Worlds Group Stage is now upon us, and it’s time for the big teams to show up or shut up. Groups week one action sees some of the top sides from across the World finally get their chance to fight it out and fans all over the world get to cheer on their regional teams. In this week’s article, we’ll focus on the top sides from North America, Europe, and China as they take to the Rift.
FlyQuest v Top Esports
FlyQuest comes into Worlds as the second seed from North America and they face a massive task in their first game at Worlds against the top seed from China, Top Esports (1/7). FlyQuest had a great Summer Split, taking a spot at Worlds that most people expected to go to Cloud9. FlyQuest are not a bad side, they have, however, been drawn into a deadly group that may see their Worlds run end early. They come into the series as 17/4 outsiders, the only thing going for them is they’re the first game of Group Stage meaning Top Esports might not be prepared. The series is a best-of-three, however, which makes doing a hit-and-run on Top Esports harder to pull off.
Top Esports go into Worlds as the overall favourites to take the entire event, not only because they’re the first seed from China but because they looked nearly unplayable coming out of the LPL. Top Esports will be the odds on to win Worlds, which should make them a safe bet for early-round matchups such as versus FlyQuest. The view from those in the LCS is that FlyQuest doesn’t have much hope against Top Esports, which is why they are 2/15 favourites for the series.
Team SoloMid v Fnatic
Team Solomid come into Worlds as the first seed from North America, but they’ve been drawn into a tough group with some of the hardest lower seed sides from China and Korea. With Team Solomid starting their Worlds journey against Fnatic, it’ll be a tough start for the LCS side, though not one that gets easier as Worlds progresses. Despite being their regional first seed, TSM has slight outsiders at 23/20 against Fnatic.
Fnatic comes in as second seed out of Europe, though most people probably did not expect the former Worlds Championships to go into 2020 Worlds as the second seed. That said, Fnatic is the second seed and they’ll want to prove they deserve to be there. The Fnatic v TSM series will be crucial for Worlds qualification and could give us a sign of what’s to come in the matches against LGD and Gen.G. They come into the series as 4/6 favourites and it will certainly be a series to remember.
G2 Esports v Suning Gaming
Lastly, we have G2 Esports taking on Suning. The LEC v LPL, though this time it’s the LEC that comes in at favourites. G2 Esports is probably the best hope of the Western Regions and this first game against Suning will be a good marker for how good G2 looks at Worlds. With mid laner Caps likely to be one of the key players in the entire event, his dominance of the lane will go a long way to seeing G2 take the series. We have them at 20/29 favourites to win the best-of-3 and get their Worlds adventure off to a good start.
On the other side of the rift, you have Suning from the LPL. While they come in as the third seed, they’re more than worth their spot at Worlds. Suning is a team like G2, they like to focus on objective and map play to win games. Unlike G2, however, Suning keeps it simple, they lack some of the flashy plays we see from the likes of Caps and Perkz, instead prefer to out macro their opposition. We have them at 11/10 outsiders, mostly because we think their style is too similar to G2, while not being as good at executing it. While G2 did not have the best Summer Split, they did still claim the title and looked dangerous during Playoffs.
*All odds correct at time of writing.