◈ SK Telecom T1 vs G2 Esports - You've done well, PerkZ.

PerkZ managed to take the initiative from Faker from the early laning phase. It was certainly impressive to see PerkZ zoning out Faker and outfarming him. Unfortunately for PerkZ, League of Legends is a team game. Soon enough, Peanut came by to gank mid and score kills off G2 Esports.

The match was decided by 2v2 skirmishes between mid laners and junglers. Peanut was able to snowball this advantage to become a menacing Brolaf, and Faker was able to more than recover from being behind during the laning phase. Peanut was especially more exceptional because he'd been the focus of bans from G2 Esports, but still carried the game anyway with Olaf and gave a lot of headaches to teams planning the draft game against SKT.

◈ Team SoloMid vs Flash Wolves - Bjergsen's Team 'Solo Mid'

The mid laners - Bjergsen's Ahri and Maple's Syndra - had been the center of the teams in this 50-minute-long match. Not only that, a rare moment happened in this game as when Bjergsen stole the Elder Dragon from FW, Maple responded by stealing the Baron from TSM.

In the end though, the match went to TSM. During the siege against FW's inhibitor turret, Bjergsen dealt a huge amount of damage to Maple, forcing him to fall back and go out of the fight. TSM followed up with an all-out-attack and scored four kills off FW, ending the longest match so far in MSI 2017.

◈ Team WE vs Gigabyte Marines - Nice try, Marines

WE's Mystic-Ben bot lane duo is very strong in the laning phase. In most matches, they had the advantage against the enemy bot lane duo and were able to farm better. GAM must have been aware of this also, and they were prepared to do something drastic in order to avoid laning against Mystic-Ben duo: Lane swap.

GAM's lane swap worked well enough in the early game, but that was as far as it went. As GAM failed to snowball the top lane after WE's counterattack, and WE chose to follow suit with lane swap, the game started to go in WE's favor. After taking down GAM's Galio and taking advantage in the bot lane, WE was able to finalize their position in second place for the Group Stage.

◈ Team SoloMid vs G2 Esports - Zven's the man

G2 often played compositions that focused on protecting the ADC with G2's special recipe - Trick's Nunu. Trick's Nunu was basically the second support for Zven, and almost all abilities were used for Zven exclusively. Support Braum and mid Orianna further protected the ADC, and top Gragas was their wild card pick to finish the composition.

What turned the game around for G2 was their surprise Baron kill. With the gold gained from plays made with the Baron buff, Caitlyn was ready to take on the world. TSM again gave G2 a chance to come back from a certain defeat, and this time, G2 didn't waste the chance.

◈ SKT T1 vs Team WE - Xiye, the Kingslayer

Although Xiye had been ranked first in Solo Queue in China, Xiye was a rookie with a limited champion pool when he made his pro debut. On his third year, he finally got a chance to shine on the international stage - and he certainly shined bright in MSI 2017. Not only he ended the group stage on second place, but he also ended the group stage with consecutive solo kills against Faker, 'the Unkillable Demon King' with none other than mid Lucian. With those achievements, he branded his name in the mind of players and fans watching MSI 2017.

◈ Flash Wolves vs Team SoloMid - Two Teams Entered; One Team Left

The last team to make it to the semis is Flash Wolves. Flash Wolves had a rough start with losses in the bot lane. As the game went on, however, FW was victorious in skirmishes and managed to turn it into a lead that allowed FW to take the last ticket to the knockout stage.

With dust settled, TSM and GAM have been eliminated, and SKT, WE, G2 and FW advanced to the knockout stage. SKT and FW will play the first Bo5 match of the knockout stage to see whether FW can once again take down SKT even in a Bo5. As for WE vs G2, WE seems to be better positioned with their 2-0 record against G2 in the group stage; G2 will need to come up with a strategy to be the one who laughed the last.