Image: LoL Esports
Istanbul Wildcats has been sent home after a 0-4 losing streak at the Play-ins.
Royal Never Give up hopped off a win today against Isurus to take on Istanbul Wildcats, a team that came into this game with a 0-3 losing streak and a desperate need to start winning games soon. Unfortunately, Wildcats lost this one to the MSI champions in a brutal sweep, and thus has been eliminated from the competition.
RNG struck hard and struck early, with Gala leaping on Wildcats’ Farfetch to get First Blood and leaving the rest of his team scampering away. Gala has put on a fearsome performance in the Play-ins thus far, and Wildcats had plenty of reason in this early game to avoid him and Breathe for as long as possible. The team fell behind early on here with 3k less gold than RNG, and HolyPhoenix scored a kill to get things levelled out.
RNG scored two dragons in a row however, and racked up 8-3 kills in multiple fights rolling out over said dragons and a midlane turret. RNG had so much map control here in the midgame, leaving Wildcats in a position to just poke in and hope for a mistake or two from the enemy team. Despite being in a rough 7k gold deficit, Wildcats still managed to shut down Breathe in the top lane and stop a few more objective pushes. StarScreen and HolyPhoenix did a lot of heavy lifting for Wildcats on the kills, but RNG still pushed through in almost every fight. Gala was unstoppable nearing the 20-minute mark, hunting down enemies across the map.
RNG picked up another dragon uncontested, setting the team up to wipe out Wildcats in the endgame. The MSI champions were playing it safe here, slowly going after dragons and gold before launching into a teamfight at the 26-minute mark and scoring a Triple Kill. In an incredible turning-the-tables moment however, Wildcats’ Serin absolutely wiped RNG off the top side of the map with a Double Kill and escaped with only a sliver of health remaining. A player has never chanelled for his life so hard after a fight today.
This was a good final blowout play for Wildcats, but RNG began charging into the enemy base shortly after, unwilling to waste anymore time. Wildcats needed at least a few more of these fights to go its way to level the playing field, and it wasn’t looking likely. RNG poked into the base again half an hour in and this time successfully took the Nexus. Wildcats put up a good show in its last match of the Play-ins, but it just wasn’t enough.
In the final match of the day, we’ll see DRX go up against Isurus.
