A History of Wildcards Winning at Worlds

[Music] the term wild card has two different definitions in the league of legends community the first is a traditional definition a team from a region that's relatively new or underdeveloped in the competitive scene in league of legends we have a pretty big distinction between the five main regions who were all given access to the game from its early days and the other smaller areas of the world who had localized versions and dedicated servers provided to them much later because these regions were a little late to the party as it were they haven't had that same kind of time to develop a healthy competitive scene and their pro teams traditionally are weaker at international events as a result of it because these regions are a bit behind though wildcard has taken on a second definition in the broader community as an insult mainly referring to whoever the weakest main region is at a given time insulting their teams if they perform poorly at international events questioning their status as a main region etc etc but while it's easy for us to get wrapped up in our own little world of league we might forget that the word wild card has a real definition in the real world namely a person or thing whose influence is unpredictable and whose qualities are uncertain and that is exactly what these wild cards are especially at the world championships they haven't won a title themselves or gotten first at a major international tournament i won't deny the weaknesses that these teams and regions do have as they will lose more often than they win but that doesn't mean they don't win they do in fact wild card teams win so frequently that they have affected the results of almost every single world championship in the lcs era in major ways and today we're gonna celebrate that this is a history of wild cards at worlds 11 kill transgender and optimistic gigabytes are going to take the game they're taking down the lpl and brazil has done it [Applause] [Applause] the first world championship that had a wild card system as we understand it today was season 3 worlds in 2013. there a single wild card team was allowed to attend based on the victor of a prior international wild card tournament gaming gear eu managed to take first place at the event winning qualification as the representatives from the commonwealth of independent states a group of nations previously belonging to the soviet union after two owing brazil's paying gaming in the finals they punched their ticket to worlds where people weren't expecting much of them and where they weren't able to do too much they were placed in a fairly large group that consisted of five teams total the other four being from north america europe china and korea they played to expectations for the most part where of the eight games they played in their double round robin they lost their first seven with none of their games being all that close however in the last game they played they weren't able to get a single win it was against tsm the north american representatives who were already eliminated from the tournament at that point and who decided to have a bit of fun in their last game doing some silly stuff to please their fans like picking teemo just for harass as well all right we warned you yep there it is however much your little stock you might put into this result gaming gear pulled off the win and although it didn't mean much in isolation it started a tradition where for the next half decade wild cards would put up some incredible performances the next world championship in 2014 would have two spots reserved for wild cards to attend this time the winner of two different international tournaments were given direct seeds into the group stage who ended up being dark passage from turkey and kaboom from brazil most people didn't expect them to do too much again at least no more than the previous wild card team maybe picking up a meaningless game towards the end of groups but finishing last and not having an impact on the standings and this seemed like it would be pretty accurate early on as dark passage would indeed go winless in their own group and ended up finishing last but kabum was another story kaboom was in group d where they'd have to face off against cloud9 the number two seed from north america najin the number three seed from korea and alliance the number one seed from europe alliance was a team that was made up of some of the former clg eu stars coupled with a few other big name players in europe and it most recently won the european lcs summer split to date this is the only team in europe not named g2 or fnatic to win a european split and they were very good i mean people expected that they would be making it out of groups alongside with the korean representative throughout the first round robin things were looking pretty standard in terms of what everyone expected except cloud9 managed to upset alliance and now had a chance to make it out of groups this was a really crazy underdog story for the lovable north american team however alliance was able to take the second game in the double round robin quelling any n a fans excitement as they would likely now have to play against each other in a tiebreaker to see who would make it out of groups but shock wave then and nazi white shield look like their impeccable record will fall here as alliance strike revenge back on them and claims second spot in the group the pressure very much will be on cloud nine do it they take down that white shield alliance had found a way to beat najin white shield an incredibly impressive feat for the time as most general western league fans viewed korean teams as simply invincible on the final day of their group stage matches the standings were shaping up like this which was pretty heartbreaking for fans of cloud 9 or north america although they were currently tied with alliance and a tiebreaker in effect since they split their group stage series 1-1 they each still had one game left to play c9 had to play against najin and alliance got to play against