Worlds 2019 - Main Event Tier List

Worlds 2019 - Main Event Tier List

I've discussed this in more detail on Twitter and on The Gold Card Podcast, however I thought I'd put something down as a visual guide to give people some context for my selections. Obviously a lot of the teams at this tournament are S tier teams to use the terminology I have all year however I'm simply going to use numbers instead to avoid confusion but still illustrate.

I will present this in a power ranked order however I use tiers because, especially in this tournament, I'm not sure a true power ranking matters as much as I think it will largely depend on matchups and stylistic tendencies. 

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Tier 1

"The Favorites"

SK Telecom

G2 eSports

FunPlus Phoenix

Going into the tournament these are not only the betting favorites but my personal ones as well. The interesting thing is that, stylistically, they're three contrasting teams.

SK Telecom are a perfect blend of extremely talented players, great coaching, and excellent tactics. They also have a lot of experience in their lineup including their bench players and even though I don't put as much weight on it, it's definitely still a factor. They do everything well and, as history has showed us that they use information better than any other team. The longer a tournament goes the better I expect SKT to be. SKT have a large pool of techniques and strategies to pick from and they have the players to execute at the highest level for all of them. They're extremely disciplined and have shown the ability to adapt and improvise much faster, a skill that Korea did not have a lot of practice with going into last years' tournament. SKT are my favorite to win the tournament.

G2 would be my second favorite. In my expeirence, and I've been watching professional League since the very beginning very actively, I've never seen a team with the ability to problem solve and improvise quite like G2. They find the solutions to in-game problems incredibly quickly and enact their plan without hesitation. It's truly amazing. I've never seen a team make so many mistakes and so consistently play their way out of it than I have G2 eSports. They're also more creative than almost any high level team I've ever seen and are willing to take risks in the draft or in a strategic layout whenever they see an advantage to be gained from it. Perhaps the only thing going against G2 is that they make mistakes to begin with which puts them in situations where they need to solve the puzzle of being behind. The thing is, for every time they do that, there's ten other times that they've gained a massive edge with their risk taking. They've also experienced in-game diversity, often of their own creation, and are comfortable and confident in that position. In a way they've created their own deficits but also dug out of them and that's a skill some teams don't have. For a pro athlete comparison I'd compare them to "the jazz runner" Le'veon Bell. He doesn't always hit a gap in the defense right away, he's willing to move slowly to let a play develop and improvise. G2 are the most outside the box team I've ever seen and they do it at an obscenely high level. They're more than capable of beating the best teams in the world straight up and without all of these factors as well and for that reason I have them as my second choice.

FunPlus I've called "The Juggernaut" all year but I'd compare them to a young baseball pitcher with powerful fastball that just needs to be refined and have the technique and accuracy improved (think young Aroldis Champan). Sometimes you don't need to be perfect and your raw ability and power can get you to a certain level. To me that's FunPlus. They're potent, raw, decisive, and confident but sometimes lack tact and precision. It's kind of scary to think this team is good enough to be considered one of the tournament favorites despite some glaring issues. You could knock their lack of experience but I don't put nearly as much weight on that as some people do.

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Tier 2

"Wouldn't surprise me if they won the whole thing"

Griffin

Invictus

DAMWON

Fnatic

Royal Never Give Up

Team Liquid

We're in a unique place this year because I legitimately think there are 8 or 9 teams capable of winning the title and we haven't had that level of parity before. Each of these teams is more than capable and each possesses their own unique intangibles that give them a shot to win the whole thing. I have these teams a tier lower because I think they have more clearly defined weaknesses although their strengths, in some cases, are even stronger than the Tier 1 teams. Any of these teams closer to their higher range of outcomes could easily win but there's a bit more variance baked in. Griffin lost their head coach which could be a good or bad thing. Invictus have been up and down all Summer but maybe the fact that they still made it here bodes well for their chances if they were using subs and couldn't find a groove all season. Fnatic don't seem to have anything or anyone that sticks off the page but they're also extremely versatile and adapt well. DAMWON are sloppy and sometimes even stupid but possess the raw ability, especially in their solo lanes, to break games wide open even against the best players in the world and a bottom lane that has become adept and supporting their top side oriented playstyle. Royal Never Give Up are experienced and have one of the best players to ever play the game playing at one of the highest levels I've ever seen him play coming into this tournament although I think they're not strategically as well positioned with Uzi's lack of ability to play non-marksmen in the bottom lane (the thing is Uzi is good enough to potentially overcome that). Team Liquid defeated former champs Invictus at MSI and did so straight up. They didn't catch them off guard with anything, didn't "cheese," and Invictus weren't "mailing it in" for that tournament. Liquid just beat them straight up, fair and square. If that's the Liquid we see they can hang with anybody. They have one of the best bottom lanes in the tournament and are incredibly versatile.

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Tier 3

"I'd be stunned if they won, a little surprised if they even get out of group stage"

J Team

Splyce

GAM eSports

Cloud 9
Clutch Gaming

AHQ eSports

This one comes with a bit of a caveat because I think one of these teams (JTeam or GAM or Splyce) is getting out of the weaker, but very interesting Group B. I don't think these teams are bad by any stretch but they have glaring weaknesses, consistency issues, and/or just a lower ceiling than the top end teams. Simply put these teams are outclassed but weird things can happen at a tournament.

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Tier 4

"I'd be shocked if they even get a game in group stage"

Hong Kong Attitude

This team struggled to close games with leads and they're a team that surrendered a lot of leads to inferior teams. Hard to trust HKA to do anything in the main event against the level of competition here.