar 'Selfmade' Boderek on the wealth of carry champions available. That being said, Gen.G, who looked shaky for most of the group stage even with their preferred scaling compositions, showed a new side of themselves when they did draft for the early game around Nidalee and Lucian for Kim 'Clid' Tae-min and Gwak 'Bdd' Bo-seong respectively.

Also, let us say a short farewell to LGD Gaming, a team that most LoL Pro League fans and analysts never expected would make worlds at all over the likes of Invictus Gaming, FunPlus Phoenix, or even summer darling Victory Five. LGD recovered from an awful performance in play-in groups to make it to main stage and even threaten as a potential quarterfinalist. This LGD team was a bit lacking in versatility compared to their LPL counterparts at worlds, but even after their play-in scare, they finished about where many expected them to.

Quote of the Day

After finishing 4-2 in their group and advancing to quarterfinals looking very strong, Fnatic coach Alfonso 'Mithy' Aguirre Rodríguez had this to say about his team's performance in the second round robin:

'Today felt really amazing. I think the guys exceeded all of my expectations honestly, no offense to them, but they played phenomenally. Basically, I didn't feel like there were any mistakes. Everything that we talked about, they were actually doing, and not only that but they were extremely confident.'

Every Game A Sentence

• Fnatic 1, Team SoloMid 0: This game is all Fnatic from the start as TSM fails to recognize where they can trade or be aggressive, including a particularly egregious dragon fight that seals the game for Fnatic.

• Gen.G 1, LGD Gaming 0: LGD botch a top lane dive that pretty much hands Gen.G the game... if it weren't for LGD outplaying and outeamfighting them in the mid-game only to try to push for the win when they couldn't actually finish, giving the game back to Gen.G.

• Gen.G 1, Team SoloMid 0: TSM get a strong lead early, but somehow squander it when they don't push their advantages enough, allowing Ruler's Senna to scale.

• Fnatic 1, LGD Gaming 0: Fnatic's bot side completely takes over the game early after catching LGD returning from a Level 1 invade and they, along with Bwipo, take over the game.

• LGD Gaming 1, Team SoloMid 0: TSM's reliance on late-game and Bjergsen's Zilean nearly pays off, but LGD wisely split up when TSM tries to take Baron to finish off TSM's Nexus.

• Gen.G 1, Fnatic 0: Gen.G draft an early-game composition around Bdd's Lucian and it pays off well for them, especially with timely kills in both side lanes early in the game.

Group Stage Day 6

Group B had a few surprises Friday, including an upset single-game victory for PSG Talon over JD Gaming, but on the whole, things were settled for this group fairly quickly with DAMWON Gaming and JDG qualifying for the next round in Shanghai. Here are the major storylines from the second day of quarterfinals qualification.

Group B results:

• DAMWON Gaming: 5-1

• JD Gaming: 4-2

• PSG Talon: 2-4

• Rogue: 1-5

Unlike Thursday's Group A matches, where the fate of teams came down to the last official game of the day between G2 Esports and Suning, Friday's group was decided by the second match.

Once DAMWON Gaming beat PSG Talon in the first game of the day and JD Gaming beat Rogue in the second, both DAMWON and JDG were qualified for quarterfinals. And while JDG's rematch against DAMWON was highly anticipated, it didn't matter after DAMWON secured first place when JDG unexpectedly lost to PSG Talon in the fourth game of the day, removing the tension and drama of qualification.

DAMWON are definitively the best team in the group and arguably, based on the single-game group stages, the best team at this world championship. Things will look a bit different in best-of-five series, but DAMWON have not given the impression that they'll be anything less than stellar in those, either, given the champion pools of their individual players and overall coordination of jungler Kim 'Canyon' Geon-bu with his lanes. Although DAMWON were ultimately not able to out-teamfight JDG in a single game Friday, their teamfighting is also very strong.

JDG are wholly responsible for their own second-place finish. It's up for debate as to whether JDG thought it would be a good idea to pick all scaling against PSG Talon or whether it was a cocky move. The late-game approach honestly wasn't a bad call considering how slow PSG Talon play as a team, but it was definitely not the right move given PSG's team composition. JDG almost got away with the draft, too, since PSG Talon did not focus down top laner Zhang 'Zoom' Xing-Ran's Kayle early, but the Chinese squad inexplicably didn't contest later drakes and had no way back into the game even with scaling on their side.

This is a team that will likely look better in best-of-fives than single games, but their draft and execution against PSG Talon on Friday left a lot to be desired. By contrast, their win against DAMWON was an obvious case of great preparation. JDG are known for their scouting and teamfighting skill, both of which were on display against DAMWON.

Meanwhile, PSG Talon had a resurgence of their own. After going winless in the first round-robin, they were able to draft comfort compositions in two of their games Friday with top laner Su 'Hanabi' Chia-Hsiang on Ornn and the bot lane duo of Wong 'Unified' Chun Kit and Ling 'Kaiwing' Kai Wing on strong carry lanes like Caitlyn/Lux and a rare Aphelios/Thresh for victories over JDG and Rogue.

Quotable

I caught up with JD Gaming support Zuo 'LvMao' Ming-Hao after JD finished second in the group stage to talk to him about JDG's scaling composition that they lost with against PSG Talon. Here is what he had to say.

'In the second round, we wanted to have some new drafts and new playstyles to play against them but actually we didn't manage to have a very good performance. In the early phase, we didn't manage to grab the advantage, and we are not that good at this kind of draft.'

Every game in a sentence

• DAMWON Gaming 1, PSG Talon 0: Despite a solo kill for Tank onto ShowMaker early and some scrappy skirmishes from PSG Talon, this game is all DAMWON from Level 1 onward.

• JD Gaming 1, Rogue 0: Rogue keep things even for a bit, but JDG's stronger cross-map trading and scaling damage come through by mid-game as they qualify for quarterfinals.

• DAMWON Gaming 1, Rogue 0: Rogue fight DAMWON as much as they can but DAMWON quickly take over the game.

• PSG Talon 1, JD Gaming 0: JDG draft a scaling composition that's somewhat disrespectful and fail to contest drakes, and PSG punish them for their first win of the group stage.

• PSG Talon 1, Rogue 0: PSG lock in an Aphelios composition into Rogue's Senna, and with Hanabi on Ornn duty again, PSG are able to scale and have superior teamfights.

• JD Gaming 1, DAMWON Gaming: Well, we know what match JDG prepared for Friday with this well-thought out and well-executed teamfighting composition to hand DAMWON their first loss at worlds.

Group Stage Day 5

On Thursday, Chinese squad Suning and European representative and 2019 worlds runner-up G2 Esports qualified for the knockout stage. Here's a look at the day's action, which included the elimination of Team Liquid and Machi Esports.

Group A wrapup

• Suning: 5-2

• G2 Esports: 4-3

• Team Liquid: 3-3

• Machi Esports: 1-5

There's a reason why people who watched China's LoL Pro League all year didn't believe as much in Suning as, say Top Esports or JD Gaming, and we saw exactly why Thursday.

For a large portion of the summer split, many fans wondered how Suning could stay at the top of the standings when they seemed to lack coordination or the wherewithal to close games. A lot of their wins came from individual outplays or waiting for their opponents to make a similarly aggressive mistake to what we saw Suning themselves make against G2 Esports in their tiebreaker matchup. The good for Suning is that they're obviously playing well as a team, and the worlds meta continues to be a great break for them. In Suning's wins, support Hu 'SwordArt' Shuo-Chieh and top laner Chen 'Bin' Ze-Bin took centerstage, showcasing their skills on Bard and Camille, respectively.

G2 Esports nearly came back in their tiebreaker game with a stronger understanding of how to play out their composition and the help of many mistakes from Suning. Despite missteps in the single-game format, there's not a lot of doubt when it comes to this G2 team in best-of-five series. G2 don't always execute perfectly, but their mid-game macro understanding and knowledge of how to trade the map should serve them well, even in a tough quarterfinals matchup like Top Esports or DAMWON Gaming.

It's another heartbreaker for Team Liquid and North America as the team failed to make it out of group stages with a 3-3 record for the third straight year. This time around was a bit different than the others, as TL were the region's third seed rather than their first, and while it wasn't always pretty for TL, they should be commended for how they focused on fixing their early-game problems enough to turn around a 1-3 start and pick up wins games like they did against Suning and Machi on Thursday. The biggest difference-maker between TL and other teams in this group, it seems, came down to a lack of jungle-to-lane communication (which goes both ways).

Finally, there's Machi Esports. Expectations were low for Machi, but they kicked off their tournament with a surprise single-game victory over TL. Unfortunately, it became clear that Machi really only had one way to win: outlaning their opponents. That playstyle didn't translate well to an international stage.

Quotable

After Team Liquid did not make it out of groups, coach Joshua 'Jatt' Leesman discussed the public perception of North America's performances. Here is a small snippet of what he had to say.

'If you want to be able to win, you need to overexcel in something, and that's what NA tries to do every year. I just want to say, I kind of know how the history works in these cases, and people are going to look back on this year and say, 'Oh, TL didn't make it out of group stage again,' but right now I have some pretty strong words for those people because it just overlooks the effort and the good that happened.

'This was a really hard year. We had a really bad start. We went 3-3 [in groups]. There are other years where that actually just gets you through groups. And the fact that that checkmark is what defines whether or not your whole region is s***? It's just ridiculous. I think we are closer than people think.'

Every game in a sentence

• G2 Esports 1, Team Liquid 0: Jankos and G2 punish Broxah's Hecarim early while getting Wunder's Sylas ahead in top lane, and a mid-game dragon teamfight effectively shuts down the game for TL from that point on.

• Suning 1, Machi Esports 0: Machi go for strong early lanes, but Bin shuts that down early on the top side, and Suning cruise to a win with Bin's Irelia and SwordArt's Bard.

