First-place CLG keep red-hot start rolling, deal reigning champs EG first loss of LCS 2022 Summer

Counter Logic Gaming struck a heavy blow to Evil Geniuses earlier today, striking down the reigning LCS champions in a 42-minute marathon, and handing EG their first League of Legends loss of the summer in the process. 

The two teams combined for 37 kills across the 42-minute game, making for one of the longest and bloodiest contests of the Summer Split thus far. 

CLG rallied to victory through their jungler, Contractz, who participated in 15 of CLG’s 21 kills on the day, finishing with a scoreline of 7/4/8. Across the game, he helped CLG secure five of the six total dragons, including an Elder Dragon at the back-end of the game to ultimately secure the win for CLG. During the final push of the game, Contractz successfully won a one-vs-two skirmish against EG’s topside duo of Impact and Inspired as the rest of his team celebrated their impending victory.   

EG are no strangers to time-consuming games this summer, as the team came into the day leading the league in average game time with a mark of over 38 minutes—three minutes longer than any other team in the league, according to League stats site Oracle’s Elixir. They opened up the split with a 45-minute game against Cloud9 last week, a lengthy game that’s yet to be outdone by others so far through Summer.

Following today’s game, EG and CLG now stand tied for first place in the LCS with identical records of 4-1. While each team still has 13 games left on their Summer Split schedules, they each sit halfway through the first round robin of the split and only have one blemish apiece on their resumes.

Evil Geniuses will look to bounce back next Saturday, July 2, against TSM, while CLG will take on a recently turned-around Cloud9 squad in their next LCS bout.