This is the Worlds Daily, your source for the top narratives, players, and teams each and every day after the World Championships comes to a close. After a year of leagues across the world and thousands of players trying their best, 16 teams embarked to Europe for their shot at hoisting the Summoner's Cup at the end of the month in Berlin's Mercedes-Benz Arena.

The first day offered a slew of interesting matches from three of the four groups in the tournament, some teams rising to the occasion on the newly implemented 5.18 patch while others looked awkward in their debuts. As we always will in the Daily, let's kick it off by breaking down the top story of the day — and oh what a day it was for the LCS regions.

The Great Western Hopes

It's okay to come out of hiding, Western fans. For the first time in two years, it's time to start talking about teams from the non-Asian regions as potential legitimate threats in the Top 8 of this year's World Championships. Fnatic came out to a raucous home crowd during the opening ceremony, and YellOwStaR, the man who has played the most games in Worlds history, led his troops against China's third seeded squad, Invictus Gaming.

Throughout Fnatic's control of the European region this year, the prevailing question was whether they were truly a world title contender or a byproduct of a stagnant region that never really challenged them. Although Fnatic still have five games left in the group stages and a long way to go if they want to be the first Western team in a final since they did it alongside France's aAa in the inaugural season, they couldn't have asked for a better beginning the tournament.

Famously known for their inconsistent ways, came into the competition on an upswing, iG upset EDward Gaming for third place during the LPL's summer season and rolled through Qiao Gu in the Chinese Regional Finals to become the last team from China to qualify for Worlds. Today's play was a step back for the Chinese bronze medalists, as Fnatic punished their meek early-game and did not take their foot off the pedal as they conquered the map. One of the keys to the game was whether or not Fnatic would be able to put pressure onto iG's turbulent and often invisible bottom lane of Kid and Kitties. They did just that, knocking down all three of iG's outer turrets without a response.

The main matchup was in the top lane between Huni and Zzitai, two players who were seen as benefactors to the changes in the 5.18 patch with juggernauts and carry champions being more prevalent in the top lane. Zzitai picked Riven and Huni quickly responded by selecting Hecarim to set up the battle of the top lane champions that could snowball an advantage out of control if they got a lead early. While Huni and Reignover continued their strong partnership with Elise supporting Hecarim in the early-game, Zzitai was never able to get rolling on his Riven pick, as KaKAO's Skarner was more focused towards farming the jungle camps with little incentive to be aggressive in the lane phase.

By the time the game came to an end at a brisk 30 minutes, Invictus were only able to pick up one meager kill against Fnatic with zero towers to their name in a one-sided shellacking. No one player was truly the star in Fnatic's overwhelming victory, as each of the five starters played well together by locking down the map and putting a chokehold onto iG until they finally waved the white flag and surrendered. Now with their perceived biggest competition out of the way, Fnatic have a shot at going undefeated through the first week of group play if they can continue their stellar teamwork and map pressure.

In the day's other Group B, North America's Cloud9 — yes, this isn't some fanfiction by a crazed C9 fan — won their opening game of the tournament by shocking the Taiwanese champions ahq e-Sports Club in the biggest upset of the day. The two teams came out of the gate firing in the pick/ban phase, both teams selecting unorthodox champions to fill out their roster with Incarnti0n's Veigar serving as the cherry on top.

ahq's lineup consisted of what you would have expected from them: highly aggressive, early-game focused, and hunting for blood backed by their Rengar pick in the jungle. Cloud9 is also what you would normally see from them: defensive with a clear focus on objectives and scaling into the late-game. Hai, as the lead shot caller and jungler of team on Lee Sin, was given the task to make sure that he and the rest of his team could get through the first 20 minutes of the game without stepping on a landmine and falling apart against ahq's offensive composition.

The Veigar pick and Icarnati0n's execution, alongside Hai's shot calling and overall play, led C9 to their first Worlds victory since last year's quarterfinal loss to Samsung Blue, the former North American champions rumbling down the map in the mid-game with Veigar's expansive stun setting up kill after kill. ahq's sloppy team fighting and lack of preparation against Veigar resulted in them looking lost during Cloud9's push down the heart of the map, Mountain's Rengar pick ending up as a detriment with zero positive influence in the game.

C9 played as well as any team on the opening day, but it will only get harder from here. They still have meetings with their old rivals Fnatic and an Invictus Gaming squad that can look awful one day and amazing the next. C9 fans can celebrate today and take solace in the fact that they will not be going 0-6 like some predicted, but it's going to take a lot more work to make it to their third straight quarterfinals.

Finally from the Western winners, we had Counter Logic Gaming completing a comeback victory to overtake the Flash Wolves in the longest game of the day. CLG will be looking to improve in upcoming days from their opening performance, doing well in the lane phase but falling apart in the mid-game when the Wolves took advantage of holes in CLG's defense and lack of warding around the map. All hope looked loss for the summer NA LCS champions until the Flash Wolves overstepped their boundaries in the bottom lane, CLG pushing their opponents back and picking up a few kills in the process.

