Despite nearly two hours of delays on the opening day of Worlds 2022, DRX and Royal Never Give Up made it all worth it and delivered the best game of the night—and an early contender for best game of the Play-Ins.
On pure entertainment value, DRX’s win over RNG was everything a League of Legends fan could have wanted. Over 40 minutes, seven Elemental Drakes, three champion tournament debuts, and a statement win for Korea’s fourth seed.
The draft looked almost completely foreign to any of the games played earlier in the day. Five AD carries were banned before DRX and RNG settled on Tristana and Nilah, respectively, the latter of the two making her tournament debut. DRX also re-introduced the fans to Akali, jungle Maokai (Pyosik is ever the trailblazer), and Rell for the first time. After seven games’ worth of metadata was collected, the two best teams in Play-Ins doubled the lexicon in the eighth.
Below the top two of Gen.G and T1 in the LCK, DWG KIA stood alone in third on raw talent alone, then probably Liiv SANDBOX and KT Rolster. DRX were on exactly zero people’s four-team lists to represent Korea at Worlds this year. But they certainly looked the part in a game that many counted them out in.
RNG looked like they were cruising towards the expected outcome as they took an early four-kill lead with ease. But all four of those kills came onto top laner Kingen’s Aatrox. Everyone else, meanwhile, quietly shoveled gold into their inventories before 5-1 acing RNG around the dragon to wake everyone back up.
The fight was a harbinger of things to come in the midgame for DRX: Pyosik’s Maokai and BeryL’s Rell locked ’em up, and Deft’s Tristana and Zeka’s Akali knocked ’em down. DRX’s two solo laners showcased their high ceilings in flashes all year, despite the team’s inconsistencies. And against the best team in Mexico City, they played up to their best.
All through the game, the CS numbers were also criminally higher than what had been seen in other games up to that point, further underscoring the baseline higher level of the Korean and Chinese Play-Ins representatives. They are far from indomitable, but in a one-game sample size against the best other competition in this phase of the tournament, it’s evident they’re playing on a different level right now. Any given teamfight was enough to give fans a taste of the individual skill that players like Deft, Zeka, and Xiaohu bring to the table—which is extremely exciting going forward.
RNG face their second test of the tournament against MAD Lions on Friday at 9pm CT, while DRX have a date with Saigon Buffalo at 8pm, and one with İstanbul Wildcats at 10pm.
