The League of Legends World Championship is getting into the most heated stage of the season: the Knockout stage.
Right after the end of Group D, the qualified teams were drawn: T1, JDG, DRX and Gen.G were the number one seeds from their respective groups, while Edward Gaming, DWG KIA, Rogue, and Royal Never Give Up finished second. The top 8 teams will have to fight in a single-elimination, king of the hill format, in best-of-five series to become the World Champions.
We will be breaking down every quarterfinals series from here onwards, starting off with the most important one for EU fans: Rogue vs JD Gaming. Will RGE beat the LPL first seed or will it be eastern domination at Worlds 2022?
Worlds 2022 – JDG vs RGE Quarterfinals Preview – Thursday 20th October
JDG Gaming – The LPL number one seed
JDG has been a dominant presence at the World Championship so far. They went 3-0 in the first round robin of Group B, then lost to DK in their last match before getting back at them in the tiebreaker for first place. The Chinese team never looked bad and despite some minor mistakes, they always looked under control.
What makes the team so strong this year is undoubtedly their top side: Yagao, Kanavi and 369 make a formidable and strong trio of carry players. All three of them have the potential of playing both utility and damage-oriented champions at the highest level of proficiency, which makes JDG’s drafts very variable and hard to counter. Aside fromYagao who played Sylas 4 times so far, the rest of the DJDG squad have played at least 5 unique champions each.
Contrary to most teams at Worlds, the Chinese team doesn’t really excel during the early game. They play with composure but not super aggressively, as it’s shown by their marginal gold and exp differential at 15 minutes.
The shining point of this lineup is the mid and late game teamfights. When it comes to playing around with objectives or pulling the trigger on the enemies, JDG are arguably the best in terms of positioning and execution. They proved it against DK who had built a substantial gold lead and they were able to turn it around to snatch the first place in the group. Unless something happens to their players, especially considering the amount of covid cases in the second round robin, JDG are expected to perform and deliver as they have done so far.
Rogue – The last hope for the west
JDG will be going up RGE, the only western team that made it into the top 8. The LEC first seed had made the esports enthusiasts excited for them after their great 3-0 start, but their hopes have been debunked after the second round robin.
Despite making it into the Knockout stage, RGE’s performance wasn’t as strong as the first round robin, losing to both DRX and TES. Not only that, but DRX is likely the weakest team among the four LCK teams and RGE lost to them twice the other day. (they played the tiebreaker for first place)
It seems like the teams have started getting used to playing against Rogue and found ways to counter them in their own game. The LEC team is known for wanting to play through early actions with Malrang. When they aren’t able to find the advantage, the team then struggles to transition into the mid and late game. RGE don’t excel at flipping fights and prefer to play through objectives and fights: when on even terms, though, these require a lot of mechanical prowess and the west can’t really match the top eastern teams.
In addition, RGE’s drafting playstyle is getting more repetitive compared to most of the top 8 teams. Odoamne continues to be a weakside player and he won’t likely get to play Maokai again, a champion he had a lot of success with. Malrang is trying his best to think out of the box with his champion pool and the same goes for the rest of the squad.
That being said, RGE should be proud of what they have achieved so far. They beat Top Esports in groups and made the great achievement of being the only European presence in the top 8 this year, shattering our own LoL Worlds Power Rankings.
On a good day, Rogue can go up against the best teams in the world, but all stars must align and I’m not expecting that to happen against a solid team like JDG. The best RGE can likely achieve will be a 3-1, but bringing JDG to silver scrapes seems like a really tough challenge.
Based on the analysis above, you can find the best LoL Worlds odds for this series down below: (offered by GG.BET)
Total Maps: over 3.5 (1.99x)
Correct Map Score: JDG 3-1 RGE
Match Total Kills: under 90.5 (2.51x)
Map 1 First Blood: RGE (2.31x)
Total Towers: under 11.5 (1.78x)
Map Duration: under 29.5 (2.01x)
About Post Author
