They swept Royal Never Give Up in the finals and were considered the third favorite to win the 2016 World Championship. However, they were upset by Brazilian upstarts INTZ e-Sports in their very first game and ended up finishing second in the group to H2K. That meant a date in the knockout rounds with ROX Tigers who efficiently dismissed the Chinese champions in the Quarterfinals.
EDG doesn’t have the same high expectations heading into this year’s World Championship, but is still considered one of the favorites. They again won the Summer Split Championship, knocking off RNGU 3-2 in the finals, and will be a favorite to make it out of Group A alongside SK Telecom T1.
Opening Betting Odds to Win 2017 League of Legends World Championship
Edward Gaming +1300
Top Lane
Mouse has been with EDG for three years now. He came up in their developmental system and also played a little bit of support before coming into his own as EDG’s top laner.
Unfortunately, he only played in the Group Stage at the World Championships last season as a death in the family led to him leaving the team before their Quarterfinal bout with ROX Tigers.
Mouse is one of the best Maokai players around and most teams decide to ban the champion away from him, rather than deal with him playing it. Over his career his team has a 78.6 percent win rate when he is on Maokai and it is his most played champion. He is much more comfortable on team-centric picks than carry champions and that helps EDG turn the tide late in games.
This year EDG chose to use their one substitute for a top laner. Audi has barely played this year, but EDG decided to bring him this season instead of Zet.
Jungle
This is the position where EDG is strongest. Clearlove was a founding member of this team back in 2013 and has been hailed as one of the world’s best junglers ever since. He is very aggressive and will look to exploit an advantage if he doesn’t respect the opposing jungler.
EDG plays through Clearlove a lot of the time. Rather than sit back and try to get a CS lead by farming, he is constantly looking to gank in one of the lanes and push that lane ahead and give himself an edge on the opposition.
Mid Lane
Scout is one of the better mid laners in the world. He started his career with SK Telecom T1 and spent his first year learning under the greatest mid laner in the world, Faker.
He is one of the best in the world on an assassin champion and can put his team ahead by outdueling his opponent, especially if he gets a little bit of help from Clearlove.
In this group, Scout will need to be on his A game. He has to square off against Faker and Jensen of Cloud9 and if he stumbles, that could spell curtains for Edward Gaming.
AD Carry
Not having Zet available as a sub could come back to hurt EDG. iBoy is just 17, and while he performed well this past split, he is new to the biggest stage in League of Legends.
When allowed to farm and then take over late on hyper carry, he has thrived. iBoy has been phenomenal on Kog’Maw and solid on Tristana, but nerves may be a factor. It’s got to be hard for a player his age to concentrate when he is playing at his first World Championships while in his own country.
Support
Meiko is a phenomenal support and EDG was fortunate to hang onto him after Pawn and Deft left at the conclusion of last year. He is the captain of the team and the primary shot caller for the Chinese champions.
He has taken his game to another level in the current meta where supports initiate. He is very good on Alistar, but is amazing on Thresh. Meiko’s ability to land crazy hooks while playing Thresh has helped either iBoy or Zet get ahead countless times in domestic play this year.
Prediction
EDG are the clear favorites to finish second in Group A and make it to the Quarterfinals yet again. They should romp over ahq and are a more complete team than Cloud9. As long as they hold Jensen and Sneaky in check, they’ll at least make the knockout stages and keep their fingers crossed that they won’t be facing one of the other Korean giants.
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