Hello reddit! Due to the overwhelmingly positive feedback from yesterday (thanks! I cannot express how thankful I am), here is part 2 translation of the finals analysis by DongNanQing! Again, please show the original creator your support. I would say part 2 is not as spicy as the double ADC breakdown in part 1, but is still definitely worth a read to be prepared for finals!

*half way through translating I realized it would be too long to fit all 5 roles in one thread. Part 2 will be Top-Jungle-Mid only and part 3 will be the 2v2 bot lanes.

original video on Bilibili

Top Lane - Rumble and Aatrox

The priority of Rumble and Aatrox in this Worlds is extremely high, while TheShy and Zeus happen to be the best pilots of these champions in this tournament, hence these 2 champs will be the most contested in finals.

Rumble

As Faker’s performance on Orianna as the B1 pick is too good, WBG is most likely going to ban Orianna and leave Rumble open. Against Rumble, TheShy has opted to play Gnar in the previous series against NRG. Gnar with Fleet Footwork can easily chip Rumble while also having good HP regen.

On the side of Zeus, in the two games against Rumble, he chose Aatrox in both. Zeus’ Aatrox, when against Rumble, will pick Nullifying Orb and Arcane Comet as his runes, while also rushing Hexdrinker as first item.

Aatrox

After Rumble, let’s talk about Aatrox. In previous matchups against Aatrox, TheShy’s choice is Graves, while Zeus prefers Yone. Both players had a stellar performance on these picks, destroying the opposing laner. Yet they have different focuses.

TheShy’s Graves pick is paired with Bel’Veth jungle. Him pushing lanes is to synergize with Bel’Veth’s herald placements. Meanwhile, Yone is still aligned with the main theme of teamfighting this Worlds (translator’s note: about the main theme of worlds 2023 being teamfighting, check part 1). His R can combo very well with jungle picks like Rell and J4.

Comparison of champ picks & Conclusion

When comparing the champ picks of the two players this Worlds, TheShy has played K’Sante and Quinn while Zeus has played two games of Jayce. To be honest, the above champs can be piloted by either players, and they are pretty good at these champs. To conclude, the arsenal of both players are very sufficient, and can trade blows with each other. They are the best top laners in this Worlds. Therefore, I believe that the matchup in top lane will be too close to call. Both sides will find it very tough to break the game open through top lane.

Some words for WBG fans

Of course, I still have something to say to comfort WBG fans. TheShy has always been a “big-stage” player. The higher the stakes, the better he performs. In contrary, Zeus has the previous history of bad mental in finals. The above analysis is under the assumption that both players play to their best form. If TheShy can keep his momentum from Semis while Zeus struggles, it is not impossible for WBG to break top lane open.

Jungle - Utility picks

Frankly, there isn’t much to say about jungle. The champ pools of both sides are very similar. Or let me rephrase my words - the function of every jungle champ in this Worlds is very similar. In order of priority, it would be J4 > Rell > Maokai. Sejuani and Poppy picks would depend on the team comps like Poppy-Azir and Sej-Jax. This is all I have to say about jungle. The junglers this tournament is all about utility.

Potential unorthodox picks?

Weiwei played a game of Viego in ranked on 14th Nov, and Oner has been spamming Wukong in ranked, and his performance on Wukong is stellar; he even played a game of Karthus on 14th Nov. Of course, I think outside of a last resort, both sides wouldn’t rely on unorthodox picks like these. Junglers are still the most important engagers on the team. When junglers start to play these high-risk, high-reward but low margin of error picks, they are 100% being desperate.

Conclusion

The performance of Oner (in the series against JDG) on Rell and J4 is too good, and the excellent form of him has been continuing for 1 Bo3 and 2 Bo5s; Weiwei, on the other hand, while having a champ pool that suits the meta and have made frequent good plays, has also shown a lot of unacceptable errors. In conclusion, I think the jungle matchup in finals is going to favor Oner by quite a lot.

Mid Lane - The biggest gap

I don’t think there is a lot to discuss about mid lane either. Faker has only played 3 champs throughout the WHOLE tournament. Orianna, Azir and Sylas. While it looks like Xiaohu has a large variety of champs, the most played ones are just Azir and Neeko. It might seem like Faker has a shallow champ pool, but in fact I am more worried about the champ pool of Xiaohu.

Xiaohu’s fatal weakness

There exists a fatal problem with Xiaohu’s champ pool - he does not pilot Orianna well. While it might have something to do with WBG being mostly on the Red side and hence not given the chance to play Orianna more, the one game he got the chance to play her, their top side is perfect (Rumble, J4 and Orianna), but he still performed terribly. This is inexcusable. Even in ranked, he has only played a few games of Orianna for the entire duration of this tournament. This will give the upper hand to T1 during ban picks when T1 is on red side. Instead of playing Orianna himself, Xiaohu tends to pick Syndra to go against Orianna; he also played quite a lot of Akali in ranked. It is possible that he will use Akali against Faker’s Orianna or Azir in the finals.

Conclusion

It is unfathomable how well Faker performed in the series against JDG, taking all 3 MVPs from the games T1 won (translators note: it seems like each region’s casting features an MVP voted by them, so if you weren’t watching on the LPL cast, you might have seen different MVPs). In comparison, Xiaohu’s performance has been unreliable. Mid lane might be the biggest gap in finals. It is even fair to say that “whether Xiaohu suddenly regains form” would be the premise of a possibility of WBG beating T1. If Xiaohu gets gapped in mid lane, WBG essentially has zero chance of beating T1.

(End of Part 2)

Below is my yapping session, feel free to skip it. I hope you enjoyed your read! Let me know if you want part 3 ^^

There we go! Again, thank you so much for the support from part 1 and showing that you guys like seeing these translation. I hope the layout isn’t an eyesore. This is the first time I’ve done translation - the reason being that I’m greatly inspired by other people here who translate deep, informative analysis. If any other translators saw this, thank you for your work. I really do mean it. My favorite ones were the previous translations of analysis by CloudTemplar. Without your translation we would be missing on so much good content.