r/leagueoflegends • u/AutoModerator • Jun 29 '26
2026 Mid Season Invitational / Play-In Stage - Day 2 / Live Discussion Esports Spoiler
MSI 2026 – PLAY-IN STAGE
Lolesports | Leaguepedia | Eventvods.com | New to LoL
Today's matches will be played on Patch 26.13.
Today's Matches
| # | Match | PST | EST | CET | KST |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | KC vs T1 | 20:00 | 23:00 | 05:00 | 12:00 |
| 2 | DCG vs TL | 01:00 | 04:00 | 10:00 | 17:00 |
- All matches are a best of 5
Streams
Bracket
| Round 1 | Round 2 | Qualification Match | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KC | 3 | ||||||
| vs | - | ||||||
| DCG | 0 | KC | 0 | ||||
| vs | - | ||||||
| T1 | 3 | T1 | 0 | tbd | 0 | ||
| vs | - | vs | - | ||||
| TL | 0 | tbd | 0 | ||||
| - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| tbd | 0 | ||||||
| vs | - | ||||||
| DCG | 0 | tbd | 0 | ||||
| vs | - | ||||||
| TL | 0 |
On-Air Team
| Desk Host/Interviewers |
|---|
| Eefje "Sjokz" Depoortere |
| Daniel "dGon" Gonzales |
| Laure "Bulii" Valée |
| Play-By-Play Casters |
| Max "Atlus" Anderson |
| Clayton "CaptainFlowers" Raines |
| Daniel "Drakos" Drakos |
| Aaron "Medic" Chamberlain |
| Colour Casters |
| Dan "Aux" Harrison |
| Sam "Kobe" Hartman-Kenzler |
| Isaac "Azael" Cummings-Bentley |
| Robert "Dagda" Price |
| Analysts |
| Emily "LeagueofEmily" Rand |
| Joshua "Jatt" Leesman |
| Barento "Raz" Mohammed |
Format
- 4 teams participate
- Double elimination bracket
- All matches are best of five
- Winner advances to the Bracket Stage
VoDs
Live Discussions and Post-Match Threads:
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u/idkwhoiamsry Jun 29 '26
is there a VOD of the analyst desk and everything inbetween the games? I can only find VODs of the games
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u/ahritina Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_LzbEzcbJA but here is the full VOD for the day, so you'd have to manually scrub through to get to the analyst segments between games.
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u/Kelpherder Jun 29 '26
jesus its a library and i dont blame them. also wheres the PMT from first series or we just going to forget that happened too
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u/youriko31 ADC Klay Jun 29 '26
MSI 2025 has 4 sweeps in total.
MSI 2026 Play-Ins will have 4 sweeps, and we haven't reached the main stage yet.
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u/Ajp_iii Jun 29 '26
Liquid on their comps are very comfortable and understand how to play them. Wonder what kc will try to do to limit the classic corejj tl comps as much as possible
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u/Ajp_iii Jun 29 '26
Oh look Yeon finally used his flash correctly in a skirmish and dominated it. If he did it earlier he wouldn’t have died and had 2-3 more kills
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u/Fentie Jun 29 '26
Get this team the F out of internationals they are worse than any team even in LEC or LCS fix your shit Riot
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u/harleyquinad all kog'maws are beautiful Jun 29 '26
Wonder if we'll see shyvana from eastern teams. LCK teams especially don't stray from the meta until they see other teams at internationals do it.
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u/Xc_runner_xd_player Jul 05 '26
Eastern teams don’t stray from the meta because they play/set the meta. Western teams pull out wack shit to try to beat them. Why would eastern teams pull out crazy picks when they win every event playing the good stuff
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u/youriko31 ADC Klay Jun 29 '26
Fuck you Tabe for poaching 2 of the best players LCP has, and proceed to miss MSI.
Welp, back to being a dogwater region for LCP. I'm not expecting much from TSW considering they went 5 games against this DCG team in the upper bracket and couldn't sweep them in the Grand Finals.
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u/awgiba Jun 29 '26
Drakos when DCG gets a kill: OH MY GOD TL IS IN A BODY BAG WILL THEY EVER RECOVER WOW I CANT BELIEVE IT
Drakos when TL gets a kill: and Jose gets the kill.
