Groups are over and as the dust settles from single-game hot takes...
...let's get it.
**1. This format is bad until it's good until it's bad again depending on how you're feeling that particular moment.**
The first three days of MSI were spent discussing how terrible or great the format was. Most were in the terrible camp until Group A's second round robin started and Pentanet.GG suddenly had a chance to make it out. Groups B and C went as planned in terms of who made it out although the games themselves didn't always follow the plan. At the end of it all, people have somewhat come around on the idea of this format, or at least aren't calling it openly bad.
So, is the format good or bad? Honestly I'm still undecided. The absence of GAM Esports was felt heavily, especially in the first few days of the tournament where RNG's dominion over Group A was somewhat erroneously ascribed to the entirety of the Group Stages. There wasn't nearly as large of a discrepancy between the top teams in Groups B and C and the two that didn't make it out. In a world where GAM is able to compete, perception would have changed slightly from the very beginning because they would have likely put up a stronger showing against RNG.
Any single-game format is going to be remarkably volatile. Changing the MSI format from having a Play-In Stage with only minor region teams to having all regions in a Group Stage isn't going to solve that particular problem as long as single games are still a priority (and they seemingly always will be a priority) over best-of-twos or best-of-threes. Giving a team like Detonation FocusMe two games against a team like DAMWON KIA in a competitive international environment is remarkably valuable. Allowing Pentanet.GG to go up against RNG, even with how one-sided those games were, is also valuable. It favors the minor region team in terms of what can be learned or gleaned, but the nature of these early stages at both MSI and Worlds has always been more of a world showcase or roadshow over being the absolute peak of competition. The teams that were expected to get out of groups (save one, Pentanet.GG) all ended up making the rumble stage (formerly known as the MSI main stage).
**2. Are you a Morgana or a Rumble? Take this quiz to find out!**
**A:** What group were you in? (If Group A, proceed to Answer 1. If Group B, proceed to B2, If Group C, proceed to B1.)
**B1:** Do you think heat management is more of a suggestion (1) or a necessary part of playing Rumble? (2) If 1, proceed to C. If 2, proceed to Answer 2.
**B2:** Morgana is banned on red side along with two other champions but not Rumble. You are blue side. For your last ban you will ban Rumble (1) or leave it open and pick it (2). If 1 go to Answer 2. If 2, go to Answer 4.
**C:** If both Rumble and Morgana are open on your blue side you're picking… Rumble (1) Morgana (2). If 1, go to Answer 2. If 2 go to Answer 3.
**Answer 1:** Well, that was easy. You are a **RUMBLE!** You're well aware of the champion's myriad strengths as a jungler in this meta because you either had to face RNG Wei's Rumble, ban Rumble against RNG Wei, or you ARE RNG Wei, in which case, congratulations for being the best Rumble thus far at this tournament.
**Answer 2:** You are a **RUMBLE!** You're well aware of the champion’s myriad strengths as a jungler because you've watched a variety of junglers play him, including RNG Wei, DK Canyon, PSG River and others. You understand the power of the pick, but might not pick him yourself but ban him on blue side because you may not yet be at the point where you feel like your team can pilot him well and will opt for the comfort of Udyr instead.
**Answer 3:** You are a **MORGANA!** DK Canyon's strong first game on this champion really influenced your perception of jungle Morgana's strengths. You're much more comfortable both personally and with your team around the way Morgana plays as opposed to Rumble and that's okay.
**Answer 4:** You were in Group A or C weren't you? Your opponents value Morgana more highly at times but you're...a **RUMBLE**
**3. Are DAMWON KIA in serious trouble?**
No.
Oh, I suppose you want me to elaborate on this. Yeah I suppose I can do that since you insist.
The year is still 2021. The timeframe is LoL Champions Korea Spring. DK look shaky in their early games. Sometimes they play disrespectfully around vision. At other times they leave holes in their vision or movements that allows other LCK teams to capitalize on them.
