2020 World Championship 10/10/20 - Group C Second Round Robin Picks & Predictions

This is where things get a whole lot more interesting. Group C is, simply put, the most competitive group out of all four. Gen.G, LGD Gaming, and Fnatic are all neck and neck in terms of strength and overall potential, and Team SoloMid, while definitely not on their level, can definitely compete and even pull off a win, given that they execute and draft to the best of their ability. 

Needless to say, there’s a ton of uncertainty in Group C, and how it’ll all pan out is anyone’s guess. We have only but a small sample size on all four teams, and much of what we know isn’t entirely applicable. JD Gaming, for instance, has looked downright abysmal in the Play-In stage but have stepped up tenfold, with fantastic drafts and near perfect execution. No one gave them much of a chance and yet here they are, tied for first place with a very respectable 2W-1L record. 

There’s so much confusion because Gen.G holds a win over LGD, who hold a win over Fnatic, who hold a win over Gen.G. It’s like a game of rock, paper, scissors. If you’re scratching your head by this point, know that you’re not in the minority. And none of these wins or losses were one-sided, which creates even more uncertainty going forward. Well, there’s also Team SoloMid that still hasn’t registered a win on the board. Having zero wins isn’t the end all be all (yet), but playing so badly and being so outmatched in every way, shape, and form is quite a problem, as you can imagine. TSM did very little to gain our benefit of the doubt, and basically anything that could go wrong for the boys in black and white ultimately did. Now sure, they’ve been slotted in a very competitive group, but they were still supposed to put up a much bigger fight, if not even win a couple of games by this point.

We know they’re better than this, but there’s very little reason to trust in their potential resurgence. They’ll face an uphill battle and the odds are definitely stacked against them. Heck, maybe that’s even an understatement. Still, they have a chance of doing some damage and taking someone down with them. They’re the team to watch going forward as all they need to do is to upset once and absolute chaos will ensue. 

If we were to judge solely based off of their recent performances, we’d side with LGD Gaming and Fnatic to make it out, but it’s going to be insanely close, and a tiebreaker or two is all but guaranteed to close out the day. 

Finally, have in mind that there’s no “safe bet” in Group C. Anything can happen going forward, so if you’re looking for guaranteed earnings, you’d best look elsewhere. These teams are separated by the slimmest of margins and we’re bound to witness an insanely competitive slew of games.