Second Day of League World Championship summary
Despite not coming up with surprising results like the first day, second day of League World Championship was still an exciting event filled with competition. This time it was mostly the favorites that got back to winning again.
Today’s most prominent match was probably the anticipated SK Telecom vs Cloud9, where the two-time World Champion drew the first blood and continued to dominate the C9 Mid laner, securing kills both solo and with assistance from Bengi or Wolf, building a steady CS lead all the while. The match was a proof to Faker’s abilities as he continues to be one of the best players in the world with this new win.
Another match that we looked forward to was Team SoloMid vs the Korean Samsung Galaxy, who despite winning yesterday couldn’t overcome the obstacle that is the American TSM thanks to an excellent performance by Svenskeren and Bjergsen who put pressure across the map resulting in a lead that lasted the whole match. Speaking about dominance, RNG’s Uzi was at his best when his team took on Splyce and won 1-0 from the moment they picked up the first blood on Splyce support and until having built 13k gold lead by 22 minutes in match.
It was a comfortable victory for H2k to secure Europe’s first at this year’s Worlds. What should always have been a win became a little more of a question mark following INTZ’s incredible upset against EDG the day before, as well as H2k’s own struggles versus ahq, but H2k were able to avoid the late-game mistakes that plagued them on day one and capitalise effectively on early leads in lane. It wasn’t the bloodthirsty spectacle that many of the matches so far have been, with H2k not even securing first blood until 18 minutes in, but rather than overtly destroy the Brazilian team H2k opted for a slow shut out, gradually constricting the life out of their opponents, earning gold by farming and objectives rather than kills.
Flash Wolves vs I May was a long match that ended up for I May as winners, thanks to the slow performance of Flash Wolves and failing to regain opportunities. Last but not least was the closest game of the day that gathered Edward Gaming vs ahq e-Sports Club, and despite strong performance from both teams, ahq couldn’t recreate last night’s win this time as EDG managed to deliver the killing blow after a close competition.
The day’s results leave Group B effectively back where it started, with each team having won and lost one game. Though EDG are still capable of topping their group, they’ll still need to step up their game if they’re to challenge any of the heavy hitters later in the tournament, as ROX, SKT and RNG arguably all look stronger in what is still admittedly the very early stages of the tournament.
