T1 and G2 Esports played a match to remember in the first round of the MSI 2024 Main Stage, and although the European champions took a 2-1 lead, the reigning world champions were able to turn the score around and claim victory in the decisive fifth game.
Although it was expected that we would see convincing 3-0 victories by the Chinese and Korean teams in the first round, it turned out that this year the underdogs also came much more prepared. G2 gave a lot of trouble to T1, who did not play in top form, and the main differences in the games were made by the difference in the play of the mid laners of both teams. Both Faker and Caps played quite poorly at times, but in the next game they were up to the task, and it was in the fifth game that Faker surprised and in some way led his team to victory with excellent plays on Ahra.
T1 took the first lead, in a game where we saw Faker on Azir, and it was his good play that contributed to the success in the early stages of the game, although it was Caps who opened the match with a solo kill against a legendary opponent. Caps was great on Orianna in the next two games, and G2 not only tied, but took the lead against the favored opponent.
BrokenBlade, the top laner of G2 who never died playing like Zac and Yasuo, stood out in those two games. It was BrokenBlade who was G2's best individual in the fifth game as well, when he played Zac again, but even that wasn't enough for G2 to pull off a surprise.
T1 leveled the scores with a convincing 15-4 victory 26 minutes into the fourth game, while the fifth was much more uncertain, if only in the early stages of the game.
G2 took an early lead in game five, but Faker was able to find Hans Sama and neutralize the opponent's carry player, making it easy for T1 to take control. Meanwhile Zeus was getting stronger and stronger as a xanth, and as the game went on it was becoming more and more clear that G2 simply had no way of killing him, which turned out to be true.
Both BrokenBlade and the awesome support Mikyx were trying to make plays for their team, but the rest of G2 just wasn't strong enough to deal with the superior opponent.
In the 37th minute, T1 finally broke the nexus of G2 for the third time and secured passage, while G2 will have to fight for survival in the losers barrage.
