For fans of League of Legends, the Mid-Season Invitational or MSI started on May 10th. You can check out our article about the event here if you are interested. Following our Day 6 recap and since Day 1 of the Rumble Stage has started, let's do a recap of the first day of the Rumble Stage’s games.

The first game of the Rumble Stage was a meeting of giants with G2 Esports (G2) facing off against SK Telecom T1 (T1). T1 started the match off with complete control of the map and objectives but G2 is not so easy to keep down! At 24 minutes G2 started their come back with a fantastic team fight that their comp was designed for. It was knockup central for T1 as in every subsequent team fight they were subject to the fact that every one of G2’s champs had a knockup of some sort and caPs on Yasuo in the mid-lane to punish them once they were in the air! T1 just couldn’t match up to G2 in team fights, and G2 slowly took control of the map before pushing T1 into their base and winning at 39 minutes 20 kills to 8, but with essentially even gold. This match was an impressive display of skill by both teams, but in the end, T1’s draft couldn’t beat G2’s in the late game, despite this T1 still kept even in gold despite being on a losing footing for the second half of the game. I can’t wait to see what T1 does with a different draft in the rematch on the 23rd.

Next up we had the North American hopefuls Evil Geniuses (EG) fighting LPL legends Royal Never Give Up (RNG). Naturally, EG lost, once again disappointing NA fans. The match was a complete domination by RNG but not a slaughter, RNG simply consistently controlled the map and neutral objectives, slowly pushing EG to their base, winning by 35 minutes. RNG ended the game 10k gold up with 22 kills to 11. Going by EG’s resistance to RNG there is some hope for them to maybe get one game off on one of the big teams in the future, but that hope is currently a faint one for EG fans.

The third game of the night was between PSG Talon (PSG) and the Saigon Buffalos (SGB). This game was an interesting one because the winner was uncertain to start off. PSG started the game in control and it looked like they would have an easy win, but they took too long and let SGB’s Veigar and Tristana scale up. At 30 minuets SGB started to turn the game around with an amazing team fight where their midlaner Froggy on my main man Veigar deleted PSG’s Ahri by clicking ult on her! I love Veigar's gameplay, its so fun! SGB would use their Veigar and Tristana to get back control of the game, and it looked like SGB would turn the match around until they made a horrible team fight choice at 38 minutes losing their support and Veigar ult before the fight which got them wiped! At this point, PSG pushed to their base and won with a final score of 25 kills to SGB’s 13 at 40 minutes. The game while clearly even in skill was a display of multiple misplays by both teams which I expect will cause them to lose against the big teams in upcoming games.

The fourth match was once again a meeting of giants with G2 and Royal Never Give Up fighting to maintain their perfect records of no losses. G2 pulled out an amazing victory almost entirely due to their midlaner caPs’ legendary play with Zoey! The game was completely dominated by G2’s caPs with his Zoey jumping all over chunking RNG champs to half health with Paddlestars from the fog of war! The match was an amazing display of technical skill and incredible macro on G2’s part leading to their victory. G2 would win the game at 36 minutes with 21 kills to RNG’s 14. Both sides had some beautiful play but G2’s caPs on Zoey terrorized RNG and won them the game. Can’t wait to see the rematch!

The penultimate game of the night was the Saigon Buffalos against Evil Geniuses with both teams hoping for their first win in Rumble Stage. EG would be the one to achieve it. As is common with SGB the game was full of scrapping between the teams. SGB would slowly lose in terms of gold lead as the game went on, EG dutifully building their lead as they scaled. The game finally ended when EG got Baron at 25 minutes and used it to push into SGB’s base to win the game at 28 minutes 20 kills to 11 and up 10k gold. In the end, SGB just couldn’t keep up with EG’s macro, map, and objective control which was the cause of their inevitable loss.

The last game of the night was between PSG Talon and SK Telecom T1. This game was booooring! T1 maintained complete control over the game with amazing macro play, never losing a single tower or giving up a neutral objective. But this meant that nothing happened, there were barely any kills or team fights, just T1’s slow push up to PSG’s base. By 32 minutes in the game, T1 had all the inhibitors down and only 10 kills to PSG’s 9 but a 13k gold lead. They would win the game a minute later after wiping PSG. Sure the game was a display of T1’s excellent macro compared to PSG, but no one really expected anything else. Overall the game was a bit of a lackluster end to the night and I hope to get some more action on Day 2.