Worlds 2017 Group Stage day 4 recap

The final day of the Group Stage’s first weekend has come to an end. With the first half standings now solidified, it’s safe to say that some of the groups are a little close than the first couple days of the stage led us to expect.

While a few of the games at this tournament have been absolutely dominated by one team or another as the days go on and the stakes grow, games have gotten closer and closer. Finally, today, with every team desperate to end the weekend in the best possible place in their groups, over half the games got close to the 40 minute mark.

Ultimately though, the expected teams managed to come through in almost all of these close games, including Samsung barely pulling out a win against Play-In Stage team 1907 Fenerbahçe in the day’s closest game. The one exception to this fact, is North America’s TSM, who were taken down by Misfits leaving Group D in a three-way tie for first place coming out of the first half of the Group Stage.

To find out exactly what happened in this weekend’s final games, check out our full breakdown below.

Team WE vs Flash Wolves

Winner: Team WE

Riot Games

Team WE took this game slow and methodically, and with as few risks as possible. And while one teamfight may not have gone, otherwise the style worked perfectly, turning a small, farm based, gold lead in the early game into a 32 minute victory.

Misfits vs TSM

Winner: Misfits

This was as back and forth a game as you can possibly get. The game remained close throughout despite Misfits successful bottom lane focus that helped get the team ahead in that lane. Despite this match's 45 minute length no team ever really had a gold lead over 4k until Misfits finally took down the TSM Nexus.

GIGABYTE Marines vs Immortals

Winner: Immortals

Riot Games

GIGABYTE Marines finally chose a semi-standard composition, but it wasn’t quite enough to take down Immortals who simply proved to be the superior team. Immortals took this game slow and steady making sure not to give up any ground to GAM only giving up two towers and one dragon over the course of their 39 minute victory.

Fnatic vs Longzhu Gaming

Winner: Longzhu Gaming

A 20 minute perfect game with only five kills. It’s hard to imagine Longzhu beating Fnatic in a more convincing manner. The clear top team in this group continues to impress with the most dominant Group Stage game of the tournament so far.

1907 Fenerbahçe vs Samsung Galaxy

Winner: Samsung Galaxy

It’s been a difficult tournament so far for 1907 Fenerbahçe but no single moment has been harder to swallow than this one. They managed a beautiful 33 minute come back that grew all the way into a 6k gold lead, but Samsung dragged the game out to 48 minutes when gold didn’t matter, simply won one good teamfight and used that advantage to barely pull a win from the jaws of defeat.

Royal Never Give Up vs G2

Winner: Royal Never Give Up

Fitting the theme of the day, this was an incredibly close game, but at the end of the day RNG came out on top thanks to some fantastic decision making that forced G2 to play on Royal’s terms. This meant RNG slowing the game down and making sure that every objective was carefully contested. After almost 45 minutes, G2 got a little too impatient at Baron and RNG made them pay, taking down four members of the team and immediately moving on to the base.