The 2023 League of Legends World Championship knockout stage commences this Thursday in South Korea with NRG Esports and Weibo Gaming tussling for a spot in the semifinals.

NRG Esports are the first North American esports team to reach this stage of LoL Worlds since Cloud9 in 2021. However, NRG didn’t have to defeat any elite teams to make it this far.

NRG Esports beat only Team Liquid, MAD Lions, and G2 Esports during the Swiss stage, which is a relatively easy schedule. And while defeating G2 sounds like an achievement, the European giants didn’t play well on the day.

This will mark NRG’s second meeting with Weibo Gaming, who beat them in the first round of the Swiss stage and have since added two more wins against MAD Lions and Fnatic. So, like NRG, the Chinese side has had the luxury of a relatively easy schedule.

Top esports betting sites have Weibo Gaming priced as huge favourites for this match, which makes sense because they boast much better players. Still, we could’ve said the same thing for every team NRG have beaten so far.

Weibo Gaming can also be very inconsistent, as seen when they capitulated against Fnatic. So even though Weibo shouldn’t be losing games like this, they tend to play down to the level of their opponents, which should give NRG Esports a chance to do some damage – especially on the blue side.

NRG have side choice, so we’re taking the North American outfit with a kill handicap on map one.

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