Yesterday’s matches at League of Legends Worlds 2018 were some of the most exciting games we’ve seen on the Worlds stage in a very long time. There were some wild upsets with low seed NA and EU teams Cloud9 and Team Vitality claiming wins against traditionally stronger regions – China and South Korea.
Team Vitality started the day off against China’s then unbeaten Royal Never Give Up (RNG). In a major upset, Team Vitality systematically dismantled RNG and handed them their first loss. They then went on to beat last year’s defending champions, Gen.G in another startling twist of fate.
Cloud9 incredibly managed to follow suit, with the team delivering back to back victories against the analyst favored Gen.G and RNG.
In the 5th game of the day, Team Vitality and Cloud9 faced off in a legendary showdown which can only be described as one of the best EU vs. NA games to date. Both managed to snag their favorite comfort champions, despite being considered somewhat off-meta. C9’s Licorice busted out his infamous Singed top lane while their midlaner Jensen got a hold of Zilean. Similarly, Team Vitality’s Kikis played a Trundle jungle and their midlaner Jiizuke grabbed Ekko.
It was an incredibly close match with the gold score being mostly even throughout the entire game, but Cloud9 somehow squeaked out one more win, effectively securing their spot in the quarterfinals.
If you missed this epic EU vs. NA rivalry match, you can see the whole game below.
In game 6, RNG faced off against Gen.G and crushed them leaving the previous Worlds 2017 winners with an embarrassing 1W-5L record. Their victory over Gen.G also resulted in them having the same win/loss record as Cloud9, forcing a tie-breaking game 7 match to determine who would leave group B as the first seed.
The final match of the day between RNG and C9 was also extremely close. Similar to the C9 vs. Team Vitality game, the gold difference was negligible for most of the game. Everything came to an end when a random 5v5 skirmish in the middle of the map resulted with RNG coming out on top. They then pushed straight to the C9 nexus and secured their spot as the 1st seed for group B leaving C9 with the 2nd seed.
At the close of the day, despite a great performance by Team Vitality, RNG and Cloud9 move onto the quarterfinals. While RNG was heavily favored to leave the group stage, in a shocking turn of events, South Korea’s defending champions, Gen.G, end their journey here.
Featured Image Source: ESPN
