After an incredible day of competition in the group round-robin stage at the world championships for anyone who follows League of Legends -- and especially for North American team Cloud9 -- ESPN Stats & Information takes a closer look at what went down in Busan, South Korea.
Top things to know
1. Cloud9 advances from group stage play to their fifth quarterfinals appearance in the last six world championships. Cloud9 won three matches on Sunday, their most in any match day during the group stage at worlds.
2. Royal Never Give Up advances from the group stage to the quarterfinals for the third consecutive year (Second straight year winning their group), and it comes after dropping their first two matches and defeating Cloud9 in tiebreaker match. Both Cloud9 and Royal Never Give Up join SK Telecom T1 as the only teams to make three straight quarterfinals.
3. Reigning champion Gen.G (formerly Samsung Galaxy) was the first team eliminated from the group stage and the second South Korean team to exit worlds in group stage competition. They are also the first South Korean team to have a losing record in world's group stage history.
Living on Cloud9
Cloud9 finished Sunday 3-1 (only loss a tiebreaker vs. RNG) and became the first NA LCS team to advance from a group with an EU LCS team (Team Vitality) since 2014. Over the last three Worlds, there have been six groups with an NA and EU team, in those groups zero NA teams advanced and four EU teams advanced.
Cloud9 qualified for their fifth quarterfinals appearance, the most all-time. They also join SK Telecom T1 and Royal Never Give Up, as the only teams to make three consecutive quarterfinals appearances.
Down Goes the reigning champion Gen.G
Defending champions Gen.G (formerly Samsung Galaxy) entered 2018 Worlds with dreams of joining in SKT (2015, 2016) as the only teams to win Worlds in back-to-back years. While they may have not been the betting favorite to win it all (RNG), few could have imagined them not making it out of the group stage. Then they made history ...
Gen.G became the first LCK team with a losing record in world's group stage history (1-5) and their three losses today were the most by a LCK team in a match day at worlds. In fact, their five losses in this years group stage are more losses than any LCK team has had in their worlds group stage history. SK Telecom T1 has three group stage losses in their four group stage appearances.