EDG enters the Season 6 World Championships as the team who is most likely to upset the Korean domination of the past three years. The team represents China’s best chance in October’s tournament, but RNG and IMay could both make some noise.
Let’s take a look at the three teams:
EDG
| Top | Mouse |
| Jungle | Clearlove |
| Mid | Scout |
| ADC | Deft |
| Support | Meiko |
Edward Gaming, also known as EDG, come into the League of Legends World Championships as one of the favourites after an incredible 19-0 split in the Chinese LPL (including a 3-0 victory over RNG in the grand finals).
EDG’s strength comes primarily from their superstar Jungler Clearlove and top tier bottom lane made up of Deft at AD Carry and Meiko on Support.
With Riot’s recent patches essentially making standard lanes a necessity, teams could potentially exploit one of EDG’s few weaknesses; Top laner Mouse. With more time to prepare, teams could potentially focus on shutting Mouse out of the game as a way to upset EDG. One team that comes to mind is Europe’s H2k, with a powerful Top lane and Jungle combination (Odoamne and Jankos) that might be able to snowball the game in their favour if the rest of the map can stay even.
EDG did receive what many view as an incredibly easy group consisting of H2k, ahq and INTZ, giving them little excuse not to qualify for the bracket stage with a top place finish. All eyes will be on EDG then to see if they can break their curse of quarter-final exits over the past two years.
RNG
| Top | Looper |
| Jungle | mlxg |
| Mid | Xiaohu |
| ADC | Uzi |
| Support | Mata |
Royal Never Give Up are one of the most difficult teams to judge heading into Worlds this year. With arguably the best roster on paper, RNG just never quite seem to be able to put all the pieces together into a winning formula.
RNG funnel an absurd amount of gold into their AD Carry Uzi, while continually starving their former world champion Top laner Looper, a rarity in today’s League of Legends.
The group draw certainly did RNG no favours as they were grouped with North America’s top team TSM, Korea’s third seed Samsung Galaxy and Europe’s third seed Splyce, all of which are quality teams that have reasonable chances of qualifying for the bracket stage.
Uzi, Looper and Mata have all been known to step up their play during World Championships and only time will tell if the pressure of the Worlds’ stage will help this star-studded roster play to the best of their abilities.
IMay
| Top | AmazingJ |
| Jungle | Avoidless |
| Mid | Athena |
| ADC | Jinjiao |
| Support | Road |
In their first LPL split, IMay went into the playoffs with almost no-one believing in them, yet here they are going to Worlds as China’s #3 seed.
It took two upsets over WE, including a breathtaking 50 minute come-from-behind victory in Game 5 of the final best-of-five, to secure AmazingJ and crew the spot. What made that Game 5 even more incredible was the fact that IMay all split long were an early game focused team with poor late game shot calling, but in the biggest game of most of their lives, they stepped up and clawed their way through.
Incredibly, IMay have a chance of making some noise at Worlds this year due to a favourable group draw. With SKT far and away the class of the group, it’s a close call for second along with North America’s Cloud9 and Flash Wolves of the LMS.
Once again, with standard lanes at the helm of the meta, look for captain and veteran of Worlds AmazingJ to be the catalyst behind a possible second place group finish for IMay. They may not be known to many, but they have a real shot of making it to the quarter-finals, writing more chapters of an already surprising story along the way.
A Chinese team have never won the World title although they have come close on a couple of occasions. EDG will fancy their chances this year, but RNG remain the most intriguing team with tremendous potential. Meanwhile, IMay are a great story and have a chance to continue what has been a Cinderella run.
