Image credit: LoL Esports
Team Liquid move on up in the Mid-Season Invitational after they defeated Fnatic.
We bid farewell to Fnatic as the fifth team to get eliminated from the Mid-Season Invitational and the first team to get knocked out from the Bracket Stage, this time at the hands of Team Liquid. Both Liquid and Fnatic lost their opening series in the upper bracket quarter-final earlier this week, which then saw them battle it out on the Summoner's Rift to try to extend its stay in Chengdu, China.
And in the end, it was Liquid who came out on top after four games to live on at MSI via the lower bracket. The LCS Spring Split champions will now have to wait for another team to fall from the lower bracket, this time between T1 or Bilibili Gaming. To put it into perspective, T1 are the current world champions whilst BLG are the number one seed from the LPL, having won the recent Spring Split.
Despite the LEC's great record against the LCS, especially at MSI, many had predicted for Fnatic to progress through to the next stage. But Liquid had something to say about that, especially Eain “APA” Stearns, who amidst all the trash-talking mid-game, was still able to put up impressive performances throughout the series. Game one against Fnatic saw APA's Taliyah secure seven kills and eight assists to go with only three deaths.
It wasn't just in the first game as his Aurelion Sol in game three and Tristana in the fourth match also proved to be too much for Fnatic to handle. To add further context to just how well APA performed, his Aurelion Sol had 10 assists alongside five kills and only two deaths. As for his Tristana, he would go on to have eight kills with two deaths and assists. But APA wasn't doing it alone as Sean “Yeon” Sung also showed great composure and maturity in those four games.
His Lucian in games one and four were very much on-par alongside other top AD carries at MSI right now. Yeon managed six kills, two deaths, and seven assists in the first match and went one further in the fourth game with seven kills, one death, and five assists. But it was his Varus that looked truly frightening as he notched eight kills and seven assists with just two deaths.
Unfortunately for Fnatic, they could only muster one map win in the second game with Marek “Humanoid” Brázda being one of the few bright spots in an otherwise disappointing run for the seven-time LEC champions. While the rest of Fnatic were also decent, it was just not enough to stop Liquid from gaining momentum as the games wore on. But what makes the loss a bitter pill to swallow for Fnatic is that this is the org's first best-of-five defeat against a team from North America since Worlds 2011.
