North America and Europe Meet at MSI Finals for the First Time
By Wyatt Fossett ·
The storybook comes to an end for both the North American and European regions on the international stage in just a few hours. Here's the tale.
For the first time in MSI history, the Grand Finals will be played between North America and Europe. Neither region having much success in the past, 2019 marks a banner year for the west in terms of competitive League of Legends status, but how will it all come to be known in the end?
Both Team Liquid and G2 Esports spend a lot of time and effort in their offseasons last year attempting to get better for the sole purpose of success on the international stage, and now here we are.
“I’m so happy that we showed up and that NA showed up, now we can just fight.” - Jankos, G2 Esports
Team Liquid went out and got a World Champion in CoreJJ to pair with North America’s greatest player of all time in the bot-lane, and took Jensen from Cloud9 to fill out their roster and shore up mid-lane issues. Meanwhile, across the pond, Europe’s first-ever super-group was formed, seeing Perkz shift roles in order to acquire Fnatic’s Caps for their roster. Overnight, both of these teams got scarier.
In order to qualify for the Finals, Team Liquid took down reigning World Champions, and G2 Esports survived an onslaught from the most storied team in professional League of Legends. Both squads have earned their chance at the trophy.
The Duet of Duos
There’s no denying that Doublelift has been one of the greatest bot-lane damage-dealers League of Legends has ever known, but his international failures have plagued him. Now, with the help of CoreJJ, the Team Liquid bot-lane is dynamic and trustworthy.
“This is history. An NA versus EU finals is something people dreamed about since the early days of League.” - Doublelift, Team Liquid
That’s not to say that Mikyx and Perkz are a laughing matter. These two have proven that talent supersedes time playing together, and they dominated the LEC all season long. With nagging injuries and only a short stint at the role, there has to be some small concern that this lane can hold-up against the resilient and composed TL.
This head-to-head comes down to Perkz versus Doublelift more-so than the bigger two-vs-two, and in that battle, you’d have to give it to Doublelift 6 times out of 10.
Wunder-us
Through great adversity, the G2 Esports line-up has shined the most in the top-lane. Wunder has been playing out of his mind at times during their run at MSI 2019, and he even stole Game 4 away from SKT to force Game 5 almost all by himself in the end. If there’s any laner on Team Liquid that needs an extra pep-talk prior to kick-off, it will be Impact in the top.
Even though Impact is an all-star top-laner, and has seen his fair share of international success himself, he hasn’t had to win many matchups himself this tournament. Sure, he has stuck it out with the World’s best thus far and has managed not to lose anything for his team, but he needs to kick it up a notch in the finals against one of the least predictable top-laners League of Legends has ever seen.
For the History Books
Both teams will have a hell of a time not letting the situation they are currently in effect the way they are when their shoes hit the stage in Taipei. There’s no avoiding the fact that this is an NA versus EU finals. At an international event. The west has been waiting for a proper display of our talents since the international tournament began.
“We already took down the reigning champions. This is what we were built for,” - Jensen, Team Liquid
“... people can only remember the winners.” Doublelift, Team Liquid
Finally, the conversation will stop being about this gap between west and east, and will instead be about the talent within each. It’s true, this could be a crazy flukey one-off. However, the chances of that are slim. Especially slim if you look at the body of evidence left behind at this MSI.
“For me, it’s not just enough to be a Champion, I want to be a Legend.” - Caps, G2 Esports
No matter which region wins MSI 2019, it’s an accomplishment for Team Liquid and North America, as well as G2 Esports and Europe.
The Grand Finals of the 2019 Mid-Season Invitational kicks-off at 12:00 AM Pacific Time on Sunday, May 19th.
Watch live video from Riot Games on www.twitch.tv
You can watch the action on the Riot Games Twitch channel, or use the embedded video player (above).
Who do you think is going to take home international glory?
#TLWIN? Or #G2WIN?