The League of Legends annual schedule is scattered with a few international events, where top teams get to represent their region. You have the Mid-Season Invitational after the Spring Split, then Rift Rivals in the middle of the Summer Split, which all leads up to the World Championships in the fall. The Mid-Season Invitational was a bad showing for North America as Team Liquid failed to advance out of the main group stages, while Europe didn't do much better as Fnatic finished with the same record as TL at 4-6. They beat Team Liquid in the 4th place tiebreaker to reach the semifinals, but then they got swept by eventual champions Royal Never Give Up. Rift Rivals is setup to create rivalries and the narrative of being the best in the west is amplified with this head to head match ups.
The teams representing North America are 1st place Team Liquid, 2nd place 100 Thieves, and 3rd place Echo Fox and the teams representing Europe are 1st place Fnatic, 2nd place G2 Esports, and 3rd place Splyce. North America has been a land of parody for the majority of 2018 and this summer split is no different with all 3 teams coming into Rift Rivals with a 4-2 record. Team Liquid are still considered the strongest team out of the 3, but they have shown inconsistencies losing to Clutch Gaming and Golden Guardians. 100 Thieves are on a 4 game winning streak after starting 0-2, but in a recent surprise move, they announced that they would be sending top laner Brandini and jungler Levi to Rift Rivals and then they traded their jungler Meteos to FlyQuest. This also means that top laner Ssumday will not be going to Rift Rivals as Ryu and Levi will take up the 2 international slots. Echo Fox is a wild card with their world class "top laner" Huni who seems to be able to play in any role. Europe on the other hand has always been dominated by 1 of the 2 titans, Fnatic or G2 Esports. Fnatic have been trying a variety of strategies, even benching their all-star bottom laner Rekkles, and they sit at 4-2 at the moment. G2 Esports have found their stride this split and are a perfect 6-0 as Perkz has been able to dominate. Splyce are struggling and round of the EU teams at 2-4.
My prediction is that North America will win the group stage handily at 6-3 (with all teams going 2-1), where Europe will struggle with G2 at 2-1, Fnatic at 1-2, and Splyce at 0-3. The Finals Relay Race will be interesting as North America will be able to counter pick for each of the first 3 games and I think they can deploy this advantage by setting up 2 heavily favoured match ups. They will probably send Team Liquid out for a 2nd time in Game 4 and win the series for North America 3-1. Doublelift will flex his skills on a variety of champions and win MVP of Rift Rivals.
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