Now that Groups Stage is over, the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) will enter the Rumble Stage. It will be a double round-robin between the six teams that qualified, with the top 4 advancing to the Knockout Stage. All matches will be best of one, so every team will always have to deliver their peak form. In order to help your betting odds, we’re going to look at every single team and see what we can expect going forward.
The Mid-Season Invitational is largely going as “planned” thus far. No big upsets happened during the Group Stage, except for Pentanet.gg skyrocketing ahead of Unicorns of Love.
In terms of MSI Betting, every single team performed as well as expected, with small flops here and there just to mess with our betting slips. The key takeaways from the entire competition thus far are similar to what we expected before the event. Korea and China are still the two most dominant regions, with EU and NA trailing behind slightly.
What was surprising is how much growth we have witnessed from “wildcard” regions over this season, as no team really looked out of their depth in this competition. Granted, RNG uberstomped their opponents in every single game, but that was expected.
Overall, our pre-event MSI Power Rankings still hold true, except the already stated exception with Pentanet.
Speaking of..
PGG surprised everyone by taking two wins against Unicorns of Love, qualifying as the 2nd seed in Group A. The LCO Representative did what was considered by many impossible. What’s more impressive, though, was their positive attitude in learning from the best and adapting.
Pentanet.gg Roster
Pentanet.GG is doing everything to try to take the slightest of edges, especially in draft. Jungler Pabu has a champion ocean and can play almost anything. This allows the team to play so many different things, as we’ve already seen in the Groups Stage (Zed mid, for example).
With that being said, PGG is the weaker team on paper. Their odds of victory are very low, but even one win can be very satisfying for the Oceanic League, which, we have to remember, had undergone a rebuild this season.
The PCS team met the expectations we set for them. PSG Talon was the best team apart from the major regions, and that’s what exactly happened in their group. They won all games against wildcards regions but lost twice against MAD Lions.
The roster is still adapting due to the substitution of Unified with Doggo. Their performance, though, has been on a crescendo: they will have to step up again if they want to make it to Stage 3. As of right now, they look like the ones that will not advance. The MSI Odds clearly reflect this, as PSG is not favored in any match except against Pentanet.gg. This could also be a nice opportunity if you believe in their potential moving forward.
After a shaky start, C9 bounced back with a clean sweep on the last Day of group stage. The NA team took down both DetonationFocusMe and Gilette Infinity, as well as beating the reigning World Champions, DAMWON Gaming.
Their performance against DK was all the more impressive since they managed to always stay ahead during the game. On top of that, their teamfights were well executed especially considering their opponent is one of the best teamfighting teams on the planet. Now that Cloud9 got a huge boost of momentum, they’re looking more like a dark horse and potentially will qualify to the next stage.
Coming into MSI as one of the favorites, the Lions didn’t look in very good shape. Some players have been rather inconsistent so far (Carzzy above all), and despite the 5 wins, they didn’t look like a dominant force.
MAD Lions Roster
This puts a big question mark on the odds of Europe winning MSI: the LPL and LCK still look a tier above the rest. We are pretty sure that they will be top 4, but anything above 3rd place will be highly unlikely.
Similar to MAD Lions, DAMWON Kia’s performance at MSI has not been the best. They were put under stress not only by Cloud9 but also by the LJL team, DFM.
Despite the results, DK seemed like it was limit testing quite a lot during Groups Stage. The composed and stable playstyle, typical of Koreans, was absent. All players were overextending and playing more aggressively than ever. To us, it looked like they were very confident of advancing that they decided to go beyond the limit to see what it can happen.
DK are still one of the favorites of the tournament and we expect them to play more carefully as the tournament progresses. A top 2 is pretty much expected by everyone: it will be more about whether they will get the number 1 spot.
After the Groups Stage, it seems like Royal Never Give Up is the team to beat. They dominated their own group with an 8-0 record, mostly stomping the poor Unicorns of Love and Pentanet.GG.
The big test will be the opener of the “Rumble Stage” against DK. It is going to be the most hyped match of the tournament, as it will show which is the better region. With all the changes in patch 11.9, the match will revolve a lot around draft: RNG should have an edge there. On the other hand, DK is known for being stubborn and reluctant to innovate.
If RNG manages to win against the LCK team, they will most likely advance to the next stage as the first seed and will set them as the big favorites to win MSI.
Now that we’ve covered all the teams in the Rumble Stage, this is our prediction for the overall MSI Rumble Stage standings. I do think MAD and C9 will likely tiebreak eachother and their potential score agaisnt the LPL/LCK representatives will determine who is ahead coming into the knockout stage.
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