kaboom kaboom are 0-5 right now they have nothing to play for alliance should just mop the floor with them eliminate north america and make a run for the title themselves right because while the room prison will slow him down flash is available he may need to use it oh that's the side set the cocoon the rebelled will come [Applause] fight indeed foreign gets it up here which could be nif next actually they're looking for more kills on this one's over the wall zap just misses this could be the next one to go down in this fight if left gets over the wall and kaboom goes to dynamite what the hell was that from like he's gone he's out of the fight anyway we're gonna try and push up as quick as possible the lions have to swing around and sweep and try and cause this one the child catches on wiggles he takes him down and that's gonna cause real problems until they grab it and the nexus turret almost about to go alliance has too much on their plate to consider that's the fight the the control on to left they are able to take him down dana gore is very low shook gonna this was one of the craziest upsets in the history of league up until this point a wild card team who was winless and had nothing to play for but pride took down the number one seed from a region that had just made semi-finals at the last world championship it was unbelievable following up alliance's loss c9 would then manage to beat najin to escape groups by the skin of their team this game was the first time in league's history that a team designated as just a wild card beat a main region in an important game at an international event up until now most people just viewed wild card teams being included at worlds as a purely ceremonial thing you know they weren't there to compete they were there for the main regions to be but kaboom and brazil showed us that that's not the case and for the next four world championships we would see similar shocking performances that directly influenced the result of worlds once again at 2015 world's two wild card teams were seated directly into groups based on the victors at two international wild card tournaments the first was the bangkok titans representing thailand who'd be put in an incredibly tough group and ultimately saw an early exit with a 0-6 scoreline pain gaming from brazil were the other representatives and they were placed into a bit of a different situation payne were seeded into group a which consisted of the number one seed from korea the coup tigers the number two seed from north america clg and the number two seed from the lms flash wolves alongside themselves because the lms region which consisted of taiwan hong kong and macau was on a bit of a decline ever since they won season 2 worlds this was seen as a pretty easy group for ku and clg to escape from between a wild card team who should be easy free wins and the number two seed from arguably the weakest power five region at that point why should clg or q fans ever expect anything but an easy path out well at first that's what it looked like was going to happen with a bit of a fun twist clg started off 2-0 getting early victories against brazil and taiwan's representatives but ku on the other hand had a bit of a fumble losing one of their games against flash wolves coop pulled off a pretty easy victory against clg regaining their korean form but flash wolves had all of a sudden made this group incredibly interesting with their win they were in position to force a three-way tiebreaker and potentially put clg in jeopardy of being knocked out but then they are still nearby right on the front line hooks into you charm hits him as well the tank doing his job sir t hooked in they get the first kill karsa goes down but they trade back on a sir team mylon only hits sword art with the megan rprt in the back line gets the first kill pushes back stake and here comes the rest of the push stick has very little left to do can't get the kill a triple for brtt and kavi maybe gets the last one an ace believe it every single team in this group has a win and every single team in this group has a loss they're only one game away from first place right now and payne gaming take a win over the flash wolves payne had just beaten flash wolves in a hugely important match they had dismantled the team that had crushed korea's number one seed this was starting to make group a look really interesting because there was still a full day of games left to be played with everybody in group already showing quite a bit of vulnerability and weakness racking up at least one loss but still this kind of looks like what we were expecting right i mean korea and north america getting out lms and the wild card going home and at the start of the third day it looked like that would continue clg dropped a game against ku payne lost to flash wolves and coup demolished payne with only three games remaining what should happen is clg should beat flash wolves cou should also take down the lms squad and clg should wrap things up by beating payne all this craziness would come to a close with the results ending predictably but none of that happened [Music] clg lost to the lms team korea's number one seed choked again and on top of all of that payne beat clg as group a ended in chaos payne had not only secured the exit of clg but they had taken a game off the number one team in the group giving them one of their two losses and what was supposed to be the group of life for clg and q turned into a disappointment for both teams with clg eliminated in the korean favorites finishing second people didn't entirely know what to make of this at first this was two worlds in a row where a wild card team was able to have a major impact beating some of the best teams in their group at first audiences believed this might just be the rise of brazil who was quickly becoming a dark horse region that could do a lot internationally if they kept developing at this rate but it wasn't just brazil it was every wild card region playing better and finding ways to be competitive people were starting to give a little