Although their loss was not a surprise, the League of Legends Championship Series representatives Evil Geniuses didn’t go quietly against Royal Never Give Up in their first Mid-Season Invitational elimination. RNG managed to take down EG in the minimum three games required during the MSI 2022 semifinals, but it wasn’t exactly easy.
After a near-perfect win by RNG in Game 1, EG showed life signs in Game 2 and 3. They were still ultimately outclassed.
Game 1 was suffocating, as RNG nearly pulled off a perfect game. The only thing EG accomplished was a single kill and a single dragon, compared to 22 kills and three dragons from RNG. For two teams playing in the final four of an international tournament, the skill gap seemed immense.
After the devastating loss, EG bounced back in Game 2, which was very close. In fact, at multiple points in the game, EG were winning — but RNG slowly took back control of the game each time. Through multiple mistakes made on EG’s side, RNG ultimately closed out the game.
Still, 17-year-old rookie mid-laner Joseph Joon “jojopyun” Pyun was the one player on EG who made minimal mistakes. On Ahri, against one of the best mid laners in the world, Li “Xiaohu” Yuan-Hao, Jojopyun took control of team fights with clutch charms onto priority RNG members to keep EG fighting. He ended Game 2 with a stat line of 5/2/9.
With EG pushed to the brink of elimination, Game 3 looked rough. A couple of failed aggressive fights put EG in an initial hole, but the team didn’t give up. A couple of skirmishes went EG’s way and they clawed their way back into the game with a win at Baron.
Again, mistakes plagued the young team as RNG tried to finally end the things at the 39-minute mark. However, a heroic last stand by Jojopyun delayed the win with more clutch charms on Ahri, Jojopyun and EG pushed RNG back once more and even grabbed Elder Dragon as a reward for their effort.
Still, just a couple of minutes later, Jojopyun’s clutch factor ran out as RNG picked him off in the red side jungle and finally took the series 3-0 to move onto their second straight MSI final.
EG’s run has now officially ended, though it has showed a bright future for North American League of Legends. EG will now look to repeat as LCS champions in order to get their revenge at the 2022 League of Legends World Championship. RNG will now wait for the winner of the match between G2 Esports and T1 to see if they can capture their second straight MSI title and their record-setting third overall.