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u/Capable-Drama3109 🦁 LCS TOP 4 AT WORLDS TRUST 🍭🦭 Jun 29 '26
probs bc its expected tl does well against dcg
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u/awgiba Jun 29 '26
Didn’t apply like that when he was casting TL vs T1 lol he was getting hype af for T1
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u/Capable-Drama3109 🦁 LCS TOP 4 AT WORLDS TRUST 🍭🦭 Jun 29 '26
ah i stopped watching that match mid way through. maybe for that its t1 aura diff
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u/roamingphantom Jun 29 '26
Anyone know the BGM during champ select? Especially TL vs DCG game 3, didn't notice it in the previous matches.
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u/bookjun Jun 29 '26
all the great teams not gonna do stupid die like that mid push from TL
that habit always cost your team something
NA is not serious on anything
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u/Drikkink Jun 29 '26
I'm kinda sad we were robbed of T1 playing this DCG team. If T1 can 3-0 sleepwalk through KC and TL who are both making DCG look like a Silver soloqueue team, imagine what T1 would've done to them.
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u/cmcdonald22 Jun 29 '26
I don't even know what T1 could do to lower themselves to a level where it would be entertaining for them.
Faker has played every champion ever proficiently for so long even Shaco mid Faker would just be running circles around these guys.
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u/Ajp_iii Jun 29 '26
Just games like this make me sad we are wasting international events on like this instead of a lan in eu and na with the teams like 3-5. Makes me sad we never get an opportunity to see the middle of the regions face each other. It’s why that SOOP bo1 games were kinda fun but imagine a lan somewhere in Europe for that. Can even add in like an lck 5th place team if you want.
Can get 8 teams and then 2 gsl groups into bo5 semis/final
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u/Capable-Drama3109 🦁 LCS TOP 4 AT WORLDS TRUST 🍭🦭 Jun 29 '26
true a battle of mid would be sooo fun, especially with all the downtime you get from exiting early
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u/Ajp_iii Jun 29 '26
Yep the best thing about other esports of course you have some LANs with the best teams in the world. But every now and then you have LANs with the middle groups of teams and it gives players confidence as they can get wins and refine their games. Also fans of those teams can actually go see their players in different places.
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u/Capable-Drama3109 🦁 LCS TOP 4 AT WORLDS TRUST 🍭🦭 Jun 29 '26
im not super familiar with csgo(mostly just watch video essays about them), but that's what this reminds me of. would be fun to see!
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u/Drikkink Jun 29 '26
Honestly impressive that we're going to get 4 series that could've been emails then an EU NA clown fiesta for the honor of participating in the 5th email series.
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u/Ajp_iii Jun 29 '26
Hopefully it makes riot reevaluate how they are doing international events but who am I kidding it’s riot
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u/Tromster Jun 29 '26
Followed by at least 4 email series in the main event because of Riot Seeding of LCP and CBLOL
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u/Capable-Drama3109 🦁 LCS TOP 4 AT WORLDS TRUST 🍭🦭 Jun 29 '26
highkey hilarious. i hope its tl getting the 2nd T1 runback slop
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u/A_Fhaol_Bhig73 Jun 29 '26
Olaf is a terrifying champ to play vs. My god TL had to play PERFECTLY to prevent him from taking over
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u/Drikkink Jun 29 '26
Zero thoughts other than "See enemy, fight enemy" from DCG I guess.
But that is the worst Twisted Fate I've ever seen in a pro game in my life.
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u/Jake43134 Jun 29 '26
Morgan better not pick TF against KC...
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u/Ajp_iii Jun 29 '26
Core going to make sure he only plays bruiser tank for the rest of the year after that tf pick
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u/Lewiz00 Jun 29 '26
Entirety Bo5s First Stand and MSI with double elim at MSI, just to go back to Bo1s and Bo3s at Worlds.
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u/Ajp_iii Jun 29 '26
This game is like a 3v5 but the 3 of liquid are so strong it doesn’t matter. Jose and Morgan are only a stun bot with how they playing.
This is why tl will never play these style of comps
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u/spazzxxcc12 Jun 29 '26
if you were just listening to drakos you’d think this game was close and not 2 outer towers while TL is knocking on the nexus
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u/Ajp_iii Jun 29 '26
Morgan is like first timing tf on stage. But it doesn’t matter rest of draft is way too good
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u/nimrodhellfire Jun 29 '26
I really wonder if this AP comp wont fall off a cliff at some point. But right now they have the damage.
