The 2022 League of Legends World Championship is on the horizon, and with the groups for both the play-in and group stage drawn, the expectations are starting to rise.
Once again, the play-in stage will begin with two groups of six teams each. In Group A, two Western favorites in the form of Fnatic and Evil Geniuses have slotted themselves against Beyond Gaming, the second seed for the PCS who aren’t unknown when it comes to playing in the international scene. With their experience and individual prowess, the Taiwanese squad deserves all the respect they can get for a handful of reasons.
Who are Beyond Gaming in League?
Those who followed the action at Worlds 2021 last year surely should remember Beyond Gaming, who traveled to Iceland for the organization’s first international tournament in League. In Europe, they didn’t shake the ground as much as they probably intended. BYG placed fourth in Group B of the play-in stage, which saw them playing in the knockout stage of play-ins.
There, BYG overcame Galatasaray Esports and advanced to the final series of the play-ins, where they had to face the LCK’s fourth seed, Hanwha Life Esports. High hopes were quickly met with a harsh reality and Beyond Gaming were sent home after being dominated with a 3-0 score.
Still, the team didn’t make many changes coming into the 2022 season. They bid farewell to PK and Doggo, who were their starting mid laner and AD carry at the most recent World Championship, respectively. Besides that, however, BYG’s core of Liang, HuSha, and Kino is still competing on the main roster and they were crucial in the team’s qualification for Worlds 2022.
Beyond Gaming didn’t have the fiercest of regular seasons this year but still came up clutch during the 2022 PCS Summer Split playoffs, where they defeated squads like J Team or PSG Talon, who for a long time were the region’s regular representatives at international tournaments.
What are Beyond Gaming’s chances at Worlds 2022?
This year, BYG will meet some serious competition at Worlds 2022 in the form of Fnatic, Evil Geniuses, and DetonatioN FocusMe, to name a few. With the PCS side’s core being strengthened for the last year, they shouldn’t be underestimated by the Western representatives, especially since the format of the play-ins will see teams compete in single round-robin best-of-one games.
While on paper, Fnatic and EG have much better rosters and are the favorites to advance to the group stage, every League fan knows how stunning best-of-ones can be, especially if one team is unprepared or disrespectful of the enemy. Looking at the other competition in Group A of the play-ins, Beyond Gaming should be the favorites to lock in a spot in the top four, which will see them proceed to the knockout stage of the play-ins.
That’s where the real challenge lies. While BYG shouldn’t have many issues handling other wild card regions’ representatives in a best-of-five, as they did with Galatasaray Esports last year, they will surely have a huge mountain to climb once they face a rival from Group B in a qualification match. In that series, they could meet DRX, Royal Never Give Up, or MAD Lions. And if their potential opponents don’t make any enormous mistakes, it will take a lot of work and effort to defeat them.
