After many days of waiting, the VCS audience finally witnessed GAM Esports competing in the MSI 2024 arena. This is an extremely challenging season for GAM in particular and VCS in general, as the tournament is overshadowed by negative “ghosts”. However, once the representative of VCS participates in Riot’s international tournament, the audience will still fully support the yellow-black jersey players. However, GAM’s opening day at the tournament held in Chengdu did not go as hoped.
In both games, it can be said that they almost shared a common script: FNC gained advantages right from the laning phase, then controlled buffs, won team fights, and snowballed so that GAM had no way to resist. However, in both games, FNC used two different team compositions: one aggressive and one defensive. In either formation, FNC played extremely well, leaving GAM completely stuck. However, while praising FNC for being too strong, we must also mention that the GAM players had a rather disappointing performance. Especially, the player EasyLove had one of the most forgettable games of his career.
In both games, the champion Zeri in the hands of GAM’s ADC left the team almost 4v5 for most of the time. However, the most blameworthy were the “blind” plays of this player, especially in Game 1. Just from the beginning to the middle of Game 1, EasyLove had 3 perplexing situations and in all 3 instances, he was taken down.
First, there was a situation where he saw the enemy passing through vision, but instead of running back, EasyLove chose to stay and shoot with Elio. Next, there was a situation where the enemy had Razork and Jun with 2 diving champions, but EasyLove was too confident with Cleanse – Ghost and was taken down while crossing over half of the river. Finally, there was a flash that hit the wall.
While Emo still had the ability to push towers with Tristana and contributed quite a significant amount of damage, EasyLove was nearly completely harmless. The most notable moment for EasyLove in Game 1 might have been the first blood trade. Aside from that, he was completely overshadowed. Although Zeri is not EasyLove’s comfort champion and it was his first time playing in MSI, clearly playing like EasyLove is not beneficial for GAM at all.
GAM is not yet out of hope at MSI 2024. But with EasyLove performing poorly, especially in the ADC position where he might soon face an even stronger opponent in JackeyLove, no one can be sure that EasyLove won’t make mistakes causing GAM to “suffer” again.