more respect to wild card representatives no longer assuming that they're just free wins at least but even so i don't think anyone was prepared for what was about to happen next in the 2016 world championship we would see once again two wild cards seated directly in a group stage the first was the brazilian team ins which everyone had their eyes on for obvious reasons brazil had caused two crazy group stages at the last two world championships and everyone was hoping this would be the third year in a row although ince was able to take a game off the chinese representative edward gaming they sadly didn't have too much of an effect on the ultimate result of their group and left fans a bit disappointed however the other wild card team would be able to do a little bit more albus knox luna was the first team to qualify for worlds from the commonwealth of independent states since gaming gear eu back in 2013. after their group stage seeding most viewers expected that they would have similar results to gaming gear picking up virtually no meaningful games as they were placed into what might be the hardest possible group for them they were slotted into group a which included the number one seed defending lck champions the rox tigers they were likely the favorites to win this world or at the very least to make finals if nothing else after destroying the lck the previous summer split in addition to rocks and x was also going up against the number one seed from eu g2 esports who had demolished europe all year long winning both spring and summer playoffs finally rounding out their group was clg a team who had certainly struggled internationally in recent years but who were now looking to redeem themselves as na's number two seed after winning the previous year's spring championship all regional champions all from main regions it seemed like it was going to be impossible for anx to even get a single win the real competition here seemed to be who would be the team to make it out with the rox tigers between europe and north america after clg beat g2 in the opening match of groups it looks like they might have a leg up but then upset over clg the later the game got the better albus knox got a team fighting and with these massive death timers and the baron buff they're going to look to push for the win liquid is hungry and he wants to be fed he won't find who he though i think who he is going to get caught out no he's done it liquids interrupted the rest of elvis knox they're looking at the nexus they're taking down the turret they're taking down clg lost to anx in a shockingly close game this completely threw the group out of whack now anx and clg were tied one to one with anx having the tiebreaker advantage for the moment the next day as if to redeem themselves clg would beat the number one seeded korean team the rox tigers reminding us of who the real competitive teams were in this group except that very same day anx also beat g two clg's victory was supposed to be a redemption arc for north america which instead turned into a three-way tiebreaker with anx potentially making it out of this group which that would make them the first wild card team to ever do so one day was left where the whole second round robin would be played and everything would be decided and as matches began it started off somewhat normally with g2 losing to rocks which all but guaranteed their elimination now clg got to play against anx to potentially get the upper leg on them securing their path to escaping group stage but who am i kidding you guys know what happened next where's the tempered fate he's caught himself either from who's the target no flash too early on the life finding oh not the line and liquid takes down afro he gets knocked up into the air he's exhausted albus knocks have comboed everything perfectly liquid gets another they take another tower and now it's smithy's the target chaos storm's gonna run him down make smithy albus knocks nine kills to two and then peeling back for baron and i don't think clg can defend this one albus knox from the cis from the lcl they are doing what no wild card team has done before elvis knox luna have got one giant foot in the door to chicago on the way to the quarterfinals anx had just beaten clg twice in group and now held the tiebreaker over them and as much as they had shown us what they could do as much as everyone had been impressed by anx i think even now we still kind of viewed them as just a wild card team you know i mean this was clg and g2 choking as they were prone to do internationally right this isn't actually anx being good is it [Music] gonna actually goes in aggressive huge damage from the nidalee and starting to bully around a bit this is what peanuts nidalee is known for but take that pick away and peanuts feeling the pressure smurf feeling the same though on top is here we go mid all of a sudden the action cuz and that is so big for annex right now blue buff reset on stairs yeah and it's important to note that rocks does not benefit oh my god goes in again good stuff but kuru is going to get reset on die bats incoming kira puts out the hero but kuro's dead again human blade goes off and that's enough for the kill no summon for them right now is they don't really have a lot of wave players though they're heavily reliant on ultimates and summoners to penetrate towers flush [Applause] [Applause] [Music] gonna try and kick them out he gets one oh my god the indian goes down peter trying to count a miracle but bryce dead that might be enough kyra it's gonna fall down as well four before they get cece run fish trying to stop these fish from hitting the actual nexus they're killing all the cc run fight links first i know everyone is fighting as well go forward i think they have to fight goes in but i've got him here keeping alive again trying to take down prey with the nexus [Applause] oh my god they did it albus knox luna made it out of the group stage at a world championship the first wild card team to ever do so they had dethroned the number one seed from eu the number