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Relive the League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational with our recap
With this year’s Mid-Season Invitational now done and dusted, we run through the big storylines, the main takeaways and discuss who the real winners of the tournament were.
After a two-week marathon of games, this year’s League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational came to a conclusion this weekend, and there was plenty of excitement in Paris, where the finals were held.
The Chinese representatives, Royal Never Give Up, managed to take down top Korean side Kingzone DragonX in the final, with an overwhelming 3-1 victory, while Flash Wolves, the representatives from the Master Series, fought all the way through the play-ins and finished 3-4th, placing alongside the EU LCS representatives, Fnatic, who beat Team Liquid in the fourth place tiebreaker.
If you missed any of the storylines or impressive games that developed over the competition, we’ve got your back: we’ve recapped everything you need to know from MSI to keep you in the loop. Kick back and run through our tournament highlights, right here.
The group stage and play-ins
The finale of the play-in stage wasn’t really a surprise. Some thought that Vietnam team, EVOS Esports, weren’t going to be that great, but it turned out that they really shone at this year’s event – proving that the Vietnamese region can’t be underestimated anymore. Last year, the Gigabyte Marines surprised everyone when they not only survived the play-In stage, but thrived in the group stage, and now EVOS have done the same. Many analysts thought that the Gigabyte Marines were a one hit wonder produced from a rising wildcard region, but it turns out that that wasn’t the case. EVOS dominated in the play-Ins and while they finished last, they still managed to take some impressive games against major, more established regions. Watch this space, as you can bet Vietnamese teams will be going far in the future.
The fall and rise of Team Liquid was another interesting storyline. In the first two days of competition, Team Liquid managed to go 0-4, and the team looked gutted. Yiliang Peter ‘Doublelift’ Peng said in an interview that he didn’t know what was happening or how to turn it all around. The US LCS representatives seemed done, but then their resurgence happened on the third day. They managed to take down Royal Never Give Up, and in the following days they would keep winning most of their games. In the end, everything came down to a tiebreaker against Fnatic, which they lost to end up in fifth place.
Fans look on as the group stage fires up
© Riot Games
Fnatic started off their tournament run well, but in the later stages of the group stage, their opponents found gaps in their playstyle to take advantage of. The EU representatives’ biggest problem was Martin ‘Rekkles’ Larson’s champion pool. He seemed to prefer Sivir and Tristana and neglected the tournament meta, which meant that the team fell behind early, and had to wait to scale up. Most of their losses were dictated by the fact that they just didn’t get enough time to catch up. In the last tie-breaker, however, Fnatic mixed it up which secured their spot in the semi-final.
Taiwanese side Flash Wolves were underrated coming into MSI: no one really expected them to claim one of the top spots in the group stages. They took plenty of games, and much of that was due to the fact that Kim ‘Moo-jin’ Moo-jin and Huang ‘Maple’ Yi-Tang played incredibly well. Maple was the best performing mid-laner in the tournament, and Moo-jin managed to enable him for his plays. In the end, they lost the tiebreaker game to Royal Never Give Up, which meant that they had to face Kingzone in the semi-finals. Yet, this might not be as bad as it seemed. Kingzone were slumping in the group stage, dropping games left and right. And while Korean teams do drop games from time to time in the group stages, it never really happened in the magnitude that Kingzone did.
The semi finals
The first semi-final fans were treated to was Royal Never Give Up versus Fnatic. While RNG won with a 3-0 score, Fnatic sure gave them a hard time. Fnatic tried to end the games early with split pushing compositions, all to combat RNG’s strong team fighting. In the second game, Fnatic came really close to sealing the deal with a Baron, but RNG’s jungler managed to steal it away in a 50/50 smite fight. This meant that RNG could prolong the game to the state that they wanted it to be in.
In all three games, Fnatic came out of the doors swinging, and the series had a lot of kills and skirmishes which made it very interesting to watch. In the end, however, Royal Never Give Up was too strong for the European representatives.
LMS side Flash Wolves faced off against Kingzone DragonX on the Saturday in the other semi-final. While you can never count out a Korean team in a best of five series, Kingzone’s performance in the group stage was still fresh on everyone’s mind. Flash Wolves certainly had their chances to take over the game, especially in the beginning of the series. They lost the first game in the draft, with three pushing lanes and Kingzone having a better late-game.
Yet, Flash Wolves wouldn’t go down without a fight, keeping the game relatively even until the twenty minute mark. The representatives from the LMS even managed to take game two. Kingzone stepped up during game three and four though, taking down Flash Wolves, and securing their spot in the finals.
The grand final
Going into the final day of the tournament, Royal Never Give Up looked invincible. Jian ‘Uzi’ Zi-Hao looked better than ever in his semi-final against Fnatic, and Kingzone still looked shaky. The games were incredibly really close, however. If two teams that play the game in two completely different styles play against each other, the team that fully executes their style usually wins. RNG loves teamfighting: they get Uzi all the resources he needs and he will carry the late-game. Kingzone loves controlling with a 1-3-1 style, and they like winning lanes and trying to play the entire map as well as they can. In the fourth game, it looked like Kingzone was crawling back into the series to make it 2-2.
They had a massive lead, but still opted to group mid for a pick in mid. RNG anticipated this and counter engaged with a massive Ornn ultimate. This turned around the game completely which gave RNG the chance to close out the game and seal the series in a 3-1 victory, making them the MSI 2018 champions. What a competition, and what an incredible turnout from all of the regions – in the end, however, Royal Never Give Up managed to outclass everyone else. GG, WP.
