DAMWON Gaming has advanced to the Worlds 2019 main event after beating Lowkey Esports.
DAMWON, which is the tournament favourite downed Lowkey Esports in the first play-in knockout series at Worlds 2019, played on Monday.
DAMWON only lost a game in the Play-In Knockouts against their opponents after going undefeated in the Best of 1’s.
It could be recalled that DAMWON came into Worlds as the LCK’s third seed. They were expected to dominate the competition throughout the play-in stage.
They expectedly went through the play-in group stage undefeated and met Lowkey in the knockout stage.
There was, however, a little doubt that DAMWON would continue their hundred percent record as Lowkey was up for the challenge.
DAMWON’s biggest weakness, which was their lackluster early game, was exploited by Lowkey in game one. This made Lowkey start with a top and bot lane swap, and they were able to funnel kills and gold onto Nguyễn Phước “Celebrity” Long Hiệp’s Tristana.
DAMWON equipped with favorable team fights, but Celebrity, with the protection of his teammates, was able to shred through the entire team continuously. After winning the last team fight, Lowkey ran through the top lane to destroy DAMWON’s Nexus and hand the LCK team their first loss at Worlds.
This produced surprise reactions for the spectators of the game, but that ends there as it was the only surprise of the series.
During the second game, DAMWON secured an early lead by making an early aggressive dive onto Lowkey’s bot lane and immediately snowballed their lead.
The early aggression from DAMWON continued through games three and four to end the series 3-1.
Reacting to the victory of his team, young midlaner: Heo “ShowMaker” Su in an interview with InvenGlobal at the LEC studio in Berlin, noted that the first game was really important in a best of five.
He added that when DAMWON lost the first game, the team thought it got pretty dangerous, and they felt like we might actually lose the series.
They got focused, got their stuff together, and grind out the needed result.
Lowkey will still be savouring the moment despite ultimately losing to DAMWON because no Vietnamese team has ever won a game against a Korean squad.
Which group will be DAMWON’s in the main event? They are not expected to be in the same pool with another Korean team. They are expected to be placed in either Group B or D.
Written by: Oladipupo Mojeed
