In the first semifinals, we have the 1st seed RNG vs 4th seed Fnatic. Royal Never Give Up are coming in hot on a 6 game winning streak going back to Day 3. Uzi has been popping off and his team is playing really well around him to enable him to carry. Fnatic on the other hand, started off slow, but then went on a hot streak, only to cool off and be forced to play a tiebreaker against Team Liquid. Luckily, Rekkles finally showed up and played well enough to secure the win and a 4th seed. The two ADC will highlight this match up, but it is hard for me to imagine a scenario where Uzi does not dominate. I call this series a 3-1 as Rekkles and Caps should be able to take a game off of RNG, but they won't really challenge them.
In the second semifinals, we have the 2nd seed Flash Wolves vs 3rd seed KINGZONE Dragon-X. Flash Wolves started off the group stage at 6-0, so for them to finish 7-4 (including the tiebreaker game) will be pretty disappointing, especially since a 1st seed would have allowed them to avoid both the strong Chinese and Korean teams, but instead they are left to face the mighty KINGZONE Dragon-X, who were clear-cut tournament favorites coming into all of this. Surprisingly though, Flash Wolves have a 2-0 record again KINGZONE, so maybe they are happy to be playing them in the semifinals. KINGZONE Dragon-X were supposed to be the big, bad, scary opponent that no one wanted to face, but after losing to Fnatic on Day 2, they continued to rack up losses, losing to Flash Wolves on Day 3, then to Royal on Day 4, and Flash Wolves again on Day 5. It is difficult to see a situation where the Koreans bow out before the finals, so I am going to predict that they advance in a tough 5 game set, winning 3-2.
The finals will be another match-up between the top Chinese team vs the top Korean team.. In 2015, you had EDward Gaming go up against SK Telecom T1, where EDward Gaming came up victorious. In 2016, Royal Never Give Up finished 1st in the groups but had to face a SK Telecom T1 who finished 4th, and SKT got their revenge against China, by taking the MSI title. In 2017, SK Telecom T1 repeated as MSI champions, whereas the Chinese team, Team WE, lost to G2 Esports in the semifinals. Now again in 2018, it looks like China and Korea will face off again. Uzi has always played 2nd fiddle to other players, but after winning his first split, I think he will continue his strong play and beat KINGZONE to take home the MSI title.
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