After Team Liquid’s last game of the 2022 LCS Summer regular season against 100 Thieves, the perennial regional champions have ended as the third best team in the league with a respectable 12-6 record. Before the playoffs begin, the roster’s veteran top laner Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau sounded off on the state of the league and the region’s hopes at the 2022 League of Legends World Championship.
According to the 23-year-old, there haven’t been many teams to inspire hope for North America at the biggest tournament of the year, save for Evil Geniuses and 100 Thieves, who finished beside Liquid as the first and second seeds respectively. All three teams have shown top-level gameplay at a relatively consistent rate, and have earned both the trust and respect of the NA fans.
As for the rest of the pack, however, Bwipo isn’t so sure. He specifically spoke about Counter Logic Gaming, who is the current fourth seed of the league, and how the new roster isn’t “as good as their record shows.” In fact, he referred to them as “Team Liquid Light” in how similar they play to his own team, both with their strengths and their downfalls.
Bwipo said that the two rosters rely on strong early game compositions to gain an advantage over their opponent, which they both mirror in their statistics. Team Liquid leads all LCS teams with a whopping 1805 average gold difference at 15 minutes, while CLG has a smaller 101 gold difference, according to League stats aggregate Oracle’s Elixir.
In the later stages of their games, both teams either snowball their way to victory, or fumble their lead and lose. It is a problem that they share together, and is an issue that must be figured out before the postseason begins. Looking ahead at Worlds, Bwipo doesn’t think that CLG is strong enough to stand up against the best teams in the world, and is also keeping his own expectations of the region tame.
“I don’t think CLG will have the juice necessary in order to rise above the challenges that Worlds presents,” Bwipo told Dot Esports. “And that’s it. Even if I say so myself, it’s a bit depressing because it’s hard to put high expectations for NA at Worlds this year, I think. But, you gotta send three teams either way, right?”
Bwipo has gone to Worlds multiple times over the course of his career, and as a member of one of NA’s best teams, he’ll need to carry the torch and rise to the occasion if he wants to represent the region when the tournament begins later this year. But for now, he must keep his eyes on the opponents at hand when the 2022 LCS Championship kicks off on Saturday, Aug. 20.
