Invictus Gaming took down Griffin 3-1 in their quarterfinal matchup at the League of Legends World Championship, improving their all-time record against South Korean teams to 7-7.
Kayle, the champion who was 6-7 throughout the group stage, dominated the series between iG and Griffin, winning every game in which she was picked. Following Game 1 of the series, Kang "TheShy" Seung-lok took over, and in the final game of the series he put up a scoreline of 8/0/5 on Kayle. His eight kills in that deciding game matched the most by a top laner at this tournament and were the most in a deathless game at worlds since the 2015 group stage, when Smeb went 9/0/1 on Darius.
Not only did TheShy have an explosive Game 4, but he also dominated his top-lane opponent in every game of the series. In fact, his plus-55 CS differential in Game 4 was his lowest of the four games in the series. TheShy entered Saturday leading all top laners with a plus-1.46 CS differential per minute in groups. He ended up raising that number to plus-1.69, which is currently the best differential in worlds history (minimum six games).
Game 1, the only game in which Kayle wasn't picked, featured the first Kog'Maw pick at worlds since the 2017 semifinals. The champion was picked by Invictus Gaming to counter a Garen-Yuumi bottom lane, going all-in on Yu "JackeyLove" Wen-bo as the team's only option to shred through tanks. Even though JackeyLove died six times throughout the game, the strategy eventually went as planned, with Kog'Maw racking up 12 kills by the end of the game.
JackeyLove now owns the last three international games by an AD carry with 12 or more kills, and prior to those three games, the last such game was in the 2018 worlds play-in round by Berkay "Zeitnot" Aşıkuzun on SuperMassive.
Griffin was able to take one game of the series on the back of Park "Viper" Do-hyeon's 8/0/6 performance on Xayah. Prior to Saturday, there were two other deathless games at worlds this year with 8-plus kills, and both were by Viper. Griffin's downfall seemed to be relying too heavily on Viper to do all of their damage. Griffin's Jeong "Chovy" Ji-hoon led all mid laners with a 10.8 KDA throughout groups, yet Griffin chose to put Chovy on mid-lane utility roles throughout the series, playing Poppy, Sion and Galio, champions who now sport a combined .250 win rate throughout worlds 2019.
In the second Saturday quarterfinal, FunPlus Phoenix easily took care of business against Fnatic, becoming the second Chinese team to reach the semifinals in their first worlds appearance. The win by FunPlus Phoenix gives China's LoL Pro League two teams in a worlds semifinal round for the third time in worlds history (2014, '17). The semifinal matchup between Invictus Gaming and FunPlus Phoenix will be the first LPL vs. LPL semifinal since Royal Club beat Oh My God in 2014. With the victories, China also guarantees itself a team in the final for the second straight year, after previously having a worlds finals appearance drought from 2015 to 2017.
The FunPlus Phoenix series victory seemed to be defined by Fnatic trying and failing to come up with creative champion picks to catch FunPlus Phoenix off guard. Game 1 featured a Fnatic Garen-Yuumi bottom lane plus an international first, Rengar top lane. The last time any Rengar had won a game at worlds came in Game 4 of the 2014 final. Despite Gabriël "Bwipo" Rau, picking up an early first blood, he wasn't able to properly snowball his advantage and finished the game with a KDA of 5/4/0.
Game 2 saw Fnatic go with fairly standard picks, but Lin "Lwx" Wei-xiang was ready with a Varus pick that is turning into a Lwx special. Through Saturday's games, Varus has three games at worlds, all played by Lwx, and is 3-0 in those games. Lwx, with the help of a 0/0/12 performance by Liu "Crisp" Qing-song's Tahm Kench, put up an 11/0/6 KDA on Varus. His 11 kills were the most by a Varus since Fnatic's Johannes "puszu" Uibos had 16 in the 2013 semifinals.
Game 3 seemed like an anomaly as Mads "Broxah" Brock-Pedersen and Tim "Nemesis" Lipovšek had great games on Lee Sin and Veigar, amassing 10 kills between the pair. However, in the other three games of the series combined, the pair had four total kills.
The series was ultimately highlighted by the play of Kim "Doinb" Tae-sang. The FunPlus Phoenix mid laner finished the series with a 13.3 KDA, moving him into second on the worlds KDA leaderboard behind Damwon's Heo "ShowMaker" Su. Doinb came into Saturday sporting a 2-0 record on Ryze through the group stage and a 7-0 record on the champion throughout the domestic summer split. Fnatic banned Ryze only once throughout the series and Doinb made them pay, putting up two deathless games on the champion and raising his worlds KDA on Ryze to 21.7.