Cover-Credits:
The Evil Geniuses vs PSG Talon match on the last day of the Rumble Stage at Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) was the featured matchup of the day, given the stakes at hand. If PSG had defeated Evil Geniuses, all three teams – EG, G2 Esports, and PSG – would be tied in with a score of 4-5, guaranteeing a tie-breaker match. However, this scenario was averted with Evil Geniuses picking up a convincing win over PSG Talon, securing a Knockout Stage spot.
Now, PSG Talon’s only hope is to win against the defending MSI champions – Royal Never Give Up (RNG) and pray that G2 loses to Evil Geniuses to force a tie-breaker for the last spot in the knockouts phase.
The draft was exciting with Evil Geniuses locking in Samira for Kyle "Danny" Sakamaki after most of his hyper-carries were banned by the Pacific Championship Series (PCS) squad. EG also picked up Nocturne for Kacper "Inspired" Słoma and Gangplank for Jeong "Impact" Eon-young on the top lane. Su "Hanabi" Chia-Hsiang got his hands on the infamous Ornn in an attempt to deny the opposing team that pick.
Party on the top side of the map
At around 5 minutes, both the junglers – Lee "Juhan" Ju-han and Inspired – walked to the top lane, threatening first blood, and were soon accompanied by Joseph Joon "jojopyun" Pyun and Ling "Kaiwing" Kai Wing, and a big fight was averted. The first dragon of Ocean went over to the PSC squad which meant that they could find value in the Ornn pick and team fights, thanks to the sustain the dragon innately offers. At around 8 minutes, Park "Bay" Jun-byeong secured first blood on his lane opponent Ahri and PSG Talon turned to Rift Herald. A scrappy fight broke out around the Herald area and kills were traded. Evil Geniuses was quick to answer as Philippe "Vulcan" Laflamme caught two members of PSG hovering over Herald and picked them off, finally securing the Eye of the Herald. All this while, Wong "Unified" Chun Kit on Kai’Sa was farming up pretty well and propelled the bottom lane priority into a dragon pick-up.
Evil Geniuses stop PSG’s dragon stacking
After forcing a fight at around 17 minutes with global ultimates, EG picked up a crucial kill on Bay and Kaiwing and picked up its first dragon of the game, and also secured the first tower. Thanks to Danny’s triple kill, EG pushed its gold lead by about 8K. At the 22 minute-mark, Evil Geniuses aced PSG Talon and broke into its base. EG's global ultimates and vision game was too much for the PCS team to handle as the North American squad picked up Baron Nashor, allowing it to take down PSG Talon in 29 minutes.
