Image: Riot Games
Evil Geniuses and G2 Esports have been eliminated from Group B.
Group B’s final day in the Group Stage ended with JD Gaming pulling ahead in the standings at 6-1 while DWG.KIA came in second place at 5-2. Unfortunately, both of Group B’s Western teams - G2 Esports and Evil Geniuses - have been eliminated from Worlds 2022 today. Evil Geniuses ended its Group Stage contention at 1-5, while G2 Esports ended its run at a similar 1-5 score.
Here are the final Group B standings:
JD Gaming will now prepare to head into the playoffs along with DWG.KIA starting on October 21, but G2 Esports and Evil Geniuses will be sent home instead. G2 Esports’ final loss against JDG has made it a rough week for EU teams, all of whom have been on a major losing streak in the Group Stage. NA teams have not had it much better. Evil Geniuses needed DWG to lose a game today to stay in contention, but the team defeated G2 Esports instead - thus sending both the EU and NA teams home in one fell swoop.
JDG almost went undefeated in the Group Stage, but came away with a loss against DWG in the final match of the day instead. DWG’s surprising win against JDG forced a tiebreaker match to see which team would earn first place in the standings.
The penultimate match between JDG and DWG today kicked off with First Blood against JDG’s 369 with his teammate Missing going down quickly after. That gave DWG an early foothold in this game with two kills already in the bag a mere five minutes in. JDG was making a surprising amount of careless mistakes for a team that has had such a dominant performance in the Group Stage so far. DWG didn’t miss a shot here, jumping on those mistakes for useful plays. JDG needed to score more kills in upcoming skirmishes to level the playing field, but DWG’s Canyon utterly crushed the team in the late game to keep that from happening, and ended up taking the win.
The tiebreaker match saw JDG and DWG turn a best-of-two series in the Group Stage into a best-of-three. This time, the early game was positioned to go in JDG’s favour after the team scored First Blood against Nuguri. However, DWG found 3k more gold 10 minutes in and continued to extend that lead into the midgame. Canyon continued to be a beast in this match, leaping on JDG to rack up kills. In a massive teamfight at the 17-minute mark, JDG turned the tables with multiple kills in a row - picking up the gold and objectives it sorely needed to catch up.
DWG went on to pick up its second dragon of the match, but at a terrible cost - JDG leaped onto the team and wiped it out to recover the lead. By the 30-minute mark, this was a slaughter. A teamfight over the Baron saw JDG once again wipe the enemy team off the map with 23-17 kills and a 1k gold lead. With JDG pushing in towards the enemy base, DWG was forced on the defense. DWG’s ShowMaker going down in the midlane allowed JDG to march into its base and crush the enemy team for a win.
This win allows JDG to take first place in the final Group B standings, with DWG coming in second place despite putting on a great show in the tiebreaker. With Group B settled, tomorrow’s matches will have the teams in Group C - Rogue, DRX, Top Esports and GAM Esports - battle it out to see who makes it into the playoffs, and whose Worlds 2022 journey ends here in the Group Stage.
