RNG vs. T1. A clash unlike any other. A spectacle in the making. A fight between two of the very best teams the world of competitive League of Legends has to offer. What’s not to like? Well, only the fact that making any kind of prediction feels nigh impossible.
Both of these teams had a field day against their respective Western opponents. During the Group and Rumble Stage, they did have a few issues, or snafus, or flaws if you will, weaknesses which their opponents could, potentially, exploit. Now, though, all of those deficiencies seem to have been fixed, with T1 and Royal Never Give Up playing some of their best League of Legends yet.
By the looks of it, the gap between the East and the West isn’t going to get narrowed any time soon (if ever). We’re still baffled by their dominance, by the ease with which they “took care of business.”
This finals match-up is pretty much what we expected. G2 and Evil Geniuses were good overall, but they still paled in comparison to their Asian adversaries (to absolutely no one’s surprise). Now, though, is where the real fun starts — a clash that’s bound to go down in the history books!
RNG vs. T1 — As Even As It Gets
This is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the most challenging predictions we’ve had to make in years. Hotly contested match-ups are no rare occurrence — clashes between two teams of seemingly equal strength and potential, but rarely is the gap so minute and nuanced between them. There’s always something you can dissect and go over, something that can inform your overall decision.
On the one hand, we’re glad for that being the case as we haven’t felt this nervous in what feels like a lifetime. On the other, we struggling to make a case, to choose one team over the other, and to predict — with some semblance of confidence — who’ll come out on top once everything is said and done.
This one could really go either way and it’s unnerving to the highest of levels.
T1 have fewer holes in their game, fewer exploitable weaknesses and sore points which Royal Never Give Up could punish and capitalize on. That much is a fact. They also have a much better early game and they’ve shown an incredible proficiency at snowballing their (quite tremendous) leads.
At the very end, the score was 22 to 5 in favor of T1, and their fifteen thousand gold lead spoke for itself. How in the world they were able to accrue such a lead in just twenty minutes is beyond us. It was an absolute slaughter, a shellacking unlike any other.
RNG vs. T1 | Neck and Neck
Much of the same can be said for Royal Never Give Up’s shellacking of Evil Geniuses, too, but their opponent wasn’t nearly as versatile, experienced, and, by proxy, dangerous.
They also have more — potential — weaknesses. Chen “Bin” Ze-Bin has, a bit too often, made egregious blunders, especially in the laning phase. His greed and overeagerness has cost his team many a lead, and that could, by all means, happen against T1 as well. The fact that he’ll go up against a surging Choi “Zeus” Woo-je only makes things even more complicated.
We can also envision a world in which Yan “Wei” Yang-Wei falls prey Moon “Oner” Hyeon-joon — a player who single-handedly made G2 look like a bunch of amateurs. It’s not like Wei’s not good enough to compete on even footing, but he has been ever so slightly inconsistent. His effectiveness varies and fluctuates from one game to the next, which may or may not become a problem once he spawns on the Rift and faces one of the very best junglers the world of competitive League of Legends has to offer.
The outcome of this particular Best of 5 is totally up in the air.
We’re leaning more towards T1, what with them being so darn dominant and beating RNG the last time they had shared the Rift, but our “gut feeling” should by no means be taken as gospel.
Royal Never Give Up, even if they are worse, will put up one heck of a fight. Their teamfighting is unparalleled and whatever they might lack in finesse they more than make up for in sheer resilience and the willingness to trade blows at each and every single moment of the game.
With that being said, T1 have seen it all and, by the looks of it, are surging beyond measure. If they can impose their playstyle early on — and, odds are, they will — they should definitely be able to come out on top after four or five hard-fought games.
