LoL Worlds Second Group Stage Highlights

After a week of competitive, frenetic action at the LoL Worlds groups, the League of Legends Worlds teams for the Knockout stage were finally confirmed.  All four seeds from Korea’s LCK – Gen.G, T1, DRX and DWG KIA – have qualified for the playoffs, DRX, in particular, exceeding expectations.

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Three out of four teams from China’s LPL, Royal Never Give Up, JD Gaming, and last year’s champions Edward Gaming have advanced s well. The LPL runner-up Top Esports crashing out of Group C was an unexpected twist that absolutely no one could’ve predicted at the tournament stage, the biggest shocker of Worlds so far.

LEC’s Rogue Esports rounds off the top eight, the only team to represent Europe at the knockout stage. Let’s have a look at the second stage’s highlights and what the LoL Worlds betting can look forward to this coming week.

lol worlds second group stage highlights
Standings from the second Group Stage – Image credit: LoL Esports

Group A dominated by T1, Edward Gaming

T1, after a slightly under-confident start to the group stage, dominated Group A’s proceeding in their final round of matches last Thursday. They surged to consecutive victories over Fnatic, Cloud9, and Edward Gaming and secured the group’s top seed, ending 5-1.

Reigning World champions Edward Gaming claimed the second seed from Group A with a 4-2 record. Once again, they could not beat T1 in the second round, though the other two teams didn’t pose too much of a challenge. They’ve been early aggressors in the tournament, drawing first blood in every match they’ve played.

Fnatic drop out after a promising start

Fnatic, who looked so promising during the play-ins and the first half of the round-robin, suffered a dramatic loss in form. It was a perfect contrast to how their first round played out, and they slumped to three defeats in a row, crashing out of contention and paving the way for T1 and EDG to pull ahead.

Their first loss of the day granted Cloud9 their first win and only win at the Worlds, then was followed by grim, morale-crushing losses to the top two. Fnatic’s brilliance in round one and their unexpected takedown of LCK finalists T1 made the group a lot tighter, but in the end, they lacked the firepower and consistency to get ahead and finally ended 2-4 in third place.

JD Gaming beat DWG in a tie-breaker to secure Group B top seed

Group B was more straightforward, JD Gaming and DWG KIA locking horns for the top spot with an identical 5-1 record. DWG showed real spunk in the group’s final match and were able to shut down JDG in under 30 minutes. Star ADC Seo “deokdam” Dae-gil was the highlight, accounting for seven kills of his team’s total 21 and assisting eight as well.

This stunning victory set the two teams up for a tie-breaker. DWG’s luck didn’t hold out any further, though they put up a hell of a fight. It was a violent, bloody contest with 45 kills in total, 28 from JDG and 17 from DWG.

While things were pretty even in the first half, DWG leaning towards a lead, JDG made a champion comeback. 369 accounted for ten kills in total, while Kanavi and Yagao took ten between them. They have been the most aggressive team of all this tournament, averaging an astonishing 17.9 kills per game.

Check out the best bookmakers for LoL Worlds

Top Esports crashes out of Group C after an upset loss to GAM Esports

LPL runners-up Top Esports crashing out of the group stage was possibly the biggest shocker of the tournament, and it’s not as if it’s been lacking in surprises either.

Their playoffs hopes were already hanging by a thread after losses to DRX and Rogue in Week 1, but the defeat against GAM Esports in their round two opener knocked them out of contention. It was an upset, perhaps the biggest one of LoL Worlds 2022 so far, that left them reeling and battered and damaging their chances for the playoffs.

While TE did manage to beat both Rogue and DRX in the next couple of games, their 3-3 record was not enough to see them through.

worlds second group stage highlights drx advance
Image credit: DRX via Twitter (@DRXGlobal)

DRX bags Group C first seed after winning the tie-breaker against Rogue

Credit should be given where it’s due, though; there’s no denying that the group’s top two seeds Rogue and DRX have been anything short of fantastic.

Zeka, in particular, has almost single-handedly made qualification possible for DRX. His kill rate of 5.1 per game is currently the fifth-highest in the Worlds group stage. They became the only team from the play-ins to progress to the final eight.

It’s been an incredible year for the dominant Rogue Esports. After a runners-up spot at the LEC Spring, they secured the summer title and have now qualified for the knockout stage of Worlds for the first time in the organization’s history.

They, unfortunately, missed out on the first seed after being completely outplayed by DRX in the tie-breaker, folding in under 25 minutes. A rampage from Zeka and Deft around the 20-minute mark set DRX up with an unassailable lead, and Zeka’s three kills in the final team fight shut them out of the game once and for all.

Gen.G, on a six-win streak, beat Royal Never Give up in the tie-breaker for first seed

After losing their opening game to Royal Never Give up in the first round, LCK champions and LoL Worlds favorites Gen.G have since gone on a rampage to secure the group’s top seed. They triumphed over 100 Thieves, CTBC Flying Oyster, and RNG to end with a 5-1 record.

