Representing Latin America North in the 2018 Mid-Season Invitational is Rainbow7, a brand new organization that has risen from the ashes of perennial Wild Card contenders, Lyon Gaming.

Although Lyon came one game away from Worlds in 2016, the team reached the Wild Card qualifier the year later, where they fell to Cloud9 in a clean sweep. However, after Lyon Gaming rebranded to Rainbow7, the team that reached the World Championship last season tore through the LLN en route to a berth at MSI, posting a record of 16-3 this Spring, while going on a 5 game winning streak to cap off the regular season.

While all the players from Lyon’s 2017 Worlds run made the transfer over to the new organization, famed Argentinian AD Carry Matías “WhiteLotus” Musso served as the exception.

WhiteLotus was suspended for the first four months of the season due to toxic behavior on the Solo Queue ladder. However, his suspension will conclude on May 1, making him eligible for international play when MSI begins on May 3.

In place of WhiteLotus during the regular season, Manuel “Manu” Villa and mid-split acquisition Juan “Zeicro” Fierro shared the ADC duties for R7, with Manu seeing a majority of the playing time early in the Split, while Zeicro saw more of the stage in the later weeks, including 3 of the 4 games in the LLN Finals.

However, Rainbow7 has announced that WhiteLotus will serve as the team’s starting AD Carry for the Play-in Stage, making the team an even more formidable threat than previously thought. WhiteLotus’ raw talent and international experience will serve as key factors that could push R7 over the edge and into the MSI main event.

It’s always difficult to predict how Wild Card teams will perform at international events, simply due to the fact that the regions they play in are so disconnected from the rest of the League of Legends scene. However, if there’s any Wild Card team that’s destined for success at the 2018 Mid-Season Invitational, it’s Rainbow7. Although the Mexican organization is attending its first international event under its new brand, the team’s players are no strangers to international play, as talent lines the roster from top to bottom, especially now that the organization has decided to roll the dice on WhiteLotus and bring the band back together for one more ride.

Photo Credit: Riot LAN, Lolesports