Two round-two matchups closed out day 3 in Daejeon. In the lower bracket, Top Esports faced elimination against Team Secret Whale. Up top, G2 ran into one of the tournament favourites in Hanwha Life — the first strong test of their MSI.

Team Secret Whale send Top Esports home

TES are out, beaten 3-1 by Team Secret Whale — an upset on paper, and one that fed straight back into their reputation for folding on the international stage. The reverse sweep G2 handed them looked to have broken something: this is a side carrying two rookies in the top and support seats, and the confidence never returned. ZUIAN had a series to forget, solo killed twice by his opposite number and finishing the set on -476 Gold Diff and -434 XP Diff at 15, a 3/16/13 line across four games.

TSW, for their part, showed the full range of what they can do — winning the skirmishes, winning the teamfights, and pulling clear at every turn. The switch was Hizto. Whether on carries like Lee Sin and Naafiri or on the more front-loaded Xin Zhao and Mundo, the young Vietnamese jungler played to the size of his ambition. He told us as much before the series:

hiztooo smile
Photo Credit: Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games
I came in with the mindset that I'm not afraid of anybody

Against Tian — a worlds champion and one of the most experienced junglers in the game — he backed the words with actions, closing the series 20/4/27. TES leave MSI without a single series win, an early and heavy disappointment for a team many had tipped to trouble the very best.

HLE too fast for G2

The reverse sweep of TES set the bar high. This was G2's first real test of the tournament — one of the favourites in front of them, and a year debut at their backs against the LCK, 6-0 with two 3-0s over FEARX and Gen.G. HLE arrived off a stomp of TSW, exactly the level their billing promised. The meeting settled it fast: 3-0 to Hanwha Life.

Game one was the closest of the three. BrokenBlade found early skirmishes on Warwick alongside SkewMond and even took kills off his lane — but the man across from him was Zeus, the top laner in the best form in the world right now, and his Ambessa held the lead regardless: +455 Gold Diff and +1711 XP Diff at 15 despite the deaths. His teamfight impact was just as heavy, and Kanavi had SkewMond thoroughly under control alongside him.

skewkanavi
Photo Credit: Liu Yicun/Riot Games

From there it fell apart in the bot lane. HLE dismantled G2's bottom side across the last two games — in game two the HLE duo finished on two perfect 100 RFT scores, helped along by Zeka roaming beautifully out of a near-flawless Sylas game. Game three was no kinder to Hans Sama, underwater throughout; G2 lost a crucial 3v3 bot, and that was all HLE needed to snowball the game inside 25 minutes. The last two games lasted 24:24 and 25:03. G2 aren't at the level of the very best yet — but they live to fight on in the lower bracket, and repeating the First Stand miracle will take more than this. Speaking to RFT.GG, SkewMond put a name to what beat them:

Mostly, I think they have a very, very fast, very aggressive playstyle, and as a team that's not really the style we manage to play well against.

G2 drop down after the loss and now face a decider against elimination — their opponent comes out of tomorrow's T1 against FURIA, and whoever it is, G2's MSI ends if they lose again. After the reverse sweep of TES and a competitive game one against HLE, there's enough in this side to fear on their day. But the bot lane will need to hold up far better than it did here — and should T1 come through, that means running into Peyz and Keria, the best bot lane of the tournament so far.

Peyz Keria
Photo Credit: Christina Oh/Riot Games

HLE, meanwhile, move on in the upper bracket with a place deeper in the tournament secured. They await the winner of tomorrow's BLG against LYON — most likely BLG, the tournament's other big favourite, which would set up one of the few matchups capable of testing Hanwha at this level.