After four days of competition, we finally have our full slate of teams who will battle it out in the knockout bracket of the play-in stage at the 2017 World Championship. 1907 Fenerbahçe and Hong Kong Attitude were the stars of Tuesday, as the two put on some of the best games of the day in Wuhan, China.
On a day in which the majority of games didn't last longer than 30 minutes, Fenerbahçe and HKA gave the fans plenty to cheer for. While the two each took down Rampage in impressive fashion to start out the day, the sparks didn't fly until the teams faced each other. The first game was dead even until the late game, as both teams were content to simply farm while waiting for the explosive late game. The first time around, HK Attitude brought home the win on the back of a Baron steal by jungler Cheung "GodKwai" Ho Wan's Gragas that sparked a final push into Fenerbahçe's base to lock up the win and force the tiebreaker.
The final meeting between these two ended up being the closest of the games, with both teams trading gold leads back and forth until the very end of the game. HK Attitude started out with the first couple kills before the game settled into a lull. Fenerbahçe battled back with four kills and a Baron secure at 35 minutes before HK Attitude wrestled control back with three more kills a few minutes later. Not to be outdone, Fenerbahçe jungler Lee "Crash" Dong-woo's Nidalee stole the second Baron in the late game, allowing his team to quickly find four kills to back it up and walk into the HK Attitude base to secure the win and first seed from Group D.
While those two dominated the conversation over in Group D, Group C wasn't without a bit of drama on the final day of the double-round robin. Fnatic opened the day on a high note with a blistering victory over Kaos Latin Gamers. While KLG looked good in the early game, Fnatic simply snapped its fingers 22 minutes in to flip the game on its head and waltzed towards a victory.
Despite the win, Fnatic couldn't keep it rolling towards a 4-0 record, as Young Generation played the part of spoiler. From the very start, Fnatic looked to completely undermine the prowess of the underdog. YG held its own all throughout the game, setting up for a frantic series of events that would close out the game. While Fnatic attempted a late game Baron kill, YG focused on bursting into the Fnatic base for the win. YG mid laner Vo "Naul" Thanh Luan used his Kassadin to execute a textbook backdoor play to raze the enemy Nexus, xPeke'ing Fnatic and securing the game along with the second seed of Group C.
The stage is now set for the knockout portion of the play-in stage at the 2017 World Championship.
Eight teams remain, but just four will make it through to the main portion of the tournament. The action will kick off Wednesday at 11 p.m. ET with Cloud9 taking on Lyon Gaming, followed by Fnatic and Hong Kong Attitude.