Ludwig x Tarik Invitational Day 1 comes to an end, The Guard bash all haters, perform way over expectations!

Greetings, readers! Today, we will be talking about the first tournament of the year for North America, hosted by Tarik in collaboration with Ludwig namely The Ludwig x Tarik Invitational. This tournament features 4 invited teams competing for a grand prizepool of 50,000$ where the winners of the tournament get 30,000$ , runners up get 15,000$ and the third place gets 5,000$. The tournament also features a showmatch between two teams named "Team Mogul Moves" and "Team Offline TV".

The tournament began yesterday, with the opening match being The Guard vs T1. This match, was something many fans were looking forward to, because the star player of T1, sayaplayer, was only recently released from The Guard, and it was sort of a revenge matchup between the two. Although this was the debut match for T1, considering the squad was most recently built, and they are Riot partners for the APAC region, they should be moving to Korea after this tournament. The match's first map, Pearl, was an absolute banger, it was a neck and neck competition between both the teams, where T1 rose as the winners beating The Guard by a 2 round deficit, 13-11. Though, the next two maps, did not go much according to there plan. The second map was Fracture, where The Guard's support player JonahP stepped up big time, helping him and his team take a comfortable win 13-7, which also happened in the final map of the game, Ascent, a 13-7 win for The Guard, sealing the series off 2-1 and sending T1 to the Lower Bracket.

The next match of the tournament, was between Sentinels and TSM, another match which many fans were looking forward to, considering the OG rivalry between these teams in 2021. This time, however, the luck was not on TSM's side. Sentinels won the first map Fracture quite comfortably, where there IGL, the Brazilian import Sacy, stepped up big time, getting 22 kills only with 15 deaths. They won it 13-8. The next map, Pearl, was another one sided affair, where TenZ, the star player for Sentinels, amassed a total of 32 kills while only dying 8 times! Sentinels also won this map 13-7 finishing off the series in a clean sweep 2-0 fashion. 

The next match, was between The Guard and Sentinels. This, was the Upper bracket finals, and to many fans disappointment with the bracket, it was a best of 1. Even so, the matchup did not disappoint anybody, as it was another neck and neck matchup between both the teams. Matching equal almost in every scenario, the support player from The Guard, trent, stepped up big time, getting 39 kills while only dying 19 times. TenZ on the other hand, had his entire team on his back once again, getting 31 kills while dying 23 times. The match ended with The Guard winning it 16-14, going triple overtime, as expected considering both these equally matched teams. Sentinels, after losing this match, were sent to the Lower Bracket finals for another shot at the Grand Finale spot. 

The final matchup of the day, was between TSM and T1, which was the lower bracket round 1, the loser of the match was to be eliminated, and so it was a do or die situation for both the teams. TSM this time, did not disappoint there fans, taking a comfortable 2-0 series win over T1, winning the first map Fracture 13-8 and Ascent 13-7. This, eliminated T1 from the tournament, and pushed TSM to the Lower Bracket finals against Sentinels, which will be played out today. 

Although T1 seemed to underperform a little, being the first team to be eliminated from the tournament, we should not forget that it was there debut tournament, and that they have not been together for a long period of time. We wish them a best of luck for all there future tournaments, hoping to see them pop off in Brazil!

The next match, will be Sentinels vs TSM, once again, battling it out for the last Grand Finale spot in a best of 3 matchup. Although most fans are expecting Sentinels to win it again, TSM have no intentions on being easy on them, and this ladies and gentlemen, will be another banger!