Looking back on the most significant moments from the Worlds group stage

The group stage of the League of Legends World Championship narrowed down the list of contenders for the Summoner’s Cup from 16 teams to eight and featured many memorable moments and a few surprises. Before the bracket stage starts Friday, here’s a look back at some of the most significant developments from the longest stage at Worlds.

Team Liquid beat MAD Lions

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The first day of the Worlds group stage played out close to how people expected until Team Liquid played MAD Lions. Although North America and Europe are considered close, EU was thought to be the stronger region going into Worlds, and certainly EU’s No. 1 seed Mad Lions wouldn’t have any trouble against NA’s No. 2. Little did we know at the time that this upset would be a harbinger of how things would go for EU teams in the group stage and how closely matched the teams in Group D would be.

DWG KIA dominate

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The reigning world champions and Mid-Season Invitational runners-up went 3-0 against the other teams in their group in the first round robin. They did the same in their second matchups against their fellow group members to go 6-0. China’s FunPlus Phoenix were expected to at least push them, but that wasn’t the case at all ...

FunPlus Phoenix falter

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The 2019 champions appeared to be in good shape after the first round robin of group play. They were 2-1 with their only loss coming against one of the tournament favorites in DWG KIA. Then, everything fell apart. They went 0-3 in the second round robin, but they still had a chance to advance to the bracket stage. There was a three-way tie among them, Cloud9 and Rogue who were all 2-4. Ultimately they lost a tiebreaker to Rogue and were eliminated.

Cloud9 advance to the bracket stage

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Things were looking bleak for Cloud9 after going 0-3 in the first round robin, but then they beat FunPlus Phoenix and Rogue in their second matchup against those teams and won a tiebreaker against Rogue. It was a remarkable turnaround for NA’s No. 3 seed. It ensured that an NA team would advance to the bracket stage at Worlds for the first time since 2018 when Cloud9 reached the semifinals.

T1 take first over EDward Gaming in Group B

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After missing out on Worlds last year, T1 and Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok are back this year. Although the team is not as dominant as in years past -- they’re Korea’s third seed this year -- they did manage to finish first in Group B over China’s No. 1 seed EDward Gaming. T1’s bot lane duo of Ryu "Keria" Min-seok and Lee "Gumayusi" Min-hyeong were second to none over the past week as they amassed the second- and third- best KDAs respectively among all players in the group stage.

100 Thieves finish 3-3 in groups

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It was a respectable finish for North America’s No. 1 seed. NA’s top seeds at Worlds continue to underwhelm, but after TSM went 0-6 last year, going 3-3 looks much better. One of those three wins was against China’s top seed, EDward Gaming. Although EDG already advanced through to the bracket stage, it wasn’t like EDG didn’t have anything to play for. If EDG had beaten 100T, they would have been tied for first in the group, so 100T’s win was a huge spoiler.

Gen.G, MAD Lions survive four-way tie in Group D

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For the first time in Worlds history, all four teams in a group finished 3-3. Each team beat every other team in the group exactly once. Moving on to the tiebreakers, Gen.G beat Team Liquid and MAD Lions beat LNG Esports, which meant that all four Korean teams advanced to the bracket stage and MAD Lions upheld EU’s dignity as their sole representative in the knockout rounds.

Lead photo credit: Riot Games