This article is part of our LoL Recap series.
Day 3 of the 2017 Mid-Season Invitational in Rio de Janeiro kicked off with South Korea's Telecom T1 breaking down teams and records to stay undefeated, while the rest of the teams were still searching for consistency in the group stage. Here's how the third day of group Stage play went.
The first game of the day featured a battle of the West between North America's Team SoloMid (2-4) and Europe's G2 Esports (3-3). Calculated early aggression and deep vision on the side of TSM paid off, leading jungler Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen's Elise & Co. to get ahead early. After TSM slowly choked out G2 throughout the mid game, G2 managed to come crawling back, starting with a Baron at the 44-minute mark, which allowed it to begin its comeback. The game came down to G2 making a call to split Elder Dragon and sieging TSM's base, which left the TSM Nexus at just 80 HP and a few auto-attacks away from destruction. TSM stopped the frantic G2 push with an ace and rushed down the G2 base to take the victory.
The second game of the day featured South Korea SK Telecom T1 (6-0) facing off against Flash Wolves (2-4), an opponent that holds historic success over the world champions. The game's first 30 minutes saw SKT slowly bleeding out FW through Elemental Drake secures and tower sieges. A 2-for-0 trade around the 33-minute mark allowed SKT to crack open the FW base. Minutes later, SKT mid laner Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok's Fizz flanked a retreating FW, which led SKT to methodically break down FW's base and allowed SKT to remain undefeated through the first round-robin of the tournament. Faker and top laner Heo "Huni" Seung-hoon's Fiora dominated the low-kill game, posting 3/0/2 and 2/1/0 KDA's (kills/deaths/assists), respectively.
GIGABYTE Marines (2-4) and Team WE (3-3) faced off in the third game of the day. GAM was able to start with a lead due to punishing over-aggression by WE. GAM managed to push itself further ahead with a bot lane dive lead by jungler Đỗ "Levi" Duy Khánh's Kha'Zix. Despite some unusual macro-play, GAM broke open the WE base 26 minutes in off the back of a drawn-out teamfight. A minute later, GAM took down Baron and moved to further raze the WE base. Around the 31-minute mark, Levi put the cherry on top of his 14/1/3 KDA by picking up a quadra kill en route to destroying the WE nexus.
The fourth game of the day and beginning of the second round-robin featured G2 Esports (3-3) facing off against Flash Wolves (2-4). From the second the teams loaded onto the Rift, G2 appeared in top form. In the first 15 minutes, G2 had amassed a 9,000 gold lead, eight kills and three towers to FW's zero. G2 ruthlessly crippled FW, and after 24 minutes G2 broke into the base with its newfound Baron buff. With one more teamfight, G2 ended the game with every player making a major contribution to a nearly perfect game.
The rematch between GIGABYTE Marines (2-4) and SK Telecom T1 (6-0) started off the way GAM wanted, but SKT jungler Han "Peanut" Wang-ho's Lee Sin decided to take matters into his own hands. An unprecedented 14 kills in 15 minutes by Peanut saw him one-shotting members of GAM. Peanut slowed down over the next five minutes to give the rest of his team room to get some kills. A 21-minute Baron by SKT led to GAM's base being easily broken into. At the 27-minute mark, SKT made its last push to remain undefeated, while picking up 35 total kills with 15 by the hands of Peanut.
The final game of the day saw NA's hope in Team SoloMid (2-4) face off against the Chinese champion Team WE (3-3). An early-game lead for TSM came and went quickly as WE top laner 957 played as extremely well as Fizz. WE looked to force fights post-20 minutes, but TSM began to stall and started crawling back into the game. TSM AD carry Jason "WildTurtle" Tran's overextension with his Ashe near the Baron pit around the 25-minute mark led TSM to give up Baron to WE. TSM managed to stall the game a bit, but Team WE found picks to get another Baron and eventually take the game victory.
