Rogue one: European squad the only Western team in Worlds quarterfinals

Updated Oct. 16

NEW YORK -- Rogue are Europe’s No. 1 seed at the League of Legends World Championship, and they’re the only European team to reach the knockout stage of the tournament. With North American teams Cloud9, Evil Geniuses and 100 Thieves eliminated, they’re also the only Western team that made it out of the Worlds group stage. The other seven quarterfinalists are Korean and Chinese teams.

The pride of Europe got off to a strong start during Week 1 of the group stage when they went 3-0, beating fellow Group C teams DRX, Top Esports and GAM Esports. On Saturday, Rogue kicked off Week 2 in Group C with a win over GAM. Despite losses to DRX and TES later in the day, Rogue still secured a quarterfinals berth with a 4-2 record.

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DRX and Rogue finished Group C play with 4-2 records and played a tiebreaker to determine first-place in the group. DRX won that tiebreaker, leaving Rogue in second but with a best-of-five series to look forward to nonetheless.

Rogue finished the group stage with a 1.02 kill-to-death ratio, per Oracle’s Elixir, which is positive but only 9th among the 16 teams. They had an impressive 23.6 mid/late game rating, which was second-best in the group stage.

Rogue mid laner Emil "Larssen" Larsson was the team’s best player in the group stage. He ended the stage with a 6.2 kill/death/assist ratio, the best among Western players. He also had a 234 average experience difference, second-best among Western players.

Photo credit: Riot Games

This is the first time that Rogue have reached the Worlds knockout stage. The team has been eliminated in groups each of the previous two years, going 1-5 in 2020 and 2-4 in 2021.

G2 and Fnatic have typically been the EU teams that make it out of groups, but this year the roles were swapped, with the popular European teams failing to reach the quarterfinals. Earlier in the group stage, Rogue support Adrian “Trymbi” Trybus told Nerd Street he hoped the team’s success at this tournament would translate to more fans supporting the organization.

“I respect orgs like Fnatic and G2 Esports because they have fans that will always cheer and support them, but I want to play so good that people start becoming Rogue fans,” he said.

Read more: Upset says Fnatic didn’t reach ‘full potential’ at Worlds because of practice

On Saturday, the crowd showed a lot of support for Rogue, chanting “go Rogue go!” when the team was making big plays.

Rogue will play JD Gaming in the quarterfinals of Worlds 2022.

Lead photo credit: Riot Games