LEC stands tall once more as Team BDS triumphed over Golden Guardians.
The League of Legends World Championship 2023 is about to take place as Team BDS secured the final spot in the first round of the Play-In Stage after a 3-0 victory against Golden Guardians. In its first-ever iteration of the Worlds Qualifying Series (WQS), the classic rivalry of 'LEC vs LCS' was on full display at LoL Park in Seoul, South Korea as BDS ran rampant against GG in a series that took just a little under an hour and a half to complete.
BDS will join Group B consisting of Team Whales, CTBC Flying Oyster, and DetonatioN FocusMe in the first round of the Play-In Stage. This will be BDS' debut on the international stage as it is the org's first-ever appearance at Worlds. Four-fifths of the starting roster will also making their debuts at Worlds while only Adam "Adam" Maanane will have his second outing as the first took place back in 2021 during his stint with Fnatic.
The highly-anticipated series took place earlier today as BDS produced an entirely dominant performance in all three games. The first match took just 20 minutes to finish as BDS kept GG at bay with just two kills, zero turrets, and no drakes to match. However, GG brought some discernable fight back in the second match but alas, it was not enough for them to overpower BDS' teamfight capabilities.
GG would hold out for over 30-minutes in game two, which led to another woeful performance in the third and final match of the series. While it did take almost half an hour to finish, it was eeriely similar to game one in which BDS had complete control of the match. And with Labros "Labrov" Papoutsakis playing his third game on Rakan in a row, he delivered with another clinical performance in the support role with the most assists yet again.
It is disheartening to see GG leave the tournament in the manner in which they did, given their much-improved performances for this season as well. After missing out on a first-ever LCS title against Cloud9, GG made its international debut at the Mid-Season Invitational this year with a top-eight finish. They went on to grab a top-four finish at the LCS Summer Split, which was enough for them to make it to the WQS.
Sadly, that will be the furthest they have gone for now as it will be Team BDS who take the 22nd and final spot at Worlds 2023, which will officially kickstart tomorrow with the opening matches of Group A. Group B will start the day after with BDS going up against Team Whales.
