Istanbul Wildcats suffered a major loss to end Day 2.

Day 2 of Worlds 2022 saw Istanbul Wildcats take on DRX, with the former coming into this match with two losses and the latter with two wins. DRX walked away with a win here to lead Group B of the Play-ins. Istanbul Wildcats on the other hand, now has three major losses to bear moving forward. 

After MAD Lions’ recent defeat at the hands of RNG, DRX had a clear path to lead Group B before this match kicked off. Istanbul Wildcats on the other hand, could only hope to climb out of the bottom standings in Group B. Both teams had something to prove here, but Wildcats had much more to lose. Istanbul Wildcats scored the game’s first kill, giving the team a good head start. 

By the nine-minute mark, we saw a fight go down that split Wildcats apart, handing DRX four kills in a row to its three. Both teams came to a clash yet again a minute later, with DRX racking up three more kills to get 3k more gold in total. This is the kind of early lead we were expecting for DRX to gain a little bit sooner in the match, had Wildcats not done a good job of holding them off for so long. The team continued to slip in the teamfights that would follow, as DRX gained 13 kills to Wildcats’ 5 not even 15 minutes into the match. 

To Wildcats’ credit, the team refused to just roll over and take the loss early. It continued to exploit DRX’s positioning and poke into objectives to varying levels of success. DRX continued to outplay the team 22 minutes in and began to push into the enemy base with more than a 10k gold lead, while Wildcats grouped up and held them off. Once both teams came to a head however, DRX steamrolled the enemy team and snagged the win. 

Wildcats’ loss might not be surprising, but it is devastating for a team that desperately needs to dig its way out of the lower standings during the Play-ins. DRX, on the other hand, has proven itself to be the strongest team of Group B… for now. Stay tuned for our coverage of Day 3 of the Play-ins!