Ranking the Worlds quarterfinal matches by how close they’ll be

The 2016 League of Legends World Championship quarterfinals have moved past the group stage and head straight on into the quarterfinals. We know the matchups and when they’ll be played after a draw Sunday night, which means now we can talk about what’s ahead and the likely semifinal matchups.

You can see all the matchups, including and the bracket and the schedule, right here.

But first, which quarterfinal matchups will be actually, you know, good? Probably all of them, in some shape or form! But which will be best? Let’s make some predictions.

1. ROX Tigers vs. EDward Gaming — This is pretty much the undisputed marquee matchup of the weekend, unless you’re a diehard fan of one of these other teams. The Korean champions vs. the Chinese champions. Peanut vs. Clearlove in the jungle. Pray and Gorilla vs. Deft and Meiko in the bottom lane.

And the winner probably faces SKT for a shot at the final. The same SKT that has thwarted ROX so many times before, and the same SKT EDG brought down at MSI last year.

Either this series is going to be super close or Smeb will revert to God-tier form and litter the Rift with Mouse’s corpse. Either way, you’ll want to tune in.

2. H2K vs. Albus NoX Luna — Yeah, that’s right, the technically all-EU matchup gets the No. 2 slot here. The first Wildcard quarterfinalist in Worlds history should not be taken lightly — H2K ADC Forg1ven rates ANX as the favorite.

Even though star ANX support Likkrit has chicken pox, the series is expected to go on as scheduled. With Likkrit, ANX has the tools to deal with H2K’s excellent bottom lane and survive for their usual team-fighting excellent. Without Likkrit, this becomes a different series entirely.

Either way, a game with H2K jungler Jankos means there will be early action.

3. Samsung Galaxy vs. Cloud9: C9 has had flashes of very good play at Worlds, but Samsung has arguably looked like the best team in the tournament. There’s always the chance that Impact goes off and absolutely carries his team to victory, but C9 is going to need a lot more consistent play and smart drafting to overcome 5-1 SSG, who seem to have a fairly straightforward path to the finals with C9 and the winner of H2K vs. ANX.

4. SK Telecom T1 vs. Royal Never Give Up: Yes, Uzi went god-mode against TSM, and has at times looked like the best player in the tournament, but RNG has been so inconsistent all split it’s hard to believe in anything but an SKT rout. The defending champions have looked as good as anyone in the tournament, save the one loss to Flash Wolves, and barring drastic mistakes, RNG shouldn’t be too much of a problem for SKT.