After the games ended earlier today, we are now leading to the Semifinals and Finals matches over the weekend.
The Rumble Stage of MSI 2022 ended a few hours ago as RNG claims the top spot in this phase of the tournament. We are now teeing up to the Knockouts Stages of MSI 2022 with Royal Never Give Up picking Evil Geniuses for their Semifinal matchup. Consequently, T1 and G2 are set to face either other in the other Semifinal matchup. Let’s talk about what happened in the Rumble Stage and how to perceive the teams going forward.
MSI 2022 Rumble Stage Recap
With the Rumble Stage wrapped up, this is the standing the teams ended with the last games done and dusted.
Royal Never Give Up ended the stage at the top of the group with an 8-2 record with T1 trailing at 7-3. G2 Esports and Evil Geniuses conclude at a tied record of 5-5 but G2 gets the 3rd spot due to the Head-To-Head score. Thus, these are the four teams that we will see in the Knockouts Stage. Let’s talk about what we saw from the teams briefly along with PSG. Talon and Saigon Buffalo Esports, both of who were eliminated from MSI 2022.
1. Royal Never Give Up
RNG had an almost masterful tournament in the Rumble Stage. For most of their games, they showed a prowess many analysts were not sure would show up. RNG did not look their best based on how the LPL Spring Playoffs ended but they certainly stepped up at MSI 2022.
Xiaohu and Gala remain the top dogs of this team and Gala has massively improved coming into the Rumble Stage. He has looked like the best ADC in the tournament thus far. Xiaohu has been extremely consistent and is a pivotal part of this team.
While Ming and Wei have also upped their level of play since the LPL, Bin has looked off at times. He has either been too aggressive or just deferred to the team. He has looked better when he took a backseat but that is not his usual style and thus has relegated him to not being as effective as he can be. It is a transition for him that he has to fine-tune going into the Semifinal against Evil Geniuses.
They are definitely the best team going into the MSI 2022 Knockouts Stage given their consistency. RNG just has some small issues to iron out and we might see the team become back-to-back MSI champions.
2. T1
Despite their record, T1 has looked quite shaky as a team. They have had excellent games like the 2nd time around versus RNG and G2, but they also had awful games like against EG the second time and against RNG and G2 the first time around.
It’s mindboggling to think how the team has swung so much in terms of performance in the game. Hence, it is astonishing to see the prohibitive favorites of MSI 2022 struggle this much. Individually, they have looked fairly good barring Gumayusi at times. Their early game has looked clean for the most part. However, the problem lies when they start forcing objectives, particularly Baron Nashor.
When T1 starts doing Baron, they tend to flip the objective and it allows the opponents to either clean up the fight post-Baron or during the Baron take. T1 needs to clean up their idea of how to do Barons like when to turn around and fight the other team or just burst it down and escape safely.
Other than those issues with objectives and Gumayusi’s inconsistency, T1 has looked very good. Their early game, macro, and map movement is still at the top in terms of MSI participants and that has won them the bulk of their games. T1 also ended the Rumble Stage on a high note, so it will be interesting to see if they can improve and rise up to the pedestal of being the best team in the tournament. They will need it as they play G2 in the Semifinal matchup.
3. G2 Esports
While G2 started off the Rumble Stage really well, it’s from Day 3 that the team started spiraling downwards. With their first loss to PSG. Talon, they just kept losing until the Evil Geniuses game earlier today. Their losses are due to teamfights that ended in disaster along with drafting woes.
They played phenomenally for the first two days of the Rumble Stage as they beat every team in the first round-robin barring PSG. Starting from the PSG game on day 3, the wheels started to fall off. To us, it was a combination of teams drafting better against G2 and playing better to punish G2 for their overaggressiveness.
While draft problems can be fixed, their overaggressiveness is a bit of a problem to fix in the next two days. G2 needs to clean up their play a lot and do a mentality reset to shrug off the losing streak. Over the past few months, G2 has proven to be a momentum-based team so it will be about calming down in the next few days and planning out a strategy against T1 in terms of drafting.
4. Evil Geniuses
Unlike G2, EG started off with a rocky Rumble Stage but they ramped up throughout the course of the phase. They have beaten T1 and which gave them the foothold to qualify for the knockouts stage. They have looked better in the last 3 days. Danny has stabilized as a laner and the team is starting to draft based on comfort.
The only question that remains about EG is how are they going to cope against RNG. The game on the last day of the Rumble Stage proves how they can be punished for the minuscule of mistakes. EG will have to draft well to take advantage of the top side of the map as Impact is having a great tournament thus far. It’s still a tall order but it’s within the possibility of causing an upset in the Semifinal
The Eliminated Teams
PSG Talon definitely stepped up in the Rumble Stage. They were close to getting into the Knockouts by beating G2 twice. However, by losing to SGB in the 2nd matchup and not gathering enough wins, they were unfortunately eliminated. Unified and Kaiwing showed they are a very good bot lane and Hanabi has been the consistent player. However, they are very reliant on comfort picks for Juhan and Bay in particular so that is something to work on going into Worlds 2022 if they make it.
Lastly, we have SGB who had a revelation of a Groups Stage but faltered in the Rumble Stage. The stage definitely put the pressure on them and they crumbled under it. This team is still extremely young and this will add much-needed experience for the team to potentially be at Worlds 2022. SGB showed that VCS is still a very strong region and LoLEsports fans have to be excited to see them at Worlds in particular because they are the Runners Up from the VCS Spring Split.
In Conclusion
Thus, this is a recap of how the Rumble Stage went. Over the course of the next few days, we will preview the Semifinals and talk more about MSI 2022 and more going forward. MSI 2022 Semifinals will start on Friday and continue for the final weekend of the tournament.
