First Look: North America at Worlds

by John Jaskot

The play-in stage for the World Tournament started yesterday taking place in South Korea, making it a unique watching experience for us here in North America (NA). With games starting at 4 AM ET it will be difficult to keep up on the event live so I’ll be giving you my thoughts on North American teams after the fact, starting with Cloud Nine (C9).

After seeing the games from the Day One play-in stage my initial thought is that teams are looking so much stronger this year. What will the group stage look like for the NA teams? Below is the first round with C9 vs KaBuM! (KBM):

2018 World Championship Play-In Day 1 #Worlds2018 Cloud9 vs. KaBuM! e-Sports Cloud9 Lineup: Licorice - Top Aatrox Blaber - Jungle Xin Zhao Jensen - Mid Ryze Sneaky - Bot Kai'Sa Zeyzal - Support Leona KaBuM!

This was the Cloud 9 I expected to see in Worlds. The game started off a bit slow as the teams had to feel out one another’s play style but come mid game C9 took fights they knew they were going to win and used map awareness to their full advantage. Overpowering KBM from mid game forward they let the world know in game one that NA is not to be messed with. Next up we have Detonation FocusMe (DFM) vs C9:

2018 World Championship Play-In Day 1 #Worlds2018 DetonatioN FocusMe vs. Cloud9 DetonatioN FocusMe Lineup: Evi - Top Urgot Steal - Jungle Xin Zhao Ceros - Mid Ziggs Yutapon - Bot Varus viviD - Support Tahm Kench Cloud9 Lineup: Licorice - Top Lissandra Blaber - Jungle Kindred Jensen - Mid Irelia Sneaky - Bot Kai'Sa Zeyzal - Support Alistar Watch all matches of the split here from all of our leagues: NA LCS, EU LCS, LCK Champions Korea, LPL.

During this game things got a bit scary for the NA region. It should have went the way of DFM but they took a very poorly timed team fight at the end of this game allowing C9 to turn it upside down and take the win.

Was this game a fluke by C9? Some stage jitters from the three players that have not played on the World’s stage? Or are the other teams in the play-in stage stronger then we have seen in the past?

What are your thoughts on the first two play in games by North America? Comment below or continue the discussion in the MOBA channel on our Discord .