Invictus Gaming mid-laner Song ‘Rookie’ Eui-jin has revealed why Invictus Gaming still need to take revenge over Team Liquid after beating them in the group stage at the League of Legends World Championship.
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Team Liquid struck a major blow to iG’s season by defeating them in the MSI playoffs, and it seems that beating the North American first seed in the group stage of Worlds isn’t enough for Rookie’s squad.
In a recent interview with Travis Gafford, the reigning World Champion explained that revenge wasn’t on his mind going into the first meeting between the two teams in Group D, which Invictus were able to win.
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“This is only group stage, it’s only a best-of-one, so I don’t believe that’s something I have to think about,” he told Travis. “For it to be considered revenge, we would have climb up a little more and it would have to be something like a best-of-five.”
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After winning the World Championship in dominant fashion in 2018, Invictus Gaming were looking to establish themselves as a dynasty to rival the likes of SK Telecom T1 in previous years. In Spring 2019, they finally picked up their first domestic win, and came into the Mid-Season Invitational as favorites.
The team’s run was cut short, however, by a stunning upset in the semi-finals, which saw Team Liquid defeat them 3-1 to progress to the final. The loss not only denied iG a trophy, but seemingly pulled the momentum from the team, who struggled in LPL Summer and only barely scraped through to this years Worlds as the third seed from China.
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Invictus and Team Liquid were forced to meet very early on in the tournament, being drawn into the same group. While it gives the squads an early opportunity to exchange blows, it does mean that Rookie’s hopes of a best-of-five victory may be difficult to realize.
In order for the two teams to meet in a full series, they will both need to escape the group stage – no simple feat with Korean third-seed DAMWON also in Group D – after which they would be placed on opposite sides of the bracket, meaning they could only meet again in the final.