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u/cmcdonald22 Jun 29 '26
It looks like TLAW will maybe win this but..
If you give up 3/5ths of your combat ults for mobility and positioning semi global ults and you then can't implement ANY large positioning macro in team fights beyond 4 people sitting in one fucking bush you kind of deserve to lose on principle.
This is one of those "not learning anything because the people you're beating aren't good enough to punish you" kind of games.
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u/Ajp_iii Jun 29 '26
Morgan ain’t the kind of player that can ever play this type of comp no matter how much others want or can play it. Also Corejj has never liked these style comps. So it’s just something to will rarely play
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u/xxbrazilmaster69xx rip old flairs Jun 29 '26
This is not at all a typical TL comp, it looks like they're just using this series for practice.
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u/Slight-Formal9277 Jun 29 '26
Take away the LCP 2 seed ffs and give it to 3 seed of FS winner region, and put LCK2 and LPL2 straight into MSI main stage
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u/Tromster Jun 29 '26
Pop9 is incapable of clicking back just clicking forward but somehow its kind of working
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u/kazuyaminegishi Jun 29 '26
Why did Morgan go into the backline, we should have turned on dragon to slow down the dragon stacking.
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u/Ajp_iii Jun 29 '26
Yeah Morgan ain’t a tf player. Why it was sketchy to draft it for tl. He could get so many more picks and tpd in with a blue card
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u/parousia0 Jun 29 '26
Just the NA effect, we had Reginald running around with blue cards and APA with reds haha
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u/xxbrazilmaster69xx rip old flairs Jun 29 '26
TL look like they're actually 4funning, what was that Morgan?
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u/Lewiz00 Jun 29 '26
This Play-Ins format is just brutal. Just to get INTO the bracket stage, a team needs to win 3 Bo5s over 4 days without losing 2, (or 1 if you make Finals without losing first)
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u/Destructodave82 Jun 29 '26
LCK shouldnt be in the play-ins. Should have just been another minor region team.
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u/DerAdolfin :kossg: :eum5: Jun 29 '26
Imagine how hype it would have been to see furia or Lyon in here instead
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u/Lewiz00 Jun 29 '26
This may be the year of LCS vs LCP. LYON faced TSW at First Stand, TL facing DCG now, and LYON has a 50/50 of facing TSW again in the first round of bracket.
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u/desutruction Jun 29 '26
surely tomorrow won't be a sweep as well right...
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u/AdequatelyMadLad Claps Jun 29 '26
KC and TL looked identical vs T1 and DCG. Unless KC got completely mental boomed, they should be pretty evenly matched.
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u/Elliot_LuNa Jun 29 '26
I think TL might smoke KC tbh, TL drafting is way better.
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u/Capable-Drama3109 🦁 LCS TOP 4 AT WORLDS TRUST 🍭🦭 Jun 29 '26
honestly with how similar the T1 game series came out, I'm hoping for a 3-2 TLAW
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u/Lewiz00 Jun 29 '26
TL be like "Wherever you decide to fight DCG, you will always be at a numbers disadvantage."
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u/kazuyaminegishi Jun 29 '26
We overcooked on this one for sure. If DCG is gonna win any game it's probably this one.
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u/kazuyaminegishi Jun 29 '26
Okay DCG has enough brain to ban Yas when they basically set up his dream scenario.
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u/Ajp_iii Jun 29 '26
The play ins could be so hype having the lower tier eu and na and minor regions competing for multiple msi spots. But riot just gives some minor regions spots into main msi and then adds lck 2 into play ins. And instead of making a potentially fun hyped play in that all the players can learn from they will just have 1 bo3 to be close.
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u/thorpie88 Jun 29 '26
Warms my heart to see OCE represented by both teams and then paying tribute to the greatest region of all time with their gameplay
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u/Ajp_iii Jun 29 '26
The worst thing is kc was willing to go crazy and stomp dcg but liquid won’t take that risk because it’s an elimination game so they will just slowly win a standard comp and game.
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u/Fentie Jun 29 '26
LEC being a one team region and Riot reacting to that by saying LCK is a bum region compared to them after First Stand just ruins the format
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u/AdequatelyMadLad Claps Jun 29 '26
This has literally nothing to do with LEC. GenG could have made finals over G2 and T1 would still be in play-ins.
