Hello reddit! This should be the final part of the translated DongNanQing’s analysis of the finals tomorrow.

Continuing on the matchups between individual lanes, this part will be about the bot lane 2v2s, his retrospect on T1 vs DRX, and his prediction for who would lift the Worlds trophy. A lot of the things he says will have something to do with the double ADC breakdown in part 1, so I definitely recommend you read part 1 before this one.

I would’ve done more translated Chinese analysis, but since finals is in a day, I don’t think more essays would be nice to the eye.

This part is a VERY, VERY LONG one, longer than part 1+2 combined, so feel free to skim through the headings and choose the parts you want to read. Again, please show your support to the original creator DongNanQing.

original video on Bilibili

Bot/Sup matchup

A premise or two

Now, the following analysis will be under the premise that WBG drop their uncanny lane prio playstyle (translator’s note: about his breakdown of the bot lane situation, check part 1). Out of the 5 games against BLG, WBG has opted for an extreme lane prio heavy bot lane combination (G2, G3, G4), of which they lost the 2nd and 4th game. The 0/5 Lux and “no ult until 16 minutes” Humordinger (*not a typo. I personally find this pun funny af ahahah) is definitely a part of the blame of why they lost. Even in the 3rd game where they won, the Varus-Ashe combo is… interesting to say the least. If it were not for the giant gap in top lane, where TheShy’s Graves had a god-like performance, I can’t say for certain that WBG would’ve won it. After all, even towards the end of the game, Varus was still 70 CS down the enemy Kalista.

To be fair, for the more orthodox bot combination in G1 and G5, WBG piloted them quite well. Despite WBG Crisp giving out first blood, they could still pressure the opponent; and on the Kalista-Renata in G5, they even got lane kills. So I would say they played well on orthodox picks.

Yet, they need to have proper knowledge of T1 Keria’s Ashe and Bard (again, refer to part 1). This is another premise whether WBG has the chance to beat T1. If they are still obsessed with first-picking Ashe like in Semis, I don’t think they would have the slightest chance of winning.

Now that the two premises are made clear, let’s actually talk about the matchup.

Looking at the champ pools of both sides, Crisp has never played Tahm and Bard in this tournament. He actually had been practicing Tahm in ranked. WBG can definitely bring out the Senna-Tahm combination. For Bard however, we’ll have to see if Crisp can pick him up.

As for Light, while he hasn’t played Jhin in this worlds, he has actually played him quite a lot in his career. I would say Jhin is the basic marksman of which every ADC player should know how to play, so it makes sense.

About Gumayusi, he played a game of Yasuo on 10th Nov, and a game of Samira on 14th Nov. Other than that, I haven’t seen any weird picks so far.

Oh, I want to bring up a small detail as well. In the last week, suddenly a lot of top lane games are played on an alt of Light. The champs played were AD Triforce Ahri, top Yone and mid Kalista. Whether this is TheShy playing on his account, I do not know.

Team-scale analysis

After discussing the individual matchups of each lane, we can compare them on a team scale.

WBG

All five members of WBG have had their pop-offs in this tournament. Yet the problem is, they never managed to have all five members pop off at the same moment. When someone is carrying, someone else will int (translator’s note: wait this is just like my solo q games). In G1 (of WBG vs BLG) where top and bot lane is doing well, Xiaohu was completely clueless. In G2, 3 and 4 where the top/mid/jungle was doing well, the bot lane was shaky. In G5 where mid and bot was carrying, TheShy and Weiwei were the ones who started to choke. These all points to the fact that WBG is very, very unstable. But what caused this?

For one, the relatively older age of the players is definitely a factor. On the other hand, I think there also is a problem with Daeny’s ban pick. Quite a lot of people like Daeny’s ban picks, as it helped WBG beat BLG. However, I still think there is a big problem with his ban picks. There are many hidden problems:

• first picking Ashe
• using the R5 counter pick against Bard for a Heimer lock in (video shows the matchup of Bard vs Heimer in Masters+ 13.19, with Bard having a 66.10% winrate)
• despite the mediocre performance on Vi for the first three games, he still opted to ban Vi on G4 while letting Jax through.

