In the battle for the fourth seed in the rumble stage at the 2022 Mid-Season Invitational, League of Legends Championship Series representatives Evil Geniuses took a step toward securing their tournament future with a win against PSG Talon on Day 2 of the MSI 2022 rumble stage.
With a clear gap between the top three teams and the bottom three teams remaining at MSI 2022, the fourth and final seat in the knockout stage is contested by EG, PSG and the Vietnam Championship Series representatives, Saigon Buffalo. Both PSG and EG came into their first bout in the double-round robin rumble stage with wins against SGB. This meant that the winner of this match would separate themselves from the pack and become the frontrunner for that fourth seed.
EG drafted multiple comfort picks for their carry players. First, mid laner Joseph “Jojopyun” Pyun drafted Leblanc. According to Gol.gg, Leblanc is Jojopyun’s third most played mid-laner ever and he is undefeated on it in 2022. Then, EG’s hyper carry bot laner, Kyle “Danny” Sakamaki, grabbed Kai’Sa — one of the best options for his role in the game. Finally, to compliment Danny, Philippe “Vulcan” Laflamme drafted Leona, his most played champion in 2022.
With all of these pieces, EG ran through PSG in a 34 minute game whose length betrayed its one sided nature. EG finished with a 19 kills to PSG’s 3 a nearly 17k gold lead. Jojopyun and Danny were the standouts for EG, going a combined 13/1/14 in the game.
PSG struggled to get anything going, especially from the jungle. PSG jungler Lee “Juhan” Ju-han had a terrible time on Graves, going 0/5/2 and while failing to secure a single dragon. EG took four straight dragons to give them Dragon Soul and help them win the game.
EG’s win puts them at 2-2. They are a full two games above SGB for the fourth seed and now a game up on PSG. These three teams have already completed their games in the first round-robin against each other. However, each team will get a second shot at each other in the second half of the double-round robin.
