Flash Wolves squash Vega Squadron’s cheesy bot lane picks in the MSI 2019 play-in knockout stage

Even though they stumbled a bit in their first game, the LMS’ Flash Wolves found their stride and are headed to the 2019 Mid-Season Invitational main event after taking down Vega Squadron in four matches today.

It looked like it was going to be an interesting series after the first game, especially with how experimental Vega Squadron were in their draft. Throwing Vayne into the mid lane and Karthus into the bottom lane with Tahm Kench was a pretty big curveball, and it worked for the underdog LCL representatives.

Vega also showed their ability to slow down the match and force Flash Wolves to bring the game to them. With a good lead and some great late game decision making, Vega Squadron took the first game—although it took them 42 minutes, which is the longest game at MSI so far.

Unfortunately, Vega Squadron ended up getting too cute with their draft picks and Flash Wolves coincidentally picked up the pace and started to play like the LMS champions that they are in games two, three, and four.

Through some great play from jungler Lee “Bugi” Seong-yeop, top laner Su “Hanabi” Chia-Hsiang, and ADC Lu “Betty” Yu-Hung, Flash Wolves took over the rest of the series with ease. They had amazing solo performances and their macro was impressive. In fact, many analysts agreed that this 3-1 victory was much more decisive that Team Liquid’s 3-0 win over the Phong Vũ Buffalo earlier today.

It didn’t help that Vega Squadron kept throwing out unorthodox bottom lane picks, like Neeko-Zilean and Morgana-Shen. Past game one, Vega were simply outclassed. Betty went rampant, racking up 18 kills over the four games. Hanabi also played exceptionally well in game three for the Wolves, leading his team with nine kills on Ryze.

Vega Squadron now have one last chance to reach MSI’s main event, but Phong Vũ Buffalo stand in their way. The VCS champions will have the hometown crowd on their side, so Vega have a tough task ahead of them.

Flash Wolves, however, now look ahead to the main event of MSI 2019, where they’ll have to fix some of the holes in their gameplan if they want to beat Team Liquid, SK Telecom T1, and G2 Esports.