Following a one-sided week of games that saw Eastern dominance over Western sides, only teams from Korea’s LCK and China’s LPL now remain in the 2023 MSI upper bracket. A peculiar draw has meant that both the upper and lowers brackets feature regional matchups – the upper bracket will see the LCK’s T1 going up against GEN.G whilst the LPL’s BLG will face JDG. All matches will be played over best-of-five series, the winners progressing through the upper bracket while the losers will drop to the lower.

Scheduled matches:

• May 13th 2023: T1 vs Gen.G (14:00 CEST)
• May 14th 2023: Bilibili Gaming vs JD Gaming (14:00 CEST)

T1 vs Gen.G

Despite both sides coming in as juggernauts from the game’s historically strongest region, this result would have seemed fairly safe to predict during the Spring split. While Gen.G was fairly solid in the LCK, T1 was leading the pack, dropping only a single regular season series, and was shaping the worldwide meta through Keria’s innovative support picks.

Fast forward to the LCK Spring playoffs final, which T1 had reached by already beating Gen.G and sending them to the lower bracket, where the repeat matchup was understandably favoured in T1’s corner. It was a huge surprise then when Gen.G took the series 3-1, booking their spot at MSI as Korea’s first seed.

Facing off again now and it’s up in the air who are the favorites. Neither had to make their way through the play-in stage and so there is little in terms of recent form or momentum to go off of. That said, Gen.G’s win was such an upset that T1 should still enter this match at least as slight favourites. They were the more dominant for the entire split up until the grand final. If they can regain the form that they showed during that time, then I can see them edging this one out in a 3-2 thriller.

Prediction: T1 3-2 Gen.G

Bilibili Gaming vs JD Gaming

In another Spring finals rematch, LPL’s top two are also rematched in the MSI upper bracket. Of all games taking place this weekend, this is perhaps the most one-sided on paper.

JDG were dominant throughout their national spring split; an impressive feat in the game’s strongest league. They made light work of BLG in the grand final and will expect to do the same again at MSI. Bilibili may have momentum on their side after smashing their way through the MSI play-in stage – more or less a warm-up for them before the “real” event starts.

I’d be hard-pressed to go against JDG for this one. They appear stronger across the board with only BLG’s top laner Bin arguably better than 369, though the latter is no slouch and will do as good a job as anyone at shutting down his opponent. I’d be surprised to see BLG get much more than a single game here and I’m giving it to JDG 3-1.

Prediction: Bilibili Gaming 1-3 JD Gaming

Images courtesy: Riot via Twitter (@LoL Esports)