Even with all of the mistakes that DK made, they took the first turret in every single one of their games, took the first three turrets 83 percent of the time, and had the second-best jungle control of any team at the tournament at 56.9 percent. When it seems like they're losing out on something, they usually ensure that their opponents aren't taking much from it, keeping themselves in the game until they can take over through teamfighting or stronger map movements. DK aren't unbeatable but they are still one of the best teams at this event and they're always going to look more volatile in single games (like any team). When they make it to the knockout stage, that's when the real test will begin because DK have been unstoppable in best-of-fives since summer 2020.
**4. MAD Lions are who we thought they were and I love that for them.**
Much like DAMWON KIA, MAD Lions are who we thought they were without having to deal with DAMWON's sky-high expectations. This places them in an interesting position where they're not fully shouldering the burden of reigning MSI champions G2 Esports' more recent international legacy, but it's there in the back of the LEC community's mind who would really love it if MAD were able to live up to that anyway.
MAD players have talked about how they love having a more underdog mentality, and want to prove that last year's Worlds appearance was a fluke not an expectation. Despite some shaky performances (yes, even in their 3-0 first round robin, that paiN Gaming game was not MAD's greatest showing) MAD's results are 5-1 because they managed to do what better teams do in a series of single games: win most of them. They've completely displaced any thoughts of what happened to MAD last year at Worlds Play-Ins behind their Spanish superstar Elyoya. Many of the questions around MAD's Group Stage performance were around how Elyoya would play at his first international event with the team and I'm happy to report that the answer is exceedingly well. Elyoya has looked more comfortable in a meta where he can affect his lanes earlier than the more farm-heavy start to the 2021 season, and has been instrumental in MAD Lions' wins. I'm looking forward to seeing him go up against DK Canyon and RNG Wei.
**5. Are Royal Never Give Up that good, or was their group just that easy?**
These two things aren't mutually exclusive. It's possible for RNG to be one of the best teams at this tournament, and for their group to not have challenged them to show much.
It's difficult to talk about RNG's weaknesses that they showcased in the LPL split when their games have been so one-sided that they're actually messing with overall statistics for the tournament. My two largest concerns for RNG going into this event were how they would deal with mid-game mistakes being punished by more late-game-focused teams like DK, and of whether both Wei and Cryin would adjust to the slight shift in the mid-jungle metagame. We don't have an answer to the former but the latter is a resounding yes. Wei has been the strongest Rumble at the tournament to date and Cryin has looked completely comfortable.
When considering RNG's blistering pace and jungle-to-lane communication at this tournament, it's interesting to note that in the LPL regular season, RNG were one of the slower-paced teams. They were 13th out of 17 teams for combined kills per minute at 0.83, but this still would have put them higher than all LCK Spring 2021 teams of this past split, fifth in LEC, and second in the LCS. Their third-highest average game time in LPL Spring 2021 of 32.1 minutes would have placed them in the lower half of the LEC, ninth in the LCK, and ninth in the LCS — another reminder of just how different the LPL is to any other region in the world.
If the Group Stage showed anything from RNG it's that this is Xiaohu's team. He is the beating heart of RNG regardless of what lane he is playing, and a focal point of everything this team does.
**6. “I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both.”** -Robert Louis Stevenson, *The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde*
Let's talk about Cloud9, shall we?
The Cloud9 of the first round robin was certainly not the Cloud9 of the second round robin, nor were they the team that won LCS. Their mistakes weren't primarily forced by facing stronger or different opponents, but unforced errors that were either overly-hesitant or too singularly-focused (insert your memory of the Blaber scuttle crab fiasco here). Even in the first round robin match they won against Infinity Esports, C9 looked uncharacteristically timid and passive.
Yet, C9 showed up on the final day of groups with their old swagger back, giving Blaber champions he was more comfortable on like Udyr and prioritizing strong picks for Perkz (Yone, Lucian) or Fudge (Lee Sin). C9 relies on the strength of their mid-jungle duo in Perkz and Blaber to set the pace of the game, which can fit well into the current meta of AP junglers and AD mids.
The LCS has already earned an odd, nebulous spot beside the PCS as sort of a stoppage point at international events. If they're not advancing forward in this rumble stage, it's likely going to be because PSG Talon gets the fourth spot to the knockout stage alongside DK, RNG, and MAD. This combined with high player salaries has earned LCS teams varying amounts of ire from fans of other regions and their own domestic fanbase. Discussion around how badly North American teams play always starts with international results, not their in-game performances. It sounds weird to say that C9 had more pressure to do well than groupmates DFM and Infinity going into their group, but when the rest of the world, and some of your own domestic fanbase, is seemingly waiting for you to fail and validate their opinion of how bad your region is, it's a different type of pressure.
