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The League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational Rumble Stage has come to an end, with four of the best teams making it to the Knockout Stage. While Saigon Buffalo and PSG Talon were eliminated, Evil Geniuses, G2 Esports, and T1 advanced with Royal Never Give Up leading the standings.
RNG recorded the most points among the lot, securing eight wins and only two losses. T1 were next in line with 21 points from seven wins, while EG and G2 were tied for 15 points. With Evil Geniuses losing all their head-to-head contests in MSI, G2 were placed third and EG in fourth.
Although PSG Talon won their game against G2 Esports on the final day of the Rumble Stage, they lost to Saigon Buffalo in their second and final game. Despite winning two of their last four games, Saigon Buffalo were eliminated after losing six straight games.
With the knockouts being the final stage of the tournament, all four teams will battle to become the 2022 MSI champions. The reigning champs, RNG, have an opportunity to defend their crown.
In 2021, RNG defeated the then-defending champions, DWG KIA, 3-2 in the best-of-five finals series in Reykjavik, Iceland. That was their second MSI title, and a third title would make the Chinese esports franchise the most successful team in MSI history.
The MSI 2022 Knockout Stage will commence on Friday, May 27, and run through to Saturday, May 28. On Sunday, a new champion will be crowned.
Which teams and players topped the Rumble Stage KDA rankings?
RNG led the pack in KDA with 175 kills across all 10 games played in the Rumble Stage. T1 and EG both tied at 148 kills each with Choi “Zeus” Woo-je leading T1 on 47 kills and Joseph “Jojopyun” Joon Pyun recording the most kills (39) on EG’s roster.
The KDA player rankings were dominated by RNG players, namely Chen “GALA” Wei, Li “Xiaohu” Yuan-Hao, Yan “Wei” Yang-Wei, and Shi “Ming” Sen-Ming. According to Oracle’s Elixir, the League of Legends stats company, they recorded 7.9, 6.8, 6.2, and 4.7 KDA respectively.
T1 were duly represented, as three of their players made the list from fifth to seventh place: jungler Moon “Oner” Hyeon-joon with 4.6 KDA, mid laner Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok (4.3), and marksman Lee “Gumayusi” Min-hyoeng (4.2) respectively.
The rest of the top 10 KDA rankings were occupied by players from Evil Geniuses. The Polish jungler Kacper “Inspired” Słoma finished with a team-high 4.0 rating, while bot laner Kyle “Danny” Sakamaki and mid laner Joseph “jojopyun” Pyun both had 3.7 KDA.
G2, who didn’t lose a game against Evil Geniuses, had all their players ranked below EG. Sergen “Broken Blade” Çelik and Raphaël “Targamas” Crabbé led the team with 3.3 KDA, ranking 13th and 14th respectively. Victor “Flakked” Lirola Tortosa ranked bottom among all players from the major regions with 2.6.