two hope from north america and even beat what everyone assumed was the best team in the world it was honestly incredible what they pulled off here this was a group of death for them how is this the time a wild card escaped group stage how was this the team that did it they would finish off the group by losing a tiebreaker against rox to get the number two seed and then were eliminated from worlds in the first round of the playoff bracket three games to nothing by h2k but a statement had been made and perhaps it was their success that encouraged riot to invite more wild card teams to worlds the following year starting in 2017 riot would include a play in stage at every world championship which saw every wild card champion from minor regions invited they would then battle each other as well as some of the weaker representatives from main regions for a shot at making it to the main event play-ins most often consisted of a series of groups with the majority of teams making it out followed with a second round of best of five series between those victors determining who advanced past play-ins this is a pretty neat idea as it sort of brought that international wild card tournament that used to be held separately to the world stage giving every minor region some time in the spotlight the first play in stage at worlds 2017 saw a few wild card teams picking up some wins against the main regions namely fnatic dropped a game in their group stage against young generation a vietnamese team who made it to worlds representing southeast asia that looked pretty strong but in their best-of-five qualification series they would be seated up against team we the toughest draw they could have possibly had as we made it all the way to the semi-finals of that world championship they were naturally swept three to nothing when all was said and done we sadly only had a single wild card region escape plans in 1907 fenerbahce the turkish representative they'd be eliminated pretty quickly at the main event though going 0-6 in their group stage but this worlds was still an interesting event for wild cards namely because it kind of killed the idea of wild cards in the first place teams were no longer representing main regions or wild cards they were just representing where they were from oceania latin america japan turkey and for some reasons that line between what was a wild card and what was a main region was really beginning to blur for instance the gigabyte marines another vietnamese team representing southeast asia was given a direct seed to the main event although southeast asia had loosely been known as a main region in the past it was really taiwan and the lms scene that was known for being competitive southeast asia in general and some of its smaller teams from singapore thailand and vietnam they were still largely considered wild cards it was a big deal for riot to give a southeast asian representative that wasn't from the lms a seed directly to the group stage and gigabyte did a lot with it they opened the tournament beating europe's number three seed fnatic and then went on to beat na's number two seed immortals later on eventually forcing a three-way tiebreaker for who would make it out of groups along with korea's longzhu gaming sadly they would lose their tiebreaker against fnatic getting eliminated in third place which was still ahead of north america but while this was obviously a disappointment for people who are rooting for another anx-like run there was a bit of a silver lining here perhaps it was their success along with young generations that influenced this but whatever the reason riot further blurred the lines between wild card and main regions by separating vietnam from the rest of southeast asia and giving them their own direct seed to the main event the following year 2018 saw fong vu buffalo win the vietnamese league and earned the first qualification to represent vietnam as their number one seed getting seeded directly into the main event group stage in their group they would be competing alongside taiwan's flash wolves europe's g2 esports and korea's afrika freaks and by this time people were finally coming around to giving wild cards some of the respect they deserve there was a lot of hype surrounding fong voo leading up to this world as plenty of fans were talking about them potentially being a dark horse to make it out of groups especially after hearing discussion about how well they were doing in scrims and just knowing about the fast and fun pace of league of legends that they typically played they would sadly not live up to all that hype but they would still make some craziness occur here in group a group stage started off in a pretty shocking way that few people saw coming while most viewers expected korea's representatives the afrika freaks to make it out with relative ease as korea had done in previous years g2 beat them on day one shortly after their game flash wolves would beat fong vu which led many to believe that g2 was about to have a really great tournament getting out of groups possibly in first and then could maybe go for a pretty deep bracket run this seemed like it was even more likely when africa lost again to flash wolves the following day as long as g2 could beat flash wolves i mean this should all but secure their status as the best team in group a but then who differently enough judy palace takes down within support or combat as perks is fighting the jungler and losing and bomb buffalo it just feels like they can't put anything out of place they're gonna move in and smash this nexus pvp still have five members alive only two nexus turrets stand in their way g2 there's nothing left jonathan's still alive is there a something no it's just wonder rumor begin to pad the kta's of bong blue buffalo yesterday it looked a little shaky but today it looks extremely clean that's bonk boo buffalo take down g2 this was a major setback for g2 obviously but it was still early in the group stage when all was said and done this group was looking way closer than people expected it to be with