How well C9 do still depends on what they themselves said pre-tournament: how much they can improve their macro game against stronger teams outside of North America. That question has yet to be answered, but here's to hoping we've seen the last of passive C9, regardless of results.
**7. PSG Talon**
In an effort to describe just how domestically-dominant PSG Talon were in the PCS this past split, I'm going to use a few statistics. They had a 3440 gold difference at 15 minutes, top in the PCS and over a thousand gold more to the second-highest at 2163. PSG were at or near the top of every positive statistical category and only had to deal with an early-game gold deficit once. They relied on their strong laning and River's jungle control to pressure opponents into the mid-to-late game where they collapsed and further capitalized on opponents' mistakes.
Here at MSI, PSG are still second only to RNG in gold difference at 15, yet their games against MAD Lions showcase how awkward the team can be if they don't get similarly-dominant early leads and River is challenged by a proactive jungler like Elyoya. It's also imperative for PSG that Maple is on a pick where he can keep mid from collapsing back in towards PSG.
One thing I enjoy about this PSG team is that they don't go out of their way to make themselves uncomfortable. They're not going to try out something wonky onstage that they feel doesn't suit their more laning-focused playstyle or the champion pools of their players, and will endeavor to find picks that work both within the meta and for their players specifically. Going forward, I'm curious to see how Doggo's aggressive teamfighting integrates with the rest of this PSG lineup as the team potentially makes a shift from pure laning to some more mid-to-late-game teamfighting.
**8. Pentanet.GG**
Is there a more heartwarming narrative going into the rumble stage than Pentanet.GG?
No.
Sure their qualification to the rumble stage is made possible largely in thanks to the fact that GAM Esports couldn't make it to groups, but the fact that a team that is effectively a group of high elo solo queue players managed to make it this far given the context of the Oceanic region is impressive.
Most Oceanic players didn't know that the OPL was shuttering in the 2020-21 offseason until it happened. When Riot closed the Sydney office and the OPL, OCE became a part of the LCS regionally and the players who remained on the server were given the qualification system of 2021's League of Legends Circuit Oceania (LCO).
Pentanet.GG is an even more charming group of players because no one knows the odds better than them. They entered groups with the theme song "Hold On We're Going Home" and made it abundantly clear in interviews that their best shots came from oddball picks, intense study of other teams, and maybe a few creative Level 1 setups to catch opponents off-guard. In an admittedly volatile single-game format, teams will have to pay enough attention to Pentanet.GG (especially in the early levels) to beat them.
**9. DAWMON are the perfect team to beat RNG and RNG are the perfect team to beat DAMWON.**
Day 1 kicks off with the matchup that everyone has been waiting for (hopefully in a best-of-five as well as these single games) with DAMWON KIA and Royal Never Give Up. I posit that these two teams are the perfect teams to take each other out given their playstyles and whoever executes on their own signature style better (and drafts for it better) will win.
But Emily, you say, isn't that every game of League of Legends?
In a way, but these two teams are specifically matched to pressure each other's pain points. DK fully has the ability to collapse and punish RNG's mid game mistakes (which we haven't yet seen at this tournament since they stomped their group so thoroughly). Meanwhile, RNG have been forged in the fires of the LPL, and while they're not the most aggressive early-game team there, they know how to pressure with strong jungle-to-lane communication and sending members, especially Xiaohu, to create stifling side-lane presence. If RNG can attack DK early and not let up with good lane assignments and split-pushing, they'll win. If DK can get to a mid-game point with a slight deficit and stronger scaling, they should be able to capitalize on RNG's mistakes and take over the game from there.
**10. Advice for going up against every team**
**DK:** attack them early and don't let up on snowballing your lead
**RNG:** pressure GALA and his champion pool
**MAD:** capitalize on their mid-game awkwardness
**C9:** track Blaber early and take him out of the game
**PSG:** pressure Maple and his champion pool
**PGG:** watch out for Level 1 cheese
