Here we go again. A few predictions on how champions will be formatted
To preface this, Berlin refers to Masters III - Berlin, Champs, well, refers to Champions (I will refrain from calling both of them Berlin for the time being).
Pools! :
1 - Gambit, Sentinels, Acend, Vision Strikers
Gambit, being the highest seed in the tournament alongside the three regions with the highest average placements at LAN events each with their respective top seeds.
2 - Vikings, X10, KRU, CR
Vikings, X10 both top seeds in regions with multiple (2) participating teams at Champions; Kru and CR both top seeds for their respective regions, yes being seeded above the other NA and EMEA seeds as they won their regions.
3 - Envy, Fnatic, Keyd Stars (Vivo Keyd), Team Secret
All four of these teams are 2nd place finisher for NA, EMEA, BR and SEA respectively, so belong in a pool all to themselves.
4 - Cloud 9 Blue, Liquid, FURIA, Full Sense
All four of these teams are from the NA, EMEA, SAM and APAC LCQs and will be seeded 13-16th.
Groups:
Now, with how Berlin worked, each pool above was slotted into four different groups effectively randomised, as long as they (Riot) avoided regions such as NA, SEA and BR being in the same group. Now, there is still 4 EMEA teams, so it will most likely still be possible that two get seeded into the same group - this should not happen, however, I'm literally using a random number generator to this after writing this paragraph.
Each group was selected using a very simple random number generator from numbers 1-4, if it selected a team from the same region as a team already in the group, strikes will be put through that team and it will be moved to the group below, also being replaced by a new team, randomly.
Group A:
Sentinels, X10, Keyd Stars, Cloud 9 Blue --> Liquid
Group B:
Cloud 9 Blue, Gambit, Vikings, Envy --> Team Secret
Group C:
Envy, Vision Strikers, Crazy Raccoon, FURIA
Group D:
Acend, KRU, Fnatic, Full Sense
There you have it, four groups, one of which ends up with two EMEA teams who would not meet in the first round of the tournament similar to Acend vs SMB due to Acend and Fnatic being in pools 1 & 3 respectively.
In each of these groups, Pool 1 teams would play Pool 4 and Pool 2 vs Pool 3 in a double-elimination style bracket.
Should this bracket somehow come true - look for matches such as:
SEN vs TL
C9B vs Gambit
X10 vs VK (Patiphan vs Heat)
VS vs NV (not opening match)
Fnatic vs Acend (not opening match)
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