League of Legends news » Takeaways from Group C

The salvation of Europe has arrived -- and their name is H2K.

After the prodigious collapse of Europe in Week 1, expectations were low going into Week 2 of the Group Stage here at Worlds 2016. The entire region had only amassed 2 wins out of 12 games coming into today -- it was enough for us to wet our ink in preparation for the EUlogies we would inevitably have to write. 

Instead, H2K came out and smashed any and all expectations. They’re the first team to go 3-0 in a stage here at Worlds, beating ahq e-Sports Club, INTZ e-Sports, and one of the tournament favorites in Edward Gaming all in one day. H2K's AD carry FORG1VEN said in the postgame interview that, at their best they can beat the best teams in the world, and at their worst they can lose to a 0-16 EU LCS team. 

Well, today we got to see them at their best. H2 what? H2 going to the Quarterfinals in Chicago, that’s what.

But where a star rises, another must come crashing down. And that star was very nearly the No. 1 seed from China in EDG. Despite a 10k gold deficit in the final scheduled match of the day against ahq, EDG managed to claw it back to keep their quest for the Summoner’s Cup alive. For now, we bid farewell to both ahq and ITZ as their Worlds journey comes to an end. 

Now that Group C is all wrapped up, let’s take a look back at what we can take away from this group.

• What H2K showed here in Week 2 was an ability to transition their strong laning phase into good mid to late game macro decisions -- something they lacked in Week 1. FORG1VEN proved himself to be a world class ADC, standing toe-to-toe with the likes of Deft and Meiko, and Ryu did his best to teach everyone watching what that strange, shimmering blue light around Ryze was. Now that we’ve seen H2K at their best -- and worst -- here at Worlds, the question going forward will be which one turns up to Quarterfinals -- and whether or not they’ll be their own worst enemy. 

• EDG really couldn’t have made this group any harder on themselves. Jatt probably described it best on PrimeTime League when he said that EDG were bouncing back like “a wet tennis ball” after recovering from their Week 1 loss to ITZ. The same can be said of their Week 2 performance. Their early game looked weak against H2K and ahq -- and Clearlove was playing incredibly reactive for the top rated jungler here at Worlds. If they want to do better than their 2015 performance they’ll need to put in a lot of hard work on the road to Chicago. Though if they can fix some of their early game and macro mistakes, it should help them reach their mid to late game team fights on an even playing field and help them live up to their true potential.

• ahq had the Quarterfinals right at their fingertips in the final scheduled match of the day against EDG. With a 10K gold lead and a fed Jinx, still they couldn’t pull the trigger. It was a match that felt indicative of their Group Stage here at Worlds -- a little good, a little bad, and in the end not enough to get them over the line to the Quarterfinals. One of the question marks hanging over this team will be the champion pools of AN and Westdoor and their reluctance to play strong meta champions. Though, ultimately, it was a bad Baron call and a string of lapses in judgement that cost them a ticket to Chicago -- something which is harder to remedy for a team that has been playing together for as long as ahq has.

• ITZ peaked a little too early this competition. Their win over EDG was the stuff of legends, but the all that hype had to go somewhere. In the end, they could never quite live up to that first breakout performance. But the Brazilian legacy lives on at Worlds. This is the 3rd consecutive year that a team from CBLoL has made it here to Worlds -- and ITZ will be able to take what they’ve learned back to their home region, elevating the talent bar and continuing Brazil’s quest to be considered the 6th major region.

Tune in tomorrow as Group D comes to it’s conclusion and we find out who will be the next two teams to book their tickets to the Quarterfinals at 1PM PT.