Image credit: LoL Esports
It will be Gen.G Esports versus Bilibili Gaming in the upper bracket final of the Mid-Season Invitational.
Bilibili Gaming have got T1's number after they defeated the defending world champions once again at the Mid-Season Invitational for the second year running. BLG defeated T1 3-1 during last season's MSI lower bracket final and they have done so once more, this time in the upper bracket semifinals.
With that win, BLG have confirmed a top-three finish for a second year in a row as they will now go up against Gen.G Esports in the upper bracket final. As for T1, they now drop to the lower bracket of MSI at the hands of an LPL team yet again where they will have to take on Team Liquid in a do-or-die series later this week.
And BLG had the perfect start to the series after a commanding game one win that saw Zhuo “Knight” Ding get a solo kill first blood on Sang-hyeok “Faker” Lee. Knight's Taliyah would go on to finish the first match with a KDA of 5/1/6 while the likes of Zhao “Elk” Jia-Hao on Kalista garnered seven kills to go with six assists and just two deaths. But just when you thought BLG had it in the bag, T1 dug deep and responded in game two.
Despite being limited to just seven kills in the first game, T1 was able to turn the tables onto BLG and held them back for most of the second match. BLG were starved for kills in game two while T1 ran riot with both Choi “Zeus” Woo-je and Ryu “Keria” Min-seok were able to attain flawless KDAs. Zeus in particular managed to get eight kills and five assists while Keria had two kills with 10 assists. Even Moon “Oner” Hyeon-joon had a great game with a KDA of 6/2/6.
As the series got tied at 1-1, BLG would take the lead in match-up once more in game three as both Knight and Elk turned it up a notch with Taliyah and Lucian respectively. Knight cemented eight kills and eight assists with only one death while Elk managed six kills with one death and 11 assists. And while XUN had another great showing in the jungle, it was Luo “ON” Wen-Jun who looked to be everywhere on the map as he got involved with 95 per cent of the team's 22 kills.
T1 needed to win two games in a row for any hope of moving forward in the tournament but BLG had other plans instead. While the fourth and final game of the series had a low kill count, it otherwise showed how well BLG can be when it came to executing its game plan and taking objectives while actively dodging fights. But when push came to shove, BLG were still able to overpower T1 in the majority of the team fights as Elk was able to nab another flawless KDA of 3/0/9 alongside Chen “bin” Ze-Bin with 2/0/5.
BLG were last year's MSI first runner-up and judging by how it's looking so far, BLG could very well secure yet another grand final spot if they are able to defeat Gen.G in a few days time.
