League of Legends – Team DRX Dominates EDG in Worlds 2022 Semifinals

The last remaining team from the Play-Ins competed against the current world champions.

These two teams made sure they would fight to the very finish on the final day of the quarterfinals of the 2022 League of Legends World Championship.

DRX continues to surpass all expectations as they continue their run despite being underappreciated the entire year in favor of other LCK behemoths like Gen.G, T1, and DWG KIA. However, they didn’t just beat any team to achieve this; in the second-ever Worlds reverse sweep, they took the defending champions, the LPL’s EDG, to five games.

Even more impressively, DRX’s ADC, Deft, who is also celebrating his birthday today, made it to the Worlds semifinals for the first time in his almost ten-year career. Zeka, their mid laner, had a strong final game as well.

The Clash of the Former Teammates

In 2015 and 2016, Deft joined Scout and Meiko on EDG, where the ADC quickly rose to prominence for the tremendous success he brought the LPL team in just his first split.

But after just one split, Deft had relocated to the LCK, where he kept up his momentum but could only win one domestic championship in five years.

At last year’s Worlds, the three players were denied the chance to face off against one another on the Rift since Deft failed to advance past the quarterfinals, while Scout and Meiko went on to win their first Summoner’s Cup. However, tonight, over six years after these athletes were teammates, they faced off against one another at the Hulu Theater in New York City, with the chance to extend their Worlds runs.

Fighting for Survival in the Tournament

A significant portion of the series was characterized by BeryL, DRX’s support, readiness to choose champions who excel at harrying opponents from a distance, such as Heimerdinger and Ashe. Although BeryL was an easy target for free gold for EDG for the most of the series, his desire to roam over the map and interfere with other lanes allowed DRX to keep up with their rivals, which was essential to preventing EDG’s possible sweep.

The teams’ ADC carriers, Deft and Viper, needed to find opportunities to establish themselves as genuine threats who might escalate gold leads, though, given how closely each game was played.

In game two, Deft attempted to backdoor a Baron-occupied EDG in an effort to create a Worlds moment. However, EDG’s inhibitor respawned with only one basic assault remaining to destroy the opposing Nexus, abandoning Deft to a grisly death and forcing EDG to travel to match point.

Deft, however, found yet another chance to shine, this time as Draven, a champion he had only ever played twice before in his career, when the public thought his mental stability had been destroyed. The ADC guided DRX through a meticulous, slow-moving game before winning roughly 2,000 gold all at once in a teamfight late in the game that transformed him into a one-man wrecking crew.

However, League is a team game, so you can’t rely solely on one person to win this series. No part of EDG could penetrate DRX’s front line in game four thanks to Pyosik’s Sejuani, perhaps forcing the defending champions into a reverse sweep.

What’s Next?

The biggest international event will leave the Big Apple and head to the land of peaches after three weeks of nonstop action between sixteen of the greatest teams in the globe.

On October 29, in Atlanta, Georgia, the first seed of the LPL will take on the second seed of the LCK, T1, in the semifinal round.

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