As League of Legends’ Mid-Season Invitational moves past the group stage and into the rumble section, it’s become clear that Europe’s G2 is the team to beat. After a dominant 8-0 performance in Group C with two wins each against EG and ORDER, G2 moved on to the second phase of competition ready to prove themselves against the higher caliber teams in the other groups. And on Day 2 of rumble, they did.
Putting together a teamfight heavy lineup led by Jankos’ Diana backed up by BrokenBlade’s Ornn and Targamas’ Rakan, caPs and the boys put together a win over Faker’s SKT T1 out of Korea. With powerful performances out of caPs’ Zoe and Flakked’s Kaisa, G2 also scored a win against China’s RNG. With these two victories, G2 has put up wins against every other favorite to win the tournament.
The gap between G2 and every other team in the world was evident in their Friday game versus Saigon Buffalo. Jankos went flawless on Graves, snowballing caPs’ Ahri lane. The two G2 veterans proceeded to roll over every Saigon Buffalo lane and take their fourth straight win in rumble.
G2 looks unstoppable, but their continued success prior to bracket play doesn’t matter too much. While the wins prove that G2 is the bar by which every other team needs to measure themselves by and are almost assuredly secured in their first place seeding going into the knockout stage, it only takes one match victory next weekend for one of these East Asian powerhouses to send G2 home trophyless.
Words by Nathan Burke.