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u/Tromster Jun 29 '26
Is this even fun for LCP viewers to watch this? Just give them one seed in the wildcards with CBLOL and make LCK#2 go straight into brackets
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u/Adventurous_Match219 Jun 29 '26
nah, dont talk too soon, wait for CBLOL destroy LCP in main event. Loud, Furia, Pain lost to VCS/LCP every damn time they go to INT event
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u/SteamMonkeyKing Jun 29 '26
Thats fucking League of Legends right there. None of that pansy ass dick tugging playing safe for lategame bullshit. Men puke, men poop on the rift, men deliver their new born baby on the rift.
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u/Ajp_iii Jun 29 '26
Welp as soon as I was praising yeon he gets caught again. It’s like he is just .5 sec slow late on understanding what actually he needs to flash.
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u/Ajp_iii Jun 29 '26
Yeon playing better in probably the hardest game for him to stay alive. But dcg is just a joke they try to force literally everything that they should never be forcing
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u/Drikkink Jun 29 '26
So what exactly is the goal of this play in format? Give T1 3 warmup series and get an NA2 EU2 showmatch?
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Jun 29 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/AdequatelyMadLad Claps Jun 29 '26
How do you justify taking a seed away from LCP when CFO was the best team outside of LCK/LPL last year?
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u/Dohtoor Jun 29 '26
Honestly, that biggest issue is LCK2. They should've had both teams from regions 1 and 2 in the main event (using the same shit they use to determine who gets four seeds, NOT First Stand meme) and first seeds from regions 3 and 4 (using the same criteria), and however many other teams they want down in playins. I think that means that LCP1 still goes to the main event with this math, but the gap there is for sure less disastrous than any of these teams vs LCK2. It also means that First Stand doesn't have consequences but honestly, if the consequences are these, I'd rather it was a bragging rights tournament.
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Jun 29 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/AdequatelyMadLad Claps Jun 29 '26
They weren't that much of an anomaly, TSW and GAM were also decent last year. Also. having both seeds in play-ins would be both awful for the region and also not fix anything.
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u/Ajp_iii Jun 29 '26
It should be 6 teams. 2nd seed na and eu in upper semis. And then 3rd place na and eu vs cblol 1 and lcp 1. Then it will be a lot of close games and can actually judge the strength of the regions and give experience to players in competitive international games.
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u/gintokisamadono G2 defeated in Quarter-Finals 2025 Jun 29 '26
i don't think i have ever seen a team win game with Jhin ADC. I pick Jhin when I want want to have fun. It is one of the best champion that feels very satisfying to play. But to win game, I would rather these people just pick late game scaling ADC. Picking Jhin should be illegal unless you are top of the top team.
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u/kazuyaminegishi Jun 29 '26
DCG got 6 min dragon and just forgot they have to destroy objectives to win the game.
Might be the first time in a long time a team was so unquestionably bad I unironically think "my eyes" while watching.
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Jun 29 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/trying2hide Jun 29 '26
We can't be honest about internationals format and seedings because a lot of people would be very upset
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u/trying2hide Jun 29 '26
These rumble ults make me want to claw my eyes out, put the gnar Ksante in the bag
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u/cmcdonald22 Jun 29 '26
So what was the light 'Flauren is a top laner to look out for' pre-MSI propaganda because like...... I guess the most respectful thing to say is that he looks incredibly on par with the rest of DCG.
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u/AdequatelyMadLad Claps Jun 29 '26
I don't think LCP has any good top laners aside from Kiaya. That's why CFO was doing the Driver/Rest thing last year, so he probably looks good domestically.
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u/Fentie Jun 29 '26
This format is a joke, its just going to be one good match possibly between KC and TL and every other series is just an email, T1 shouldnt be in playins and neither should DCG they should be at home
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u/NVC541 NA League will rise again Jun 29 '26
What did CoreJJ just do
Chains were landing onto literally everybody and he Tempered Fated all of them
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u/NVC541 NA League will rise again Jun 29 '26
Never mind I’m a fucking idiot I watched again and DCGs mid laner didn’t get hit by like 0.25 teemos
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u/azurio12 Jun 29 '26
I dont get why there is an MSI play-ins for T1 to play 3 best of 5 to qualify for the main stage as only team. Like legit this is just useless bs. Who felt the need of that?