• G2 Esports 1, Machi Esports 0: Caps' Lucian gets ahead early, and despite having the better scaling composition, Machi pick fights that end up costing them the game as G2 qualify for quarterfinals.

• Team Liquid 1, Suning 0: Team Liquid keep their quarterfinals hopes alive with another strong Level 1 attack and tanky team composition that make it difficult for Suning to do anything once they fall behind.

• Team Liquid 1, Machi Esports 0: This game is also over pretty much from Level 1, after which CoreJJ's Pantheon takes over the game.

• Suning 1, G2 Esports 0: Bin's Omnistone Ignite/Teleport Camille takes center stage but it's SwordArt's Bard that's the star, setting up skirmishes so Suning can push aggressively like they want.

• Suning 1, G2 Esports 0: Bin is the star again, this time on Gangplank, and a crucial barrel hit in bot side tri-brush seals the deal for Suning after a lot of mid-game mistakes from the team.

Group Stage Day 4

Round robin wrapup

A victory for Team Liquid against G2 Esports and action-packed matchup between Fnatic and Gen.G highlighted Tuesday's action at the League of Legends World Championship. Here's a look at everything that unfolded in Day 4 of the group stage.

The remaining three main stage groups (A, C, and D) completed their first round robin of single-game play along the way. Here are the standings and outlook for each group.

Group A

• G2 Esports 2-1

• Suning 2-1

• Machi Esports 1-2

• Team Liquid 1-2

Team Liquid's victory over G2 Esports has kept this group relatively close in standings. More specifically, after another win Tuesday, this time over Machi Esports, Suning have a stronger chance at the first seed than they would have had G2 gone undefeated in the first round robin.

Suning and G2 still look like the two strongest teams in this group. Jungler Lê 'SofM' Quang Duy has ended his previous two games up over 100 creep score ahead of both of his opponents, showcasing his farming prowess and Suning's understanding of how to support him. Despite their loss Tuesday, G2's mid-game macro and ability to cross-map trade still generally maks them a stronger choice to make it out over Machi and TL.

If there's a silver lining for both Machi and TL, it's that they're showing signs of life even in losses. Machi are a slower team but understand how their laners work and how to play around them. They're also still good at finding picks when behind. Meanwhile, TL looked completely lost against Suning after Suning's Level 1 play Monday but came back Tuesday with a Level 1 attack of their own that made a massive difference in their eventual win over G2.

Group C

• Fnatic 2-1

• Gen.G 2-1

• LGD Gaming 2-1

• TSM 0-3

TSM are supposedly the first major region seed in this group but are thus far winless in it. Group C's games haven't particularly been pretty either, with sloppy performances from all four teams, including the three that are now tied at 2-1.

A lot of these games have come down to early laning execution and focus or dragon stacking. Gen.G were looking like the default best team in the group, but a really poor performance against Fnatic's bot-side-targeted early game left a lot to be desired. And then there's LGD, who look beatable but are getting by with strong individual performances, particularly from mid laner Su 'xiye' Han-Wei.

Group D

• Top Esports 3-0

• DRX 2-1

• FlyQuest 1-2

• Unicorns of Love 0-3

Group D has the honor of giving us the best game at this tournament thus far: Monday's match between DRX versus Top Esports. In that game, we saw interesting drafts, responsive itemization, smart map play, fantastic teamfighting and intelligent minion wave management. It was a game that either team could have won in the best way.

On Tuesday, we saw an extension of that excitable TES approach -- especially with the way bot laner Yu 'JackeyLove' Wen-Bo was constantly on his team's frontline as Senna -- and how it can be punished. If TES hadn't had such a significant gold lead, there were times where Unicorns of Love catching individual members out of position could have tripped up the group's frontrunner.

TES are now in the strongest position possible going into the second round robin with three wins already and first place in the group. DRX seem a definitive second and showcased strong communication between the team and jungler Hong 'Pyosik' Chang-hyeon in the early-to-mid game against FlyQuest to get his Kindred stacked up in a victory Tuesday as well.

Quote of the day

In his post-match interview, TES jungler Hung 'Karsa' Hao-Hsuan was asked by the Chinese broadcast how well TES had adapted to the current metagame. This was his confident response:

'I feel that it actually isn't about adapting to the meta. Because as someone who has competed for a long time, whoever plays well is the meta.'

Every game in a sentence

• Team Liquid 1, G2 Esports 0: Team Liquid learned from Suning's Level 1 on Monday, executing a strong Level 1 play against G2 and snowballing the game from there despite strong responses from G2 as a team.

• Suning 1, Machi Esports 0: Machi have the right idea with Shen and some good picks, but SofM's Nidalee power-farm difference is immense, and Suning take over the match come mid-game with both SofM and Huanfeng in strong positions.

• DRX 1, FlyQuest 0: Smart team coordination and pathing get Pyosik's Kindred ahead while Deft's Caitlyn continuously shoves bot lane, and DRX fully take over the game after an overly aggressive Pantheon ultimate from IgNar.

• Top Esports 1, Unicorns of Love 0: Credit to UoL for a fun draft and fighting TES at every turn, but this one was all TES.

• Fnatic 1, Gen.G 0: Fnatic hand Gen.G their first loss of main event by targeting bot lane, and Group C remains wide open.

Group Stage Day 3

It was another day of DAMWON Gaming dominance coupled with a resurgence for a few LoL Pro League teams as well as North America's first main stage win. Here are the highlights of Day 3 of the main event.

Group B completes their first round robin

Group B was the first group at 2020 worlds to complete the first half of the single game round robin group stage. DAMWON sits atop the standings undefeated and looks to be the strongest team at the tournament thus far. They've taken down teams by playing to the map. They've taken down teams with superior teamfighting. DAMWON seem to be able to do it all.

Over the past two days, JD Gaming have done well to re-establish themselves as a team to be reckoned with after a crushing Day 1 loss to DAMWON. On Monday, JDG brought out a fun double-sleep composition with jungler Seo 'Kanavi' Jin-hyeok on Lillia and mid laner Zeng 'Yagao' Qi on Zoe.

Renekton was mostly denigrated at this tournament and was sitting at a cool zero percent win rate until JDG top laner Zhang 'Zoom' Xing-Ran showcased just how powerful of a bridge Renekton can be from early laning power to mid game teamfights. He was repeatedly able to move directly through a fight to Rogue's backline, especially with help from support Zuo 'LvMao' Ming-Hao's signature Bard pick. This game why Bard is so frequently target-banned against LvMao in the LoL Pro League.

Random draft fun

Team Liquid were able to lock in their new favorite combination of Twitch and Rakan against Suning with the hopes to scale late like they did during their play-in matches. However, Suning was ready for it and immediately countered with Draven and Leona for bot laner Tang 'Huanfeng' Huan-Feng and support Hu 'SwordArt' Shuo-Chieh.

'We already predicted that they would choose the Twitch and Rakan that draft,' Suning jungler Lê 'SofM' Quang Duy said. 'We were actually waiting for them to use that and so that's why we chose the Draven.'

Suning took control from Level 1 by splitting the map with an invade and not even a chance Syndra Baron steal from TL mid laner Nicolaj 'Jensen' Jensen could bring TL back from a massive gold deficit.

Meanwhile in Group D, DRX prioritized Quinn for top laner Kim 'Rascal' Kwang-hee as a response to Bai '369' Jia-Hao's Renekton and for a strong 1-3-1 composition with mid laner Jeong 'Chovy' Ji-hoon's Twisted Fate. A quick counterpick of mid Nocturne for TES' Zhuo 'Knight' Ding and smart itemization and wave management from 369 were crucial in TES' eventual victory, while bot laner Yu 'JackeyLove' Wen-Bo was able to show off his laning prowess on Senna, even into a Draven matchup.

Every game in a sentence

• G2 Esports 1, Machi Esports 0: Machi and PK's Mordekaiser put up a fight but G2 have a stronger command of the map and mid game to go up 2-0 in Group A.

• Suning 1, Team Liquid 0: Suning call Team Liquid's bluff by letting the Twitch/Rakan through and immediately punishing it with Draven/Leona so that the game is all Suning save a Jensen Syndra Baron steal.

• DAMWON Gaming 1, PSG Talon 0: PSG Talon try to attack DAMWON early but DAMWON's coordination and map play are significantly stronger.

• Top Esports 1, DRX 0: Top Esports put the pressure on and JackeyLove gets six kills on Senna.

• JD Gaming 1, Rogue 0: A comfort composition comes in for JDG who show the power of Zoom's Renekton and LvMao's Bard.

• FlyQuest 1, Unicorns of Love 0: Watch as PowerOfEvil does his best to carry on Syndra despite the chaos of his team.

Group Stage Day 2

It was an unfortunate day for the North American teams while DAMWON Gaming showed why they should be considered tournament favorites. Here are the major storylines from the second day of main event group stages.

Just how good are DAMWON Gaming?

Despite a commanding 3-0 victory over DragonX in the 2020 LoL Champions Korea finals, the true strength of DAMWON Gaming as a tournament favorite was still somewhat in question for a few reasons. The first was that many also doubted the strength of DragonX, whose funky draft choices and shaky series against Gen.G to qualify for the finals left a lot to be desired. The second was DAMWON's own admitted struggles with stage performances as opposed to scrims, somewhat coupled with the unfortunate timing of top laner Jang 'Nuguri' Ha-gwon's pneumothorax surgery which delayed his arrival to China with the rest of his team.

