In the six-team Rumble stage at the 2022 Mid-Season Invitational, only four teams can make it to the knockout stage. The Pacific Championship Series reps, PSG Talon, took the first step at taking one of those spots Friday with a win against one of their competitors, Vietnam Championship Series reps Saigon Buffalo, at MSI 2022.
In the battle of the two best wild card regions in the entire world, PSG outmatched SGB. But the game did go 40 minutes. PSG picked a standard team composition. SGB did not. They took risks just like T1 did in their opening match. Both teams drafted Rell and unfortunately for them, both teams lost with it.
Unlike T1, SGB fell behind massively in the early game. In fact, it was a nearly opposite game flow. PSG were up 5K gold on SGB at the 20-minute mark and up 10-2 in kills. But as the game dragged on, SGB’s other wild pick, Bùi “Froggy” Văn Minh Hải on Veigar, showed its power. Despite being down nearly 12K gold down, SGB clawed their way back into the game, getting an ace 34 minutes into the game and closed the gap to about 2K gold. But after a misstep 40 minutes in, PSG escaped the game with a win.
Although SGB lost, the Veigar pick was a massive success. Froggy posted a 5/2/4 KDA (kills/deaths/assists) on the champion and was the major reason why SGB were able to win skirmishes in the late game. According to Gol.gg, this was the first Veigar pick at MSI 2022 and one of the few times the champion has been picked at all in 2022. Veigar has only been picked 37 times across the top levels of pro play including this game and has just a 7.9% pick/ban rate across all games.
With G2 Esports, Royal Never Give Up and T1 likely taking three of the four Knockout stage spots, that leaves just one spot for PSG, SGB and the League of Legends Championship Series representatives, Evil Geniuses for the last spot. Every win, especially against each other, is vital in the hopes of capturing that final top-four spot.
Published: May 20, 2022 10:36 am