G2 starts its Worlds 2024 journey by facing one of the play-ins teams, CBLOL’s PNG. What do we need to see from the LEC #1 seed? Let’s see our Swiss stage breakdown.
Image Credit: Tom Chansiraphet/Riot Games
G2 vs PNG – will this be a warm-up game?
G2 comes to Worlds with a lot of expectations on them. Not only are they playing in front of the home crowd but the team has to maintain the level of play shown at MSI when they were able to battle with the best Eastern teams. On top of that, there will be hopes to redeem themselves and do better than last year when the team unexpectedly dropped to NRG in the last series for a top 8 finish.
The LEC team has looked strong throughout the whole season but not as dominant as some would’ve wanted. Regardless, they are heading into Worlds arguably as the best Western team so the pressure will be on. Luckily for them, their first game of Swiss stage will be against PNG, who crawled their way to the first top 16 qualification. Brazilian players have been making headlines after defeating LPL players in champions queue, showcasing their individual skills. But was it just a fluke or are we seeing wildcard regions catching up?
Match Breakdown
Considering it will be the first day of play day for the majority of teams, it’s tough to make any clear prediction. If recent form were to be relevant, we should expect G2 to be individually at an advantage. Unless PNG makes it up through strong skirmishing, which was their forte in play-ins, G2 will likely get the upper hand.
It will be important to see what teams are looking to draft and if new picks were to arise from the meta: we had an initial taste of the new patch in play-ins, but Swiss will tell us more about whether teams have already started finding counters to the meta. Whoever can find those first, will likely get an advantage throughout the Swiss stage.
On PNG’s side, the one opening I would see comes from their bot lane. If TitaN were to get an advantage early on, he might have what it takes to carry the team and CBLOL to an incredible achievement.
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