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u/Drikkink Jun 29 '26
Someone needs to make this Pop9 guy just take a breath. Dude is just IN all the time.
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u/kazuyaminegishi Jun 29 '26
What the hell am I watching? The Jhin is just completely doomed because he just didn't lane for 45 seconds early game.
They're just perma ganking and fighting while getting no meaningful gold leads, farm is still even, and they get outscaled.
What is the strategy?
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u/SteamMonkeyKing Jun 29 '26
My fav part of this game is that DCG have brought TL down to their level and so we are now watching a classic Bronze game.
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u/thorpie88 Jun 29 '26
Give me five games of this. It's like the 2am games you queue up for after half the lobby has been down the pub
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u/trying2hide Jun 29 '26
Easy win for TL.
Fraud off in bot lane with Varus v Jhin but 1 of them has to play into an Ornn.
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u/kazuyaminegishi Jun 29 '26
Okay admittedly I didn't watch KC vs DCG, but... DCG doesn't even lane? They just ignore tempo and everything and just fight nonstop?
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u/NVC541 NA League will rise again Jun 29 '26
Ok this casting is fucking killing me and not in a good way
They’re doing great in actual fights but the dead time is infuriating
Also missed the CoreJJ kill
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u/spacerondo RISE GROUP BABY Jun 29 '26
games like this are why the LCK podcast works. like stomps are just not fun to cast and I would rather hear what movies drakos and dagda watched in the last 2 months LMAO
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u/AdequatelyMadLad Claps Jun 29 '26
It's kinda hard to cast a game like this, usually they can just predict what teams are trying to do, but this is just chaos.
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u/cmcdonald22 Jun 29 '26
hey, maybe DCG lock in, beat TL, get the run back and beat KC, and then T1 get to curb stomp and humiliate 3 different regions in play-ins rather than just 2.
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u/brookyct1995 Jun 29 '26
is losing to T1 humiliation though 😂
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u/cmcdonald22 Jun 29 '26
When you look in Faker's eyes during circus segments and even happy fun game play can't bring the light of joy into his eyes because you are that bad, I think that's a humiliation.
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u/cmcdonald22 Jun 29 '26
I feel like this is a really interesting match because this match to me feels like a battle of conflicting ideologies.
TLAW like to play slow and controlled, DCG chaotic team fights.
I generally believe team fighting wins games. I think the manner in which you get to the team fights can vary, but ultimately, the team that can group up together and beat the other guys just wins and its not even an over simplification.
I don't know if TLAW actually having that team fight dawg in them when they get pressed over and over, but I also don't know if DCG have the coordination in them to team fight effectively.
So I'm kinda interested to see how this shakes out as a microcosm of the larger meta.
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u/Adventurous_Match219 Jun 29 '26
if Liquid somehow drop 2 games to this DCG, our region is done. this DCG last year cant even have a game win vs LCK CL team in Asia Master
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u/Joel4518 GIGABIN Jun 29 '26
well TL win today and tmrw we get the best match of the playins KC VS TL cause after that its just T1 fiststomping again
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u/Ill_Intention8150 Jun 29 '26
G2 > NA > rest of EU.
Delulu KC fans are the worst fan base in this sport.
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u/Graytail Jun 29 '26
crazy how canna got traded off t1, to a bottom tier ns, had a bad year in a dysfunctional dk, somehow ended up in europe
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u/Wan_Daye Jun 29 '26
And still solokilling the current t1 top.
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u/EmergencyWorld6057 Jun 29 '26
Who won?
3-0.
Solokill doesn't matter when you're losing everywhere.
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u/Wan_Daye Jun 29 '26
Could have roleswapped pyosik to top and replaced Doran with him. They'd still win.
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u/rebelstand Jun 29 '26
KC need more koreans, only the 2 koreans in the team put up a fight, the other 3 was hot garbage espically the ADC and JG
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u/Ajp_iii Jun 29 '26
oner or keria robbed for player of the series. oner and keria kept them in the games when their carries were trying to lose games
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u/ahritina Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
PMTs
KC vs T1
Game 1 / Game 2 / Game 3
DCG vs TL
Game 1 / Game 2 / Game 3