The Mid-Season Invitational is underway. Six teams from the top six regions in the world are duking it out for supremacy over the next 10 days in Vietnam and Taiwan, and that has given us time to pause and look at the state of League of Legends around the world. The World Championships will be held at the end of the year, and teams from the LCK and LPL are expected to dominate. However, the West proved that they can no longer be ignored after putting three teams in the semifinals last year, and they will be looking to win their first international title since the very first Worlds back in 2011.
2019 League of Legends World Championship Regional Betting Odds
LCK (Korea) -147
LPL (China) +100
LEC (Europe) +2400
LCS (North America) +4900
Field +10000
Korea is still seen as the best region for League of Legends even though a Korean team failed to win Worlds last year. Part of that is because the two best players on the LPL’s Invictus Gaming (Rookie and TheShy) are Korean, and another reason for that is that five straight world champions came from the LCK between 2013 and 2017. Three straight Worlds Grand Finals pitted two LCK teams against each other, and many people think that last season was an aberration.
Currently, it looks very likely that SK Telecom T1 and Griffin will be two of the three teams representing the LCK at Worlds. Griffin is an exciting young team that shook up the scene in Korea, while SKT are the most decorated team in the world. Griffin will make its first appearance on the international stage at Rift Rivals, giving them some valued experience, but the moment has never seemed too large for this team.
The favorite for the third spot is Kingzone DragonX after we saw them markedly improve over the course of the Spring Split, but there are often massive shifts in teams’ fortunes from split to split. Kingzone would love to make amends after a disastrous performance on the international stage in 2018.
We know that Invictus will almost certainly be the first team out of the LPL at Worlds, and the defending champions have to be expected. However, the other two spots are more up in the air. JD Gaming finished eighth in the regular season, but they ran the gauntlet to make the Spring Split Final, while prestigious organizations like Edward Gaming and Royal Never Give Up finished outside the top three.
FunPlus Phoenix was great in the regular season, so they are probably the most likely team to take a spot alongside Invictus. However, there really isn’t another team you have a lot of faith in outside of Invictus and RNG, and the latter’s failures at Worlds have been well documented.
If a region outside of the top two wins Worlds, it is likely going to be the LEC. European teams have been snickered at for quite some time, but the LEC proved that they need to be respected at last year’s Worlds after sending G2 and Fnatic to the semifinals. Those are the two teams to watch out for once again as whichever team finishes third is unlikely to make it out of the Group Stage.
Team Liquid, Cloud9, and Team SoloMid are probably going to be the three teams representing the LCS at Worlds. Liquid and TSM are improved from last year, while Cloud9 can give a lot of teams problems with their innovative strategies and strong team compositions. All three lack the individual talent at every position needed to win Worlds though.
It’s hard to like any of the field teams as we haven’t seen a strong team or collection of talent from any other regions. There have been flashes from the LMS, VCS, and TSL, but there’s a huge difference between showing flashes and winning Worlds.
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