G2 and DamWon Gaming square off in Worlds 2020 Semifinals on Saturday after coming off of 3-0 victories over their respective opponents.
G2 and DamWon Gaming decisively won their quarterfinals matchups and now face each other in the semifinals. G2 have not lost a single best of five series against a Korean team at Worlds. However, DAMWON Gaming will look to change that in this revenge matchup from last year. We will breakdown the series, key points, and predictions.
- Read More: Worlds 2020 Semifinals match schedule
The Matchup at a glance
G2 Esports are looking to reach the finals in back to back years. Whereas, DAMWON Gaming are looking for redemption from their failures last season when they lost to G2. This is a revenge match up which is going to be a thriller of a series. Their journey in Worlds 2020 has been strong except G2 has looked wobbly in the group stages. However, G2 as usual levels up during the best of five series matchups and dealt a massive defeat to Gen.G.
On the other hand, DAMWON made short work of DRX in the quarterfinals just like they did during the LCK Summer Finals. This is a fated rematch that DAMWON would want to win this time around. However, they are against a team that has an undefeated record against Korean teams in a best of five series.
DAMWON has improved a lot compared to last year and G2 look just as formidable. There are some key differences such as Ghost in the bot lane for DAMWON and Caps roaming a lot for G2 in their games this year. Ghost has been one of DAMWON’s main carries this Worlds and is a consistent performer in the team. Whereas, Caps has been great at roaming around with Twister Fate and Sylas. This causes mismatches during skirmishes which enable G2 to win games.
Deeper Dive
As we take a deeper look at these teams, they have very distinct styles and win conditions. DAMWON relies a lot on Canyon having success in the jungle which bleeds into the lanes having a lead. The laners facilitate the jungler to get ahead so that they can take hold of objectives. This gives them a significant lead that allows them to close out games. They have also shown they can play from behind given that the lead against them is not significant. Ghost has been a revelation for them so far with his consistent performances in the bottom lane.
On the flip side, G2 relies a lot on Caps and Jankos roaming together to side lanes and getting wins in skirmishes. G2 will fight their opponents anywhere even if there is no objective to fight for. They are a very spontaneous team with their decision-making and will follow through regardless of the nature of the outcome. G2 gives up a lot of the dragons and heralds in the early game. However, they have taken First Turret in 67% of their games even though they do not take many heralds.
It’s an interesting contrast because DAMWON is a very methodical team whereas G2 is the kind of team that will throw a wrench into any plan. It’s an intriguing matchup between two very different styles of play. Champion priority will also be key as Canyon has played Graves in 7 out of their nine matches. However, that is due to the fact that Nidalee has been banned against them in most games. On the flip side, Twisted Fate is a big pick for Caps and DAMWON banning it for all games is on the table.
Here are the winning conditions for each team.
Winning Conditions for G2 Esports
- Free up Caps: Caps roaming has undoubtedly worked extremely well for them. G2’s main focus should be to enable him to roam around and find picks. Champions with Global abilities have been his go-to but he has shown that he can play without those and still roam efficiently.
- Play around Jankos: This meta has had a lot of influence on the junglers. The team playing the best around their jungler has won most of their games. G2 were not the team known to play around Jankos. However, against Gen.G they adapted and played more around Jankos which has made them look impressive. Whether they continue that trend or not against DAMWON will be a big question. Certainly, it will be a big factor in G2 winning the series.
- Roam to get bot lane ahead: This condition is reliant on the first two being fulfilled where Caps and Jankos are able to roam to the bot lane and cause havoc. This gets Perkz ahead and that shapes up for a G2 win.
Winning Conditions for DAMWON Gaming
- Force Caps to make a choice: As stated in the winning conditions for G2, Caps roams a lot. However, there are ways to punish this especially if DAMWON has a winning matchup in the lane. That way Caps either has to choose to abandon the lane or be tethered to it. ShowMaker will be a challenging opponent for Caps and that’s what DAMWON should hope for.
- Canyon should be the leading jungler: DAMWON has won all of their games when Canyon has had a significant impact on their games. They play well around Canyon and this should force Jankos to play from the back foot. This allows Canyon to facilitate the team with his lead and win games.
- Nuguri should be the X-factor: Nuguri should be dominating in the top lane to give DAMWON the edge in these games. Caps and ShowMaker can cancel out each other and the junglers and bot lane for both sides are constants. This is why it’s paramount that Nuguri wins his lane and snowballs the lane to win DAMWON the series.
Final Remarks and Prediction
For the prediction, we are going to go with G2 winning over DAMWON 3-2 and there are two principal reasons.
- G2 has an unbeaten record against Korean teams in Bo5s
- G2 is the kind of team to disrupt a gameplan and DAMWON are a methodical team
For a team like G2 who like to improvise and skirmish a lot, it is hard for a region of teams that are built upon macro-style play to succeed. Additionally, G2 likes to do things outside-the-box and they succeed against teams with a specific gameplan once they throw their opponents off it.
It is going to be a very hard-fought series for both teams and either team has a very good shot of winning the series. For us, it tilts slightly over to G2 because of their past performance and style of play. If put into percentages, we would say its a 55%-45% in favor of G2 winning.
Regardless of the outcome, we are in for likely the best series at Worlds 2020 on Saturday and its going to be an exciting one to watch.
