Although the rivalry between EU and NA is presented as an eternal war, the winner of the latter can still be decided. The figures don’t lie, and in the majority of cases, these confrontations have turned out to the advantage of the Europeans. The 2022 Mid Season Invitational shouldn’t be the exception that proves the rule, and here’s why.
Jankos: subject verb complement
The G2 Esports jungler is one of the veterans on the international scene. His experience will be very important against a team of Evil Geniuses who will be making their international debut. In addition, the Pole has again proven during the playoffs that he can be the team’s metronome, with 73% Kill Participation. Between his extremely large champion pool, his always sharp game mechanics, and his ability to read the map to anticipate opposing actions, Jankos will be one of G2’s big assets in an area where their North American rivals could prove to be much less efficient.
The macro is the key to victory
For years, G2 has had a reputation as a very macro-strong team. With an average of 3.1 dragons per game in the playoffs, and 0.94 Herald, the Europeans are used to dictating the pace of the game. G2 strategies frequently revolve around a very strong midgame, and the team prefers picking up dragons in the early game to picking up dragon souls during their peak power. This is not a default dragon, which is made when the opposing team recovers the Herald for snowball, but a choice made knowingly by the G2 players.
EGs are slow to start
While the G2s proved to be the most effective in the midgame, their future opponents stuttered several times at the start of the game. Despite their overall victory, they only drew first blood in 27.8% of their games during the LCS playoffs. Usually the team manages to get back to gold before 15 minutes, and the gap is never very important, but this will pose a particular problem for Europeans. Having an early single will allow them to arrive in a position of strength in the midgame, when the team has shone the most recently. The combination of these two factors could well cause the loss of North Americans.
A weakness in the draft
The Evil Geniuses have also shown a tendency to ban Ahri in the playoffs, with the Vixen having been scrapped by the team in 78% of games. So if the champion is very powerful in the meta today, she is not a major problem for most other teams either. The EG bans on the champion represent just over 66% of the bans she received during the LCS playoffs. It should be noted that if she has also been regularly banned in China, neither the LEC nor the LCK have deemed it useful to put her at the top of their priorities (only 3 bans during the playoffs in each of these regions). At this level of competition, being put in difficulty by a specific non-OP champion (even if very strong) is a major disadvantage during the pick and ban phases. If the EGs have not corrected this defect, then they will leave directly with a disadvantage on the Europeans even before the start of the game.
End claps
The last asset of G2 is none other than their midlaner Caps. The Dane has already taken the best of all the midlane leaders in various international competitions. No matter how much Jojopyun wants to trashtalk, there’s still a very good chance that in the end it’s Caps who’s laughing. Quite honestly, for his international baptism of fire, the Canadian could have had more chances and not fall directly against one of the monsters of the competition (because Faker and Xiaohu are not funny either). Certainly to become the best, you have to beat the best (bac + 12 in counter philosophy), but a start in a group without such a strong rival could have been good for the EG rookie to take his mark. It would therefore not be unlikely that Caps could impose his rhythm and thus have much more impact than his direct opponent.
esport-lol
Nisqy’s return to competition is imminent! Locked up and padlocked on the Fnatic bench since the start of the League of Legends season, the midlaner has been “released” by the structure. In the process, he announced the name of the new structure, which is obviously in LEC!