Now that the League of Legends World Championship Group stage is over, it’s time for the qualified teams to put everything on the line. The top 8 teams will fight in a single elimination bracket to determine the 2022 World Champions: T1, JDG, DRX, Gen.G, Edward Gaming, DWG KIA, Rogue and Royal Never Give Up have formed one of the most stacked brackets in League’s history.
In this preview, we will be breaking down arguably the most anticipated series of the first round of the Knockout Stage since it’s just more than a quarterfinal. T1 will face RNG in what will be the rematch of this year’s MSI finals and the battle between two of the most decorated esports organizations within the scene.
Worlds 2022 – T1 vs RNG Quarterfinals – Friday 21st October
Our LoL Worlds Power Rankings had T1 in 5th and RNG in 6th place. One of the two will excel and prove us wrong, while the other will fall exactly as predicted. Who will go through and who is going home? It’s time for our Worlds 2022 preview.
T1 back to spring form thanks to Zeus & Gumayusi
T1 not only managed to survive the group of death, but they were able to do that while also finishing in first place in Group A at Worlds. Compared to the team we saw towards the end of the Summer Split, the impression is that the summer version of T1 is gone and we’re seeing glimpses of the version of the team that dominated spring.
A lot of this merit goes to Gumayusi and Keria, who both seem to have found their groove and are being much more consistent compared to the past. In particular, Gumayusi has been getting the most resources out of any player in the team, with a 26% gold share so far.
That being said, the real game-changer for T1 is Zeus. The young Korean top laner has been incredible up until now, and the real carry for the team: a 28.2% damage share puts him above everyone else mong the top laners at Worlds. What’s even more interesting is that he is the only one who hasn’t played any weakside tank. While it should be tougher to play these kinds of champions due to the lower room of error, Zeus was able to consistently gap all the other top laners in Group A.
T1’s strengths are very exciting because there aren’t many other teams that play in a similar way. By having Zeus on carries, Faker has been relegated to a more supportive role: he just makes sure he doesn’t mess up and plays around his team accordingly. The same can be said for Oner, who has played Sejuani 3 times already during the group stage.
Overall, T1’s strong performances have convinced fans to believe them as the organization hasn’t won a title since 2016. Faker has been chasing his fourth Worlds title for more than 6 years, and he will do everything in his power to make sure he returns to the top of the world. While I think they have the potential, facing RNG will not be an easy feat.
RNG needs healthy leads and healthy players
The fourth seed RNG, has gone through a long journey already at the World Championship. They dominated play-ins for the majority and were doing the same in Group D before the whole team tested positive for covid. Despite the issues, RNG was still able to qualify by going 5-1. It was unfortunate for them to have to play the tiebreaker against Gen.G at the end of the day, since they clearly looked in terrible shape.
For these reasons, RNG’s form will mostly depend on whether all the players recover from, and when it’s going to happen. It’s a given that the team won’t be able to scrim as much since it’s physically taxing on the players, so knowing when they turn negative or recover from the symptoms will be the key to the team’s overall performance.
If they show up like the RNG we saw in the first round robin, we’re bound to see a banger of a series. And I believe that they will manage to recover: Wei and GALA were stellar individually and Breathe is proving to everyone that RNG didn’t mess up their choice when they swapped Bin for him during the mid-season break.
All Worlds predictions are hard-favoring T1 right now and the chances of making great returns are actually much higher than anticipated. I don’t really believe that it will be such a one-sided series as people think it would be, just make sure to pay attention to the news and see RNG’s current situation. I also think that having played Bo5s in the play-ins stage will be a small advantage that RNG has over T1 and that might be what allows RNG to advance to the semifinals.
Based on the analysis above, you can find the best LoL Worlds odds for the series, as usual, offered by GG.BET:
Winner: RNG (2.9x)
Map 1 Winner: RNG (2.40x)
Race to 5 kills: T1 (1.74x)
Map Duration: over 33.5 (2.54x)
Map 1 Total Kills: under 26.5 (1.84)
Total Maps: over 4.5 (2.94x)
Total Dragons slain: over 4.5 (1.58x)
Correct Map Score: RNG 3-2 T1 (6.12x)
Total Towers: over 11.5 (1.66x)
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