These first two days of main stage competition, DAMWON have put on two separate clinics of how to deal with two drastically different playstyles. Yesterday against JD Gaming, they advanced a massive early snowball by correctly calling JDG's Lillia Level 1 invade for jungler Seo 'Kanavi' Jin-hyeok and further took over the game after a botched bot lane JDG Teleport fight later in the early game. Today against Rogue, they played a slower, more measured style that still choked out Rogue's advantages, taking away any and all resources that Rogue wanted to get onto Kacper 'Inspired' Słoma's Hecarim and top laner Finn 'Finn' Wiestål's Gangplank. They look well-prepared to execute whatever they want to draft and should now be considered a tournament favorite.

N/A

North America had a rough Day 2 of the main event with Team Liquid unexpectedly falling to the Pacific Championship Series' first seed Machi Esports and a Team SoloMid loss to LCK third seed Gen.G. The League of Legends Championship Series is much-maligned due to international results, but typically they start off stronger than this and fall in the second half of the single-game round robin due to an inability to adjust.

There are still a lot of games to be played, which is the best news for North America right now. Yet, the Machi-TL series showcases a few of the issues with the region, specifically where TL locked in a composition with presumably pushing lanes early and a Caitlyn/Lux combination designed to make opponents' laning lives miserable. Even with an early 2-v-2 kill from Edward 'Tactical' Ra and Jo 'CoreJJ' Yong-in onto Lin 'Koala' Chih-Chiang, Machi was able to focus mid lane to give advantages to Chen 'M1ssion' Hsiao-Hsien, whose Syndra took over the game. Meanwhile, Chiu 'Bruce' Chih-Chun and Koala were able to catch up in lane fairly easily despite the matchup and early disadvantage. This isn't to say that North American teams are doomed, but that there are a lot of adjustments to be made outside of draft that involve fundamentals like wave management and jungle communication with lanes.

Every game in a sentence

• Machi Esports 1, Team Liquid 0: Machi's stronger laning skills overcome an early 2v2 death in the bottom lane and slowly choke out Team Liquid for their first group stage win.

• G2 Esports 1, Suning 0: A back and forth game over drakes lead to Suning and G2 trading blow for blow until Caps' Twisted Fate ultimately closes out the game.

• DAMWON Gaming 1, Rogue 0: DAMWON accrue early advantages and snowball the game, albeit in a slower way than they did against JDG Saturday, for another dominating victory.

• JD Gaming 1, PSG Talon 0: After a draft flex for Kanavi's Sylas and a mid Ekko for Yagao, JDG roll over PSG Talon.

• Gen.G 1, Team SoloMid 0: Bdd takes a commanding lead in mid with Sett against Bjergsen's Zilean and despite early moves from Spica's Nidalee, Gen.G controls the game from the start.

• LGD Gaming 1, Fnatic 0: LGD stack drakes early and end up winning a crucial fight in the dragon pit with a beautiful Ekko flank from Su 'xiye' Han-Wei.

Group Stage Day 1

The 2020 League of Legends World Championship main stage is underway, and while there were no major upsets on Day 1, it was certainly eventful with a lot of fun stomps. Here are the major highlights from the first day of main event groups:

An evolving metagame

After a tumultuous play-in stage, many were wondering whether expected top teams' performances and meta picks would remain consistent with that of the play-in teams. Most play-in teams struggled with early-game-focused picks like Lillia jungle and relied on scaling, 5v5 teamfighting to win single games and series.

'If you are a bad team, then it's easier to play scaling than it is to play early game,' MAD Lions mid laner Marek 'Humanoid' Brázda said after his team was eliminated. 'We were really struggling to play early game. You just wait for the enemy to make a mistake instead of forcing a play on your own and it's just way easier to win.'

Humanoid added that he didn't think this slower pace would stick, since the stronger teams already in the main event would be more decisive early. This was proven right on Day 1 of the main event group stage where nearly every match was decided from an early-game advantage.

'I think that we knew we had to challenge them in the early game,' FlyQuest jungler Lucas 'Santorin' Larsen said of his team's draft and early map movement against Top Esports. 'I don't think we challenged them this time around.'

Santorin added that most of the Chinese teams at the tournament are the types of teams who will immediately push any advantage possible and that the main event meta will likely be faster paced. Rogue mid laner Emil 'Larssen' Larsson agreed with this assessment.

'I definitely expected a faster meta,' Larssen said. 'For play-ins it was like a lot of Ornn and champs for scaling. And that's usually good when the teams are less good. But if you play against a really good team it's harder to play the scaling game because they will stomp you.'

Rogue took advantage of PSG Talon mid laner Park 'Tank' Dan-won with a Level 1 gank from bot laner Steven 'Hans sama' Liv and support Oskar 'Vander' Bogdan and controlled the entire game off of their early advantages.

Of course, the longest games of the day came from Group C, which going into today, was thought of as the most open group of the tournament. LGD Gaming (the slowest and shakiest of the LPL four) unexpectedly managed to go toe-to-toe with Gen.G after a comparatively sloppy game to the earlier ones on the day. Meanwhile, Team SoloMid and Fnatic played each other closely, with Fnatic and their Evelynn/Lucian combination for Oskar 'Selfmade' Boderek and Tim 'Nemesis' Lipovšek coming out ahead.

How strong is the LoL Pro League?

The dread spectre of 2015 worlds has hung over every LoL Pro League team since, regardless of individual performance and context. The other, lesser-spoken shadow that hangs over whichever region the winning worlds team comes from is the end-all, be-all idea that their region is the strongest. (For the record, I think the LPL was the strongest region for the majority of this year, despite it being at the weakest it's been the past three years.) After today, the LPL are 1-2 in main event groups.

So, how strong is the LPL right now?

JDG had a poor performance against DAMWON Gaming by their own admission, much of which was decided early when DAMWON called their Level 1 Lillia invade and subsequently snowballed successive skirmishes. Of all LPL teams, JDG are probably the ones to trust the most to rebound. They tend to be smart about their adjustments and how they approach games. I fully expected them to drop at least one, if not two, games in groups with DAMWON taking first in Group B.

LGD are... Let's just say that I'm more worried about Gen.G at this point than I am LGD, primarily based on expectations. I do not expect LGD to make it out of this group, but I was expecting a stronger performance out of Gen.G with better itemization and fewer 50/50 smite fights.

Top Esports continue to be the pride of the LPL, and their victory over FlyQuest was led by a strong performance from top laner Bai '369' Jia-Hao and his Camille. However, I feel similarly toward this TES snowball victory over FlyQuest as I do about DAMWON's win over JDG: In both cases, the winning team was able to push their advantages extremely well off of the back of one or two early-game plays. TES are beatable (as are DAMWON).

Every game in a sentence

• Top Esports 1, Fly Quest 0: FlyQuest goes for an early game look with Lillia, but 369 takes over the top lane and TES easily snowball from there.

• DragonX 1, Unicorns of Love 0: Pyosik's Nidalee takes over this game early and it's an easy win for DRX.

• Rogue 1, PSG Talon 0: Rogue had a good game plan to attack Tank in mid from Level 1 to get Larssen ahead and Rogue rolled from there.

• DAMWON Gaming 1, JD Gaming 0: DAMWON call JDG's Level 1 invade for Kanavi's Lillia and snowball the game after several skirmishes in their favor.

• Gen.G 1, LGD Gaming 0: After a long, sloppy game from both sides and a lot of 50/50 objective takes, Gen.G close things out in the longest game of the day.

• Fnatic 1, Team SoloMid 0: Fnatic receive their comfort Evelynn/Lucian combination for Selfmade and Nemesis, but it's the team's macro play that ultimately wins them the game with how they balance Baron and Drakes.

Play-ins Day 1

PSG Talon's opening statement and Team Liquid's win over MAD Lions

When PSG Talon announced that three of their starters -- jungler Kim 'River' Dong-woo, mid laner Park 'Tank' Dan-won and bot laner Wong 'Unified' Chun Kit -- would miss the play-in stage, their stock was suddenly uncertain.

Due to emergency substitution rules in place to account for the coronavirus pandemic, PSG Talon were able to acquire ahq eSports Club jungler Hsiao 'Kongyue' Jen-Tso and mid laner Chen 'Uniboy' Chang-Chu along with bot laner Chen 'Dee' Chun-Dee, who is a coach for Machi Esports but had previously been an LMS professional bot laner. Kongyue and Uniboy were arguably considered raw upgrades as individuals, but the major question of how the team would come together remained. This was on top of the doubts already cast over the new Pacific Championship Series and whether it would be able to produce teams on par with what the now defunct LoL Master Series had done with Flash Wolves and ahq.

PSG Talon are now 2-0, currently topping their play-in group, including an impressive upset of LGD Gaming.

Talon had a great approach to both of their games to facilitate their loaned players in draft, particularly the first match where Kongyue played his signature Ekko pick in a composition designed to make him the primary carry. He ended that win against Rainbow7 with a monster 13/1/8 KDA (kills/deaths/assists) scoreline.

Kongyue and the rest of the team benefited from a fairly lucky bot lane skirmish but immediately snowballed that into a win. In both matches, particularly the one against LGD, Talon starting support Ling 'Kaiwing' Kai Wing impressed.

Another slightly less surprising but no less noteworthy moment was Team Liquid's victory over MAD Lions. Team Liquid, the third seed out of North America, relied on staple picks for top laner Jung 'Impact' Eon-yeong and mid lander Nicolaj 'Jensen' Jensen with Mordekaiser and Twisted Fate, respectively. Impact had a 9/1/5 KDA on one of his signature champions

The standout in this match, though, was Edward 'Tactical' Ra who ended up taking over mid-to-late-game teamfights on Twitch against the Europeans. His 5/2/14 KDA belies the damage he put out in his world championship debut.

Every game in a sentence

• MAD Lions 1, INTZ: 0 This is a sloppy game from MAD, but Tay's gigantic Urgot is not enough for INTZ to pull off the upset.

