Will the play-in matches surpass the finals in popularity?

Since IG secured the LPL's fourth seed and must face LCK's fourth seed T1 to qualify for the Worlds main event, many LoL viewers have expressed dissatisfaction with Riot's tournament rules, deeming them unreasonable. The main event of S15 Worlds includes "wildcard underdogs" fighting amongst themselves, whereas the S15 play-ins highlight a blockbuster showdown between T1 and IG. Moreover, LPL official caster Wang Duoduo admitted during a stream that the S15 play-in matches will likely attract the highest viewership in LoL history, potentially even exceeding the S15 finals.

Wang Duoduo even cited his personal experience to demonstrate how intense the hype around the IG vs. T1 play-in matches is. He revealed that as an official LPL caster, he usually secures tickets to live events immediately. However, for this play-in stage, despite his official status, Wang Duoduo was unable to get any tickets. What's more astonishing is that ticket prices have been scalped up to 3000 yuan each, while regular tickets normally cost only 390 yuan. (Who do you think will advance, IG or T1?)

GEN takes the initiative to scrim against IG!

Because Wang Duoduo spoke out publicly, many LPL fans hope Riot will soon revise the format so that T1 and IG can both advance to the Worlds main event. After all, both IG and T1 are the most popular teams in their respective regions. Regardless of which team is eliminated, the hype for S15 will drop significantly. According to current analyses across the internet, most fans believe T1 has a chance to advance to the Swiss stage, since LPL teams have yet to win a BO5 against T1 at Worlds.

Recently, industry insiders revealed that LCK champions GEN are scrimming against IG. Many fans, upon hearing this, praised GEN for being extremely ruthless to T1. Last year before the finals, GEN exposed T1's warding habits and early game positioning strategies. This year at the Mid-Season Cup, even without facing T1, GEN treated them as the "benchmark." Now, GEN is actively inviting IG to scrim in order to help eliminate T1. If GEN truly shares their tactics for beating T1 with IG, IG could very well come out on top.

Zhu Kai hopes IG avoids scrimming GEN

After news broke about IG scrimming GEN, many LoL fans rushed to Zhu Kai’s stream for confirmation. Zhu Kai frankly said that based on the BP (ban/pick) patterns from IG and GEN's matches, it looks like they were scrimming each other. Especially since the playoffs, IG’s BP style has differed from other LPL teams, deprioritizing GALA and instead prioritizing mid, top, and jungle picks, even using Ryze to counter Orianna during matches. GEN’s confident Kai’Sa and four-protect-one “bomb carrier” strategy in the finals also resembles IG’s BP style.

Ultimately, Zhu Kai advised IG’s management and coaches not to blindly scrim GEN, because GEN’s players have extremely high individual skill. If IG only copies GEN’s BP, they will likely suffer during the play-ins. For example, Chovy’s champion mechanics are extremely meta-defining; Rookie’s Ryze struggles against Orianna, but Chovy’s Ryze dominates Orianna. Therefore, for IG to improve and grow, they should avoid scrimming GEN.

Conclusion

Is scrimming GEN good or bad for IG? It seems that for IG to defeat T1, mid laner Rookie must perform well. In IG’s playoff and play-in matches, whenever Rookie loses lane priority, jungler Wei tends to get lost. Conversely, in the do-or-die match against JDG, Rookie’s lane dominance over Scout gave Wei room to operate. What do you think are IG’s chances of qualifying for the main event?