Image: LoL Esports
The fourth match of Worlds 2022’s opening day saw Mad Lions claim a victory over Istanbul Wildcats.
Worlds 2022 entered its fourth opening day match with a bang, pitting Mad Lions against Istanbul Wildcats. Mad Lions ended up taking a close win here, but Istanbul Wildcats managed to put up a scrappy fight after losing an early lead. It could’ve gone either way in the midgame, but a violent teamfight saw Mad Lions triumph in the end.
Istanbul Wildcats started off the match here without feeling a lot of early turret pressure, which made a refreshing turnaround from our previous match of the day (LOUD Vs. Beyond Gaming). Unfortunately, we saw the match pause very early on due to audio issues from the Wildcats’ end - which threw a wrench into both teams’ early progress. We didn’t know where these lane phases were going yet, but enough momentum had kicked up by now that this pause had to have some sort of impact on either teams’ game plan.
The pause didn’t last too long, thankfully. The game resumed with an almost immediate first kill going to Mad Lions’ Kaiser against a fleeing StarScreen. Mad Lions kept a firm grip over the botside river, making things a bit difficult for the Wildcats to find an edge in this early game. Mad’s Unforgiven scored a second kill against Ferret, who unfortunately got cornered by the opposing team. Not even ten minutes in and Mad Lions had two kills under its belt, but it still wasn’t in a rush to turn that into any kind of big push.
At the 13-minute mark, we saw Ferret go down once again, the first of many successive Wildcats kills, as StarScreen and Farfetch went down just seconds after. At this point, things were looking dire for the Wildcats, who couldn’t seem to scrape together the big play they needed to level the playing field in the midgame. They just continued slipping, with Mad Lions expanding its wallet, picking up turrets and scoring more kills.
At the 17-minute mark, Wildcats scored its first kill against Armut and tied up a 3-3 turret count against Mad Lions, though it still lagged behind in gold by around 4k. The team clearly didn’t want to be steamrolled in its very first game of the day, still giving its competition a good fight despite being unable to steal a lead away from them. Wildcats and Mad Lions got into a scrape over the Baron, and in the end had to abandon the Baron but gain two kills against the Lions in the process. Jumping off of that momentum, Wildcats managed to pick up a dragon with relative ease - but lost the Baron to Mad Lions.
Mad Lions had allowed the Wildcats to make a few good plays in the midgame, but this was the moment it decided to forbid the gap between both teams from narrowing any further. Coming into the 30-minute mark, this seemed like a surprisingly even match excluding a slight gold lead from Mad Lions - something no one could’ve predicted from how the Wildcats practically gave away the early game here. Wildcats picked up another Baron and rolled right into another teamfight, which resulted in StarScreen getting downed - and that might have been the Wildcats’ ultimate downfall. With StarScreen far away and another drake to contest immediately, Mad Lions practically wiped out the Wildcats and earned a 14-10 kill lead plus a 5k gold lead.
Mad Lions ended up marching into Wildcats’ base and earned a victory, but not without some well-fought resistance from the losing team. The Wildcats have proven that they’re a scrappy team, but despite trying their best to even things out in the midgame, lost a difficult endgame here. The Wildcats will now have to prepare for a better game against Saigon Buffalo, while Mad Lions rests up for the day with two wins total.
Next up, we’ll see Fnatic take on Chiefs Esports Club.