• PSG Talon 1, Rainbow7 0: Ekko will be permanently banned against Kongyue after this game.

• Legacy Esports 1, INTZ 0: This matchup was a lengthy one that Legacy arguably should have won much earlier than they did.

• PSG Talon 1, LGD Gaming 0: You might think that this isn't like LGD, but this is very much how LGD performed in-season prior to their unlikely worlds qualification.

• Team Liquid 1 , MAD Lions 0: Twisted Fate and Mordekaiser get through for Jensen and Impact, but the real star is Tactical's Twitch.

Play-ins Day 2

2020 LGD Gaming look a lot like 2015 LGD Gaming

We're two days in to the League of Legends World Championship, and there have already been single-game upsets, stunning mechanical outplays and a team on the precipice of a potential collapse.

Last in the group stage, the LoL Pro League champions FunPlus Phoenix dropped a game to J Team in their first worlds match. The response was immediate and hardly complimentary, with the resounding cry that 2019 FPX already resembled 2015 LGD Gaming.

The spectre of 2015 LGD's worlds collapse after winning LPL summer casts a long shadow over all LPL teams at any international event, especially when they deign to lose in a single-game format. With losses to PSG Talon and now Rainbow7, LGD are now in serious danger of being eliminated from the event entirely in a play-in stage that they were fully-expected to make it out of with ease.

There's an interesting comparison to be had between not only 2015 LGD, who had a remarkably poor showing and spiralled from it during a massive meta shift, but also to last year's world champion FPX, in their loss to J Team. In that game, FPX lost in a fashion that was hardly surprising. If one had taken the nameplates off of their players and looked simply at the team composition (Mordekaiser/Elise/Sion/Kai'sa/Galio), anyone who had watched mid laner Kim 'Doinb' Tae-sang and FPX would know exactly who had drafted those picks.

By contrast, today LGD lost by deviating from the form that allowed them to make it to worlds in the first place: a farming jungle pick and a strong mid lane pick for Han 'Peanut' Wang-ho and Su 'xiye' Han-Wei, respectively, with top laner Xie 'Langx' Zhen-Ying on a tank. Today, LGD instead opted to put Langx on Camille and give Lee Sin (still a signature pick but not one that helped him get here with this LGD team), a departure from their most successful game plan. Even xiye's Twisted Fate, a comfort pick of his before he was even picked up to play professionally, wasn't enough to make up for how lost LGD looked on the map and in teamfights. There's a sliver of hope for LGD if they return to what worked to qualify them for worlds (Kindred and Graves were both up in this draft) but they've made it a lot more difficult for themselves already.

More: Ten years of worlds: A League of Legends World Championship oral history Why ROX Tigers vs. SKT was one of League's best rivalries 2020 League of Legends World Championship regional guides

If they manage to not make it through the play-in stage, it will be an even more historic collapse than their 2015 iteration.

Every game in a sentence

• V3 Esports 1, Rainbow7 0: V3 Esports don't take as much of an early advantage as they should have with their composition, but better dragon control and good responses to some questionable engages from R7 net them the victory.

• SuperMassive Esports 1, INTZ 0: A KaKAO Hecarim carry composition works exactly as intended.

• Unicorns of Love 1, V3 Esports 0: V3 had this in their control, but an ill-timed Galio chase leads to Nomanz's Kassadin taking over the game.

• Rainbow7 1, LGD Gaming 0: Xiye's Twisted Fate is not enough to overcome poor decision-making and terrible teamfighting from LGD Gaming.

• Unicorns of Love 1, PSG Talon 0: Gadget continues to impress on non-traditional bot laners like the Swain as UOL hand PSG their first loss of groups.

• SuperMassive Esports 1, MAD Lions 0: SuperMassive pick another power-farming carry for KaKAO in Nidalee, while Armut brings out the Wukong for a 2-0 day.

• Team Liquid 1, Legacy Esports 0: This game is all Team Liquid from start to finish with a composition built around Broxah's Graves.

Play-ins Day 3

Day 3 marked the first day of solo group play as Group B teams played out the rest of their matches. Prior to the start of worlds, LGD Gaming was near-universally auto-locked as the first seed (and the one who received an automatic bid to the main group stage). Unicorns of Love were near-universally tagged as the second seed in predictions (and the Group B team that would make it out after the bracket stage).

Congratulations to PSG Talon for winning Group B just as predicted, of course.

The fate of Group B

PSG is an interesting story because their qualifying lineup included three substitutes due to visa issues and quarantine timing. ahq eSports Club's Hsiao 'Kongyue' Jen-Tso and Chen 'Uniboy' Chang-Chu subbed in for PSG starting jungler Kim 'River' Dong-woo and mid laner Park 'Tank' Dan-won while Machi Esports coach and former bot laner Chen 'Dee' Chun-Dee came in for Wong 'Unified' Chun Kit, although Unified was able to make PSG's final two matches. PSG Talon drafted perfectly around their substitutions, focusing on strong mid-jungle carry compositions with comfort picks like Ekko for Kongyue. Most importantly, they still ensured that Kaiwing was on strong initiators so he could start teamfights, similarly playing to his strengths as one of the best players on the team. After two wins today including a tiebreaker over UOL, and the LGD collapse, PSG are now automatically qualified to the main stage of the tournament.

Only 2020 LGD could have pulled off a collapse that is similar if not worse than their famous and memetic 2015 ruination in the worlds group stage. At least then they were facing major region teams like KT Rolster, Team SoloMid, and Origen, although by contrast, they were then first seed. This year, they were the fourth and final seed from China, unexpectedly making it through the regional qualifier despite one-sided losses to Suning several times during their road to worlds. While most who had watched LGD all year wouldn't have expected them to go undefeated, they still would have expected that, at the very least, the mid-jungle combination of Han 'Peanut' Wang-ho and Su 'xiye' Han-Wei would get them to the top of the group. LPL fans held their breath after LGD's first loss to PSG Talon, and then the familiar sinking feeling came on Day 2 when LGD lost to Rainbow7. It was 2015 LGD all over again.

While LGD have made it to the elimination portion of the bracket stage, they have only won two games, both against Japan's V3 Esports and one in a tiebreaker. Even in their wins, LGD looked sloppy and uncoordinated, at times far too passive and at other times wholly too aggressive. They've been unable to capitalize on any early advantages, like solo kills from top laner Xie 'Langx' Zhen-Ying and xiye, and until today were drafting uncharacteristically away from their strengths. A lot has to change if they want to beat Rainbow7, who at the very least seem to know how they want to play the game for themselves, even with macro mistakes.

Every game in a sentence

• LGD Gaming 1, V3 Esports 0: It isn't pretty and LGD look nowhere near ready to win a best-of-five against anyone, but they take their first win of the event here.

• Rainbow7 1, Unicorns of Love 0: Rainbow7 picks stronger lanes and takes advantage of a few Unicorns mistakes to snowball Aloned's Lucian and Josedeodo's Evelynn.

• PSG Talon 1, V3 Esports 0: Kongyue and Uniboy again take center stage for PSG Talon in a resounding win that puts them in line for first in the group.

• Unicorns of Love 1, LGD Gaming 0: Despite two early 1v1 kills from their solo laners, LGD are punished for poor skirmishing and Gadget's Twitch takes over the game.

• PSG Talon 1, Unicorns of Love 0: A fantastic early start for UOL gives Ziggs free reign over PSG's turrets however a mid-game overextension topside goes in PSG's favor and they snowball that to victory.

• LGD Gaming 1, V3 Esports 0: LGD look the best they have all tournament in this match (although still not without issues) and move on to the elimination bracket to face Rainbow7 in a best-of-five.

Play-ins Day 4

The Fate of Group A

Like Group B, Group A had its predicted victors in MAD Lions, with the other team qualifying (after bracket stage) as Team Liquid.

Instead, it's Team Liquid who will advance to the main event automatically as Group A's first seed. SuperMassive, who many expected to take the second seed after their Day 2 performances and MAD Lions' continued slide, ended up in third after a surprising loss to Oceania's Legacy Esports, who finished in second place. Above all else, both Legacy and Team Liquid generally seemed to know the style that they wanted to play when compared to their competitors, and this earned them the first and second spots.

MAD Lions had fewer expectations on them from the international community than LGD Gaming, but both ended their group stages similarly, and neither look particularly formidable heading into the bracket stage. A lot of MAD's issues have been execution-based. Their in-game movements haven't matched the compositions they've drafted, and at times they've looked wholly uncoordinated. Fortunately, in their tiebreaker game against INTZ, MAD's synergy seemed to have improved, and they were able to capitalize on INTZ's mistakes as a team.

Oh, Deer

Every year at worlds, there is at least one pick that is all the rage in scrimmages that then fails impressively during the play-in stage because of teams' and players' execution of that pick in context. In 2019, the champion of choice was Ekko jungle. In 2020, it's jungle Lillia.

Lillia's damage is strong, she has a fast objective clear and her kit lends itself to some teamfight and pick potential. Due to the meta, especially toward the end of the domestic summer splits, many of the teams that qualified for worlds from all regions had strong mid-jungle duos or strong top sides. Those characteristics should mean that Lillia fits right in with most of these teams, yet she's only won two games of seven thus far for a 28.6% win rate. In both of her wins, you could make the argument that the teams won in spite of her (especially since she fell behind in the early-to-mid game) rather than because of her.

When Lillia was first released, several teams in China's League of Legends Pro League had trouble harnessing her power despite those teams' naturally aggressive tendencies. Even teams that accrued early advantages with her would often lose late-game teamfights to a variety of picks including Sett jungle, Nidalee and Graves.

Lillia's early game wasn't able to make up for the self-sufficiency of other junglers and their own contributions to fights. The teams that were most successful, like Suning, had strong and aggressive counter-junglers like Lê 'SofM' Quang Duy, who were also able to fight with their teams' frontliners like Renekton and Braum.

