The League of Legends’ 2016 Mid-Season Invitational started off with a bang as the Chinese hosts provided the audience with a great opening ceremony to introduce the teams.

Counter Logic Gaming vs Royal Never Give Up

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How do you start off the second biggest League of Legends tournament in the world? A close and thrilling match seems like the perfect way to do so. CLG vs RNG delivered in that respect and much more as both teams struggled to find an advantage over the other in what could arguably be the most back-and-forth game of the day. Prior to the tournament, both teams were ranked extremely close to each other with RNG just being given the edge overall. The game began quietly with both teams performing the standard meta-lane swap and trading two turrets. However, past the ten minute mark the game exploded into action as a successful gank won RNG first blood. Another ten minutes passed without much action before RNG’s ADC Wuxx picked up a double kill to extend their lead ever so slightly. CLG turned it around with a team fight of their own to take both the kill advantage and Baron to push themselves ahead in the game. Mispositioning by CLG’s ADC at 31 minutes into the game allowed RNG to sweep up 4 kills and drag the lead back into their favor in the tug-of-war game. Therefore it was only fitting that CLG won another team fight of their own and grab their second Baron of the game. Just when it looked like CLG had finally broken away a clean sweep ace by RNG dashed the North American side’s hope of winning their first game.

G2 Esports vs Flash Wolves

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These two teams were also ranked very close in skill along with CLG and RNG. G2 were the rookie team that took Europe by storm this split while Flash Wolves played second fiddle to domestic rival ahq until the finals where they won 3-0. The second game of the day was another dramatic one to watch because just like the first game, both teams struggled to find an advantage over the other. G2 powered ahead early in the match and actually took a 5k gold lead at one point, but even then, Flash Wolves looked like they had the game under their control. Despite being down for the majority of the game, the Flash Wolves were the team to take the first inhibitor and from there G2 could not mount a successful defense and the Flash Wolves took the match.

SK Telecom vs Super Massive

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If ever there was a David and Goliath matchup, this would be it. SKT hail from the most dominant region in League of Legends while Super Massive are the International Wildcard Team. The game unfortunately reflected that fact as the Korean team completely choked out the Turks. SKT picked up a total of 22 kills in the game and the only shining light for Super Massive was that they picked up a single kill onto Blank, SKT’s jungler. Otherwise, they were not able to do anything much in the game aside from picking up one turret.

Counter Logic Gaming vs Flash Wolves

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CLG had just come off a smarting loss to RNG while the Flash Wolves were riding the momentum of their win over G2. It looked like the Flash Wolves would be able to use their momentum to carry them to another victory after they blew open the game at 33 minutes with a team fight win that broke open the stalemate of the early game. CLG’s last hope was at Baron where they picked up a huge team fight win and the Baron itself after the Flash Wolves took a poor engagement. Despite still being down in gold, CLG used this to reduce their deficit and push down objectives. A final team fight that resulted in an ace for CLG sealed the deal for the North American team and both CLG and FW ended the day with a win and a loss.

G2 Esports vs SK Telecom

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Many analysts gave G2 the best chance at being able to beat SKT out of all the teams in attendance at MSI. Looking at G2’s regular season performance and how they play, it is possible to see why. However, SKT is a team that always performs during big international events and have improved significantly since their lackluster start in the LCK. From the start of the game to the finish, there was no doubt who was in control as SKT found kill after kill over the entire map and casually took down the European team. By the end of the game, Faker and Bang had a combined 17 kills while four of SKT’s members had no deaths in the match. The only member of SKT to die in the game was Wolf, but that was expected as his job was to be the support of his team. The highly anticipated matchup between Faker and Perkz was actually in favor of the European rookie until Faker roamed around the map and found kills.

Super Massive vs Royal Never Give Up

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Unsurprisingly, Super Massive came into this match as the underdog once again, which they would be doing in every game. Still the Turks showed some sign of life as they played one of the bloodiest games this day. A total of 37 kills happened, an average of 1 kill per minute in the game. Although RNG came out ahead in the kill game, Super Massive put up a fight in the early game and was even ahead slightly at one point.