League of Legends: NA's chances at being Champions

What an amazing weekend this was, the battles on the rift were so crazy I'm still utterly speechless.

 

Writing once again from the land of apple pie and freedom, I'm bringing you an end of the week wrap up and some thoughts about both NA's chances at Worlds.

Group A (Samsung White, Edward Gaming, AHQ, Dark Passage).
Group B (TSM, Star Horn Royal Club, Taipei Assassins, SK Gaming).
Group C (Samsung Blue, OMG, Fnatic, LMQ).
Group D (Alliance, Cloud9, Najin White Shield, Kabum Gaming).

The eternal question of which region is better NA or EU I think has been solved during the most recent World's Group Stages. Both NA hopefuls have made it out of group stages while EU's respective No.1 and No.2 seeds have both been knocked out.

Quick Roundup

 Rounding out this week, In Group C Samsung Blue showed exactly how dominant Koreans are only dropping one game to Fnatic. Similarly OMG starting off the week 0-2 showed exactly how much determination and some quick fixes can go a long way in securing the second spot in Group C.

In Group D Najin White Shield limped through to secure first, dropping a PERFECT game to EU's Alliance and one to NA's Cloud 9. Cloud 9's week has been tough overall but they secured the second spot by beating Najin White Shield once and losing in the tiebreaker for first.

What are TSM and C9's chances at worlds?

Both, rather slim unfortunately. I'd hate to say it but Cloud 9 looked really bad in the group stages. Yeah they came out ahead and even beat Najin White Shield, but, to be honest Hai dropped a lot of stupid kills in every game and Meteos's jungle pathing has been lackluster if not predictable. I understand that Hai is C9's only shot caller but if the midlaner can't perform then Dade will surely overtake him. Balls should be able to trade evenly with Acorn, but, post lane phase Acorn seems to currently have more of an impact in teamfights. When Balls falls behind though he can't seem to recover so that may be another thing C9 has to watch out for. If they don't fix these issues I envision a tough time against Korean powerhouse Samsung Blue.

What Cloud 9 need to do if they desire to survive:

• Sneaky needs to focus on playing more aggressively we've seen him get bullied out lane and lose plenty of trades in the laning phase, resulting in lower CS. This really shouldn't happen as LemonNation has really been stepping up and delivering some key aggression on to the enemy carry. There may also need to be some champion pool expansion as the most promising games he's played has been on Corki and Lucian. Both of which tend to fall off toward the end game compared to champions like Tristana; his one Tristana game was also really lackluster.
• Meteos needs to diversify his jungle pathing and become more efficient. I've seen him waste a lot of time deciding which lane to put pressure on or get caught in predictable jungle pathing. He'll also need to step up his lane presence as the meta continues to shift away from him being able to farm.
• Hai needs to clean up his post laning phase. He's usually able to keep even during lane phase. Throughout the games played in group stages, he has been making some really uncharacteristic roams and dives post laning phase. Some of which you'd ask why even try? This has put his team farther behind when they're already losing. In tow with Sneaky, Hai may need to expand his champion pool as he's been target banned a few times. Majority of his best performances has been on Zed, but, against Koreans, they may not let him have it.
• LemonNation had some issues with positioning in laning otherwise he's doing well. If he can fix his laning issues and trade more efficiently they have a better shot. Improving
• Balls has been doing consistently throughout he'll need to get some more Korean Solo-Q time though as he has been prone to early ganks and once he loses lane Balls becomes rather irrelevant going forward. 

If you haven't read the article on TSM I've included the link here. Pretty much all of what has been said holds true. Comparing the two teams, C9 has played stronger opponents but performed poorer. While on the flip side TSM has played no Korean teams, but, has performed better. It's tough to say if the Korean team really made a difference as NJWS has looked about as strong as SHRC if only marginally stronger. Bjergsen has also made less potential game losing errors than Hai. While TSM's problems may seem more serious, I feel like they have a better shot, as Hai has really been under-performing on everything but Zed. As their main shot caller and midlaner this is definitely going to impact their upcoming games.

IF C9 fix all their issues and play perfectly. If Dade and Deft don't show up like they did against Fnatic then C9 has a 40-60 shot at making it out of quarterfinals.

Included below are videos of all of C9's games.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Tiebreaker