Checkpoint XP Daily – The Great North American LoL Culling
(Image provided by Riot Games)
We talk the disappointing defeat of North America in the League Worlds Group Stages, plus look ahead to gaming releases in November.
League of Legends has been center stage in esports as group stages reach their conclusion for Worlds. Sadly, all three North American teams, Cloud 9, Team Liquid and Clutch Gaming all suffered disappointing losses and will not continue on to the World’s stage. We also take a look at what each of the hosts did over the weekend and take a look forward to November in gaming to see what game releases there are to get excited about.
Check out an excerpt from our conversation about League of Legend’s Group Stages below.
Nate Bender But we start today talking about World’s. The League of Legends World Championships currently playing out.
Norris Howard Do we have to talk about.
Nate Bender We do have to talk about it. We have spent a considerable amount of time talking about North America’s chances at world.
Robbie’s Drop Board Another victory for America.
Joe Sloan No, no, it was not. Go away with that. I hate this. I was in a good mood. I was excited. I was ready to do the show today. And now we’ve got to talk about this hot garbage.
Robbie’s Drop Board I’m sorry. I thought it was garbage.
Joe Sloan No, you were correct. It was hot garbage.
Nate Bender So we had talked a lot about this stage of the World’s play off. You know, we had given a lot of lip service to, you know, how how Cloud9 might do and how Clutch Gaming might do.
Joe Sloan How Team Liquid might do.
Nate Bender I was getting to Team Liquid. I was building to those. We had a fairly good idea that Clutch Gaming probably was not going to get out of the group of death. We we were optimists for Cloud9 and said and even some saying that they were the real hope for North America at World’s. No. They fell very quickly. But then the real last and probably the best hope for North America, of course, Team Liquid, who ran roughshod over the better part of this entire season and looked phenomenal going into worlds. So I got to ask, like, what happened here?
Robbie’s Drop Board It’s all bad.
Joe Sloan Yeah. So obviously, for the first part of the double round robin, they finished 2 and 1. And at the end of the day, what you’re hoping for when you go to Worlds and you’re playing in the group stages is that when you go into your last game at groups, your destiny is still in your own hand. That’s when you’re in lose and you’re out. You don’t want to have to rely on someone else to get you in, basically. And to their credit, they at least got that they were in control of their own destiny to the final game of the group stages. And they looked like a bunch of clowns. I mean, I can’t I cannot find you a good takeaway from that last game against Invictus Gaming. They from the word go. They were behind. They looked bad. The entire way. And for the second time that day, because their first game of the day against Damwon Gaming, they looked awful, too. They bounce back against AHQ Esports Club and played ok against them. But that last game against Invictus Gaming literally broke me. This is true. I turned it off. I did not want to finish it.
Norris Howard No, it was. It was very bad and it was very depressing. I mean, here’s the thing. When you saw how Clutch Gaming played, it was valiant efforts all around. But you could tell that they were just very they were outclassed for every team in that group was better than them from top to bottom.
Joe Sloan Except AHQ Esports.
Norris Howard Well, no, I’m talking about in terms of Clutch Gaming. But you go to Cloud9’s Group and you say, all right, you may be able to get out, but you had a couple teams over perform in my opinion. OK, to be fully honest with you. Griffon had turmoil going into Worlds. They had fired their head coach for all sorts of stuff going on in the background. All of the premises were set up for Cloud9 to get out of that group. Griffin just rises to the occasion and they come out of Group A but Team Liquid had no excuse. I’m sorry. I did not think that Invictus Gaming was a better team than Team Liquid going into this. We saw Damwon Gaming out of Korea played very well, and I thought they would come out of the group for sure. But every match Team Liquid played outside of that match against AHQ, they looked slow. They were out farmed. They were outplayed. They ended up just waltzing through the river, which is like me, iron, bronze tier player knows not to do. It was bad. It was rookie mistakes. And they were completely, completely dominated.
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