zechs
Like Group A, Group B has a clear favourite and then three teams scrapping on relatively equal footing for second place.
2022South Korea, Busan, Exhibition & Convention Center
Royal Never Give Up
T1
G2 EsportsRNG (G)
Like T1 in Group A, RNG should breeze through Group B at a leisurely pace. That said, there is more potential here for some disruption. PSG Talon took a game from RNG at last year’s MSI and were unfortunate to be eliminated from a very difficult group stage at Worlds with a 3-3 record. While I still think RNG’s class will tell in the end (they were in that same group at Worlds and 2-0’d PSG), there is always a chance in best-of-one matches.
On top of that, RNG playing from China may be a help or a hindrance. Many people have chimed in on this already, so I won’t dwell on it beyond pointing out that it could be a factor. Even so, like I said above, I suspect that RNG will simply be too good for the teams in this group.
Certainly, then, you have to think PSG are favourite for second place at the very least. They sold one excellent jungler and replaced him with another pretty damned good one. Juhan likes to play skirmishing junglers like Viego and Lee Sin, which suits PSG’s play style down to the ground. Pair that with the fact that they will have their full roster, unlike at Worlds last year, and PSG is a real force to be reckoned with.
The only thing that sheds doubt on PSG’s credentials is the relative weakness of their region. They went 16-2 in the regular season, with both of their losses coming in similar drafts. Indeed, Hanabi was on Gangplank in both, which was assuredly no coincidence. Even so, I can’t blame PSG for the low quality of opposition they faced and I don’t think it will hold them back too much here. After all, one could argue that the other two teams in this group fall into a similar category to PSG’s domestic opponents. PSG are not a lock for second place, not quite, but they are definitive favourites.
Battle at the Bottom
Red Canids, from the perennially under-achieving CBLOL, are my favourites to finish bottom of this group. Kabum surprising Alliance at Worlds was almost eight years ago, lads. Since then, no Brazilian team has qualified for the main stage at Worlds and MSI’s have been no better. It’s a shame, because the game clearly has a huge following in Brazil but the teams can never seem to get past the first hurdle of international events.
I’m sorry to say to those fans that I can’t see this being the tournament that changes any of that. They have been put into a group with one of the favourites for the whole event, and with a team that is close to the level of LCS and LEC teams. Brazilian teams haven’t shown anything like that for a long time, and the best they can hope for is to avoid yet another ignominious last place finish.
So that leaves Istanbul Wildcats as the main threat to PSG Talon’s top two spot. TCL often strikes me as the Eredivisie of League of Legends. By that, I mean that Turkey seems very good at growing talent, but very bad at holding onto it. TCL alumni include Armut, Closer, Abbedagge and even, briefly, Caps.
An impressive list, no doubt. Yet, like the Eredivisie, TCL’s teams are often raided by more financially powerful teams from bigger leagues, which leaves them scrambling for international success and rarely finding it.
Unlike Brazil, though, TCL has occasionally flirted with minimal success. Fenerbahce made it to the group stage in 2017 and multiple Turkish teams have been there or thereabouts. Play-ins stage play-off seems to be Turkey’s level. Occasionally, rarely, they go one better, but more often they get that far and no further.
What is worrying for this particular Turkish team is last year’s MSI showing. With the same starting line-up, the Wildcats finished bottom of their group last year with a 1-5 record. Even more worryingly, two of those losses came against Brazilian opposition. Not the same Brazilian opposition that they will face this year, but even so, it’s not a great look. They were beaten to Worlds qualification by Galatasary later in the year, so it’s hard to know what to make of Istanbul Wildcats’ chances now. We know Turkey tends to do alright at international competition, but this specific team can’t really say the same thing. They are as likely to be fighting to avoid last place as they are to compete with PSG for second.
