LoL: NA’s NRG heavy underdogs against WBG in quarterfinal

The number one seed from the North American LCS advanced to the League of Legends World Championships quarterfinals after defeating G2 in the swiss stage. Last year, no team from NA reached the quarterfinals. Cloud 9 was the last NA team to reach this stage of Worlds, they lost 3-0 to Gen G. NA teams have had very little success at Worlds. Could this be the year that an NA team reaches the semifinal or finals?

Details for NRG vs WBG series

NRG eSports will play against Weibo Gaming in a best of five series on November 2 in South Korea. The winner will advance to the semifinals and play against the winner of the series between Bilibili Gaming and Gen G. NRG is the number one seed from the NA LCS, and WBG is the LPL’s fourth seeded team. WBG are heavy betting favourites heading into this game on LoL betting sites. WBG has -769 odds to win the series on Tonybet. Huge underdogs, NRG have +413 odds to win. The odds for this series to go over 3.5 maps is -169, and the odds for the series to go under 3.5 maps is +123.

NRG

NRG have already surpassed the expectations of many NA supporters by reaching the quarterfinals. NA as a region has historically had minimal success at international League of Legends tournaments. NRG went 9-9 during the summer in NA, but won the Summer Split championship by defeating Cloud 9 by 3-1 in the finals. So far at Worlds, this team has continued to show why they came into the tournament as the top team in NA.

NRG defeated C9 again in the Swiss Stage, Mad Lions, and destroyed G2, the number one team from the LEC, in game one of their Swiss Stage series. They defeated G2 again in the second game of their series, winning by 13 kills and about 10k gold. Despite this success, it looks like NRG does not have a great shot in this series. They were already defeated by WBG during the Swiss Stage in a game that was not very competitive. Add that with the struggles NA teams usually have against LPL and LCK teams, NRG will need to replicate the performance they put on against G2 to have a shot in this one.

WBG

WBG is the LPL’s fourth seeded team. WBG earned their spot in the quarterfinals by defeating FNC in the Swiss Stage, the LEC’s second seeded team. WBG has some players that are proven and have been around for a while. Yuanhao “Xiaohu” Li and Seung-Lok “TheShy” Kang are a couple of players you may recognize if you have followed League of Legends for a few years. WBG has not been a dominant team at the tournament so far, they have dropped games to FNC and KT Rolster.

But none of that should matter. LPL teams beat NA teams nine times out of 10 times in professional League of Legends. NA teams have been optimistic in the past, but have not had much success. The LPL has always been the tougher region and produced the better teams. WBG will probably win this series because they have faced much tougher competition throughout the year and have a style that should be more suited for international success than NRG’s style.