For fans of League of Legends, the Mid-Season Invitational or MSI started on May 10th and you can check out our article about the event here if you are interested. Following our Day 5 recap of the Rumble Stage, the Semi-Finals have started so let's do a recap of the first Semi-Finals best of five between Royal Never Give Up (RNG) and Evil Geniuses (EG)!
To start it off, NA fans were honestly relieved that EG had even made it to the Semi-Finals. Going into the Rumble Stage I was skeptical that EG would be able to get to Semi-Finals, and rightfully so. If EG had one more loss to PSG Talon by the end of Rumble Stage, they would have tied their scores, triggering a tiebreaker match to see who would get to the Semi-Finals.
All this to say that EG fans like myself were not hopeful going into the best of five against RNG, who have made the best showing at MSI so far with a score of 8 wins and 2 losses going into the Semi-Finals compared to EG’s 5 and 5 record. The best that EG fans could hope for would be to get at least 1 game on RNG. Such a fate would remain a dream as EG had their behinds handed to them on a silver platter.
Game 1 was simply the start of a remarkably bad day for Evil Geniuses. The game started out in RNG’s favor with 2 early picks in the first ten minutes giving them a lead on EG, but theoretically, EG could still possibly recover from it. Unfortunately for EG, at 10 minutes RNG dove top tower with Shelly and got a kill on both the top laner and the jungler, as well as all the tower plates!
After that, it was the end for EG and they were unable to recover any sort of advantage or make any noticeable impact on the game state. RNG crushed EG and won the game at 27 minutes with 22 kills to EG’s measly 1, and almost a 20k gold lead. The match was honestly depressing to watch as a North America and EG fan, and pretty much set the tone for the rest of the night.
In Game 2, EG had a much better showing early on at least, staying even in gold with RNG until a team fight at 11 minutes actually got them a small lead. They kept the lead until RNG won another team fight at 16 minutes which got them back in control of the game. From there, the game actually stayed incredibly even in gold despite RNG obtaining 3 dragons. that is until at 27 minutes when EG decided to try and get Baron which resulted in an amazing Baron Steal from RNG’s jungler Wei!
Amazingly, EG then managed to win the subsequent team fight 4 kills to 2 removing Baron Buff from most of RNG, and once again keeping the gold even! What caused EG’s eventual loss was a fight at mid at 29 minutes where RNG picked off EG’s AD Carry Danny at the start of the fight allowing RNG to decimate EG without consequences getting three towers and an inhibitor from winning the fight.
RNG then got Cloud Soul cementing their lead in gold and objectives and used it to ace EG in a team fight to win the game at 35 minutes with 19 kills to 15 and only a 10k gold lead! This match was much more impressive to watch than the previous stomp and we got to see some amazing displays of skill from both teams, however, EG was still unable to stand up to RNG’s macro and late-game objective control.
Game 3 was sadly the final match of the night and the last game of MSI for EG. The game was simply an incredible display of skill for both teams that lasted an absurdly long 43 minutes! The match was also unfortunately another in a long line of examples of EG’s inability to maintain their lead in a game. The game was amazing and I definitely can not do it justice in words here!
It was an intensely close match going back and forth multiple times. But RNG finally ended the game at 43 minutes due to having dragon soul, baron buff, and picking off EG’s mid and top laners before a team fight where they were still almost killed by Danny before they burst him down.
EG put on an amazing show and the game ended with RNG’s 27 kills to EG’s 16 and a gold difference that was negligible for how late in the game they were. Despite EG’s complete lack of wins against RNG, as a NA fan, I’m still proud of how well they did against arguably the current best team in the world! With this match over, EG heads home to North America.
Up next is SK Telecom T1 against G2 E-Sports!
