The 2022 MSI is right around the corner and we still have a lot to talk about. We already went over the teams that might cause some upsets during the group stage, we also talked about the best matches of MSI’s opening week.
Today we’ll be talking about some of the best players in each team representing their region in this year’s MSI. You might see some familiar faces in this list, but you’ll also see newer ones. In this first part, we’ll go over the best players from North America, Korea, and China.
Evil Geniuses – Danny
A lot of people are expecting huge things from Evil Geniuses in this upcoming MSI, and I am one of those people. Evil Geniuses had a spectacular series in the grand finals where they completely dismantled 100 Thieves. They had the fastest grand finals in the LCS history, raising NA fans’ hopes coming into the MSI.
This spring split, we saw some of the LCS teams play towards lane counters and early game advantages, we also saw some of them play through their strong side lanes compositions. But if we look at the LCS champions Evil Geniuses, they won most of their games in playoffs — if not all — the same way, through controlled skirmishes and pristine teamfighting.
Danny was the key factor for this as the rest of the team funneled all the resources into him. LCS Champion, 2021 Rookie of the year, MVP in 7 regular split games, MVP of the series 3 times, and 4 pentakills in LCS, these are just some of the things he’s achieved in his short career. Evil Geniuses can fully trust the 18-year-old carry as he’s shown to be one of the best ADCs coming into this year’s MSI.
T1 – Zeus
We could easily place all of the T1 players on this list, but it would be a bit unfair for the rest of the players. Every single time T1 makes an international appearance, Faker is always the one at the top of the power rankings. But this year is different as the 18-year-old rookie top laner had the best performance amongst all top laners in the LCK by quite a lot.
Kennen, Jayce, Camille, Irelia, Gnar, you name it, Zeus can play it. It doesn’t matter in what kind of matchup he ends up in, he is always able to deliver a solid performance and act as one of T1’s main carrys. It’s safe to say that Zeus is the strongest top laner in this event by far.
I can already see the teams at this tournament blind picking Ornn and praying that Zeus doesn’t roll over their top laner. Playing against Zeus is going to be hell for teams like Team Aze and DetonatioN FocusMe because they are not used to seeing this level of top lane dominance.
Royal Never Give Up – Xiaohu
It’s concerning to see how Xiaohu goes under most people’s radar in every international tournament. Xiaohu has won MSI 2 times and LPL 5 times, and yet, it feels like he is underappreciated. He obviously doesn’t have the record of Faker, but it isn’t crazy to say that he’s been top 3 mid laners in the world for quite a while now.
Xiaohu always managed to perform exceptionally well on the international stage and this time won’t be an exception. He is probably the most versatile mid laner in the world as he knows when to function as the main carry or as an enabler. The only one that comes close to him in this regard is the best player of all time, Faker.
If Royal Never Give Up manages to win their 3rd MSI, it will be mainly because of Xiaohu’s solid performance. Don’t get me wrong, the rest of the Royal Never Give Up lineup has some of the best players in the world, but Xiaohu’s been the only constant throughout the years.
The last time we saw Faker versus Xiaohu was almost 5 years ago at the 2017 Worlds. If this year’s MSI delivers this matchup once again, it’s clearly going to be one of the best League of Legends moments of the entire year.
