It’s been a banner year for Uzi. The superstar AD Carry for Royal Never Give Up claimed his first domestic title last month, leading RNG to the LPL Spring Split championship. Now, he also has his first ever Mid-Season Invitational win after RNG defeated Kingzone DragonX 3-1 in the final.
The most impressive thing about Royal Never Give Up’s victory was that this team was certainly not at its best. While Uzi was playing at the highest level we have ever seen him at, his teammates made their fair share of mistakes. The team’s strategy became to funnel everything into Uzi, and that ended up working out splendidly. He was named the MVP of MSI for his ability to hard carry RNG no matter the circumstance.
After the first three days of MSI, it would have been hard to predict this. Royal Never Give Up started the tournament 2-3, and it looked like they would have to scratch and claw to even make the knockout stages. However, they responded by winning 11 of their next 12 games on their way to the title, with some incredible plays from Uzi making the difference. He was unstoppable on a late-game scaling champion like Kai’Sa or Kog’Maw, and it’s hard to see anyone beating RNG in a meta where AD Carries are dominant.
Although they entered the playoffs as the No. 1 seed, this counts as an upset according to the betting line. Kingzone was expected to win MSI handily, and they were a -161 favorite in this match per BetDSI in spite of their struggles. This was the second time in a row that they were heavily favored to win a major international tournament and instead came up empty.
Royal Never Give Up’s victory also means that a non-Korean team has won a major League of Legends tournament for the first time since 2015. Edward Gaming defeated SK Telecom T1 to win the first-ever MSI then, and now the world must call China the best region in the world once more.
