At the LOL World Championship Swiss stage, the knockout phase has arrived, marking a crucial period for qualification. The three LCK title contenders are all in Group 1-1. GEN hasn’t beaten AL, and T1 also stumbled against CFO. Even with a different top laner, T1’s world championship strength is clearly weaker than last year. It seems the only one who can stop Faker’s six consecutive titles is Doran, but this time, Xiao Lübu’s form at Worlds is quite average.

The top lane keeps getting breached, the jungler’s performance looks a bit off, and the AD carry is underperforming. Relying solely on the mid and support, it feels tough for T1 to claim the championship this year. However, this is just BO1; when it moves to BO3, T1’s form is expected to improve. Making it to the knockout stage should be no problem, especially since this team has never lost a BO5 to LPL at Worlds. But with Lan’s presence, LPL might break that curse this year.

Viper’s post-match interview bursts out in Chinese

After HLE lost their first match to AL, they faced a weaker PSG. The once Korean-resisting pioneer, Flash Wolves, are now really struggling, being dominated by HLE throughout. After winning the match, Viper went on stage for an interview. As an LCK player, he surprisingly spoke entirely in Chinese, and his Mandarin seemed even better than Zuo Shou’s. The translator beside him didn’t say a word.

The funniest part was that the LCK official commentators, not proficient in Chinese, had no clue what Viper was saying. The three of them could only awkwardly praise him: Viper is truly an LPL fan, a man you can’t help but love. His Chinese is excellent, but we have no idea what he’s saying. Having spent only two years in LPL, he can fluently speak Chinese on stage, even surpassing some native players. His learning ability is genuinely impressive.

100T issues apology to LPL

North America’s third seed 100T shocked everyone by defeating our region’s top seed BLG in the first round of the Swiss stage. After the win, 100T posted a taunt: NA > LPL. Being mocked by a North American team is quite surreal. Fortunately, in the second round, Tobi helped LPL regain honor, completely dominating 100T. Kanavi controlled the pace perfectly, and Peanut’s Ryze went 9-0, achieving a flawless godlike performance.

After being thoroughly defeated, 100T posted again: I have to apologize to you (LPL) for not truly understanding your strength before. As a team about to leave the league, making it to Worlds for one last dance is impressive. However, their top laner left after the second split, and now the team coach is playing. Bin getting solo killed by the coach is honestly ridiculous, so they can only accept the ridicule.

TheShy responds to top laner Varus

After IG lost to T1 in the play-in stage, they finished 17th and went on break. Recently, Vietnamese media released an exclusive interview with TheShy, where he addressed the top laner Varus issue. TheShy said: He chose Varus because he predicted the opponent would pick Ornn, and the bot lane would have AP champions, so the top lane needed to play AD. Since Ornn has control tools, he wanted a long-range champion and was torn between Jayce and Varus.

But since Varus is tankier than Jayce, he finally picked Varus. Honestly, this AD top pick was quite unexpected, and its performance was just average. Although he managed some solo kills, he also gave many opportunities to the enemy top. If he had chosen champions like Renekton or Aatrox that deal AD damage and have good teamfight potential, it might have been easier to play, especially since Doran was playing Ornn.

Conclusion:

Discussing top lane Varus now is indeed pointless since the 17th place has been decided, and Worlds no longer concerns IG. However, Doran has recently been practicing top Varus in scrims, playing four games with two wins and two losses, all negative records. The most ridiculous game saw Doran going 1-12. It seems Varus top is really hard to justify.

What do you think about Viper’s Chinese?

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