This is the first edition of The Week in League. Same shape every week: the result that mattered, three more that moved the board, one number from our own match records, a team to watch and the schedule ahead. First up: October 5 to 12.
The one that mattered
Los Grandes beat FURIA 3-2 in the CBLOL final in Rio on Saturday, October 10, and it's the result from this week that changes who starts where at Worlds. LOS go straight into the Swiss stage as Brazil's first seed. FURIA start in the Play-In instead, against MVK Esports on October 15, in a double-elimination bracket that sends exactly one team through.
The proof of how close it was is in the order of the games, because the winner changed every time: LOS, FURIA, LOS, FURIA, LOS. Game 1 was a 15-13 fight over 33 minutes. Games 3 and 4 were blowouts pointing in opposite directions, 15-3 to LOS in 24:58 and then 14-2 to FURIA in 27:56. The title came down to a 13-9 fifth game that ran 35:51, the longest of the series.
It was a rematch as well. FURIA won the first split final 3-1 in June, and this time the team that lost in June is the one that gets to wait for Swiss.
Three results that moved the board
- October 12, kt Rolster 3-2 Team Vitality (Demacia Cup quarterfinal). KT came back from 0-2, won Game 3 by 17 kills to 2 in 23:13, and knocked out the last European team left in the tournament.
- October 12, BNK FEARX 3-2 Beijing JDG Esports (Demacia Cup quarterfinal). The two teams traded all five games, BFX won the third with fewer kills than their opponent (13-15), and they closed the fifth 15-7 in 25:44.
- October 8, FlyQuest 2-0 RED Canids (Demacia Cup Swiss). After losing to Natus Vincere on October 5, FlyQuest won three series in a row to reach the last eight (2-0 over GAM Esports and 2-1 over Shopify Rebellion on October 7, then this one), and they play Xi'an Team WE on Tuesday.
The number of the week
Zero. That's kt Rolster's dragon count in our record of Game 5 against Team Vitality on October 12, and it's their Baron count too. Vitality took all four elemental drakes, which means the Soul, and the only Baron of the game. They lost in 32:56.
KT won it on structures and fights. Our record has them at ten towers to two, two inhibitors to none and 23 kills to 20, with 67,041 gold to Vitality's 60,691 at the end. Both objective columns on that sheet belong to the team that went home.
One caution. It's a single game, and we aren't claiming anything about how rare it is. What we can say is that a team held the Soul and the Baron in the deciding game of a quarterfinal and still lost, and our data and Inven Global's match report agree on that part.
Who to watch
kt Rolster. They play BNK FEARX in a Demacia Cup semifinal on Wednesday, October 14, a Bo5 in Beijing that Riot's schedule has at 09:00 UTC.
The reason is how little KT's three wins on Monday had in common. Game 3 was 17-2 in 23:13 with nine towers to none, Game 4 was 15-5 in 28:13, and Game 5 was the 23-20 game above, won without a dragon or a Baron. A team that can win a rout and a scrap in the same series is hard to prepare for. KT did both from 0-2 down.
BFX got here just as narrowly. They needed five games too, and they finished the series with fewer kills than the JDG side they eliminated, 63 to 67. Both teams in this semifinal play in the LCK, so one of Saturday's finalists will be Korean.
What's next
All times are UTC and come from Riot's official schedule. Every series below is a Bo5.
- Tuesday, October 13, 06:00: Xi'an Team WE vs FlyQuest, Demacia Cup quarterfinal
- Tuesday, October 13, 09:00: HANJIN BRION vs LGD Gaming, Demacia Cup quarterfinal
- Wednesday, October 14, 09:00: kt Rolster vs BNK FEARX, Demacia Cup semifinal
- Thursday, October 15, 18:00: Cloud9 Kia vs Karmine Corp, the opening match of the Worlds Play-In
- Saturday, October 17, 09:00: the Demacia Cup final, TBD vs TBD
The second Demacia Cup semifinal is on Thursday, October 15 at 09:00 UTC, and it's still TBD vs TBD on the schedule. The Worlds Play-In runs through Sunday, October 18 in Los Angeles.
One for the comments. Vitality took the Soul and the Baron in Game 5 and still went home. Was that a KT comeback or a Vitality collapse?