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BLG and G2 Esports Are the First Two Teams To Advance From the Play-In Stage of MSI 2023

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BLG and G2 Esports Are the First Two Teams To Advance From the Play-In Stage of MSI 2023

LPL and LEC second seeds are qualified for the Bracket Stage starting on May 9.

With the new MSI format, five teams (2 LCK, 1 LPL, 1 LEC and 1 LCS) teams had directly qualified for the Bracket Stage, waiting for three teams from Play-ins to join them. Two teams winning their first two series in the Play-ins would qualify for the next stage without playing in the Last Chance Qualifier. As they won their first games at MSI 2023, we got the BLG vs GG matchup in Group A and PSG vs G2 matchup in Group B.

Winners of today, BLG and G2 Esports already secured themselves a spot in the next stage. GG and PSG will have to play in their respective groups’ Losers’ Bracket for that next spot.

There were also a lot of different new picks that showed up today, with differing success levels. One of the most common first phase bans, Kennen got through a game first time this MSI, huhi continued to display how versatile he is with another pocket pick with Morgana and Yike pulled out another highly anticipated carry jungler in Kha’Zix. Kennen and Kha’Zix were a big part of G2’s success against PSG, while huhi’s Morgana didn’t look as useful in the loss against BLG.

A relatively dominant victory for BLG over Golden Guardians

The expected result for BLG coming into the Play-ins was a clean 4-0 in two series against any opposition they would face as the LPL runner-ups. While they managed to 2-0 the LLA’s Rainbow7, BLG had a much closer affair against the LCS reps.

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BLG started out strong in Game 1 by dominating the laning phase and early objectives. Golden Guardians found a couple of kills back on the back of some mistakes from Bin but they were never in a position to make a comeback. Next game looked like another complete disaster for GG in the first ten minutes with their bot lane dying seven times after a failed level one play.

But this time around they made a lot more playmaking under their belt with picks like Gragas, Yasuo and Rakan. Also, Licorice had a massive carry performance this game on his K’Sante. The Guardians looked for and killed the enemy ADC in almost every fight first, and since Elk was the only damage source for BLG, they managed to steal this game.

Fortunately for BLG, Elk seems to be on a warpath to prove himself as the best bot laner in this tournament, and the bot gap in the last game was too much to handle. GG’s surprise pick in support, Morgana, wasn’t enough to escape the early dives from Xun and despite once again putting up a valiant effort in mid game, BLG was too ahead and they closed out the series.

The 2-1 series win meant BLG advanced to the Bracket Stage to join their LPL brethren in JDG, while Golden Guardians will continue their MSI 2023 journey in the Losers’ Bracket.

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G2 Esports still unbeaten despite some close calls

The early game for G2 in Game 1 was one of the most dominant stretches in any game this tournament. Caps on Gragas was everywhere on the map, finding kills in both side lanes early on and also invading the enemy jungle with Yike to set up a massive lead for the Kha’Zix. PSG Talon’s bot lane also fell behind too much and Wako was their main carry in their previous series, so the game looked pretty lost. G2 almost managed to throw the game more than twice at different objectives after uncoordinated teamfights, but they eventually pulled it together and took a 1-0 lead.

G2 had another great strategy for Game 2 as they invaded the PSG top side jungle with Broken Blade and Yike and find two early kills. They pushed this early gold lead by diving bot lane once again. One bright side for PSG Talon was that Wako was this time on Aphelios, a champion more suited to carrying games. He even found multiple kills in these dives and isolated 2v2s, but the G2 top side was too ahead when the time came to teamfight. His team could not peel BB’s Olaf and he didn’t have a chance to fight back, which meant PSG couldn’t fight back as G2 closed out the second game in a cleaner fashion.

For more of our coverage during MSI 2023, follow us on ESTNN.