4-0 GC Busan
Because why not.
Edit: CHOO CHOO TRAIN TO BUSAN ALL ABOARD CHOO CHOO
GCB have been really good, but I think C9KD is much more balanced than LH with their DPS being one of, if not the best, duos in the world.
My gut feeling is a solid 4-0 for C9KD but I'm ready to be surprised by the, possibly ,future kings of APEX once the current ones leave for OWL.
Edit: Spelling is hard.
There's many at play here, to be honest.
We saw GC Busan deconstruct Lunatic High and executed that deconstruction perfectly. Of course, it doesn't help that most teams have LH in their crosshairs, so perhaps there's an inherent bias there. The other factor is that Lunatic Hai is super predictable in their roster, play style, and strategy. GC Busan definitely abused that lack of flexibility to a very big degree. With that said, I think GC Busan will also analyze Kongdoo to a similar level. It perhaps may be harder with how much more versatile Kongdoo is (also Birdring and Rascal being a vastly superior/moreflexible DPS duo compared to LH's).
With that in mind, I think it will be a fairly close one, so I gotta say 4-2 C9 Kongdoo.
Fun fact: All 3 Korean teams confirmed for OWL (LWB, LH, C9 KD) have not won a single map in their last APEX match.
LWB got destroyed 0:3 by LH after losing 1:3 to KDP in Season 3 and before dropping out of Season 4 without playing a match, GC Busan 3:0'd LH twice in a row and nice package of 4:0verwatch just got delivered to C9 KD by a Train from Busan.
The only way this can get even more hilarious is if C9 KD forfeit the 3rd Place Match or get 4:0'd again.
That would mean those 3 teams combined over their last two matches each in APEX would have a 1-16 map record.
Yeah LWB is only 99% confirmed, but it makes no sense to pull out of APEX otherwise.
Of course C9 could try to buy e.g. GC Busan now, but realistically it's too late. They can't get rid of KD anymore and would have to keep paying them and there's a limit to how late you can apply for visa and get everything done to move a team to LA for OWL.
GCB and NC RX basically can't be bought (unless C9 really got more money than sense), that basically leaves RunAway and Gigantti. I don't see them building a new roster from scratch within 2 weeks or so.
The GCB boys looked hella strong today, but I also want to add that their coaching staff must have done an absolute metric ton of work preparing them for this. Case in point would be all the times Hooreg was able to catch Birdring unawares and either force him back or kill him outright.
Same thing for Woohyal always making sure his backline was protected from his assaults. The longer GCB are around the more game tape people will have on them so staying at the top, or near it, for as long as LH did might be more difficult than it seems.
In the end though I hope this has brought them some much deserved interest, I'm sure team Seoul would love a Tracer of Profit's caliber and given LH's structure I think he could fit very well into their high prep approach to the game. a Profit/Fleta combo could be very potent.
As for C9KD it's obvious that the weaknesses that LH took advantage of in S3 are still present in the face of a team they had never played against before. The backline got decimated and Birdring was rendered wholly ineffective on top of Fissure not being able to live very long into many of the engagements. Hopefully this is a wake-up call for them and they can work on shoring up those deficiencies.
Too bad the big money investors didn't see past the current gen of APEX teams.
I still cannot believe this happened. How? I felt like everyone on C9-KD was top class (maybe except Bdosin). I really hope we get to see GC Busan in the OWL. If we don't get to see them in Season 1, I hope someone buy Busan spot and sign GC Busan. That would be really awesome. I wasn't convinced by GC Busan defeating LH twice, but this match really showed me that GC Busan is actually crazy good.
#60 GC world #1 confirmed
#65 Busan now #1 team in Korea LUL
Even though rankings should be taken with a grain of salt, I think GCB deserved to be called the best team in Korean at the moment. Considering how they absolutely decimated both finalists of last season, one of them being the twice defending champions.
Seeing them play was just amazing, the preparing and skill they showed was out of this world. And yes, part of the reason they won was momentum and their opponent's confidence being utterly destroyed, but that's par for the course on your way to crushing your opposition.
Now the only question is...if Runway can 1. Make it to the finals and 2. Get a repeat victory against GCB now that their self confidence must be sky high.
If anyone was worried about APEX I think we can safely say that it'll be just fine and keep churning out insane teams that will inevitably feed OWL with amazing players.