The Koreans started MSI with a bang and it doesn't seem to be fizzling out any time soon.
TSM's first game of day two could hardly have been more difficult. SKT picked up where they had left off the previous night and dominated this game from start to early finish. Peanut led the way with a 9/1/4 performance on Lee Sin in a less than 30 minute game.
With that one abruptly out of the way, the Gigabye Marines were hoping to cause another upset, this time against Flash Wolves. For a while it looked like that would be exactly what happened. The Vietnamese team pulled a lane swap out of their bag of tricks and took a 200 gold lead after picking up first blood in the ensuing tower dive. Another dive netted them another kill but Flash Wolves were able to take the first turret and a dragon but were still down by 5,000 gold by the time FW got their first kill at the 20 minute mark. But the Marines weren't playing to the strengths of their pick comp and the Wolves were gaining more and more ground. Now the Marines were trying to force placed but instead kept giving up kills to their opponents, eventually resulting in conceding a baron to FW. From there, Flash Wolves were able to bring their greater experience to bear and completed the comeback victory.
G2 had a relatively successful opening night but they would need to keep it going if they wanted to beat World Elite. They locked in a surprise package of Nunu and Kog'Maw but it didn't start well. Condi on Graves actually picked up an early triple buff and stamped his authority over Trick further by killing him 1v1 for first blood. The European team never really got going and were bled out slowly by a methodical WE team who played the map superbly. When WE picked up two kills and a baron, the game was all but over. It took another five minutes but the Chinese team made it look simple.
TSM's next game was an important one against Flash Wolves. So far they had won just one game but they would not get a second here. The game started slowly, with only a handful of kills and a tiny gold lead for TSM. The first real fight was the beginning of the end, however, with the Wolves taking four kills for just two losses. Karsa impressed, being involved in 14 out of 17 total kills, and when he smote the baron late in the game he essentially ended it in his team's favour.
G2, apparently not fazed by their earlier loss, locked in Nunu and Kog'Maw against Gigabyte Marines. The Vietnamese also mimicked their earlier game by forcing a lane swap and picking up first blood. The game went back and forth numerous times, with Nunu soloing the first drake and G2 taking an early lead with three kills of their own, only to then concede three sloppy kills for nothing. Gigabyte were even able to push their advantage by taking a baron, despite a heroic double kill and escape by Perkz's Fizz. But the game continued to be messy and G2 managed to grab a baron of their own. Finally the Kog'Maw was online: he was able to burn down an inhibitor at a moment's notice and annihilated the elder drake. G2 won a four-for-three fight around the objective but with Zven still alive on Kog'Maw, that was all they needed to end the game.
SKT closed things out with another win but World Elite pushed them closer than anyone thus far. The Chinese held a lead for a considerable time but a risky baron call ended poorly for them. The buff was stolen by Peanut's Ivern and SKT never looked back. WE held on for a while and fought scrappily, but SKT don't give you a second chance and they maintain their unbeaten record at the event for another day.
Image Courtesy of SKT Twitter
