eSports Weekly 05/16/16

Mid-Season Invitational

With the group stage finished the playoffs started off with SKT vs RNG. In this highly anticipated match the first seed RNG took the first game off of SKT by a dominating Nidalee performance from Mlxg. However, SKT did not falter as they took the second, third, and fourth game in a progressively more convincing manner. In fact, SKT won with a perfect game (no deaths, no lost objectives/turrets) in their final game. Taking them to the finals, Faker truly put on a carry performance redeeming himself from last year's lost against China at MSI.

The other semi-final match was between CLG and Flash Wolves. With the hopes of the West behind them, CLG won 3-1 over the Flash Wolves with a devastating display of team coordination and map play. CLG demonstrated again what a resilient team they were as they made many comebacks despite early deficits.

In the grand finals CLG faced SKT in a best of five that would be the first time a North American team has ever reached a Riot tournament finals. In game one, CLG suffered a tragic blunder in the first five minutes that put them behind. In true CLG fashion they made some brilliant plays to bring the game to even. However, SKT quickly adapted and was able to defuse CLG's teamfighting to take the first win. In the second game, both teams notably decided to do the exact same pick and bans. CLG was confident that with a better early game they could win while SKT was equally confident of the opposite. CLG did take an early lead but was not able to snowball it to victory with Bang's great performance on Ezreal. In the third game, CLG changed up their pick and bans but were still unable to get a win making SKTelecom T1 the 2016 Mid-Season Invitational Champions. With this win, SKT has won every tournament for the pass year—an unprecedented degree of domination. Despite losing the tournament CLG has won the respect of every team and analyst in the world and proved that the often ridiculed NA region is a world contender.

While significant in it's own right, MSI also serves as a midpoint learning experience for all the teams and regions involved. Without a doubt, all of the regions will come back during Worlds eager for the chance to finally dethrone the king and win international glory.

Luminosity win the ESL Pro League Season 3 Finals

The ESL ESEA Pro League Season 3 Finals took place in the United Kingdom for a share of a $512,000 prize pool. The participating teams were:

• Ninjas in Pyjamas (EU #1)
• Astralis (EU #2)
• Fnatic (EU #3)
• G2 Esports (EU #4)
• Luminosity Gaming (NA #1)
• Cloud9 (NA #2)
• OpTic Gaming (NA #3)
• Team Liquid (NA #4)

The Group Stage ended with G2 Esports and Luminosity coming out of Group A while Ninjas in Pyjamas and Fnatic made it out of Group B. In the playoffs, G2 Esports was able to beat Fnatic 2-1 by taking Cache and Train despite losing on Inferno. Luminosity also had a close 2-1 win by taking Overpass and Cobblestone despite losing on Dust 2. In the grand finals, it went down the the last and final map, Inferno. In thrilling fashion the game went into overtime where LG was able to win the map 19-16 and the championship.