Two dragons fly into the 2016 Mid-Season Invitational

Riot·May 4, 2016·1 votes·11,228 views

The Mid-Season Invitational has landed and two dragons touched down onto the Rift for the opening match. If MSI 2016 continues how it started then we’re in for one hell of a ride.

China’s Royal Never Give Up took down North America’s Counter Logic Gaming in an opening game that saw both teams going blow for blow until RNG finally managed to drop CLG to the canvas.

While it was the Chinese dragons who came away with the win, it was the dragon on the other side of the Rift that stole the show. CLG’s mid laner Huhi’s performance on Aurelion Sol was something for the ages. Even the heavily Chinese-favored crowd erupted at the sight of the celestial dragon's Starsurge barreling down mid lane -- and the potential YOLO that would occur if it actually managed to land the fabled five-man stun.

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And Huhi says it was all according to plan. "A month ago he came out and I was spamming him in Solo Queue. I played him eight games in a row and I went 8-0. I was pretty hype!" But his teammates weren't. As the dragon was disabled on the NA LCS patch at the time, they asked Huhi to shelf the pick -- until MSI.

"I felt a lot of pressure when I played Aurelion Sol. My heart was beating so fast," said Huhi. "It's never happened before, but I was pretty excited to play that champion."
"He's the only mid lane champion who can out-push Azir at Level 1. And, Azir wants to farm mid and stay in mid, while Aurelion Sol can push the lane 24/7 and then rotate. It was pretty unlucky that they blind swapped and it went to 2 vs. 1 so I couldn't really use my advantage to roam around."

Both teams were fighting for more than just the win. For RNG, they were in front of their home crowd in the first match of the tournament. For CLG, it was to disprove the stigma surrounding the North America and their international performance.

In the end, RNG and CLG stepped up to the plate. RNG managed to execute a lane swap against the best lane swap team in North America. CLG held their own in team fights with the best team fighters in China.

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It’s also worth noting that both Huhi and Trevor “Stixxay” Hayes -- two rookies who many pointed out as the weak links in CLG’s armor -- had incredible performances. Huhi on the aforementioned Star Dragon and Stixxay on Caitlyn with two Quadrakills. Not to mention his impressive 3 vs. 1 clean-up battle that ended in a duel with a homeguard-buffed Looper.

As things moved into “these death timers are too damn long” territory, the tension in the Shanghai Oriental Sports Arena was palpable. CLG had momentum, but even the slightest mistake could spell the downfall for either side. And in the end, the slight mistake was an out of position engage from Darshan and some disgusting damage from wuxx on Lucian and xiaohu on Azir that clinched it for RNG.

"We thought RNG were going to be pretty strong, but we kind of underestimated them until we actually played versus them," admits Huhi. "Then we realized that Mata is still a god," he laughs.

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"We learned how they play. For example, RNG have their specific flanks. They flank with their support and we never played against that. So it was pretty new, and it was really powerful as well, because Stixxay and I, we were scared of Mata all the time because he made crazy plays."

After a final grueling team fight, RNG broke through to CLG's Nexus and won the first victory of MSI 2016.

CLG were left to lick their wounds. Though, it wouldn’t be the end of their Day 1 story. With a match against the LMS' Flash Wolves later in the day, they still had a chance for redemption.

After falling behind early and weathering a Baron-empowered push from Flash Wolves, CLG showed the mental fortitude to come back and snowball their Dragon control (with a clutch Xmithie steal) into a come-from-behind victory.

Such is the beauty of a tournament like MSI. Each team is guaranteed to play ten matches at the very least and storylines can change in the blink of an eye. CLG have already done their best to turn their narrative on its head, but it’s a long tournament -- and at this point it’s anyone’s guess who will own the Rift and come away with a top four seed for Worlds 2016

"We're looking forward to playing SKT, the best team in the world," says Huhi of his future opponents. "We were pretty excited to scrim them and we got confidence by playing them. We thought we aren't that far behind. And especially in a Best of 5 series we're a strong team because we adapt well. I'm looking forward to playing SKT -- but in a Best of 5 series!"

See which teams will make their way towards the next stage of MSI when the tournament continues tomorrow, right here on Lolesports.

Check out the full schedule and share your favorite MSI moments from day one below or hit us up on Twitter @Lolesports with #MSI2016 and show us your regional pride!

10 Comments

IWillDeliverMay 4, 20162 votes

Like I said How can people keep putting G2 over CLG. but that's okay keep doubting NA and CLG we'll just prove you all wrong. CLG will learn from their mistakes.

