On May 7, Golden Guardians eliminated PSG Talon from the 2023 League of Legends Mid Season Invitational, thus sending home the last representative of a minor league. The first best-of-five match of the tournament ended in favor of LCS’ second seed, and although GG closed with a clean 3-0, the games were closer than many would have predicted. GG now join the top seeds of each region together with Bilibili Gaming and G2 Esports, who had qualified in a previous round of the play-in stage.
PSG slow-paced strategy gave their opponents a chance to impose their rhythm and eventual dominance in the first game of the series. In a similar fashion, the next one saw PSG holding well against GG but ultimately losing due to disjoined fights around objectives. In one fight in particular, GG’s prioritization process and teamwork stood out, leading the LCS’ second seed to obtain the Infernal Drake’s soul, the Baron Buff, and a quadra kill for their AD carry.
According to GG’s jungler River, PSG like other minor region representatives are a bit underperforming at MSI because of their lack of experience in facing “strong teams” on stage. While they do get the chance to scrim against major region teams, continued River, representatives from minor regions collapse when on stage, an opinion shared also by GAM Esports’ head coach HanKay.
No LCS representative ever failed to qualify from the play-in stage of a League international tournament, and GG kept the tradition going for this MSI as well. The next challenge is to claim their region’s first MSI title as they are looking to face LPL first seed JD Gaming on May 12 in their next best-of-five series.
