Golden Guardians and Bilibili Gaming won their opening matches Wednesday in the play-in stage of the League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational at Copper Box Arena in London.
Both teams earned sweeps, with Golden Guardians defeating GAM Esports 2-0 and Bilibili Gaming taking down Rainbow7.
GG and Bililibili advanced to Round 2 of the upper bracket and will meet Thursday. GAM and Rainbow7 will square off in Round 1 of the lower bracket on Friday.
The Mid-Season Invitational features 13 teams — the winners from the nine individual Riot leagues’ spring splits and the four runners-up from LCK, LPL, LEC and LCS.
The double-elimination play-in stage runs through Sunday, with three teams advancing to join five teams who earned direct entry into the playoffs, which run from May 9-21 for the $250,000 event. All play-in matches are best-of-three, save for the lower bracket final, which is best-of-five. The playoffs are also double elimination and all matches are best-of-five.
Action continues Thursday with two matches in Round 2 of the upper bracket:
Golden Guardians vs. Bilibili Gaming
G2 Esports vs. PSG Talon
Mid-Season Invitational prize pool
1st: $50,000
2nd: $37,500
3rd: $30,000
4th: $25,000
5th-6th: $20,000
7th-8th: $15,000
9th: $12,500
10th-11th: $7,500
12th-13th: $5,000
–Field Level Media
