Worlds Quarterfinal Predictions

Samsung White vs Team Solo Mid

I know I got bit once before claiming TSM had no chance, but I really feel like saying anything else here would just be hopeless NA fanboyism. TSM may have managed to squeak through to first seed in NA but they struggled in their group ending 1-1 with SHR and an SK that had to play one of their matchups with a substitute. Meanwhile Samsung White dominated their group even against EDG who've had SHR's number all LPL long, and SSW are the heavy favorites for the entire tournament. White has demonstrated better team work and better champion select than TSM. White's bot lane out classes TSM's by a monstrous margin, their Jungler is far and away better both at understanding and working from the jungle than Amazing, and solo laners Pawn and Looper are world class players who are unlikely to allow Dyrus or Bjergsen to put the rest of TSM on their backs.

Predicting Samsung White 3-0 the match is the only realistic option to those of us without access to time machines.

Samsung Blue vs Cloud9

Where Samsung White is incredibly strong, Samsung Blue has shown some weaknesses including dropping a group stage game to Fnatic. Some people mistake Blue for the better of the Samsung teams because they've managed to beat White in the team kill matches but they have clear weaknesses in champ select and their early game play. They also clearly have issues dealing with chaotic games as Fnatic and KTA have both proven.

Cloud 9 has managed to earn the honor of being the first NA team to take a game off a Korean team in high level play since 2012 with their victory over Najin White Shield to secure a ticket to the quarterfinals. In their games against Shield C9 demonstrated a clear understanding of the sort of chaotic split push pressure that Blue has proved weak against in the past. Cloud9's players are also not especially out matched by Blue's, Deft is not particularly aggressive in the bot lane, Dade's champion pool is small enough he can be pushed out of his comfort zone, and Balls has successfully proven he's a world class top laner. The big problem for C9 is they've been a bit terrible on red side lately, their Champ select suffers and it negatively effects the rest of their play.

I'm still not willing to call this series in C9's favor, but I think they've got the tools to give Blue trouble and take at least 1 game. 3-1 Samsung Blue.

Star Horn Royal Club vs Edward Gaming

This one is a bit hard to call as there's not a lot of direct confrontations in the LPL to draw from. SHR did have better group stage results but they didn't face an opponent as strong as SSW nor did they openly admit to concentrating on the bracket stage instead of groups. Namei seemed to struggle a bit in group stages as some positioning errors led to a tie breaker game against AHQ, he shaped up in the final game though which is a good sign for EDG.

EDG in the group stage seemed to have better champ select than SHR and they're less reliant on Namei getting ahead than SHR seems to be on Uzi. Also important to remember EDG did beat out SHR in their last meeting to take the 1st seed from China.

I think this one has some potential to go either way but EDG are the favorites given past results and the relative strengths of the teams. 3-1 EDG.

Najin White Shield vs OMG

Shield looked great in their gauntlet run to qualify as the 3rd seed from Korea, but their groups performance got a little spotty. They completely misprepared for more than one game letting major comfort picks like Irelia, Lee Sin, and Rumble through against Alliance and C9. Their champ select disaster resulted in two dropped games, and the one against Alliance ended up being a perfect game at that. Shield also looked very uncomfortable dealing with chaotic split push when they faced Cloud9.

OMG also suffered problems during their group stage games. Cool and Dada777 have not looked very good against their competition. Dada777 especially has become a glaring weakness for OMG with his limited effective champion pool which unfortunately lines up with Shield's star support Gorilla. OMG won't be able to exploit the weaknesses in Shield as well thanks ot their own weak support needing the same picks Gorilla uses to be effective. While OMG did show some ability to create chaos against their opponents they also quite literally escaped groups by a single auto attack.

OMG should be able to put up some fight against NWS but so long as they continue using Dada777 their bot lane will be an ever present liability against Gorilla. 3-1 NWS.