With a foothold back into the game, CLG kept on pushing into a Wolves team that continued funnelling player after player into Doublelift's Jinx backed up by Pobelter's Lulu. It was a disorganized end to the game from the Wolves who were leading for a large part of the game, and CLG secured a victory that they probably shouldn't have won if the Wolves played a more clean end to match. But these are the games that Counter Logic Gaming will have to win if they want to get deep into the tournament; the best teams don't always deserve every victory they obtain, but that's why they're the best — they know how to convert lucky opportunities into wins.

Worlds Stock Exchange

This is the part of Worlds Daily where we'll tell you about the changing landscape at the World Championship. Whose stock is rising? Which team's jersey should you pretend isn't yours when asked? Let's get into what you should be putting stock into and what you should be running away from terrified in the coming days.

Rising Stock: Gorilla

KOO's starting support entered the tournament as one of the best at his position but without many chances to prove it over the last few months. Gorilla's opening game against paiN Gaming should be enough to prove how good of a support he actually is. On a team that is so dependent on mid-game fights to open up the map and objectives, Gorilla is the player that gets it all going for the Tigers.

Even when his team is hemorrhaging from a porous early-game like they did today, his playmaking ability can set up fights from seemingly nowhere that can take KOO from a small deficit into a commanding lead in the blink of an eye.

Buy all the Gorilla stock you can find. YellOwStaR is too popular to bandwagon and Gorilla is currently at the position where you can still sound intelligent by saying how great he is before the rest of the world follows suit in the next few days.

Plummeting Stock: The Taiwanese Region

This was a make or break competition for the often overlooked Taiwanese region. The Flash Wolves did well enough at the IEM World Championships to finish in the Top 4, and ahq e-Sports Club followed suit by doing even better at the Mid-Season Invitational by getting into the semifinals of a much more difficult tournament. Entering the 2015 World Championships, neither ahq or the Wolves were considered heavy favorites to make it out of their groups, but the pair were seen as possible dark horses to pull off some surprises in Paris.

After Day 1 I am already pawning off my 'Westdoor is my Hero' and 'Karsa for President' t-shirts and trying to see if I can buy a Hai bobblehead instead. ahq looked completely lost and disjointed in their embarrassing loss to the third place team from NA, Cloud9, and the Flash Wolves threw away a game that could have propelled them into a strong position in their group. The tournament is still only beginning for the Taiwanese teams and they can still both make it out of their groups with turnaround performances, yet this is feeling awfully similar to last year's World Championship where both ahq and the Taipei Assassins went out in the opening group stage in front of home crowds.

Rising Stock: Bangkok Titans' vacation plans in Paris

The Bangkok Titans had the harshest reality check of the day when they get steamrolled in their opening game of the World Championships against tournament favorite EDward Gaming from China. Let's be frank here: the Titans, although a fun team that aren't afraid to mix it up or go toe-to-toe with a superior team, are completely and utterly outmatched in a group with EDG, SK Telecom T1, and even H2k Gaming, a team that played in their opening group game against T1.

On the bright side, the Titans know that if they do get knocked out early when their lane aggression fails, it's okay to surrender at 20 minutes and not extend the game 15 more minutes while people have to watch them die over and over again in their fountain. I respect the Titans for knowing who they are and showing no fear in the face of teams that are primed to win the entire event.

Also, with the early surrender timings they now have more time to eat delicious French meals, see art exhibits, and hang out with the locals. Some will see this as a wasted spot at Worlds with another team getting destroyed in every game. I see this is as an awesome two week vacation in Paris while also getting to play and learn from the best teams in the world.

Rising Stock: Rekkles' new haircut

I don't care what anyone says, I love Rekkles new haircut. It's trendy, stylish, and Fnatic with Neo Hair Rekkles completely dismantled Invictus Gaming. You can't argue against facts, friends. I am firmly on the side that with this new haircut that Rekkles and Fnatic have the ability to make miracles happen this October.

King of Worlds: Hai "Hai" Lam

At the end of each Daily, I will give out my award to the King of Worlds, the player that I personally believe was the best on the day and performed at the highest level. For opening day there were a plethora of options: Marin's wow-this-champion-sure-is-balanced performance on Fiora against H2k, Gorilla's amazing Thresh play to close out the day versus paiN, and even Deft's merciless dissection of the Paris vacationers known as the Bangkok Titans.

Except, honestly, albeit all those players having great, who else could I give it to? A few months ago he was on the outs of the team that he led to a dynasty run in the NA LCS. He was retired and going into a management role. After his old team fell to pieces even more, he returned to the team in an entirely new position that he was green at. He battled elimination after elimination, defying his limits in his new role with his leadership, shot calling, and synergy with the player who replaced him in the lineup.

Not only did Hai make ahq look foolish by running them all around the map and call for decisive objective takes, but he also played an extremely impressive Lee Sin game mechanically. Hai set up plays with flashes and ward hops, picking out targets and sending them flying into the open arms of his awaiting teammates. He started off slowly, picked up steam following a discombobulated start, and finished by completing the strongest game he's ever had so far as a professional jungler.

On opening night, retired or not, Hai solidified his legacy in League of Legends history as one of the game's greatest leaders.

Tyler "Fionn" Erzberger is a staff writer for theScore eSports. You can follow him on Twitter