This article is part of our LoL Previews series.
Albus NoX Luna will be going home without a single win to their name, just like many Wildcards before them. At least, that's what the majority of analysts and fans alike anticipated. The CIS champions made their way to the event after a nail-biting five-game series against Lyon Gaming that pushed them to their absolute limits. Barely qualifying, nobody had any expectations for the team. Everyone thought they were simply going to show up, lose all of their games except one or two based on luck, then go home to be forgotten once again.
Leading up to Worlds, the majority of team's went abroad to Korea to prepare, bootcamping for weeks against the best teams in the world. ANX did the exact opposite. Unable to find scrim partners, the team relaxed and spent the weeks leading up to the event playing World of Warcraft. With little to no preparation, non-existent expectations, and matches against the world's best in store, it seemed like ANX would be eliminated quickly and become this year's Dark Passage -- a blip on the radar forgotten immediately after the tournament was over.
Instead, the team made Wildcard history, breaking into the Quarterfinals at the 2016 World Championship. The road there was a tough one to say the least. An hour long match against tournament favorites ROX Tigers surprisingly saw Albux NoX Luna prevail and punch their way into the bracket stage of the event. Their miracle run hasn't come to an end yet, and after defeating one of the best teams in the tournament, it seems they may have a chance at making it to the semifinals.
After defeating ROX, arguably their biggest foe at the tournament, Albus NoX will have to show up once again against an extremely dominant looking H2K in order to claim victory. Normally this would seem like a rather easy task in comparison, but once again, there's a reason nobody expected this quarterfinal to ever happen.
H2K started out World's with a rough start to the tournament. Finding their lone victory during Week 1 against INTZ in a less than convincing fashion, it didn't seem as though the team would be able to make their mark on the group and advance. They moved into the second week of the tournament already written off by the majority of people, as they were expected to fall alongside the rest of Europe who were underperforming. In a turn of events that couldn't have looked more like a Cinderella story, H2K found their glass slipper and marched right through the group stage, arriving at the quarterfinals with style.
Week 2 could not possibly have gone better for H2K. Starting off with a convincing victory over AHQ, the team played a game against group-favorite EDG immediately after. Although they were expected to get demolished like they had last week, H2K found an early advantage and simply outplayed EDG to claim a second victory for the day. They wouldn't stop there, winning their next game against INTZ and finally going on to play a tiebreaker for the first seed out of the group, claiming victory in that as well. The team went from the bottom of the pack in Week 1 to punching their tickets to the quarterfinals and earning the first seed out of their group.
The Matchup:
The hardest part about this match for either team is the lack of predictability in their opponents. Neither of them were supposed to make it this far in the tournament, and doing so has been a feat in and of itself. Despite this, the bottom lane seems to be the place to watch for this particular matchup, not only because it may decide the match, but also because of the story between the two.
Although he's been full of inspirational speeches and unconventional picks, Kirill "Likkrit" Malofeyev and his lane partner Vladislav "aMiracle" Scherbyna will need nothing short of a miracle (pun intended) in order to dismantle one of the best bottom lanes in the tournament. Their opponents, Konstantinos-Napoleon "FORG1VEN" Tzortziou and Oskar "Vander" Bogdan, were able to bully EDG's botlane which includes Kim "Deft" Hyuk-kyu, known as the world's best bottom laner. The result could be grim for Albus NoX who will need to find ways to shut FORG1VEN down early if they have any hopes of winning the game.
Regardless of the outcome of this matchup, history has been made and will continue to be made by these two teams. H2K received criticism coming into the tournament thanks to their shaky play during the Summer Split, tying for fifth in the regular season, placing third in Playoffs and only advancing to World's based on Championship Points accrued from the previous split. They were able to advance through the tournament against all odds and now look like they have a decent shot at making it to the semifinals. Albus NoX on the other hand have made a miracle story of their own. After barely qualifying for World's through the IWC, they have dismantled some of the crowd favorites to become the first Wildcard team to ever advance past the group stages, and as a result, earned a direct invite to IEM Katowice 2017. They have proved that the gap between Wildcards and other team's at the World Championship is closing. Regardless of who wins, both team's have shown that expectations can be shattered. Lesson learned: being a crowd favorite doesn't necessarily mean you're going to win.
