Widely considered to be one of the “wildcard” teams at League of Legend’s Mid-Season Invitational, EVOS Esports soundly defeated the heavily favored SuperMassive earlier this week and just yesterday, began their first day of the group stage with a clean win against Team Liquid.
Unlike typical Vietnamese matches where there is a lot of early aggression, EVOS played a relatively quiet early game against TL. First blood came at nearly 15 minutes into the game when TL’s top lane, Impact, failed to respect the damage and durability of EVOS’ Stark on Ornn. From then on, there was a bit of a back and forth between the two teams as EVOS clearly had the lead, but TL seemed to always be on the verge of making a solid comeback. Unfortunately, with every one kill or objective TL picked up, EVOS was taking two elsewhere on the map.
At around 24 minutes into the game, TL was down 5-9 in kills but managed to have a 1K gold lead. At this crucial moment in the match, EVOS decided to make a play for baron while TL’s Impact was on the opposite side of the map. EVOS engaged quickly against the four man group and obliterated them faster than Impact could teleport in. With Baron secured, EVOS gained a solid grip over the match that they never let go of. Grabbing a second baron at 32 minutes sealed TL’s fate as EVOS smashed through their base and claimed their first win of the group stage.
Miss the match? Here’s the whole game uploaded by the LoL Esports Youtube Channel.
Their round vs. SuperMassive and their win against Team Liquid were decidedly clean wins that make one question if they can truly continue to be considered a “wildcard” team. Their run so far at MSI has definitely caught my interest and I’ll be eagerly following their next matches to see if they can best the analyst favored Chinese and Korean teams.
Featured Image Courtesy of Riot Games
