The first phase of Mid-Season Invitational 2022 is over: G2 Esports, T1, Royal Never Give Up, Evil Geniuses, Saigon Buffalo and PSG Talon advanced to the Rumble Stage. MSI 2022 has been a tournament missing the element of surprise so far, with none of the pool one teams taking a single loss in their 20 games in total, and all pool two teams making it out of their respective groups.
It was a particularly disappointing event for the minor regions. Especially because they were missing Vietnam as those regions were able to steal a ticket to the main events of Worlds 2020, MSI 2021 and Worlds 2021. This time, bad luck stopped even the hottest minor league representatives: DetonatioN FocusMe. Let’s have a look at the groups.
Group A
The outcome of Group A was one-sided and it was expected: T1 demolished Saigon Buffalo, DFM and Team Aze. However, the interesting part of the group was how the Vietnam runner-ups Saigon Buffalo was able to take down both the Japanese and Latin American representatives in the group with ease. Vietnam proved that they are still the hot minor region right after the major ones.
T1 won all their games and their average game duration was 23:13, an incredible record which makes everyone question the current format of MSI 2022. Was it really necessary for T1 to play against DFM, SGB and Aze? Riot needs to come up with a better answer for 2023 if they want to keep the interest on MSI 2022 high. However, it must be noted that four of the most-watched games of MSI 2022 were games of T1.
Group B
We have seen another domination by a major region participant in Group B. Royal Never Give Up went 6-0, and if you consider their three earlier wins that were replayed, RNG is 9-0 at MSI 2022 right now. Neither Taiwanese PSG Talon nor RED Canids or Istanbul Wildcats were able to stand up against RNG, they had to decide a winner for the second spot of the group instead.
RNG’s winning time was relatively higher at 26:00, but their performance was still incredible. They have the highest kill per game stats in the tournament with 23.7: 6.5 on Xiaohu, 6.5 on GALA and 6.17 on Wei. Wei also has the second highest KDA of the tournament with 12.57. Nothing much to say about the remaining teams in the group, PSG Talon’s humiliating loss against RED Canids in the first game proved to be a fluke and everything went as expected after that.
Group C
Another one-sided competition: G2 Esports crushed both North American Evil Geniuses and Oceanian ORDER easily and finished the group 8-0. Take into account that G2 did that while “having fun” and “disrespecting” their enemies, they have the highest game duration stats with 30:39 among pool one teams.
EG didn’t let G2 get through their skin, they kept their focus on defeating ORDER and moved on to the Rumble Stage by defeating them four times. It was a disappointing result for this team with two rookies, but they still show promise for the Rumble Stage, it wouldn’t be surprising for them to pull some upsets there.
Overall look and schedule
MSI 2022 has already seen more than 800,000 peak viewers, and it will increase as better teams play each other in Rumble and Knockout stages. The schedule for the Rumble Stage isn’t available yet, but you can look for updates on Luckbox. What we do know is that Rumble Stage will start on May 20, Friday, and will run until May 23, Monday.
Currently, Ahri and Lucian has 100% pick ban ratio, but the champion that’s been dominating the tournament is Gwen for sure. Her 76.5% WR in 17 games is unmatched. Viego, Leona, Graves and Nautilus have similar impact but worst win rates overall. The surprising champion was Wukong in the jungle, played 14 times, banned 19 times and 64.3% WR.
If you are interested, you can find more information about MSI 2022, watch the games live, place your bets on your favourite teams and claim your 100% bonus on Luckbox.
