As we know, yesterday – May 29, the MSI 2022 title officially belonged to Royal Never Give Up after they defeated T1 in the Finals with a score of 3-2. This victory allowed RNG to successfully defend their MSI championship and maintain the “curse” of host teams not being able to win the MSI or World Championship titles since 2015.
Of course, to defeat a top-tier team like T1, RNG had to possess formidable strength. In a post-match interview, RNG’s coach KenZhu revealed that to prepare for the entire playoffs stage, they had scrimmaged with the reigning world champions – EDward Gaming. They even took extra precautions by having EDG’s Flandre practice specifically with Bin on the matchups of Gangplank and Gwen.
RNG’s coach – KenZhu: “I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to the EDG players for training with us extensively over the past days. Especially to Flandre for practicing specifically with Bin on difficult matchups in the Top Lane. Our victory is significantly contributed by the EDG players, thank you very much.”
If you remember, Coach KenZhu was responsible for drafting the lineup at the 2021 World Championship for EDward Gaming. For this reason, even after moving to coach RNG, KenZhu maintained a good relationship and was able to have EDG practice with him. Clearly, training with a top-tier opponent like EDG significantly strengthened RNG.
Not stopping there, in a stream a few days ago, Flandre revealed that Coach KenZhu had asked him to practice 1v1 with Bin to prepare for the MSI 2022 playoffs. He stated that he had practiced the Gwen and Gangplank matchups extensively with Bin, as these are two strong champions that often face each other in the Top Lane. Flandre even joked with his teammates that RNG had to pay him 20 yuan (approximately 70,000 VND) for each 1v1 match like that.
Indeed, with such thorough preparations, RNG deserves to be the champions of MSI 2022. They demonstrated remarkable stability throughout the tournament and rarely made mistakes or had poor drafts that led to defeats. We hope RNG continues to maintain their high performance and succeeds in the upcoming Summer LPL and secures a spot at the World Championship later this year.