In their second game of the day, G2 Esports went up against Evil Geniuses in Group C, and gave everyone a big surprise during picks and bans.
In the highly anticipated NA versus EU matchup, mid laner Rasmus “caPs” Borregaard Winther picked Anivia to go up against Joseph Joon “jojopyun” Pyun’s Ryze in the mid lane. This came after Evil Geniuses locked in Ryze as a first pick on blue side.
The LEC representatives picked her as a counter to the Rune Mage to great effect. After getting first blood, caPs constantly pushed his opponent in to gain lane priority, which allowed him to roam and pressure the side lanes.
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G2 Esports caPs pulls out Anivia against Ryze in the mid lane matchup at MSI 2022
During the draft, G2 Esports had already planned to take a risk on Pyke support and roam the map. Following their game plan, Raphaël “Targamas” Crabbé camped at the bottom mid lane bush at the five-minute mark.
Together with Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski’s Graves who came from the top side jungle, they worked with their mid laner to sandwich jojopyun’s Ryze, who was far up the lane pushing the wave into the turret.
With jojopyun chain stunned by Phantom Undertow and Flash Frost, caPs drew first blood.
This was enough to put him in an item lead, buying an early Lost Chapter and Tear of the Goddess, constantly pushing jojopyun in.
During team fights, caPs’ use of Crystallize helped his team gain key advantages. In the mid game, even though G2 had downed the Rift Herald, Evil Geniuses had a positional advantage and successfully prevented them from collecting the eye.
Retreating, G2 made a last-second decision to turn back to the river, where caPs threw out a perfectly positioned wall that isolated jojopyun’s Ryze from the rest of his team, pinning him in a corner and guaranteeing death and the eye.
Snowballing from mid lane right from the get-go, G2 wrapped up the game at 31:32 with a 13K gold lead, where their talented mid laner finished with a perfect 4/0/7 KDA and a full item build.
Neither buffed nor nerfed since Season 11, this is the first time Anivia has been used in professional play in major leagues this year.
“Anivia is a fun one. I’ve been practicing it back and forth throughout the year,” said caPs during the post-game broadcast interview. “We’ve had pretty good success with it so we decided to pull it out in the opening games to get a strong start going into MSI.”
He also promised more “secret picks” to come in the upcoming days of the competition.
CaPs’ Anivia item build
- Everfrost
- Dark Seal
- Mercury Treads
- Archangel’s Staff
- Zhonya’s Hourglass
- Void Staff
Anivia runes
- Domination: Electrocute (keystone)
- Taste of Blood
- Zombie Ward
- Ravenous Hunter
- Inspiration: Biscuit Delivery (secondary tree)
- Time Warp Tonic
- +10% Attack Speed
- +9 Adaptive Force
- +8 Magic Resist
G2 Esports will play a rematch against Evil Geniuses tomorrow May 11 at 5 p.m. GMT+9 | 4 p.m. GMT+8 | 8 a.m. GMT | 1 a.m. PST. Watch the MSI 2022 matches live on Riot Games’ official channels on Twitch and YouTube.
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