The group stage of the 2017 World Championships may feature, for all intents and purposes, the most even groups ever featured in the World Championships. While the teams are not sorted completely equally, the groups themselves have been sorted in such a way that several compelling storylines and conflicting game styles will be on full display. And with the unusually even groups, there is an argument for how almost any team can make it to the quarterfinals.

Group A — EDward Gaming, SK Telecom T1, ahq e-Sports Club, Cloud9

While it’s deeply, deeply unlikely that the three-time world champions of SKT fail to make it out Group A, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be a stomp for them. EDG are still feeling the warm and fuzzies from their summer playoff win against RNG alongside an under-discussed home field advantage. Meanwhile, though AHQ perennially play second-fiddle to their regional rivals the Flash Wolves, their top laner Chen “Ziv” Yi is a world class player. But, the LMS team has suffered fairly poor form in recent days, and will likely be a free win across the entire group stage.

If there’s one theme that can be ascribed to this group, it’s all about teams defying public narratives about them. For SKT, it is about whether taking Heo "Huni" Seung-hoon and Han "Peanut" Wang-ho, their least successful top-jungle duo across the summer split, can pay off. For EDG, it’s about removing the narrative of Chinese underperformance at international events, something that particularly haunted the team last year at Worlds. Meanwhile, Cloud9 has the perceived issue of playing with too much of a focus towards their star player Nicolaj "Jensen" Jensen, creating a lack of diverse game plans for which critics have lambasted the team.

Group B - Longzhu Gaming, Immortals, GIGABYTE Marines, Fnatic

The plucky rookies of the GIGABYTE Marines find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one side are the LCK Summer Final winners Longzhu Gaming, who are probably feeling pretty good about themselves after beating SKT 3-1. On the other side are Immortals, who are coming off their most successful split of the organization’s history thanks in no small part to the leadership of NA LCS coach of the split Kim "SSONG" Sang-soo. Nonetheless, the Marines have punched above their weight-class before, scoring wins against G2, TSM and Team WE at MSI 2017. Fnatic came off a fairly inconsistent playoff and play-in showing and are looking to diversify their strategies ahead of the group stage.

This group will be noted for its incredibly fast tempo. All four teams in this group are known to get off onto fast, aggressive starts, as accented by high early gold differentials, high first blood rates, and high first tower rates. This means that this clash of early game philosophies will lead to bloody games that will eventually snowball out of control. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like great viewing regardless of the results.

Group C - G2 Esports, Samsung Galaxy, Royal Never Give Up, Fenerbahçe 1907

Possibly the most fatal Group of Death in Worlds history, calling a clear winner in this pool is next to impossible. While Samsung Galaxy came in second at last year’s Worlds, the team are coming off a weak summer split that saw them get swept by SKT in the second round after placing third in the summer season. Only through the gauntlet and a revitalization in the run-up to defeating the KT Rolster superteam did Samsung look back to the form by which they are considered contenders.

Though Royal Never Give Up narrowly lost the LPL Summer Final 3-2 to EDG, the two-time Worlds Grand Finalists saw their best split in years with AD Carry Jian "Uzi" Zi-Hao fighting through a chronic wrist injury to score a 9.7 KDA. Though G2 Esports dominantly put down Misfits in the EU LCS Summer Final, it’s hard to determine which international version of G2 we will see: The Jekyll of Rift Rivals and Worlds 2016, or the Hyde of MSI 2017?

This group will be known for its painstakingly slow pace, especially in stark contrast to Group B’s blistering games. The three major teams in G2, SSG and RNG are known for slower-paced games that eventually build up into an all-encompassing fight or two that decides the outcome of the entire game. It will be a slow burn, but the late game fireworks between these elite teams will be stellar to watch.

Group D - Flash Wolves, Misfits, Team SoloMid, World Elite

If group C is the new group of death, then group D is looking like the group of life, particularly for Team SoloMid. Despite losing NA’s first seed at MSI, the team is positioned well as a second seed to advance, as they have the weakest first seed, one of the weaker second seeds in Misfits and a World Elite with a shaky and heavily exploitable early game.

Though Team SoloMid has historically had a difficult time in international events, it’s hard for us to see a world where they don’t at least get out of Group D if they don’t top it entirely. Not only did they destroy better EU teams than Misfits at Rift Rivals, but they also benefit from Flash Wolves’ recent shaky performance. The underperformance of Huang "Maple" Yi-Tang in particular can not be understated, as it has also thoroughly affected the ability of Hung "Karsa" Hau-Hsuan to impact priority lanes such as mid and bottom.

Misfits themselves will find it difficult to pull a rabbit out of their hat to advance. Though they have good early game plans and strong lanes to execute off of them with, the team falls back into very telegraphed ways to gain leads. If those ideas are exploited, either via greater proactivity or picks from the enemy team (as seen in the G2 series), the team can fall apart at later stages of the game.

Gabriel Zoltan-Johan is a news editor at theScore esports and the head analyst for the University of Toronto League of Legends team. His (public) musings can be found on his Twitter.

Sasha Erfanian is a news editor for theScore esports. You can follow him on Twitter.