To put it simply, while you are free to believe that Daeny’s gaudy ban picks can create miracles, it cannot be denied that his ban picks might dig the grave for WBG.

The above are the weaknesses of WBG. Of course, they still have areas of strength. Due to the decently wide champ pools of the 5 players, among the 4 LPL teams, it is fair to say that WBG would be the only team capable of standing against T1 in the ban pick stage.

T1

Ok, let’s move onto T1. T1 is strong. Very strong. But it can’t be said that they are without weakness. Their very ahead understanding of the meta is what gave them such an edge in the ban pick stage. Plus, in the series against JDG, they have shown their teamfight prowess - like Faker’s point-blank flash prediction on Ruler in G3, or Oner’s Rell flashing over Ashe R in a moment of certain death. Yet, their aggression is not always met with positive results.

[Video cuts to G3 of T1 vs JDG, where T1 secured baron but opts to fight JDG in their jungle, resulting in the deaths of many T1 members] Looking at this moment, if T1 chooses to just recall after getting the baron, this would’ve been an easy win. Instead, whilst having no flashes and ults up across the whole team, and their bot/sup low in HP, they chose to chase a Renekton with flash and ult up. This led them to lose 3 baron buffs

[Video cuts to 20m16s of G2. Oner engages with Maokai] Oner instantly chose to engage with Maokai W when he saw an enemy, but Faker could not push enemies back due to a failed Azir E, resulting in a complete loss in that skirmish, and also losing their dragon taking tempo.

[Video cuts to 24m54s of G2. T1 fights JDG while JDG is taking baron] Not to mention this moment, where T1 desperated tried to force a 3v4, has also caused T1 to maximize their loss because of Faker’s failed Azir E+Q. While it is undeniable that Faker is the Player of the Series, their defeat in G2 is largely related to his two failed Azir plays. When you keep pushing yourself to do high difficulty plays, not even Faker can avoid the risk of mistakes, resulting in even further loss.

Side selection

WBG has won the coin toss, and chose blue side. On the other hand, T1 played 2 games of red side against BLG, 3 games of red side against LNG, and 2 games of red side against JDG. Despite losing one time on red side (G2 against JDG), their ban pick was still very well done and had a complete team comp. It is safe to say that T1’s ban pick is not under any real pressure even if they are on red side. Their R5 support counter picks had even terrorized JDG so much that they chose red side willingly. The only benefit WBG has from getting blue side is that at least they won’t have a hard time building their comp. It is very unlikely that WBG will be able to take advantage of blue side to beat T1 in the ban pick stage.

T1 vs DRX: A retrospect (and GEN.G catching strays xdd)

Before I give out my final verdict, there is one more thing I would like to discuss: the comparison of T1 vs DRX in last year’s finals and T1 vs WBG. A lot of people have made comparisons and say the situation is very similar, so I think I have to talk about why DRX was able to defeat T1 last year.

Rants about GEN

Actually I have made my own predictions last year too. If I remember correctly, my predictions on Quarters were 100% correct, while I had 1 wrong prediction in Semis. Yes. It’s GEN G. This dumbass team again. Last year, I already made sharp critiques on Score’s (GEN’s coach) sacrilegious ban picks. I never thought that this year’s ban picks will still be so sacrilegious.

DRX

Ok, enough off-topic rants. Let’s actually talk about T1 vs DRX. Last year I predicted a T1 3-0 sweep against DRX. To be honest, in retrospect, I had a lot of subjective bias, and not as reason-based as my Quarters and Semis predictions. This is because T1 had been destroying everything in their way to finals, while DRX had been struggling and even faced with elimination several times. This made me subconsiously think that DRX is never going to beat T1, and I didn’t find it necessary to do detailed analysis on each lane’s matchups.

