The first day of the long-awaited 2020 Mid-Season Cup has concluded, and it was one of the tightest competitions in the global scene so far. There was not a single 3-0 score, and every team in Group A really put on a spectacle for fans. This makes us really excited to see what action happens tomorrow when Group B starts out.

Read on for the results and our analysis on the winning and losing teams.

4^th Place: T1

Unfortunately for T1, they had an excellent start against FunPlus Phoenix but were humbled by DAMWON Gaming and Top Esports.

Initially, T1 wanted to beat the LPL teams by giving them their own taste of aggressive gameplay. It worked with FPX not having a sizeable lead during the first game, but they were thrown off by their own overconfidence in later games.

During Game 3 against DWG, LPL casters Valdes and LS jokingly commented on the apparent throw done by T1, even saying that “The ‘T’ in ‘T1’ stands for Throw.” They were right, as T1’s Faker forcing desperate miracle plays as Twisted Fate allowed even the LCK underdog to take a chance at winning that game.

The same thing happened against Top Esports, where they were confident enough to allow TES to take the early Drakes. The blunder happened when only three players in T1 started the Baron in the lategame, allowing TES to shove T1 aside and finish the Baron themselves.

Although Canna and Teddy had their mishaps in their second and third series, Faker was the obvious target for negating T1’s win conditions. TES Knight understood this well in their final match, and played his best champion Ekko to seal T1’s fate with a versatile assassin to match Faker’s Azir.

Sadly, T1 dropped from this Cup in the group stage. You can expect some adaptations in the LCK Summer Split.

3^rd Place: DAMWON Gaming

DAMWON Gaming was indeed the LCK underdog, sitting as the Spring Split 4^th placer. When it was time for the Mid-Season Cup, things happened as expected.

If one were to summarize DWG in one word, it’s inconsistency.

DWG Nuguri and ShowMaker, the top and mid laner of the team, are basically the highlights in these games that signify this inconsistency. They play with equal risk and equal reward, and in most cases, they played very risky in exchange for great rewards.

In the tournament setting, no single team would ever want to live and die by their own suboptimal decisions.

Their unfathomable risk-reward gameplan paid off only (and ironically) against T1, who threw their lead out of the window in Game 3. This was completely unexpected of DWG to pull off, but this was mainly attributed to T1’s mess rather than DWG’s proactive play.

Their biggest blunder was against FPX, all because of a lack of fundamentals. ShowMaker’s Syndra roamed in the early game, supposedly oblivious of the fact that he was about to give away about four waves worth of experience and gold to the void.

This situation is textbook wave manipulation, especially against Doinb’s Galio who does not actually require too much gold to become fully online. Some players and even LCK caster LS says that this was what threw the game for DWG.

2^nd Place: Top Esports

One of the teams that moved to the Knockout Stage, Top Esports has been making a name for themselves after their constant surge in the LPL Spring Split. They lost only to their neighbor FunPlus Phoenix, but won against the LCK teams with poise and confidence.

If DWG is the inconsistent team, consider TES as the consistent team, especially after the fact that they were praised by the LPL casters for that exact trait.

TES plays either the “Protect the JackeyLove” game, or the “Let Knight carry” game. If it’s JackeyLove’s time to shine, expect his entire team to protect and secure the victory together. If Knight gets the lead, watch the team play around like a theatrical production.

Nothing fazes those two powerhouse players, even against T1 in the last game of Day 1. Knight pulled up his main champion Ekko against Faker’s Azir. This matchup skewed over to Ekko over time because of how versatile he is, while Faker needed to be safe from any approaching threat—including Ekko.

There’s nothing different from TES compared to their appearance in the LPL, but due to their commendable performance, the world’s starting to notice this developing star of a team.

1^st place: FunPlus Phoenix

Despite having low expectations due to their lackluster Spring Split performance, FPX showed why their team won the World Championship last November. They only lost to T1 in the first game, but flexed on T1 and DWG.

They say that the best solution is usually the easiest one. And for FPX, that was their key to winning the Group Stage. They returned to their unorthodox gameplay that included the dark technology they brought to Worlds 2019, coupled with their reserved and cautious playstyle.

More specifically, in the match against TES and DWG, Lwx brought back the “Fasting Senna” strategy that involves playing Senna as a support, paired with a champion that does not require large amounts of gold to come online. Crisp brought Sett and Maokai along with this strategy, and it paid off so well when taking a look at FPX’s overall draft in these games.

Although they won 1^st in Group A due to this adaptation, this further reinforces the fact that if FPX cannot get a sizeable lead in the early game, without a hard scaling draft, expect them to fall short in their future matches.

Concluding Thoughts

Group A was a blast to watch from start to finish. Six and a half hours of pure competition and looking at how these teams refined their playstyles against the global scene are the things that make League eSports differ from other MOBA eSports out there.

If this was what Group A has offered, what could Group B offer with teams like LCK’s Gen.G and DragonX and LPL’s JD Gaming and Invictus Gaming?

Did your favorite team won the group stage? Were you disappointed with other teams? Let us know!

In case you’re intersted, remember to check out our preview for Group B.