GG’s kill-death ratio in the groups is an astonishing 2.37, far and away the best in the tournament – their death rate of 7 per game is the lowest, while their 16.6 kills per game is the third best. Their creep score per minute is 34.1, tied for first with DRX.

Royal Never Give Up ended the group stage tied for first place alongside Gen.G with a 5-1 too, the sole losses for both of them occurring against each other. The tie-breaker between the two was quite one-sided, ending in just over 27 minutes.

Chovy took six kills, while Ruler contributed five and ten assists. They took a solid lead, taking two towers within the first five minutes. Peanut and Chovy ended with perfect KDAs, destroyed 20 wards between them, and Chovy’s triple kill in the final team fight closed out the game.

It goes without saying that the LoL Worlds schedule for the coming week will be mouth-watering.

LoL Worlds First Group Stage Highlights

With this first set of results, halfway through the group stage of LoL Worlds, we had a pretty clear idea of which teams were likely to move ahead in the tournament, even though they each still had three matches to go. Mostly, the teams from China’s LPL outperformed the rest. Edward Gaming, JD Gaming, and Royal Never Give Up were top of their respective groups The Korean teams weren’t too far behind, with DWG.KIA, DRX, and Gen.G in second place. The Europe contingent had mixed results, with Rogue and Fnatic doing quite well but G2 looked slightly out of sorts. All three teams from North America struggled to adapt and were still searching for a win.

lol worlds first group stage highlights
Standings from the first Group Stage – Image credit: LoL Esports

Fnatic was impressive, Group A heated up

Twenty-four matches had been completed, with teams having played three matches each from Saturday through Tuesday to close out the first round robin. At the end of the first group stage, Group A looked quite tight. Three quality League of Legends Worlds teams, defending champions Edward Gaming, Fnatic, and T1, were all poised to move forward with a 2-1 record each.

However, the fourth team in their group, LCS summer champions Cloud9, wasn’t a part of the proceedings at all. They were taken apart by all three opponents and lost to EDG and T1 in under 30 minutes.

Fnatic was easily the most exciting team to watch over that weekend. They beat Cloud9 with 25 kills to 6 in Saturday’s opener, then pulled off an outrageous victory against tournament LoL Worlds favorites T1. After a middling season at the LEC, where they finished in third place, Fnatic didn’t even qualify directly for the Main Event but had to make it through the play-ins. This is why their takedown of the three-time World Champions T1 was even more impressive. Edward Gaming broke Fnatic’s streak the next day, so they ended the round in second place in their group with a 2-1 record.

JD Gaming unbeaten in Group B

LPL winners JD Gaming was the dominant force of Group B. Their first game of the tournament against Evil Geniuses was a bloodbath that witnessed close to 40 kills, but despite EG’s aggression, they were nowhere near JD’s standard.

JD beat DWG without much trouble, but G2 was a tougher opponent. That game turned into the closest contest we’ve seen in the tournament so far. Both made 15 kills each, and the gold difference was only 2k by the end.

EG’s maiden Worlds appearance has been far from ideal

Evil Geniuses and the other two NA teams at the tournament were battered, unable to manage a single win since the group stage started, and remained at the bottom of Group B.

DWG and G2 stood second and third in Group B, with a 2-1 and 1-2 record, respectively.

Top Esports off-color, but Rogue was on a rampage

Group C seemed the easiest to get through compared to the others, which made Top Esports’ run so far baffling. There were in third place at the end of the first stage, having won just a single game, a victory over the beleaguered GAM Esports.

This poor run of form is incongruent from a team that just finished as runners-up LPL summer split after three months of dominance. They didn’t have the opportunity for that, though, because it’s was Rogue all the way in Group C.

Recently Rogue’s jungler Kim “Malrang” Geun-seong said that his main goal of the tournament is to “beat the LCK and the LPL.” Though there’s still a way to go before the end of LoL Worlds, they’re well on track to achieve this.

LoL Worlds First Group Stage DRX Win against GAM
Image credit: LoL Esports

DRX too is another team that impressed in the first group stage. They lost their opening game to Rogue, but that didn’t stop them from beating Top and then GAM with relative ease. Kim “Zeka” Geon-woo has been in the same sensational form that got DRX through the play-ins and accounted for 16 kills in just three games.

RNG, Gen.G too strong for the others in the Group D

Group D was the most stable in the LoL Worlds schedule, with no major surprises or upsets occurring here. Royal Never Give Up swept all their matches, and LCK winners Gen.G were hot on their heels at second place. While these two teams seem pretty well-matched on paper, their clash on Saturday showcased quite a disparity between them.

Nikhil Kalro
Nikhil Kalro

Since: April 28, 2022

Nikhil has been writing on esports for several years after first covering competitive video gaming for ESPN. After its explosion into the mainstream, writing extensively on esports betting was the natural next step, including for major esports publications across the world.

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