It was an eventful second day of the group stage of the League of Legends World Championship with former world champions showing why they have won world. SK Telecom T1 prevailed against Royal Never Give Up in the most-played matchup in international League of Legends history, the next chapter in two teams who have a deep history on the worlds stage. T1 now hold the all-time series lead 11-5. Also, Invictus Gaming avenged their Mid-Season semifinal loss to Team Liquid behind a stand-out performance from Song "rookie" Eui-jin on Orianna.
Here's a look at some notable numbers from Day 2 of the League of Legends World Championship group stage.
A storied rivalry
A 43-minute game with seven dragons and three barons finally fell the way of T1 following a backdoor Nexus take, set off by Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok. Faker, who is 6-1 on Twisted Fate in domestic play, debuted the champion on the international stage and put up a +98 CS differential on his mid lane opponent Li "Xiaohu" Yuan-hao. Jungler Kim "Clid" Tae-min also took to a brand new champion, putting up a 5/5/10 KDA line on Gragas and stealing a dragon.
It was the 16th meeting between T1 and RNG, breaking a tie with SKT and G2 Esports for the most-played international game between two teams.
Garen and the obnoxious cat
Coming into this year's tournament and despite being release before competitive League of Legends existed, Garen had only ever been used once in international competitions (2011 worlds group stage). He was also on an ominous list of champions that had yet to see a win on the international stage (Master Yi, Shaco, and Wukong). Now, thanks to the addition of Riot's newest champion Yuumi, he's already seen four picks this month with Fnatic and Martin "Rekkles" Larsson piloting the champion to their first win over Clutch Gaming.
Zdravets "Hylissang" Iliev Galabov (3/2/17 on Yuumi) and Tim "Nemesis" Lipovsek (4/0/10 on Akali) were Fnatic true carries in their win Sunday, as Fnatic improve to 19-6 against North American teams, the most individual team wins against the LCS.
The Yuumi-plus-Garen combination was also picked up by Hong Kong Attitude against Cloud9 in the final game of the day. Wong "Unified" Chun Kit and Ling "Kaiwing" Kai Wing combined for a 8/6/19 performance, posting the highest combined KDA (4.5) at worlds in a loss since Cloud9 had a 6.5 KDA in their 2018 group stage tiebreaker loss to Royal Never Give Up.
Cloud9 won Sunday's game on the back of Eric "Licorice" Ritchie, who went 6/1/3 on Renekton, marking the fifth Renekton game in worlds history with more than six kills.
Defending champions on form
Last year's world champion Invictus Gaming took the lead in Group D, and avenged a Mid-Season Invitational semifinal loss by taking down Team Liquid. Song "Rookie" Eui-jin (6/1/7) had the most kills on Orianna at worlds since opposing mid laner Nicolaj "Jensen" Jensen went 6/1/10 on the champion in the 2017 quarterfinals.
MSI Champion G2 Esports defeated Griffin in their group stage opener. G2 improved to 7-3 against LCK teams in the last two years. Prior to 2018, G2 Esports were 1-11 against LCK teams. Martin "Wunder" Nordahl Hansen (3/3/3) picked up Ornn, which was the champion's first appearance at this group stage. The champion was one of the best performers at the 2018 worlds main event going 10-2 throughout the competition.
At 27:36, DAMWON Gaming took down ahq e-Sports Club in the fastest game of this group stage thus far. Heo "ShowMaker" Su's Akali (3/1/15) got an early lead on Kim "Rainbow" Soo-gi and end the game with a +90 CS differential, doubling his best CS differential in the play-in stage (+45 vs Royal Youth's Yu "Cyeol" Chung-yeol).