Lillia needs a tank in front of her and room to make full use of her kit and crowd control. She also needs a proactive squad around her to build up advantages early, and most of the play-in teams are admittedly slower-paced.

Every game in a sentence

• Team Liquid 1, SuperMassive Esports 0: TL receive exactly what they want in draft, even with a risky first-rotation Twitch, and use the Shen/Twitch combination to improve to 4-0 in the group.

• Legacy Esports 1, MAD Lions 0: MAD continue to look lost regardless of their draft picks while Legacy lock in a strong teamfighting composition with James 'Tally' Shute's Galio and play it well.

• INTZ 1, Team Liquid 0: A few mid-game picks onto Mads 'Broxah' Brock-Pedersen and Jung 'Impact' Eon-yeong give INTZ control over the game.

• Legacy Esports 1, SuperMassive Esports 0: A four-vs.-five fight at Rift Herald goes poorly for SuperMassive, and despite a few early game mistakes, Legacy are able to snowball to a win.

• MAD Lions 1, INTZ 0: A few overly ambitious initiations lead to INTZ pushing past their in-game advantages, and MAD Lions capitalize on their opponent's mistakes.

• Team Liquid 1, Legacy Esports 0: This game is almost entirely Team Liquid from start-to-finish with Broxah back on Graves in a near sub-20-minute victory to advance.

Play-ins Day 5

MAD Lions fall to SuperMassive in historic upset

Not since 2017 Hong Kong Attitude from the LoL Master Series has a major-region team been eliminated in the play-in stage of the world championship. Today, MAD Lions became the second major-region team with the same dubious honor, similarly eliminated by the Turkish representative in the play-in stage.

Of the squads remaining in the tournament at the start of play Tuesday, MAD were the team with the least-clear team identity. Even when LGD struggled, their lack of sticking to what their identity had been during qualifiers could be highlighted as one of the reasons behind their poor performance. With MAD, through drafting and execution, it seemed like they were unable to find a strategy that suited them at this tournament and in this meta.

This could be chalked up to the fact that they're young -- mid laner Marek 'Humanoid' Brázda has the most professional experience and his first LEC season was last year -- or simply a bad meta read by MAD Lions. Nonetheless, SuperMassive had a much better understanding than MAD of how they wanted to play as a team and were the better, more cohesive team in this series.

LGD 3-0 Rainbow7

After their group stage results, it was looking like 2020 LGD Gaming were going to have the most disappointing worlds performance since 2015 LGD Gaming. While this LGD wasn't expected to do nearly as well (2015 LGD were the LPL summer champions and first seed at that worlds, where this LGD is fourth seed and qualified through regionals), they were expected to be a sure bet to qualify for the main event from play-ins.

Instead, LGD narrowly made it out of their group, and the only team they managed to beat was Japan's V3 Esports. Throughout the group stage, LGD looked out-of-sync and additionally moved away from some of the mid/jungle-centric compositions that helped them qualify for worlds at all.

A driving factor behind LGD's success Tuesday was their drafting. Despite some objectively worse drafts than Rainbow7, LGD stuck to what they knew they were comfortable with, prioritizing Han 'Peanut' Wang-ho's Kindred in all three games, giving mid laner Su 'xiye' Han-Wei his signature Twisted Fate when it was up. Peanut in turn showed a strong understanding of where to attack Rainbow7's drafts, ganking by Level 3 or earlier in all three games.

LGD support Ling 'Mark' Xu credited successful scrims in between the group and bracket stage for helping the overall team mentality against Rainbow7 that led to the 3-0 sweep.

'I'm really happy about this game,' he said. 'It really brought our mood up.'

Mark was also a key part of LGD's success. His engages on Leona and especially his Game 1 Rakan helped control LGD's teamfights in all three games. Where he and other initiators on LGD had looked uncoordinated in play-in groups, LGD generally looked to be on the same page against Rainbow7, even when taking a few disadvantageous teamfights.

LGD will take on Legacy Esports on Wednesday. The winner will advance to the main stage alongside Team Liquid, PSG Talon, and the winner of SuperMassive vs. Unicorns of Love.

Every game in a sentence

• LGD Gaming 1, Rainbow7 0: Xiye leads the way on his signature Twisted Fate while Peanut's early proactivity pays off on Kindred, although LGD still look shaky in some mid-game team fights and setups.

• LGD Gaming 2, Rainbow7 0: Targeting Aloned's Azir in mid lane pays off for Peanut, Xiye and LGD who take over without giving up a single drake.

• LGD Gaming 3, Rainbow7 0: Rainbow7 are in a good situation after a rough start for Xiye, but LGD come back with crucial picks to sweep the series and move on to the next round.

• SuperMassive Esports 1, MAD Lions 0: A teamfight around mid at about 18 minutes turns the game for MAD Lions after a strong SuperMassive early game, but this ultimately comes down to teamfight micro, especially after an amazing Alistar combo from Snowflower in a later teamfight.

• MAD Lions 1, SuperMassive Esports 1: Shadow locks in the much-maligned Lillia but has a composition with frontline, healing and engage to make the most of her kit for a win.

• SuperMassive Esports 2, MAD Lions 1: SuperMassive lock in the Lillia this time with another strong composition to put them on match point.

• MAD Lions 2, SuperMassive Esports 2: Despite some early-to-mid-game fumbles, Humanoid's Cassiopeia takes over thanks to strong initiations from Kaiser's Alistar.

• SuperMassive Esports 3, MAD Lions 2: SuperMassive take over this game early and despite some strong teamfights from Humanoid's Corki, MAD fall further and further behind and are eliminated from worlds.

Play-ins Day 6

The near-failure of LGD Gaming

Last year, while in Madrid, I wrote that a shadow followed my walk to Palacio Vistalegre where the 2019 League of Legends World Championship quarterfinals were held. On that day, the two remaining LoL Pro League lineups of FunPlus Phoenix and Invictus Gaming could have both been eliminated from playoff contention. I compared it to what South Korean fans must have felt in Busan in 2018: excitement that could be a harbinger of doom or a precursor to further pride and hope.

LPL fans likely felt this shadow on Wednesday, especially in Game 2 where LGD picked disadvantageous fights when they should have continued waiting for Su 'xiye' Han-Wei's Kassadin to scale. Would 2020 LGD mirror and even surpass 2015 LGD in their failure at worlds? Would they join MAD Lions in being another major region team eliminated by a top team from a minor region?

That Kassadin still scaled, and LGD not only won that game but swept Legacy Esports to qualify for the worlds main event.

Perhaps the real heroes for LGD aren't on the team at all but are the members of Xiye's former squad, Team WE, who scrimmed with LGD prior to their bracket stage games.

If we're sticking with the 2015 analogue, LGD don't match to their own 2015 iteration (who were LPL champions at the time and first seed) as much as they do 2015 Invictus Gaming. In qualifying through the regional bracket, 2020 LGD barely made it through after what was arguably a hand-delivered sweep of iG (due to draft) in playoffs and two losses to Suning before another win over a shaky iG.

This year's LGD iteration has a specific style and focused draft priority (Graves/Kindred/Nidalee for Han 'Peanut' Wang-ho) that they inexplicably went away from in a few of their play-in games while also playing over-aggressively and disrespectfully. This was remedied a bit in their two bracket stage sweeps of Rainbow7 and Legacy; however, it's worth noting that LGD still have obvious weaknesses. Got away with their overaggressive play in Game 2 thanks to a fortunate Baron teamfight where Xiye's Kassadin and bot laner Ha 'Kramer' Jong-hun's Ezreal were able to deal as much damage as they wanted.

But now, LGD now enter main stage Group C with significantly tempered expectations from the community.

Unicorns qualify with sweep of SuperMassive

Going into groups, the Unicorns of Love were highlighted as a team to watch in their alongside LGD (who were erroneously assumed group victors). PSG Talon topped that group, and LGD also made it through as did UoL after an impressive sweep of SuperMassive Esports.

The most impressive part of UoL's win was their understanding of SuperMassive's playstyle -- even the mid Vayne was an obvious direct lane counter to Onur 'Bolulu' Can Demirol's mid Sett, and a strong one at that -- and their flexibility. This is a team that not only understands how they want to play but, based on their drafting, studies their opponents' strengths and weaknesses as well.

Bot laner Ilya 'Gadget' Makavchuk's deep champion pool is something that takes UoL from being simply a strong team to a dangerous one. His willingness to play non-traditional carries in the bot lane like Swain, Orianna and Ziggs alongside standard carries like Twitch and Ezreal gives UoL draft flexibility that few teams have.

Even in Group D with FlyQuest, Top Esports and DRX, the Unicorns have the chance to surprise.

Every game in a sentence

• LGD Gaming 1, Legacy Esports 0: LGD use their strong solo laners in Renekton and Twisted Fate to spread the map early and the split pressure ultimately defeats Legacy's strong teamfighting composition.

• LGD Gaming 2, Legacy Esports 0: Legacy benefit from LGD choosing to fight rather than scale, but Xiye's Kassadin and Kramer's Ezreal still take over the late game in a narrow victory.

• LGD Gaming 3, Legacy Esports 0: Once again Xiye takes over the game on Twisted Fate, targeting Raes' Twitch for a 3-0 sweep.

• Unicorns of Love 1, SuperMassive Esports 0: Despite tools to get onto the Twitch, UOL bot laner Ilya 'Gadget' Makavchuk pops off and takes over the game.

• Unicorns of Love 2, SuperMassive Esports 0: This is another pop-off game, but this time for Nomanz's Kassadin.

• Unicorns of Love 3, SuperMassive Esports 0: Another Unicorns composition that showcases their flexibility and preparation, especially with Nomanz's mid lane Vayne into Bolulu's Sett.

