Cover-Credits:
RRQ Philippines (PH) earned its first major championship title in the Wild Circuit Asia Invitational 2022 after a five-round struggle against Rolster Y. The Filipino squad secured a 3-2 victory against the Korean squad in the grand finals to secure the championship title and the $12,000 USD (about ₱682,000 PHP) prize money. The Wild Circuit Asia Invitational 2022 is League of Legends: Wild Rift’s first-ever off-season invitational event. The best teams from all over Asia were invited to compete for the title of Kings of Asia and the lion’s share of the $40,000 USD prize pool.
RRQ PH takes its first major championship title
In the group stage, all eight teams were equally divided into two groups where they competed in a round-robin best-of-three match. The top two teams moved to the playoffs stage.
In Group A, Kwangdong Freecs finished first with a flawless 3-0 score and Team Flash followed with a 2-1 score. In Group B, KT Rolster also finished with a perfect score while RRQ PH followed with 2-1. All four teams earned their ticket to the playoffs stage while the bottom teams Flash Wolves, Unsold Stuff Gaming, Buriram United Esports, and SANDBOX Gaming were eliminated.
In the playoffs, RRQ PH managed to dominate Kwangdong Freecs with a 3-2 victory. Rolster Y knocked out Team Flash with a 3-2 score. Both semifinalists proceeded to the grand finals to determine who will bring home the championship title.
RRQ PH started strong with a dominant win in the first game of the Best of Five (Bo5) series. However, Rolster Y was able to recover in the second game with its mid-game scaling power. This continued in the third game, allowing the South Korean squad to score two wins out of the Bo5 series.
With a huge risk of being reverse swept, RRQ PH went all out in their last two games, banning out comfort picks from Kwangdong Freecs. The PH squad risked everything to secure each Elder Dragon in the late game which worked in its favor, closing the series with a 3-2 victory for RRQ PH.
While the Wild Circuit Asia Invitational 2022 was quite short, the matches were definitely action-packed. It will be interesting to see more off-season Wild Rift events featuring more teams in the future.