every team neck and neck going into the last days games where the entire second round robin would be played which did not start off well for g2 the day began with africa beating flash wolves looking like they were back in their traditional korean form in the next match g2 beat fong vu getting a little bit of revenge from their earlier upset but then flash wolves beat g2 he get five perch goes into the alternator trying to keep himself alive he's going to go down to vanity flash wolves are winning the fight flash moves away from d2 flash wolves are gonna take this game and if it couldn't you'll smash down the nexus turrets they'll bash down the nexus and 43 minutes into this bloodbath they'll take the win following this upset afrika beat fong vu which left the standings looking like this which doesn't appear too disastrous at first if you're a g2 or european fan it's just a three-way tie between three great teams except g2 only has one more game where they now have to face africa the koreans who are back in form they're on a winning streak and they're going to continue that winning streak by dismantling g2 and giving them a loss in their final game flash wolves on the other hand they get to play fong vu buffalo who at this point are eliminated from the event and have nothing to play for and if flash wolves just win their game they'll eliminate g2 from worlds securing the korean and lms teams advancing to the bracket stage that's all they have to do in mid lane and zhuhau is trying to punish mabel before he even has traffic yeah here's the communal game that we expected maple he's going to take a lot of damage and he's dead that first blood stops him for his first game of worlds and kicks up the first kill history time we have it on the side and he wants to assassinate someone he's hanging out in the shroud he's trying to zone them off powell looks for the play but doesn't find it and it's not forced to flush away the safety people just destroys the grinders as he's dancing over the wall but bonfire buffalo they actually reengage and get the fight going to saw that if engages i think pvp they actually may have found the finance a big car with a clutch status but the rest of the team piles in and that's going to be a wife flashbacks lose almost everyone in the back as the team fight is made for now popsy's own software w is going to land maple's going to die for buffalo win and win hard in this exchange dragon now starting to charge you but i think pvp has turned around for the team fight here again into the back line of his dead already there's the combo kept it for the galileo is shredded down by the window four and the other dragon ball bumbling buffalo they want a second win hero they want the upset maple he finds the out play but the next is expose a big curve he's just gonna rip it two threads the upset is there and the flash will get destroyed at the end by that man there this vietnamese win forced a tiebreaker that g2 ended up winning to escape group stage this is that same worlds that g2 would then go on to dethrone the heavy favorites to win worlds rng g2 have just dismantled rng and they're gonna make their way to the semifinals imagine for a moment what would have happened if fong vu buffalo didn't beat flash wolves here i mean if flash wolves make it out of group stage then they're the ones that get seated against rng they will likely lose and uzi will likely steamroll his way to becoming a world champion i mean we can only theorize about how the tournament might go but that's honestly the most likely scenario fong vu buffalo very well might have taken a world championship away from uzi with this win and given rookie and the shy their first world championship instead i mean that's beautiful isn't it that that's what sports are all about these kinds of crazy story lines and upsets how great is it that we get to have wild cards at worlds they are criminally under-appreciated for how much of an effect they have on every championship 2019 was the first year in recent memory where no insane wild card stories came to fruition north america's clutch gaming had to play in some tiebreakers to escape their playing group and unicorns of love from the cis almost snuck out of play ins ahead of europe's splice but fell in a series three games to two vietnam's gam esports got a win in the main event against taiwan's j team but sadly none of this had any sort of greater impact on how the tournament unfolded as a whole but think about that 2019 was the first year since season three worlds where a wild card team didn't affect how league's biggest tournament unfolded season four season five season six season seven and season eight five world championships in a row saw their results directly influenced by these teams that beforehand people assumed would just be free wins for the main regions for the real competitors but that's of course not what happened at all i mean these teams competed just as seriously as any other region and they caused destiny changing events particularly for us in the west where wild card wins determined if eu went home early if n.a went home early if both regions went home early i mean some of these games you could easily argue determined who won the world championship so honestly i feel like it's well overdue that we get rid of the disrespect we put in the word wild card and start giving these teams the love that they deserve they are not traditionally good but they aren't bad either they're teams whose influence is unpredictable and whose qualities are uncertain they may never win a world championship themselves they may never make a final a semi-final hell it might be another five years before one of them makes it out of groups again but just because they don't end up as champions that doesn't mean wild cards can't win [Music] thank you so much for making it to the end of this documentary special thank you to all the patrons who support the channel if you'd like to see more documentaries like this please consider supporting me on patreon or checking out my teespring merch