It was a weird year for League of Legends. China's LoL Pro League was one of the first major esports (and sports as a whole) to be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the first to be shut down and subsequently the first to reopen. Leagues all around the world went on a wave of hiatuses, crowdless matches and online play, depending on which region a team played in.

A full League of Legends World Championship in Shanghai, live, with even an audience at the grand finals, is an impressive achievement not just for esports but sports as a whole. Here's how the final match shaped up.

Coverage of previous matches is available on our 2020 League of Legends World Championship groups and play-ins page.

Jump to: Semifinal coverage Quarterfinals coverage

DAMWON Gaming 3, Suning 1

DAMWON were heavily favored going into this match, and unlike last year's worlds finals, which was expected to be much closer than the 3-0 FunPlus Phoenix victory, the 2020 championship series played out about as expected.

Suning snuck a game in due to a favorable draft and some creative decision-making -- go back and watch Lê 'SofM' Quang Duy's tank Rengar when you have the time -- but China's third seed was ultimately outclassed by DAMWON's stronger objective setups and teamfighting. DAMWON play fairly similarly to Suning in a few ways but are just a better team.

The members of DAMWON admitted in the pre-finals news conference that they didn't have to change much between LoL Champions Korea summer finals and worlds because of how little the meta shifted, and additionally that they didn't have to change much from their group stage appearances to the worlds finals. This metagame was perfect for them, and they thrived, just as the previous two world champions before them.

Few players exemplified that great fit better than DAMWON jungler Kim 'Canyon' Geon-bu, who was identified as a potential worlds MVP before the tournament even began due to his prowess in this meta on Graves and Nidalee. In his final game against Suning, he had a deathless 8/0/7 statline on Kindred, cementing the title for his team and, for the first time since 2017, the LCK.

A fond farewell to: Suning

At the end of the summer regular season, few LPL fans and analysts thought that Suning would be here. The expected teams to qualify for worlds alongside the obvious Top Esports and JD Gaming were either 2019 world champion FunPlus Phoenix or 2018 title holder Invictus Gaming. Yet it was Suning that improved enough to definitively stake their claim as LPL's third seed and further proved their prowess in this specific meta behind the way that they played around jungler SofM.

Was TES the best LPL team overall? In my opinion, yes. But worlds over the past few years hasn't necessarily been about who is the best team that year -- 2018 Royal Never Give Up and 2019 G2 Esports both say hello -- but about the best team in the moment during the worlds meta.

The worlds metagame didn't shift all that much throughout the main event stage, and given that fact it's no surprise that teams like Fnatic, DAMWON and, yes, Suning did well. The strength of SofM's power-farming, carry playstyle combined with rookie top laner Chen 'Bin' Ze-Bin's aggressive laning and support Hu 'SwordArt' Shuo-Chieh prowess on roaming initiators like Leona all came together at the right time in the right meta for this team.

Suning's loss in this series, and particularly their performance in their fourth game against DAMWON, will overshadow how much they improved as a team and additionally how well-suited for this worlds meta Suning were. No other team would be crazy enough to go two Omnistones in one game (and they shouldn't) or build Knight's Vow on Rengar (don't do it), so shoutout to Suning for daring to do what should be impossible.

Every game in a sentence

• DAMWON Gaming 1, Suning 0: This is a fairly drawn-out game with mistakes from both sides, but early dragon stacking and a strong performance from ShowMaker end up making the difference for DAMWON (also no more Angel Azir, please).

• Suning 1, DAMWON Gaming 1: SofM goes with his traditional Knight's Vow on Rengar, and Suning's teamfighting Fiora from Bin brings the series to an even 1-1.

• DAMWON 2, Suning 1: Highly questionable drafting, itemization and rune choices put Suning behind early, but a midgame Baron mistake from DAMWON makes it close.

• DAMWON 3, Suning 1: DAMWON's Caitlyn/Kindred combination gets off to a fantastic start and basically rolls over this game before Suning can get off the ground, reminiscent of DAMWON's Game 4 against G2 in the semifinals.

Semifinals

Suning 3, Top Esports 1

A LoL Pro League semifinal, as they say, hits differently.

Suning, the No. 3 seed out of China, pulled off another upset in the 2020 League of Legends World Championship knockout stage on Sunday and reached the world final with a 3-1 win over tournament favorite Top Esports.

After taking down the LoL Pro League's second seed, JD Gaming, in the quarterfinals, Suning upset the top seed out of their region to reach the Oct. 31 final at Pudong Stadium, where they'll face South Korean squad DAMWON Gaming for the international title.

Here's how Suning, once considered a team with an outside at the League of Legends World Championship, managed to tear up everyone's bracket.

While many will (rightfully) talk about how awful some of these drafts were, especially in the first game of this series, which set the tone for the rest, whenever two LPL teams meet each other on the international stage, a series feels different. Suddenly, the draft changes. Even if teams stick to their respective playstyles, they play faster and looser within those styles.

Suning's win over Top Esports on Sunday was this type of matchup. It was also a testament to just how much Suning have grown as a team since they were swept by TES in the LPL summer playoffs.

The worlds meta suits Suning much more than it did Top Esports, which was exemplified by both of these teams' respective quarterfinals matches. There, Suning had to go through the LPL's No. 2 seed in JD Gaming and looked much more comfortable in how they played around jungler Lê Quang Duy. Mid laner Xiang 'Angel' Tao, who was mediocre throughout most of the season, leveled up to a world-class mid laner. Chen 'Bin' Ze-Bin had already impressed in groups but was showcasing a larger champion pool than previously thought, and his aggressive laning style made things difficult for opponents -- even JDG's Zhang 'Zoom' Xing-Ran, who is a stronger and more experienced laner. The Suning bot lane of Tang 'huanfeng' Huan-Feng and Hu 'SwordArt' Shuo-Chieh appeared ready to take on anyone.

Meanwhile, TES were rightfully lauded for their mental fortitude and adjustments around jungler Hung 'Karsa' Hao-Hsuan to reverse-sweep Fnatic (another team that was more suited to the current meta than TES) in their quarterfinal but looked shaky.

If there's one key takeaway from any of this, it's that this Suning team is not the same Suning team that lost to TES in playoffs. They're also not even the same Suning team we saw take the first seed out of Group A. This Suning team has shown throughout their best-of-fives, knocking out both of their LPL brethren en route to the worlds final, that they are flexible within the framework of the current meta in a way that few teams are.

A lot of the LPL's recent success has come from their teams hitting a meta at the exact right time. This year, Suning is that team.

A fond farewell to: Top Esports

I fully expected Top Esports to go through. Similarly, I expected JD Gaming to face them in the semifinals. In both cases, Suning proved me wrong.

The story of this TES team is an interesting one. With the addition of Yu 'JackeyLove' Wen-Bo in the bot lane late spring as the coronavirus pandemic was beginning to clear up in China, TES went on a tear. The team nearly won the spring finals, took the Mid-Season Cup and razed through summer to win their first LPL title.

This is a roster made of stars that relied on besting their opponents in lane and 5v5 teamfights. They were fun and explosive to watch all year, particularly as the team became more coordinated between spring and summer. There's a reason why they were heavily favored as a worlds finalist or winner, but the meta shift away from them made just enough of a difference for Suning to advance.

Quotable

Sometimes in competition, we find that the face staring back at us from across the table, room or digitally behind a screen, is a close friend. Sunday was not only a marquee matchup between TES and Suning but a reunion of former Flash Wolves teammates and close friends SwordArt and Karsa.

Both of them toiled away on Flash Wolves in the now-defunct LoL Master Series before going to mainland China's LoL Pro League. The two talked about how emotional it was to face each other prior to the series, spammed Flash Wolves emotes at each other in game, and after it was over, Karsa nearly threw himself into SwordArt's arms for a hug in the end game receiving line. Karsa had been clear in pre-match interviews that regardless of who won, he wanted them to take the entire thing.

In the post-match press conference, he wished this for his former teammates and friend.

'I really hope that he can grab the win and also make his dreams come true.'

Every game in a sentence

• Suning 1, Top Esports 0: Suning turn the tables after a crucial dragon fight and overcome TOP Esports despite TES' bot lane advantages.

• Top Esports 1, Suning 1: A shaky start for TES ends up turning out alright thanks to 369 PvE-ing half of the game to accrue advantages, another strong performance from Knight and some clutch Lee Sin kicks from Karsa.

• Suning 2, Top Esports 1: The top lane matchup swings heavily in Bin's favor after multiple mistakes from 369 and TES, and while TES do make things interesting behind Karsa's Lee Sin, this game is Suning's.

• Suning 3, Top Esports 1: TES look better in this game, but Suning still overtake them with Angel's impressive Akali performance.

DAMWON Gaming 3, G2 Esports 1

DAMWON Gaming became the first South Korean team to make the League of Legends World Championship final since 2017 and took down the G2 Esports team that eliminated DAMWON last year with a 3-1 win on Saturday in Shanghai.

The win came with the fastest game in League of Legends World Championship history, with DAMWON shutting the door on G2 around the 19-minute mark in a decisive Game 4.

When G2 Esports met DAMWON Gaming in 2019, G2 were a few series away from completing the Royal Road: winning every major event that they participated in domestically and internationally. DAMWON were an upstart LoL Champions Korea team that provided a beacon of hope for the LCK after South Korean teams had struggled internationally following their 2018 worlds collapse. Like Griffin before them, DAMWON came to 2019 worlds with the hope that a younger, aggressive team was more suitable to the current meta.

