MSI 2022 Group Stage Day 1 Recap: A One-Sided Affair For G2, T1 & RNG

Fans of League of Legends esports were treated to a spectacular and explosive start to the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) 2022. Most of the games were swift ones since there were no upsetting plays or comebacks from the underdogs in all of the matchups. Day 1 of the Group Stage of MSI 2022 had six games lined up and teams from all the three groups had matches with the average game time being just 26 minutes and 34 seconds.

Winners of Day 1 matches

The following are the teams that secured wins on Day 1 of the Group Stage of MSI 2022:

T1 - Saigon Buffalo vs T1

DetonatioN FocusMe (DFM)- DetonatioN FocusMe vs Aze

G2 Esports (G2) - ORDER vs G2 Esports

G2 Esports (G2) - Evil Geniuses vs G2 Esports

Royal Never Give Up (RNG) - Istanbul Wildcats vs RNG

RED Canids (RED) - RED Canids vs PSG Talon

T1 continues its winning streak

T1 came into the match-up as the favorites to take the tournament and proved that it deserved to be so, by defeating Vietnam’s Saigon Buffalo. The Vietnamese team, to everyone’s surprise, had some highlight plays in the opening match of MSI 2022, with its bottom lane showing up big time against T1’s bottom duo, which has been dubbed by many as the World’s best bottom lane. However, as the game progressed, Saigon Buffalo fell apart completely to T1’s overall macro and domination. Despite a shaky start, T1 closed out the game at 26 minutes.

DetonatioN FocusMe scores a point

DFM, representing the Japanese league at the MSI 2022, picked up its first victory against Team Aze in 26 minutes. DFM’s Ornn, Renata, and Syndra picks found value on the rift as they enabled countless team fight victories. DFM’s veteran player Yuta "Yutapon" Sugiura on Lucian was funneled with kills and gold. DFM picked up the Baron at 24 minutes and used the buff to push the top side of Aze, which struggled to survive the classy, well-orchestrated team fights of DFM. Both DFM and Aze have matches on 11th May against Saigon Buffalo, and Fastpay Wildcats, respectively.

At the end of Day 1 of MSI 2022’s Group Stage, T1 and DFM finished with one win each in Group A.

G2 Esports picks up a convincing victory against ORDER

It was a 27-minute victory for G2 Esports against Oceania's ORDER. G2 came out ahead in terms of vision advantages, team fights victories, gold advantage, and also solo performances. G2 also picked some interesting champions like Zoe and Fiora. This outcome was pretty much predicted by all the fans well ahead since G2 has been on a winning streak and the team always brings its A-game to international events. Interestingly, G2 and ORDER will face each other three more times in the Group Stage since Group C is a quadruple round-robin format.

G2 Esports silences Evil Geniuses

The featured match of the day was naturally the one between North America (NA) and Europe (EU). Both G2 Esports and Evil Geniuses won their region’s Spring Splits through an incredible lower bracket run. The matchup in the mid-lane between Rasmus "caPs" Borregaard Winther and Joseph Joon "jojopyun" Pyun was closely watched due to all the trash talk that jojopyun has been dishing out on social media. However, G2 Esports silenced the NA team with its explosive performance on the Summoner’s Rift. Now, after victories against both ORDER and EG on Day 1, G2 Esports is sitting atop Group C.

Defending MSI champion RNG is back

RNG announced loud and clear that it won MSI 2021 for a reason. It completely dismantled Istanbul Wildcats (IW) in a swift 22-minute game. Interestingly, in the draft phase, RNG banned three attack-damage carries (ADC) to target IW’s Anıl "HolyPhoenix" Işık and his champion pool. RNG was ahead in all of its lanes and pressed its advantages, by dictating the pace of the match. IW’s inexperience and nerves showed up as the team struggled to cope with RNG’s overwhelming presence on the rift. Again both the teams have matches lined up tomorrow as they go up against the other two teams in their group.

RED Canids show up big time against PSG Talon

RED Canids showed up big time in its first match at MSI 2022, proving everybody wrong by taking down PSG Talon. Both RED Canids (RED) and PSG Talon (PSG) are in the same group as 2021 MSI winners RNG and every win is crucial for them since it could be the trump card that gets them out of the group and into the Rumble Stage. RED Canids snowballed its early game advantages and picked up neutrals and objectives left and right. At 28 minutes, RED ended the game with a scoreline of 13-0. This was one of the most one-sided games of Day 1, making Group B very interesting.

Fans can watch Day 2 of MSI 2022 Group Stage live on LoLEsports and on the Twitch and Youtube channels of Riot Games.