With how tournament meta evolves (thank mr t1), the draft between T1 and WBG will be sooooo spicy. So much nuances, so much questions. T1 botlane and Keria cooking. Or maybe it is Crisp who is cooking this time? TheShy and Zeus counter-picking each other. Midlane champion pool. Oner champion pool. I can’t wait to see those mind games and attempts to outdraft each other, it feels like we can see the most crazy things to be pulled on Sunday.

Just see how much craziness is hidden in the draft already (before Series started):

Midlane

It all starts from midlane:

• Faker so far played only 3 champions, maining mainly Azir and Ori with 2 games on Sylas. Ofc we all know that Faker pool is deep, but this man is after his injury and no surprise he wants to stick with a fewer options.
• Xiaohu is another Azir player, he picked it 5 times, and 4 times Neeko (100% WR), followed by a bunch of different champions played once (Syndra, Ori, Ahri, Taliyah, Jayce, Sylas);
• Should T1 ban xiaohu’s Neeko on red? Should they trade Ori for Azir? Generally, Orianna is heavy winning matchup vs Azir. Everyone at this Worlds (ShowMaker, xiaohu, BDD, Caps, Chovy, Scout) has lost on Azir aganinst Ori. Everyone. Except Faker. Faker won it three times and the only one who managed to have a priority against Ori on Azir. So, should T1 trade Ori for Azir again?

Jungle

Jungle pool is also a lot of questions and mind games:

• Oner so far basically playing 2 main champions on which he plays at the another level: Jarvan4 and Rell. He also has 1 game on Sejuani, Poppy and Maokai, but arguably Rell and J4 are his best;
• And guess who is OTP of Poppy? WBG WeiWei. He also plays a lot of Rell and Maokai.
• Should T1 ban WeiWei’s Poppy? What to do with J4? Leave it open on red and hope to trade Orianna for Azir + J4? But what if WBG will ban J4 at the blue?

Toplane

 Toplane adds spicy things on top of it, especially in the light of J4 discussion:

• Rumble. Should T1 or WBG let him go through ban phase? Yes, 369 shows he can’t play it, but TheShy clearly is on another level. I doubt Oner will pull his trick twice. Does Zeus have an answer? And if no one bans Rumble, then should blue side immediately lock him as FP?
• Aatrox. Both TheShy and Zeus played this champion by far the most, but also they both showed decent counter-picks to it. TheShy pulled Graves and Zeus – Yone. One of toplaners will have to blind pick his champion, and if we assume that Rumble will be banned, will anyone risk and take Aatrox or stick to safer tank option like K’Sante/Gragas/Ornn?
• Jayce. Zeus already showed his insane iconic Jayce and mainly spam Jayce and Rumble in SoloQ, will he risk it all and pull it in Finals? Also, let’s don’t forget that he will play against a player who with Jayce in 2018 won Worlds and knows everything about it;
• TheShy’s cooking. LPL teams are known for their deep scouting and preparations when it comes to best-of-5. SN SoFM Shen and Rengar out-of-nowhere are great examples when LPL team (who has on average more staff than LCK) was so much prepared and ready to go such deep in the champion pool. It can matter the most when we talk about of the most diversified players in LoL history who can play it all from crazy Quinn to Ornn. Will TheShy and WBG prepare anything special for Finals like Kalista top (imagine WBG picks Kalista on 2-3 blue side, everyone assumes it is botlane, but then TheShy locks it for himself with Hail of Blades)?

Botlane

Botlane perfectly tops-up this madness. It is really hard to predict botlane draft, because at this moment it feels that absolutely anything could be played at the bot. We saw Senna in both roles, Kalista at both roles, Varus, Ashe, Caitlyn, Nilah, and I am not even talking about “meta” picks like Xayah, Kai’SA (who?) and Aphelios who is loved by Light. But few moments stand out:

• Renata. It feels like this champion is absolutely broken in hands of both Keria and Crisp, and also is insanely good for teamfights around neutral objects. Shall WBG or T1 allow it and leave open?
• Bard. Keria’s Bard is just on another level, will WBG respect ban it or leave open?
• Kalista. This champions was permabanned most of the tournament, 4 players from Finals can play it at the highest level (Guma, Keria, Light, TheShy), it provides a lot of flexibility to the draft, helps to secure neutral objects and most importantly …
• Botlane priority vs scaling. The most defining part. T1 loves to play with priority to have access to Dragons, especially at the red side. However, I know that I will be hated for this words, but math speaks out by itself:
  • Gumayusi is not that strong in lategame teamfights. Yes, his micro-mechanics are insane and he showed it to us in his 1v2 against JDG, but his damage output is nowhere close to Light’s. For example, in game 3 against JDG (when Faker’s caught Ruler), Guma’s Kalista did around same damage as Keria’s Renata and almost 3 times lower than Zeus Aatrox. I don’t know it is about positioning or champion pool, but Guma doesn’t play like a “late game insurance” and rarely solo carry fights just killing everyone;
  • WBG in contradiction likes Light to play hyper-carries like Aphelios, and WeiWei can easily put a camp on the bot and don’t allow Guma and Keria to have too much priority 2v2. Light was a monster this Worlds. He had so many 1v9 shows and had 2 games where he broke 1k DMG/minute result, it is insane;
  • How teams are going to address it? Will WBG just give up on priority and lock something like Aphelios-Milio for Light and Crisp with WeiWei constantly pathing bot to punish overextending Guma and Keria, or will they try to go on par with T1? Don’t forget that Crisp is famous for his Heimerdinger, who is perfect to give botlane priority. Imagine laning against Ashe + Heim?

At the end

I don’t know how to describe it, but it feels so hyped about drafts here. I hope we are going to see insane mind games. It feels like anything can happen. You can build draft in any direction. Lock botlane first and leave toplane to counter-pick. Or lock topside of the map and try to “cook” at botlane. Poppy. Orianna. J4. Kalista. Rumble. Neeko. Azir. Rell. So many “broken” champions and so many angles. WBG can just give it all on Oner and ban both J4/Rell, forcing him out of comfort zone. T1 can ban Neeko and take Azir for Faker. TheShy vs Zeus and one of them always to have a counter-pick. Botlane madness. Go to scaling like WBG or go to early-game snowball like T1?

So much questions.

Hype hype hype.