Although G2 did not complete their Royal Road, they did overwhelm DAMWON in the quarterfinals with a similar 3-1 scoreline to what we saw Friday. DAMWON didn't have answers for Luka 'Perkz' Perković and Rasmus 'Caps' Winther's champion flexibility. In particular, then-starting bot laner Sin 'Nuclear' Jeong-hyeon was completely outclassed by Perkz.

Fast-forward to this year, where DAMWON players like mid laner Heo 'ShowMaker' Su have talked about how much they want this rematch with G2 Esports to prove how much they've grown in a year. Bot laner Jang 'Ghost' Yong-jun was a much more stable fit for the team in 2020 and took on a shot-calling role, while support Cho 'BeryL' Geon-hee evolved into an aggressive innovator. ShowMaker himself improved significantly and, most importantly, DAMWON's jungle-focused playstyle around Kim 'Canyon' Geon-bu suited DAMWON much better than the efforts G2 made to play around Marcin 'Jankos' Jankowski.

DAMWON put together a highlight reel during this series, but the best one is definitely the fervor with which they attack G2's Nexus with the Rift Herald in Game 4 to firmly shut the door on G2 in under 19 minutes. This was a team that desperately wanted to prove that they were now better than G2, that they had shed their mental hangups of 2019, and they proved themselves convincingly.

A fond farewell to: G2 Esports

Despite winning both LEC splits again this year, it's not been the best season for G2 Esports.

Europe's No. 1 seed looked remarkably shaky in both of their regular seasons, with the initial swap of Caps to the bot lane and Perkz back to the mid lane not working nearly as well as Perkz in the AD carry role. The LEC was also full of rising teams like MAD Lions and Rogue who were starting to look like threats to LEC stalwarts G2 and Fnatic. All of this was forgotten and erased with G2's LEC summer final performance and arrival at worlds. This was G2. Of course they would be a title contender.

In groups, G2 were one tiebreaker away from coming out as the top seed. Yet their matchup against Suning pointed out the different trajectories that both teams were taking at this worlds. G2 looked less comfortable with how to play around their jungler than Suning, who have the perfect unit of five to excel in this meta, especially jungler Lê 'SofM' Quang Duy. Jankos and G2 seemed to have solved this to some extent in their 3-0 quarterfinal drubbing of Gen.G Esports, but looking back on that series now, it's difficult to consider Gen.G as a particularly formidable opponent.

G2 are still one of the strongest teams in the world. Their mid-game cross-map play continues to be the best of any team in the world. Yet on Saturday, they were outclassed by a DAMWON Gaming team that, again, suits the current meta a lot more with the way that they play around Canyon.

With a finals appearance in 2018 and three consecutive semifinal appearances, this five-man unit of G2 is something very special, and I hope this isn't the last time we see them together on an international stage.

Quotable

After the series ended, G2 weighed in on what happened against DAMWON and how DAMWON had improved from the previous year. Here's what Perkz had to say.

'I think this year the meta favors them much more than it did last year. I think that this year they, and the Asian teams in general, they've been playing ever since summer split started these farm junglers and junglers that power-farm, and teams play around them and around objectives more than other teams. They were just very, very good at what they were doing for a few months already, whereas we did not start playing it until worlds bootcamp. We were a few months behind other teams.'

Every game in a sentence

• DAMWON Gaming 1, G2 Esports 0: A few early mistakes put G2's more early-game-focused composition behind, and DAMWON takes over in the mid game.

• G2 Esports 1, DAMWON Gaming 1: DAMWON pick Fiora for a split-push composition but enter disadvantageous fights and skirmishes mid-game without optimizing their split-push pressure.

• DAMWON Gaming 2, G2 Esports 1: Ghost's Ashe gets two kills early after a G2 dive, and DAMWON snowball the game from there with Lulu shields and a Mountain soul.

• DAMWON Gaming 3, G2 Esports 1: This game is all DAMWON from the get-go with Showmaker's 1v1 kill onto Caps and a 19-minute victory that nearly ends with a Rift Herald on G2's Nexus.

Quarterfinals

G2 Esports 3, Gen.G 0

After two exciting quarterfinal matchups in JD Gaming vs. Suning and Top Esports vs. Fnatic, the League of Legends World Championship returned to a quick 3-0 stomp, with G2 Esports defeating Gen.G in a match reminiscent of DAMWON Gaming's utter destruction of DRX in the first quarterfinals series.

G2 advanced to face South Korean squad DAMWON Gaming at 6 a.m. ET on Oct. 24 in a rematch of the 2019 worlds quarterfinal, while China's LoL Pro League contenders, Top Esports and Suning, will square off at 6 a.m. ET on Oct. 25 in the second semifinal.

The end result of this series was always going to be an interesting semifinals narrative. Either we would receive the LoL Champions Korea summer finals we thought we would have between DAMWON Gaming and Gen.G, or there would be a rematch of last year's quarterfinals between G2 Esports and DAMWON. Since DAMWON players have been pretty vocal about G2 living somewhat rent-free in their heads despite their domestic success, it's great to see that we will end up getting this semifinals match in a week.

As for the games themselves, G2 looked much more prepared for the current metagame and brought their superior understanding of cross-map trading and mid-game wave management, skirmishing and lane assignments. Interestingly enough, G2 tend to make more mistakes early but overcome them almost immediately with a remarkably strong and intelligent mid game.

In this series, G2 were off to an excellent start from the first match where their pick composition was designed around Twisted Fate, Pantheon and Jhin. Gen.G were relegated to having to throw Taric in with their Kalista ultimate just to try to get a good 5v5 engage that their composition desperately needed. The series didn't improve for Gen.G after that, although they did show a few signs of life in Game 3, where bot laner Park 'Ruler' Jae-hyuk was visibly trying as hard as he could on Ezreal to at least drag his team to a fourth game.

The obvious player of the game was Rasmus 'Caps' Winther, who amassed a 56 Kills + Assists in the series, the most of any player at worlds since 2015 KOO Tigers mid laner Lee 'Kuro' Seo-haeng. His overall KDA for all three games was 14.

A fond farewell to: Gen.G

It's sad to see Gen.G go out like this, especially with South Korea's third seed in DRX leaving in a similar 3-0 fashion. One of the questions surrounding the three LCK teams at this year's world championship was whether the LCK had improved as a whole, or whether it was just DWG rising to become one of the world's best teams.

We now have that answer -- although it's somewhat skewed by the fact that DWG knocked out their LCK brethren in DRX -- and it's DWG who appear significantly ahead of the rest of their region.

Neither Gen.G nor G2 seemed particularly well-suited to the current meta going into this series -- certainly not as much as other teams like DWG, Fnatic and Suning. However, Gen.G didn't really seem to adjust their more standard, bot-lane-focused approach and play around jungler Kim 'Clid' Tae-min in a similar way that Suning or Fnatic have played around Lê 'SofM' Quang Duy and Oskar 'Selfmade' Boderek respectively. They were also unable to pivot to the facilitator role that Top Esports' Hung 'Karsa' Hao-Hsuan took on in TES' reverse sweep of Fnatic on Saturday.

Quotable

Despite G2's struggles this year, bot laner Luka 'Perkz' Perković asserted that this G2 team is even stronger than last year's and 2018. He, like DAMWON, has been waiting for their rematch. Here's what he had to say in the post-game press conference.

'I'm not entirely sure how to tell them but I saw some interview with ShowMaker where he was talking a bit about how much he wants to beat G2 and how he wishes that we won against Gen.G so he doesn't care if there is one LCK team in the finals for sure he wants to beat us really badly. But I feel sorry for LCK that they will not have one LCK team in the finals.'

Every game in a sentence

• G2 Esports 1, Gen.G 0: Gen.G lock in a 5v5 composition but lack engage while G2 are able to play around that easily with globals to avoid fights.

• G2 Esports 2, Gen.G 0: Gen.G try to pick a composition more like G2's, but G2 have a significantly stronger mid game and better skirmishing.

• G2 Esports 3, Gen.G 0: Ruler tries his hardest to drag Gen.G to a fourth game, but this game is also almost entirely G2.

Top Esports 3, Fnatic 2

Top Esports' nail-biting 3-2 victory over Fnatic on Saturday in Shanghai became the first-ever reverse sweep in League of Legends World Championship history.

Here's how it happened, a look back at Fnatic's performance throughout worlds and a quick breakdown of each match of the historic series.

Although Top Esports were, and still are, a favorite to win the world championship as China's No. 1 seed, there should be a small shadow of doubt after this series as TES looked more disorganized than in the single-game group stage. Fnatic, meanwhile were visibly ramping up after a rocky start and slight meta misread. Once they became comfortable in the current meta, they looked unstoppable with strong Level 1's and focused drafts around jungler Oskar 'Selfmade' Boderek as one of the team's primary carries.

In their first two games against TES, Fnatic had full control of the bot side of the map, continuously making plays after their first reset and ensuring that Martin 'Rekkles' Larsson and Zdravets 'Hylissang' Iliev Galabov were ahead of Yu 'JackeyLove' Wen-Bo and Liang 'Yuyanjia' Jia-Yuan. Once TES' bot lane collapsed, even with any advantages they may have been able to get in mid or top, TES struggled in teamfights and frequently took them without thought to setup.

TES started turning the series around when they put jungler Hung 'Karsa' Hao-Hsuan on Lee Sin and Nidalee to make more plays in the early game. Even when their bot lane fell behind early, Karsa was able to make an impact elsewhere on the map to get other lanes, particularly Zhuo 'Knight' Ding's mid lane, ahead. Once TES were making more proactive plays early, even with a scaling draft like they had in Game 5, they were able to take teamfights much better and adjust to how Fnatic wanted to play around Rekkles and Selfmade.

Perhaps the most impressive part of TES' victory is how they kept their cool, even after two disappointing losses to start the series.

