Worlds Group Stage day 1 Recap

The first day of the Group Stages at Worlds 2017 has come to an end after a day full of exciting games with some mostly predictable outcomes.

The trend for the day seemed to be teams opening up small gold leads early on, only to be overtaken by their opponents just a few minutes later. This almost always led to a massive team fight around the 25 minute mark that would decide the game and bring it to a close before 30 minutes, making for a quick first day of games.

As for the meta so far, Ardent Censer still reigns supreme in every game with it’s presence controlling the meta and the flow of the game’s completely. Most of the teams, particularly those that won, favored AD Carries who could scale effectively and take advantage of the item.

Here’s a full round up of the matches from day one of Group Stages:

Royal Never Give Up vs 1907 Fenerbahçe

Winner: Royal Never Give Up

The first game of the Group Stage went about how it was supposed to. Early on, 1907 managed to trade effectively in lane picking up a couple kills during laning phase, but as the teams moved to the midgame, RNG starting taking control getting tower after tower and the Nexus shortly after.

G2 Esports vs Samsung Galaxy

Winner: Samsung Galaxy

Both teams had a slow start, but only one seemed to have a goal in mind during mid-game. Samsung Galaxy exited laning phase ready to take objective, while G2 just seemed lost. Thanks to two bad fights by G2 in a row, the only two fights of the whole game, Samsung Galaxy destroyed EU’s number one seed in under 30 minutes.

Longzhu Gaming vs Immortals

Winner: Longzhu Gaming

Riot Games

This game was almost completely even, if not slightly in Immortals favor, through most of the first 20 minutes. But when Longzhu took a surprise 24 minute Baron while Immortals tried to take an infernal drake, they took a lead that allowed them to quickly take over the game turning one pick into the entire base and winning the game in just under 30 minutes.

Fnatic vs GIGABYTE Marines

Winner: GIGABYTE Marines

This game was absolutely unbelievable. There was a Nocturne(!), an 11 kill Tristana and more kills than any of the other games at Worlds so far. GIGABYTE Marines came into the game with a very specifically drawn up team comp that centered around Nocturne in the early game and Tristana in the late. It was perfect strategy and Fnatic never stood a chance.

SK telecom T1 vs Cloud9

Winner: SK telecom T1

Riot Games

A slow and methodical win from SKT. Cloud9 try their best to gank early, but it’s turned around every time with SKT’s incredibly safe play. With Cloud9 trying to force skirmishes often, they were never able to gain a lead allowing SKT to control the pace of the game.

Edward Gaming vs ahq e-Sports

Winner: ahq e-Sports

This was the one game, outside of the wild match between GAM and Fnatic, that completely bucked the day’s trends. ahq gained an early gold lead and, despite trading it a couple of times, managed to hold on long enough to upset EDG thanks to some strange builds and questionable map movements on the Chinese first seed’s part, and some solid team fights from ahq.