Marta J. October 6, 2019
The first phase of League of Legends 2019 World Championship play-ins is behind us and eight teams have advanced to the knockout stage. The 27 games played thus far saw Pantheon being a constant presence, a strong variety of overall picks, and some strong performances by standout players.
Pantheon has 100% pick/ban rate at Worlds so far
Pantheon has been a force on the Rift ever since his rework, even getting some buffs along the way. This is why it comes as no surprise to see that the champion was banned 26 out of 27 games played at Worlds 2019 thus far, with the only game where he wasn’t banned being the one where he was picked.
Pantheon was then played by MEGA’s mid laner Nuttapong "G4" Menkasikan in a game versus Lowkey Esports, the only game of the play-ins MEGA managed to win, giving Pantheon a 100% win rate to go along the 100% presence in games. According to Games of Legends’ statistic, this was also the game with the highest number of kills during play-ins with 40 total takedowns.
Qiyana also has a high presence at Worlds so far, with 22 bans and three picks, but with only a 33% win rate in her few games played.
Overall we've seen 27 different champion picks, with one of the most surprising being Nihat "Innaxe" Aliev‘s bot lane Heimerdinger played against Clutch Gaming twice, with Unicorns of Love winning both of those games.
In regards to picks, the most picked top lane champion was Gangplank, in the jungle it was Lee Sin, the most popular mid lane champion was LeBlanc, and Xayah and Rakan was a hot bot lane duo.
Cody Sun with highest KDA at World Play-Ins, Artifact and Kobbe gets most kills
Clutch’s bot laner Sun “Cody Sun” Li-Yu achieved the highest KDA at Play-Ins at 10.8, with his best performance coming when it mattered most. Cody had an 8/1/10 score with Ashe when playing UOL in the tiebreaker match for the group’s first-seed.
The highest kill number in a single game is shared between LK’s mid laner Nguyễn "Artifact" Văn Hậu, and Splyce’s bot laner Kasper "Kobbe" Kobberup, who both had 11 kills. Artifact played Tristana vs. Hong Kong Attitude for his 11, and Kobbe took 11 kills against DetonatioN FocusMe.
The Knockout Stage, the second phase of Worlds play-ins, is starting October 7. Eight teams that have advanced through the first phase will fight in best-of-five sets for the four spots left in the main event.