A fond farewell to: Fnatic

Prior to this series, I had said that Fnatic was more well-suited to this meta because of the way they play around jungle and that they matched up well with TES because of how strong Hylissang is, while rookie Yuyanjia is in still developing as a support.

Lol Worlds Quarterfinals Bracket Odds

In their first two games Saturday, the Fnatic bot lane proved the latter point and showcased just how strong they were. Fnatic also had a strong understanding of when to make plays after resetting early to get themselves ahead, earning nearly all of the First Bloods in every single one of their matches. This Fnatic team grew significantly stronger as they learned how to better play around Selfmade this summer, and they should hold their heads high even in the face of this loss.

Quotable

After some tremendous bot lane performances with Hylissang, Rekkles was asked to reflect on his performances against TES and at this world championship. Here's what he had to say.

'I'm really happy how we were able to show, yet again, our strength as a duo on the international stage and I think it's something we've managed previous years too, but it's nice to see that we've still got it year after year so that part I'm happy about. But I think still, no one will really remember how we played today. I don't think it will be OK, in a way, to lose because of this. A loss is a loss, and a win is a win, so in a week from now or a month from now, I don't know when I'll be looking back at this, but I still think I'll feel very disappointed with what I managed to do today.'

Every map in a sentence

• Fnatic 1, Top Esports 0: Everyone will be talk about Bwipo's Singed, but it's Hylissang that makes the massive difference for Fnatic, both in the 2v2 and outside of lane.

• Fnatic 2, Top Esports 0: Another game where Fnatic play significantly better around their bottom lane and Hylissang is stronger than Yuyanjia.

• Top Esports 1, Fnatic 2: With Karsa taking over with Lee Sin and TES' bot lane doing better, TES are able to snowball their early lead despite greedy mid-game mistakes.

• Top Esports 2, Fnatic 2: Although Fnatic continue their bot lane dominance, Karsa's Nidalee takes over the game, Knight accrues a significant advantage on Jayce, and 369 soaks up all of Fnatic's damage in teamfights.

• Top Esports 3, Fnatic 2: Once again, Karsa's Lee Sin makes moves early, and Yuyanjia redeems himself for his earlier performances as TES' composition snowballs to a reverse-sweep victory.

Suning 3, JD Gaming 1

Another regional rivalry took center stage in the 2020 League of Legends World Championship quarterfinals on Friday. Following the repeat of the 2020 LoL Champions Korea summer finals on Thursday, Chinese squads JD Gaming and Suning faced off in an all-LoL Pro League showdown.

The results did not necessarily go as expected, with Suning not only besting JD Gaming 3-1 but doing so convincingly through strong teamfighting and skirmishes.

Unlike DAMWON Gaming's series against DRX, where the two teams had played each other recently and DAMWON quickly stomped their opponent 3-0, Suning had not met JD Gaming since the second week of the LPL summer split.

Back then, it was a JDG 2-0 that Suning arguably should have won, but Suning were still in the beginning stages of building the team that is currently on the worlds stage; JDG also had a good understanding of how to stop Suning with vision control and flanks from top laner Zhang 'Zoom' Xing-Ran or mid laner Zeng 'Yagao' Qi.

That approach was what was expected from this series as well. Despite the fact that Suning had arguably looked better in groups -- something that could also be attributed to not having DAMWON in their group -- and were well-suited to the current metagame, JDG presumably had the upper hand in this series.

They didn't.

Instead, we had the rare, shining moment where a much-lauded rookie player steps into the international spotlight and exceeds expectations in the best way. Most fans already knew of Suning bot laner Tang 'huanfeng' Huan-Feng's incredible journey to get to worlds thanks to an interview by the LPL broadcast team, but on Friday, he fully embraced his role as the LPL's best up-and-coming bot laner.

Huanfeng's Jhin in particular was remarkable, and he cemented his place as a king among Jhin enthusiasts with an ultimate from inside JDG's base during Game 2 that went viral on multiple social media platforms.

Suning's win was also a testament to jungler Lê 'SofM' Quang Duy and support Hu 'SwordArt' Shuo-Chieh's veteran leadership on the team, something that rookie top laner Chen 'Bin' Ze-Bin has cited as the reason why Suning are such a strong squad right now.

A fond farewell to: JD Gaming

For the majority of the year, JDG were one of, if not the LPL's best teams. They were smart, well-coordinated, drafted around their players' obvious strengths and weaknesses, and supplemented this with remarkable 5v5 teamfighting.

Even in their quarterfinals loss to Suning, there were several times where JDG's group engages were clearly better, and if they had a lead (especially in Game 3, which was pretty much over for JDG once Bin's Gangplank got a Level 1 double-kill and took a Sheen to the top lane) at those times, they would have won those fights.

Although they won't be moving on at worlds this year, 2020 JDG were a special team to watch and should still be remembered as one of the LPL's best.

Lol Worlds Quarterfinals Bracket Finals

Quotable

Although huanfeng was the star of Suning on Friday, SwordArt's efforts in helping lead this team and his direct involvement in huanfeng's improvement should never be overlooked, especially since this is the furthest he has gone at worlds in his own career. The support had this to say about huanfeng's growth.

'Huanfeng is a very hard-working player, and I think he made a lot of improvements in communications and also in terms of our synergy. Now he really immerses himself in the whole team. I don't think we are able to provide that much help, but he can always carry the game. I think maybe not now, but later in some moment, I believe that huanfeng will become a really good player that will be memorable for all.'

Every game in a sentence

• JD Gaming 1, Suning 0: Although Suning have a scaling advantage, Yagao's Zoe and Zoom's Renekton take over the mid-game.

• Suning 1, JD Gaming 1: Suning's scaling works out well here while Yagao is unable to have an impact on Galio, and huanfeng's Jhin steps into the spotlight.

• Suning 2, JD Gaming 1: This game is over from Level 1, when Bin's Gangplank gets a double kill and Sheen to start the laning phase.

• Suning 3, JD Gaming 1: JDG take an early lead, but stronger dragon setups and huanfeng's Jhin once again lead Suning to victory.

DAMWON Gaming 3, DRX 0

Quarterfinals got underway at the 2020 League of Legends World Championship on Thursday. The first series was a rematch of the 2020 LoL Champions Korea final between DAMWON Gaming and DRX that went in the exact same way that first matchup did: a 3-0 sweep for DAMWON.

The moment DRX were drawn against DAMWON Gaming, they were already considered out of the tournament.

We had already seen what DRX could do against DAMWON in their summer finals best-of-five ,and it wasn't much. DAMWON were not only able to best DRX individually, but more importantly had much stronger objective setups and trading across the map. DRX had, however, looked a bit more cohesive in the group stage, particularly in their games against LoL Pro League No. 1 seed Top Esports.

Although Top Esports won both of those games due to stronger teamfighting, there was hope for DRX. Despite the team's reliance on mid laner Jeong 'Chovy' Ji-hoon and a back injury hindering bot laner Kim 'Deft' Hyuk-kyu, the team seemed like it might have improved enough to give DAMWON more trouble than they were able to in that quick summer final sweep.

I had hoped to say that this series wouldn't play out as expected -- that DRX would be able to take at least a game off of DAMWON. They could not. The series ended in similar 100-minute fashion, with DAMWON too strong to allow DRX even one game. DRX came closest in Game 2, but a clutch engage from DWG top laner Jang 'Nuguri' Ha-gwon on Ornn flipped the game back into DAMWON's favor, and they didn't give DRX any advantages afterwards.

DAMWON will now go on to the semifinals to face either the team that knocked them out of worlds in 2019, G2 Esports, or another fellow South Korean squad in Gen.G. DAMWON should be favored in both matchups with how strong they've looked at this tournament.

A fond farewell to: DRX

For most of the 2020 LCK season, DRX were a fun team to watch and always near the top of the standings. They had interesting drafts (which sometimes hurt them more than they helped), and the continued evolution of Chovy was one of the highlights of the season. In 2020, the mid laner grew from a 1v1 outplay king who somewhat relied on favorable matchups from his team to a legitimate team player with much stronger teamfighting skill and engage sense, making DRX a legitimate threat against any team not named DAMWON.

DRX have two standout young players that people watch going into 2021, too, despite some rough performances Thursday. Jungler Hong 'Pyosik' Chang-hyeon and, in particular, rookie support Ryu 'Keria' Min-seok have a lot of potential going forward in future LCK seasons.

The saddest part of DRX's exit: The revelation about Deft's back injury. The bot laner's been one of the best in the world and competed professionally since 2013. He hasn't mentioned retiring, but given the physical setback and length of his pro career, we'll hope that this isn't the last time we see Deft in an international showdown.

Quotable

Lol Worlds Quarterfinals Bracket

DRX coach Kim 'cvMax' Dae-ho reflected on the season after Thursday's sweep, giving credit to both Chovy and Deft for helping coach the team.

'Thanks to Chovy and Deft, the core players, Keria, Pyosik, and Doran were able to soak in all of the game knowledge and experience,' cvMax said via a translator. 'Also, Chovy and Deft were even coaching better than the real coaches. Maybe they were the realistic coaches of our team leading the team so well. I also learned so much by watching them doing feedback for the players. Compared to myself in Griffin and this year, I think I've become better at coaching, and it's all from Deft.'

Every game in a sentence

• DAMWON Gaming 1, DRX 0: DRX are unable to get their Caitlyn ahead early and DWG have stronger objective setups overall, even when it looked for a short moment like DRX would be able to poke them down in the mid game.

• DAMWON Gaming 2, DRX 0: A big teamfight in mid where Nuguri controls the entire fight with Ornn makes the difference for DWG.

• DAMWON Gaming 3, DRX 0: Another limited-to-no-engage composition harms DRX as DAMWON are easily able to jump on them and, despite Doran's Vladimir doing relatively well early in top lane, beat DRX in the mid game.