We are only a couple of months away for the League of Legends Wolrd Championship in Europe, and there’s bound to be many speculating on who’s going to win this year. Will China continue to hold on to their win from last year or will South Korea make a comeback and once more, lift the championship trophy like they always have prior to last year.
So who’s in like Flynn and who’s out like trout? And who is most likely to win the Summoner’s Cup? We’ll have to look at GT Bets as we get closer to the date, as they will have odds. The Teams are still in the qualifying process, but there are a couple who’ve already made the list. Out of the 14 regions, a total of 24 teams will eventually qualify.
For three spots available in the Europian region. G2 Esports has qualified out of the LEC after Origin’s poor performance during the Summer Split. Right now they sit in 8th and it’s Rogue and Vitality that’s in and Origin that’s out of playoffs. Fnatic, Splyce, and FC Shalke 04 make up the other playoff spots.
At this point, it looks like Fnatic and Splyce are shoo-ins, to take the other two LEC slots, but Rogue is coming in hot and hard, so we’ll have to see how the playoffs work out. The Group stage opens with Splyce vs. Rogue, Shalke 04 vs. Vitality, and G2 Esports vs. Fnatic.
The LCK
The other early qualifier is Griffen over in Korea. The Summer Playoffs will see Afreeca Freecs, DAMWON Gaming, SANDBOX Gaming, SK Telecom 1, and likely, Gen G. Griffen is already guaranteed at least the 2nd seed out of Korea.
The LCS
Nobody from North America has qualified for the World Championship just yet. But Cloud 9, Clutch Gaming, Team Liquid, Team, SoloMid, OpTic Gaming, and Counter Logic Gaming are the Top-6 which will be competing in the North American Summer Playoffs. OpTic edged out 100 Thieves and Golden Guardians.
Will we see Team Liquid and Cloud9 smash their way through the playoffs and into the Worlds?
The LMS
The Top-4 out of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao ate J Team, ahq e-Sports Club and HKA and MAD Team. With three teams coming out of the LMS, it’s pretty easy to predict that we’ll see J TEam and most likely ahq. MAD and Hong Kong Attitude are currently head to head in points.
The LPL
Over in China, we see the Top-8 from the LPL. FunPlus Phoenix finished the Summer Regular Season as the No. 1 team, followed by Topsports, Royal Never Give Up, Bilibili Gaming, Edward Gaming, Invictus, LNG, and Suning.
FunPlus Phoenix has been on fire this season, so we should expect them to take the guaranteed spot away from the rest in the playoffs, but we can’t discount perennial teams like Royal Never Give Up or Invictus.
This covers the main regions with multiple 2019 LoL Legends World Championship slots to offer. What remains is single slots out of Vietnam, Brazil, Russia, Japan, Latin America North, Latin America South, South East Asia, and Turkey.
The VCS is led by Phong Vu Buffalo. Over in Brazil, Flamengo eSports is firmly in command, but we can’t discount INTZ or Redemption eSports who have a solid chance in the playoffs. Over in Russia, the LCL is led by Unicorns of Love and Gambit Esports is a close second. The winner of the LCL is likely likely to be one of these two teams. As their playoff includes just four teams.
But will any of these minor region teams that qualify actually have a chance at the worlds? Not likely. Smart money is going to be on teams like G2, Team Liquid, SK, FunPLus Phoenix, and Fnatic.