Channel: Gbay99

Views: 134,781

Rating: 4.9479814 out of 5

Keywords: League of Legends, worlds, worlds 2020, world championship, wildcard, wildcard region, CIS, Brazil, LoL, Turkey, Taiwan, Vietnam, League, Legends, Esports, LoL Esports, LoL Worlds, Albus Nox Luna, Kabum, Phong Vu Buffalo, PVB, Emerging Region, League of Legends worlds, League of Legends world championship, League of Legends Esports, Gbay99, Gbay, Documentary, History, Wildcards Can Win

Id: x39AUIkoLJ8

Length: 34min 28sec (2068 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 24 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/croninhos2]

hahaha As a Brazilian, no, I'm not getting hyped for INTZ at worlds ever again....... maybe

[u/fuginius]

Think gbay is wrong for INTZ win over EDG not accomplashing anything - it meant EDG had to replay H2K for 1st seed in the group, which they lost. EDG was also one of the favourites going into the tournament

[u/madilinda]

ANX's run at Worlds 2016 always gives me goosebumps. The music choice in this video was great. Nice video, Gbay!

[u/jhawk1117]

2016 was a rough year to be a G2 fan but I'll be damned if I wasn't cheering for ANX lol

[u/ItsMag1c]

FOR KABUM

[u/PrairieSurge]

Here's hoping we see some more big results from the play-ins tomorrow. It would be great to have another huge underdog to root for (besides Flyquest, of course.)

[u/Zzflx]

Yeah this year it's motherfking Unicorns of Love.

[u/Alibobaly]

Love the video but I don't think it's fair to say C9 upset Alliance, neither team, or region frankly, was considered a heavy favorite going into that game. At the time NA was still very much on par with EU, arguably better in regards to that year's results in particular.

Also INTZ had a massive implication on their group as they forced the tiebreaker which allowed H2K to contest for 1st seed and basically granted them the path to semifinals rather than facing ROX in quarters. If INTZ never beats EDG then EDG is 1st in the group, plays ANX in quarters and likely goes to semis, while H2K gets dunked by ROX.

Also also when you're talking about ANX, you claim CLG "had certainly struggled internationally in recent years" but this is incorrect as this was literally months after CLG finished 2nd at MSI, a historically high finish for literally any western team ever at the time. They also didn't win the previous year's spring split, they won the current year's spring split (spring 2016 was the same year as the ANX Worlds). All of this to say that ANX's accomplishment was even more impressive.

[u/Jedclark]

It's surprising how consistent World's has been so far. We've never had a massive underdog win the whole thing.