Cover-Credits:
LEC and LoLEsports
Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) 2019 champions G2 Esports has returned to MSI 2022 after two years, with a bang. Going into the third match of the Day 1 of the Group Stage, League of Legends Circuit Oceania’s (LCO) ORDER was deemed as the underdog of the match-up. The biggest question for ORDER was whether it would have a similar successful run as Pentanet.GG last year. However, G2 Esports bested ORDER by winning its first match in 27 minutes.
ORDER managed to pick Karthus, Miss Fortune, Leona, Yone, and Aatrox. On the other side of the Summoner’s Rift, G2 Esports picked up Viego, Aphelios, Braum, Zoe, and Fiora.
First blood picked up by caPs
Rasmus "caPs" Borregaard Winther on the Zoe picked up a solo kill on the mid-lane at around six minutes in-game, after hitting level six first. He landed a perfect Zoe combo and burst down Ronald "Kisee" Vo on Yone.
Using this advantage, G2 also picked up the first dragon – Hextech dragon – for itself. Meanwhile, Brandon "BioPanther" Alexander managed to solo kill Sergen "Broken Blade" Çelik’s Fiora in the top lane. A misstep by Marcin "Jankos" Jankowski in ORDER’s jungle cost G2 a kill and Kisee followed it up with a kill on Zoe in the mid-lane at around nine minutes in-game.
Even with ORDER leading the scoreboard with 3 kills to G2’s 1, the teams were neck-to-neck in terms of gold at 11 minutes.
Flakked picks up first tower gold with Herald charge
G2 dropped the Rift Herald in the bottom lane to break the outer tower and funnel all the gold into Victor "Flakked" Lirola Tortosa’s pocket. Immediately when Shane "Kevy" Allen’s Karthus was spotted on the top lane, G2 secured the second dragon of the game and also conveniently picked up the second Herald after a nice team fight victory at 14 minutes
Notably, the second Herald was dropped by G2 on the top side with Flakked’s Aphelios escorting it. However, after hovering over the area for an extended time, Flakked was taken down by Yone at 16 minutes.
Vision advantage for G2 Esports
Thanks to Raphaël "Targamas" Crabbé and his warding game, the Summoner’s Rift was illuminated by red wards, lending them complete control over objectives and monsters. With ORDER’s solo laners pushing top and bot, Nathan “Puma” Puma (Miss Fortune), Ian "Corporal" Pearse (Leona) and Karthus grouped mid, secured a kill on Braum, and turned to the Baron Nashor, only for it to fail horribly. G2 Esports read the Baron sneak and aced its opponents while picking up the Baron.
G2 Esports pushes into ORDER’s base
At 23 minutes, G2 Esports used the Baron Nashor buff effectively and sieged ORDER’s bottom inhibitor tower, and broke into the base. G2 even picked up the Cloud Dragon soul and both Zoe and Aphelios had bounties on them from being so ahead of their opponents. ORDER could not keep up with the burst damage that G2 Esports dished out.
ORDER got aced for the second time at around 25 minutes and G2 used its super minions to siege the nexus towers and eventually break ORDER’s nexus. G2 had a very strong showing in its first game at MSI 2022.
