Vietnam’s Saigon Buffalo have defeated Japan’s DetonatioN FocusMe during the second day of the 2022 Midseason Invitational.

With just six group stage games, with two of those against the undefeated T1, today’s game between Saigon Buffalo and DFM was one that held a lot of importance in regards to the overall standings. With only the top two teams from each group advancing to the rumble stage, today’s match was essentially a battle to gain leverage in the battle for second place.

For Saigon Buffalo, they entered today’s match after getting dismantled by T1 on opening day and looked to bolster their scoreline to 1-1. For DFM, they came off of a win against Team Aze on the first day and looked to further distance themselves from Saigon Buffaloes. At first, it seemed like the narrative was going to be set around DFM to dominate in today’s matchup. 

DFM began the game with a strong early game, where it appeared that they had a stronger sense of team and map play throughout the first 10 minutes of the game. 

Saigon Buffalo, however, began to slowly accumulate gold through a strong performance from AD carry Shogun when they killed members of DFM in the mid lane to get their first two kills of the game around the 11-minute mark.

Saigon Buffalo then began to snowball leads from strong team fights from Shogun’s Lucian as they grabbed multiple dragons and Baron to take more DFM towers.

While DFM was able to temporarily stave off the Saigon Buffalo from closing out the game earlier, even winning some fights themselves, the Lucian power spike was too strong for them to overcome as the Vietnamese team ultimately closed the game out with a Volibear backdoor.

With this win, Saigon Buffalo has improved to 1-1 and tied with DFM in Group A. They will look to further improve their record to 2-1 when they take on Team Aze, who is currently last in Group A, with an 0-2 record.

As for DFM, they will have the unenviable task of trying to pull off an upset against tournament favorites T1 to round out their first-round robin in Group A.

After the third day, the Group A teams will return on May 15, where the final day of the group stages will be dedicated solely to Group A.

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