Day 1 of Worlds 2022 came to a climactic end with Saigon Buffalo and DRX emerging victorious.
The last two matches of Worlds 2022 Day 1 saw Saigon Buffalo score a win against Istanbul Wildcats, while DRX picked up a victory from Royal Never Give Up. While Saigon had a comparatively easier time snagging a win here, DRX had a much harder go of it, pulling through thanks to great midgame plays. Both DRX and Buffalo have kicked off their Worlds 2022 runs with a win each.
Saigon Buffalo went up against Istanbul Wildcats in the penultimate match of the day. This game started violently, with Saigon Buffalo committing First Blood against Wildcats’ Ferret, and Wildcats slaying Taki in return. Wildcats proceeded to get a kill against Saigon’s Froggy, giving the team a 2-1 killcount very early on. Saigon made up for it by playing aggressively, fishing for kills and gold at every opportunity. A massive teamfight around the Rift Herald at the nine-minute mark saw the Wildcats come out victorious with 8-5 kills.
Both teams were on even ground in terms of gold past the 10-minute mark, and Wildcats went on to get its first dragon uncontested. Saigon managed to pick up a Rift Herald in advance of a dragon’s arrival, which Wildcats once again slayed with zero opposition. Both teams were playing very carefully here, neither side willing to overextend or seek out risky kills, instead looking to rack up gold and quietly pursue objectives. This was a slower midgame than we’ve seen in other matches.
Once Saigon beat back Wildcats to slay a dragon and very quickly after, the Baron, the team found itself with a strong 4k gold lead and 12 kills to Wildcats’ 10. At the 25-minute mark, Saigon poked into the enemy base with most of the Wildcats strangely absent to defend it properly, and successfully took down the midlane inhibitor as punishment. Saigon took down all of the outer turrets by the 30-minute mark, and once again the enemy team just wasn’t around to defend it. Saigon poked into Wildcats’ base and took down the Nexus for the win, with the enemy just being unable to pull together a solid defense.
Wildcats’ early-game bloodlust was commendable but unfortunately, did not pay off in a victory for the team.
In the final match of the day, we saw DRX go up against Royal Never Give up in an LPL versus LPK matchup. This match had a slow start, but it did see RNG score the earliest dragon of any match in Worlds 2022 thus far. That’s the fun part about Day 1, watching teams make and break new records all over the place. RNG’s Breathe and Wei scored First Blood against DRX’s Kingen, who happened to be isolated and vulnerable to a gang-up. At the 13-minute mark, Kingen found himself in the exact same position as before and Breather once again slayed him for it. That made two surprisingly repetitive back-to-back kills for RNG.
18 minutes in, just when DRX needed it most, a teamfight unfolded that saw the team come out on top with five whole kills in a row. RNG might have gotten a little too confident in their early game success here, because this was far from being their match yet and DRX proved it. The playing field had been leveled out as both teams entered a slow endgame, with neither team making much progress on the outer turrets. DRX started to play aggressively soon enough, earning a 7-4 kill lead and 3k more gold, while both teams slowly picked off those turrets.
DRX whittled down the Baron’s health to practically zero, but RNG’s Xiaohu swooped in and stole the kill from them at the very last possible second. Unbelievable:
This was definitely one of the longest matches we’ve seen today. RNG picked up another dragon, kicking off an insanely long teamfight that ended with DRX’s Zeka darting around RNG’s Wei and Breathe. Despite all of the odds, Zeka took them both down and came out on top of a 2v1 with rapid, clinical plays. Almost 40 minutes in, DRX started to push into the enemy base with a 5k gold lead and five more kills on their side. DRX approached this carefully, taking down the outer inhibitors first to put their foot in the door, before making a temporary retreat. DRX stole yet another dragon from RNG and ran with that win right into the enemy base. DRX won this one.
RNG ends the day with one loss, while DRX starts strong with a win. As it stands at the end of Day 1, Fnatic leads Play-in Group A with two wins while MAD Lions leads Play-in Group B with two wins. There’s a lot of time left for these teams to get shuffled around in the standings, so stay tuned for our coverage of Day 2 of Worlds 2022!