Looking back, Zeka actually had an edge against Faker. Zeka, without question, is the largest beneficiary of the meta in Worlds 2022. Akali and Sylas are his pocket-picks, and these 2 champs coincidentally had very high priorities that tournament, which forced T1 to invest a banning slot to deal with Zeka’s Akali.

Also, on the jungle side, last year is the “last dance of jungle carries”. The standard of whether a jungler is good was whether they could pick a third carry outside of Graves and Viego. DK Canyon last year almost sent GEN.G home with his Kayn pick. Meanwhile, Pyosik happens to be a Kindred god - which forced T1 to invest another banning slot to deal with his Kindred.

BeryL’s game knowledge last year was also above Keria. The champs Keria was able to pilot, BeryL could as well.

These factors in combination, had forced T1 into a bot lane prio in the first 3 picks, even opting to first pick Karma. The end result was not enough bans and pick opportunities, forfeiting the Aatrox to Kingen, which allowed him to play 3 hours of the best Aatrox, finals limited edition. In the last game, BeryL even destroyed Keria in knowledge by bringing out the Bard pick that had huge threat to the immobile T1 mid/bot/sup champions (translator’s note: this is exactly what Keria has been doing this Worlds).

WBG

Returning to the present, is WBG really able to recreate such a miracle this year?

When compared to the meta’s favorite child Zeka last year, the favorite child this year became Faker. The prominence of Orianna and Azir made it so that he doesn’t even need to pick a fourth champion (context: Faker has only playeed Orianna, Azir and Sylas this whole tournament). Xiaohu, who cannot properly pilot Orianna, has become the disadvantaged side.

Let’s look at bot lane. Unlike BeryL who triumphed over Keria in game knowledge, Crisp is obviously just trying to replicate T1’s playstyle, and it even looks like he is becoming obsessed with it. If my previous analysis on Keria’s Ashe and Bard is correct, Crisp’s false view of the bot prio playstyle will very likely bring WBG’s bot picks into a wrong path.

When it comes to jungle, jungle carries are no longer viable this year. Both sides has to go utility junglers, competing with their early game tempo and their sense of when to engage in mid-to-late game fights. In this aspect, seeing Oner’s mastermind of invading in G1 against JDG, along with his grasp of the engage timing on Rell in G3, I can’t help but be worried about Weiwei.

TheShy might be the only who on WBG who can create miracles. However, Zeus, who had experienced heartbreaks due to his faltering in finals, is not likely to give another chance.

The final verdict

Without considering the possibility of all 5 members of WBG playing out of their mind, and only considering their performance throughout this tournament, due to the defects of their mid/sup champ pools as well as the false understanding of bot prio, it will be very hard for WBG to ban pick. Under a disadvantageous circumstance, since outside of top lane, all the other 4 players on WBG are weaker than their opponents skill-wise, it is very probable that they fall under the pace of T1 starting from laning phase. WBG is likely to forfeit objectives and resources to T1 without much resistance, and losing to T1 in a passive manner.

Although TheShy had gained an edge in the previous Bo5 with some unorthodox picks, I don’t really think these against-the-meta champs will pose a real threat to T1. The major reason they worked in that series is because the lack of discipline of BLG Bin. If TheShy really ends up playing these champs, I think it will only result in the loss of WBG’s only hope of combating T1.

As WBG has blue side on G1, they will at least have 3 games with blue side in the Bo5. If they use this to give top lane more priority, then gain a lead through top, WBG definitely has the chance of taking 1 game.

My final verdict: T1 3-0 WBG or T1 3-1 WBG.

(End of Part 3, and the end of this analysis)

This series of analysis has been MUCH LONGER than I anticipated, but this is the last part. I have had a lot of fun translating and I hope you enjoyed the ride as well. Thanks for sticking around. Please show your love to the original creators.

If I find more bangers in the future, I will do my best to translate them and share it to you guys :)

​