ShadowFiend812May 4, 20161 votes

Lets wait for tomorrow's match then we can say something. I'll root for clg just to get a top seed at worlds

woodvsmurphMay 4, 20162 votes

As Shadowfiend812 says, wait until they play each other; then talk. G2 has been talked up over CLG because: EU has outperformed NA in basically every tournament since TSM and C9 made quarter finals at worlds and lost to the 2 Samsung teams -- more than a season ago, G2 has had a more consistent season despite being a ROOKIE team (not just having "rookie" players, until very recently CLG has shown a seeming dependence on Darshan winning the split-push (something he has failed to do at international tournaments previous to MSI). Perhaps G2 is overhyped, or maybe not. Time will tell. As long as CLG doesn't get stuck playing 1 style all tournament -- like they did at worlds last season -- they stand a good chance of making it to the top 4 or beyond for MSI. As CLG themselves admitted in one of their videos leading up to MSI, they have played without respecting other teams enough or with respecting other teams too much. It might not be as big a deal in solo queue, but in pro play it can mean an extra buff and tower for a team. Because of their coordination, that is snowballed from a small lead into something much bigger. This has held NA back vs some other teams in recent international events -- especially against Korean teams. It also means that if CLG can break past that mental hurdle AND make the right calls that they can make games a lot closer than history would have us expect -- that goes for every other team too. Ex: Fnatic and AHQ last season surprised everyone in early international play because they played without fear against teams that were "sure to beat them". As a result, when they made the right calls, they took games off those "better" teams. But like CLG said too, you don't want to disrespect them by overreaching either. Learning the right balance is what separates the great from the best.

qwertyuiop123456May 4, 20162 votes

Does no one remember that TSM won the IEM world championship last season.

QQshaMay 5, 20162 votes

Yeah, everyone forgot TSM won IEM when they shat the bed right after and got humiliated at MSI.

woodvsmurphMay 9, 20162 votes

I remember -- i remember them beating the "weaker" teams on the way to winning the tournament. I remember that they beat the 8th best team in China (or something close to that at the time) to win the tournament while they never beat the "best team in the world" at that time (Koo tigers) to win the tourney -- it was team WE that did that. When you lose to the higher ranked teams in groups, make playoffs, survive the statistically "weaker" side of the bracket for playoffs, and win the finals because of a "fluke" (playing vs WE instead of Koo) it hardly counts for much. If they'd done well at MSI which was not that long afterwards, I'd say it meant something. But when you literally win a tournament without taking games off the top 2 or 3 ranked teams at the tourney it isn't saying much -- as MSI that year proved. TSM was highly flawed and MSI and worlds showed it. I've said it 1000 times, TSM was too 1 dimensional last year and it severely cost them -- including (I believe) convincing Dyrus to retire. I fully believe that if TSM had a decent jungler who supported him properly the way other top teams from all regions did, he would have done 100 times better and maybe even considered playing another season -- certainly the team would have done better overall and moral would have been higher. I'm not suggesting the jungler was their only problem, but team strategy as well. Ex: they support top this season enough to not let enemy camp Hauntzer into irrelevance and they are rewarded with a solid, consistent top laner. Teams that are entirely 1 dimensional can have great success regionally and some international success. But in the end, they will meet teams with greater flexibility who will punish them on the international stage. We saw it with TSM last year at worlds, and we saw it with CLG too. CLG won NA summer playoffs because they had good teamwork, but also because they could play around multiple lanes being able to carry. They abandoned this and focused only bot lane at worlds -- which saw them punished severly in week 2 at worlds. So I would argue still that NA's strongest showing internationally -- barring the current tournament -- was when we took a game apiece off the samsung organizations when they won worlds. We'd proved in group stages that year that we were about equal with 2nd place Chinese team --- going 1 and 1 with them in groups. We proved more adaptable or tenacious than them when we were able to play better than they did vs the samsung teams -- we took more games off samsung white and blue than the Chinese teams did even though NA was knocked out a round sooner than them. Had the 2 NA teams and the 2 Chinese teams in the quarter finals been swapped that season, it would have been samsung white vs either C9 or TSM in the finals that year. We've not achieved anything to that level since then -- barring the outcome of MSI this season.

MorrogondorMay 4, 20162 votes

It feels like KR is far ahead of all other regions this time(yeah Korean were far ahead, this time it feels like even farther). Wildcard is still the worst, the rest regions are pretty equal.

SteefnessMay 5, 20161 votes

CLG lost to Supermassive, they aren't as good as everyone thinks they are. Its a lot easier to win your region if you actually don't have to play the best team in the region.

EleshakaiMay 6, 20162 votes

They beat SKT, FW, and G2... they're better than I thought they were, at least.

SteefnessMay 25, 20161 votes

Given the performance overall, yeah they're probably better than I give them credit for, I just don't like Darshan, bleeds out into the rest of the team.