Saturday 26 October 2019 20:59, UK
The highly-anticipated knockout stages of the League of Legends World Championship are finally here and it’s down to eight of the best teams to battle it out for the Summoner’s Cup. Here’s everything you need to know from day one of the quarter-finals.
The defending world champions took on one of Korea's finest in the first match of the day but it was the LPL that emerged victorious after IG stomped Griffin to become the first team to secure a spot in the semi-finals.
The first game was arguably the most interesting one - both teams appeared shaky and IG made mistake after mistake to allow Griffin to get back into the game time and time again.
After 43 minutes of back and forth, IG managed to catch out Sword to secure Baron and then Elder which gave them the bonus push to end the game.
IG found their rhythm after the first game, despite allowing Griffin to take a win in game three, the LPL second seed managed to round up the series with a 25-minute victory in the last match.
There was a considerable amount of hype surrounding the Chovy v Rookie mid lane match up but Griffin's mid laner opted to go with four tank champions, which puzzled Rookie.
He said: "I didn't expect Chovy to actually go for these tank champions and I didn't really understand why they made those choices. I knew that Chovy, before going pro, was really good on these kinds of champions. They get less useful late game but even if Chovy got carry champions I would have won anyway."
All three of Europe's worlds teams got out of their groups and much of their fans' hope lied with last year's finalists Fnatic.
However, it was China's first seed who showed up today as they dismantled Fnatic in the first two games and went onto end their dream of winning worlds on home turf with a 35-minute game-four victory.
Fnatic's star player Rekkles, revealed that there were some synergy problems with his team today.
He said: "I don't think this year was that great of a year honestly, I think we all struggled as a team for the entirety of it and it never came to a point where everyone was happy so what I'd take away is that I want to make sure we're really happy with each other next year. I think what matters most is that you need each other to succeed and today we didn't have each other's backs."
The arena in Madrid was filled with Fnatic fans, but this was Rekkles' only message for his supporters.
He said: "Sorry for an embarrassing performance."
Fnatic were confident when it was revealed that they had drawn FPX in the quarter-finals but FPX's top laner Tian says they have the last laugh.
He said in response to Fnatic's reaction: "I think Splyce are the strongest EU team, Fnatic were laughing but we were laughing even harder - we just didn't get it on video."
