Royal Never Give Up vs Evil Geniuses

On the one hand, this first Best of 5 seems quite uneventful. It is a tremendous mismatch, one that is comprised of a world-class contender (a giant, if you will) and a feisty but still totally flawed line-up that hails from a region best known for its fiestas and drama. And so, with that in mind, it seems that there's but a single way for this whole thing to shake out.

On the other hand, Evil Geniuses aren't nearly as weak and feeble as some folks might want you to believe. They're actually quite capable and, supposedly, have a winning record against RNG in scrims, too. That, of course, means nothing in the grand scheme of things, but they *are* capable, and they *do* warrant our praise and respect. They're actually not half bad, this Evil Geniuses line-up, although that certainly isn't the most prevalent narrative.

The biggest issue, naturally, is that they're going up against one of the very best teams in existence. Royal Never Give Up are about as good as it gets, and while they, too, are prone to making egregious (at times perhaps even inexcusable) mistakes, they're still head and shoulders better than Evil Geniuses. The odds of EG pulling off an upset here are so slim we might as well label them as "non-existent". They could, in theory, take a game off of RNG which, in itself, would already be a praiseworthy triumph. Anything more than that, however, feels exceedingly remote. EG had a few days to figure out a solid plan of attack, but so did RNG and, well, we're pretty darn sure that the LPL champions made better use of the time that was given them. That's just the way things are -- they have a lot more experience and have been preparing for high octane Best of 5s for much, much longer compared to their forthcoming opponents.

Regardless, it'll be a fun little litmus test for the NA representatives. We're interested in seeing how well they'll perform against such a tremendous giant, one whose talent and ability can perhaps only be matched by T1.