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 3 recap of the Rumble Stage, Day 4 has started, let's do a recap of the fourth day of the Rumble Stage’s games.
The first game of the day was PSG Talon (PSG) looking to take advantage of G2 E-Sports (G2) loss streak. PSG did it once again! Repeating their victory from Day 3, PSG rose up and knocked G2 even further down in the standings! PSG had the game won from a team fight at 14 minutes where they destroyed G2 and then got two towers. After that G2 did manage to get some kills and win one team fight, but they were never able to claw back the gold advantage or the map pressure that PSG obtained from that first team fight win. PSG would gain as many neutral objectives as possible grabbing infernal soul and Baron before they pushed into G2’s base to win the game at 33 minutes with 18 kills to G2’s 8! Will G2 continue its fall from grace? Will PSG be able to claw their way to the semi-finals? We’ll half to wait till day 5 to see, but I’ll tell you now, it’s just the start of G2’s bad day.
For the second match, we had SK Telecom T1 (T1) facing off against Evil Geniuses (EG). Will anyone ever learn not to do Baron while Danny is on Jinx? T1 had complete control of the game until a 21-minute Baron fight where Danny was able to shred T1’s entire team with his Jinx due to some misplays on T1’s part. From there the game went out of control for T1, with EG quickly getting multiple objectives, until a 30-minute team fight went heavily in EG’s favor and allowed them to rush into T1’s base and win while T1 was respawning! The game ended at 32 minutes with EG 22 kills to T1’s 11 but only being up 6k gold. The game was heavily in T1’s favor to start, and still incredibly close even after they repeatedly lost team fights, T1 may have lost but they are still definitely a contender. Let's hope EG can repeat their success in the future.
Next up we had the Saigon Buffalos (SGB) fighting for their lives against Royal Never Give Up (RNG). If SGB were to lose this match they would be officially out of the running for the semi-finals. And SGB had it, they were winning the game after some amazing fights, then while they were in RNG’s base with Baron Buff they over pushed and lost a fight! From there RNG made a miraculous comeback off of SGB’s misplay. RNG slowly pushed SGB back and started their comeback, and then at a team fight in the jungle at 34 minutes RNG aced SGB with 3 of their members left alive! RNG then pushed into SGB’s base while they were dead to win the game! The final score was RNG with 19 kills to SGB’s 25 and both teams were even in gold but RNG had cloud soul. This game was actually some amazing play by SGB, but their misplays cost them the game and any hope they had of reaching the semi-finals. RNG remains the first place team until someone can defeat them.
After that, we had G2 E-Sports versus SK Telecom T1. G2 despite their recent slump was able to take control of the game until 10 minutes getting 5 kills to T1’s 1. It was at 11 minutes however that T1 pulled out multiple amazing team fights to take back control of the game which they then maintained. The game was still winnable but then T1 baited a baron fight at 21 minutes and beautifully surprised G2 from the fog of war and annihilated their team! T1 would then rush G2’s base down and win the game at 21:31 10k gold up with 17 kills to G2’s 8. This match makes it even riskier for G2 to keep their spot in the semi-finals.
For the penultimate game of the night, we had the Saigon Buffalos already disqualified facing PSG Talon still fighting for a 4th place spot in the semi-finals. SGB would crush PSG’s dreams out of sheer spite from their disqualification! As one of their last acts of the tournament SGB brings back some of the incredible aggression we saw in the group stage. SGB overwhelmed PSG with their early game pressure which let them take control and win the game! SGB used their early game control to Baron and get kills on PSG around the baron pit. By the end of the game at 28 minutes SGB won with 15 kills to PSG’s 9. With this win, SGB has damaged PSG’s chances to get to the semi-finals almost irreparably. It will take a miracle to get them there now.
The final game of the night was between Royal Never Give Up and Evil Geniuses. RNG already had their spot in the semi-final confirmed but EG could still theoretically miss out if they lose too many more games. Unfortunately for EG, they were unable to strike down RNG from their first-place throne. RNG quite frankly had an amazing game, they smashed EG by 24 minutes with 26 kills to 4, and a tremendous 20k gold lead! The game didn’t even feel fair and was possibly EG’s worst showing in Rumble Stage so far. EG still remains in competition for the semi-finals, but RNG is one win away from going into the semi-finals in first place, allowing them their pick of opponent to face in the semi-finals.
