I really think this knockout stage was very boring overall compared to other Worlds. It’s being overshadowed a bit by the T1 win and all the narrative that comes with that, but I think this will be remembered as a kind of boring Worlds knockout.

If you think about it, there really wasn’t that many good BO5 series. There maybe 3 to 4-ish and even that’s a stretch.

The final was one of the biggest stomps I have ever seen in Worlds. And even worse is how everyone kind of knew it would be a stomp ahead of time. At least with 2019 G2, people had way more hope.

Here are what I would call the 2 good series:

  • T1 vs JDG

The best series of Worlds. Super competitive and T1 had some very clutch plays by Faker and Oner to grab the win. Amazing BO5.

  • JDG vs KT

Good series imo. KT winning game 1 was exciting and it wasn’t like it was some mega stomp even if JDG won in the end.

As for the 3-2 series on the other side of the bracket: I don’t think these series were very good even if they were close on paper.

  • GenG vs BLG was an exciting upset but it was marred by atrocious drafting and prep by GenG alongside some super bad plays in key moments.

They had the completely wrong meta read and went down 0-2 as a result. In retrospect, them giving Jarvan, Rumble and Orianna so much to BLG has just aged like complete shit. I have no idea how the fuck GenG shit the bed so hard. They must be kicking themselves now.

  • BLG vs Weibo was another 3-2 series but I think the level of play was super low for a semifinal.

It was actually depressing to watch sometimes. TheShy popping off was cool but BLG had a very weak day imo. Especially Bin was playing very poorly compared to what we usually see from him.

Here are some reasons why I think this happened.

  • The brackets were very uneven. The T1 side was way stronger.

  • T1 was just by far the strongest team which makes things a bit boring on its own for neutral viewers.

  • GenG choking made that whole side of the super uncompetitive.

  • Some otherwise good teams had very weird slumps/uncharacteristic mistakes: LNG, BLG, GenG

  • Weibo only had to beat one single LPL/LCK team to make finals and they only barely beat a slumping BLG. This just turned the final into a horror show like we saw.

Overall, I’d say there was only 1 really good series (JDG vs T1), three okay series (KT vs JDG, GenG vs BLG, BLG vs Weibo) and the rest were completely onesided stomps.

3 of the 7 BO5s were ultra onesided stomps. That’s almost half. And the close 3-2 series were just depressing for different reasons I thought.

  • TipofmyReddit1BEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Without 1 and 2 seedings, we ended up with a very weak Quarter of WBG vs NRG. Teams that many people thought would be first-round elims if not paired together.

    Then somehow WBG beat BLG, credit to them. But the thought of WBG still just sucking was there.

    I think we actually had a lot of great games. The only “flaw” was that WBG was there and they couldn’t pull off a DRX. They kind of had an easy path and no crazy story like DRX was given.

    Blame scriptwriters for not focusing on LPL narratives.

  • GuaranteeCultural607BEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I feel like the names give you a lot of bias. If WBG/BLG had no name plates, or lets say it was the finals between T1/JDG (exact same game and draft just different names), you would say it was the best series of worlds.

  • baelkieBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    wdym? i particularly enjoyed JDG running back through the lower bracket, stomping WBG 3-0 in the loser’s finals before pushing the eventual winners T1 to a 5 game banger. riot’s decision to finally implement double elimination at worlds this year worked out beautifully.

  • nikankwonBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I think a few reasons:

    1. Way too bot prio meta… for example, in Swiss round stages, game data shows that except for 2 games, whoever got the first drag = win. I know it’s not a concrete fact but the probability of winning % goes up
    2. Meta-champs = kinda boring. Changed quite a bit even from mid-season, when Annie and leblanc statikk shiv picks were rampant. Mid lane it was either Ahri/Azir/Neeko/Ori/a lil bit o Jayce but that’s it. Nothing too spicy. Same range duo bot meta towards the end, beginning on from QF
    3. Players we expected to pop off (not all)= flopped like fishes on concrete
    4. lack of LCS and LEC excitement in QF and on. I wish at least one team made it
    5. maybe last year’s worlds was just that epic and cool in comparison
      • nikankwonBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        You mean the Swiss stage? I personally thought QF and on, it could’ve been fun with winner/loser elim bracket system – more matches and more drama.

        What would you want to have seen for format? genuinely curious

  • Foreign-Designer-998BEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Needed a losers lower bracket… I wanted to see GG, JDG, BLG all have one more chance… going out from 1 Bo5 lose kinda boring

  • WujuKingYiBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Double elimination is unfair and weird. I would like it more if even the finalist has a second chance. Everyone except the finalist has a second chance making it super unfair. Most of the time they only even have 1 day of prep instead of a week or something