The LPL World Championship qualifiers will begin in two days. IG’s roster has been training hard on the Korean server lately. Wei is focusing on jungle carry champions like Qiyana and Sylas, and Rookie is experimenting with champions he’s less comfortable with, including Tristana and Lissandra. Wei’s jungle carry practice seems decent based on recent results, but whether they can bring it to the play-in stage remains unclear. Rookie’s Tristana is difficult to assess—he either performs exceptionally or ends up with a poor score.

The trio of mid, jungle, and AD carry have been ranking until 2 or 3 AM these days. It’s evident they genuinely want to make it to Worlds. Since the 22nd, the support and top players haven’t played ranked games, probably because Danny called them for specialized training. IG’s form was quite poor during the back-to-back playoff losses. It’s unknown if they’ve improved recently, but such a long break certainly gives IG enough time to study Top Esports.

Miller: IG winning one game would already be a success

The BO5 play-in match between Top Esports and IG has attracted full attention. In terms of strength, IG’s chances of winning are slim. Top Esports lost twice to BLG with a 3:2 score, while IG only managed to win a single small game against BLG, indicating a gap in paper strength. Objectively, if IG wants to qualify for Worlds, they must go through the losers’ bracket and compete with JDG and Weibo’s winners for the fourth seed.

LPL official casters have also recently made predictions on the play-in. Ji De, Maomao, and Miller all believe TES will knock IG out, with scores either 3:0 or 3:1. Miller is pessimistic throughout, saying winning one game would be a success. However, all three casters agree that after losing to TES, IG can defeat the winner between Weibo and JDG to secure the fourth seed. Then IG would face T1 to fight for a spot in the main event.

Knight responds to the female tank bug in the finals

During the third stage finals of the LPL, BLG lost the first game due to a bug with Nautilus’s E skill. BLG did not call for a pause at the time, so many wondered if they didn’t notice the bug or were afraid to pause. Knight responded in a post-match interview: they didn’t realize it during the game; only after reviewing in the locker room did they discover the bug occurred during the tower dive in the bot lane.

So it wasn’t that BLG didn’t want to call a pause; the players simply didn’t recognize it as a bug and thought ELK had made a mistake. After the match, Bigwei told the players: consider the first game as a win and focus on playing well in the next. Thankfully, it didn’t affect the final championship. Otherwise, if BLG had complained to officials post-match, it would have stirred up controversy again, since Bin from the first stage had already caused a dispute due to a bug.

Riot updates global team power rankings

With over 20 days until Worlds begin, Riot recently updated the global team strength rankings. GEN, who shocked everyone by losing to KT and then beating T1 in the losers’ bracket, remains at the top. HLE, guaranteed as the second seed, ranks second. Although T1 is only the fourth seed, Riot placed them third. The fourth and fifth spots are occupied by LPL teams, with AL ranked one spot higher than BLG.

Just looking at the top five is already unreasonable. The current BLG should be on par with HLE and GEN. Further down, FLY ranks higher than TES, and provincial team CFO entered the top ten for the first time. Full-strength IG is ranked behind DK. The top ten doesn’t include some notable teams. While some individual rankings are fair, overall, Riot’s list is less reasonable than one made by players themselves.

Conclusion:

It’s indeed quite difficult for IG to beat TES in the play-in and secure the third seed. If they maintain their playoff form, they probably won’t win a single game. But if they perform at full strength, that’s another story. However, Wei’s jungle carry is a clear weak point for IG. Although he has practiced a lot in ranked games, it’s uncertain if he will dare to pick it in official matches.

So, what do you think? Can IG win even one game against TES?

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