By this time next week, we'll know the winner of the 2021 Mid-Season Invitational. A lot can happen in less than a week and now that the field has been narrowed to four, it's time for some fond farewells, looks ahead, and of course, predictions.
Let's get it.
**1. DAMWON KIA**
On the second day of the Rumble Stage, I was asked on broadcast whether I was worried about DAMWON KIA due to some exploitable holes in their early game. My answer was unequivocally, no.
I'm happy to have been proven right thus far.
Coming into this tournament, DAMWON KIA were community favorites partially due to their recent World Championship victory and partially due to just how dominant they were during this past LCK split. Even when they showed weaknesses in their early game — particularly an over-reliance on Rift Herald swaps and unforced or unnecessary deaths from Beryl on support roams — DK were almost always able to bring back any early deficit and turn it into a win.
DAMWON KIA are the most difficult team here to beat in a best-of-five because of their ability to punish opponents' mistakes. When we talk about the traditional South Korean style of League of Legends, what we really mean is SK Telecom T1 and while that relies on a slower-paced scaling style, the other part of making this style work is being able to punish one's opponent. DK almost always punish their opponents swiftly and thoroughly. If you give them an opening, they can take an entire game. In a best-of-five this makes them particularly difficult to beat because even if they are punished for a single mistake or in a single teamfight, like their last game against RNG, they won't give another team these openings regularly. A team that beats DK needs to attack early and never let up on the pressure while also not giving DK openings to punish later on in the game.
**2. Royal Never Give Up**
The last time an LPL team attended the Mid-Season Invitational, it was 2019 Invictus Gaming. Going into the knockout stage iG were overwhelming tournament favorites after a specific single game where they smashed SK Telecom T1 in 16 minutes after SKT had the audacity to pick Sona/Taric in the bottom lane.
iG lost to Team Liquid 3-1 in the semifinals.
Let this stand as a reminder that single games are single games and best-of-fives are completely different. Let this also stand as a reminder that no team in the world is quite like iG. Royal Never Give Up, for example, is a completely different and significantly more stable team.
Much like DAMWON KIA, RNG's strengths and weaknesses that were showcased in their playoff run through 2021 LPL Spring have also been shown here at this tournament. They are a team that will often over-index on side lane pressure, which is one of the reasons why Cryin's statistics are so comparatively bad to someone like DK ShowMaker (who also happens to be the best mid laner at this tournament) or MAD Humanoid. Cryin isn't going to be relied upon for sheer lane pressure most of the time, and RNG put him on champions like Twisted Fate as the Rumble Stage went on to continue their side-lane focus. RNG will also take fights that they cannot win, especially when pressured early, as shown in their single-game loss to PSG Talon. Again, like DK, RNG's weaknesses are there on display for everyone to see. The question is now if PSG can have strong enough early games consistently to best them. It's possible, but given RNG's late-game teamfighting — which, while sporadic, can also be exceptional — and their ability to cross-map trade PSG, like MAD against DK, will have their work cut out for them in a best-of-five.
**3. PSG Talon**
Last week, I wrote that RNG was the perfect team to beat DK and DK was the perfect team to beat RNG. Little did I know that the perfect team to beat RNG was actually PSG Talon.
The blueprint that PSG Talon showed was to attack RNG Wei in the jungle early, especially in the Rumble-Morgana matchup where PSG River used Morgana's clear speed and strong lane communication to grab both scuttle crabs. PSG tracked Wei and snowballed advantages that they gained in the bot lane 2v2 with added dives. When it came time to fight, PSG Hanabi's Lee Sin and Maple's Zoe made sure to split teamfights into smaller skirmishes where they could pick off RNG one-by-one rather than opting into a straightforward front-to-back fight against Xiaohu's Gnar.
PSG Talon have been one of the most fun teams to watch at this tournament and the one with the most steady upward trajectory as a unit. This tracks with how Doggo likely needed time to gel with the rest of the team. It was difficult to place them going into this tournament because they were so dominant in this past PCS split, but they seem to be the team that has improved the most from Groups through the Rumble Stage. Now they have a tall task ahead of them in defeating RNG, who still have stronger cross-map play and side-lane focus, not once but three times to advance to the finals.
**4. MAD Lions**
One thing that the MAD Lions have going for them is that there are a lot of words that rhyme with mad. They can be SAD Lions or GLAD Lions or RAD Lions or even CHAD Lions depending on how people feel about their performance on the day. For now, let's go with MAD Lions because they're going to have to take any of their anger and disappointment that they have with their Rumble Stage performance compared to expectations and turn it into fuel against DAMWON KIA who are, to reiterate, the most difficult team here to beat in a best-of-five.
In various interviews prior to this event, players on MAD Lions reiterated that they love to fight, they are proud of their aggression, and that they believe they can take on any team in a fight. Yet against DK in both of their matches, MAD looked outclassed in the early game where, theoretically based on these two teams' stylistic matchup, MAD should have been able to accrue their advantages. DK and Canyon tracked Elyoya with superior vision control and ensured that ShowMaker kept Humanoid in check. This isn't to say that MAD absolutely cannot beat DK, but if they are going to have a chance, they need to do it by not trying to match DK at their own game and instead going for more early-game focused drafts while also ensuring that Humanoid is on a carry. In both of their single-game matchups, regardless of red or blue side, DK made sure to ban both Orianna and Lucian, Humanoid's two strongest picks and ones that give him easy lane priority. MAD are going to have to find a way around this in their upcoming best-of-five, all while showing off their belief in their own teamfighting and skirmishing.
**5. Great Expectations and Hold On We're Going Home**
It's that time of the year again where we talk about what's wrong with North America, why teams from this region cannot seem to do well internationally, and how it's due to highpingnoinvestmentinamateursceneorgsfavoringplayersfromsouthkoreaandeuropesoloqueueidefinitelyforgotalotofreasonsinherebutwhatever.
The truth of the matter is that it's a nuanced topic that deserves a treatise the length of a doctoral thesis (with just as much input and vetting from NA coaches, players, and staff members, especially ones at the amateur and academy levels) which means a short-form quippy column is not the time to discuss my capital-O-opinions on it. What I will discuss is what happened at the 2021 Mid-Season Invitational.
At 2021 MSI, Cloud9 failed to advance from the Rumble Stage into the Knockout Stage. Despite their dominion over the LCS for the majority of the split and the strongest mid-jungle duo in the LCS of Blaber and Perkz, C9 faltered in a variety of ways with a variety of drafts. The question for C9 going into this tournament that they themselves posed was whether they would be able to catch up in time by scrimming stronger opponents. While I think you can look at C9 and see that they improved from their LCS showings in some regards, that answer was no.
C9 will still enter 2021 LCS Summer with more diversified and stronger practice, having been to MSI. The question now is how they'll maintain what they learned in the LCS environment throughout summer.
Cloud9 could learn a lot from Pentanet.GG's style and attitude. Where C9 played more tightly and hesitantly on the MSI stage, Pentanet.GG played remarkably fast and loose in all of their games — completely free of any outside pressure.
Obviously the situations are completely different. As I outlined in the previous section, the expectations placed on the shoulders of the C9 players are significantly greater. There's a reason why Pentanet.GG chose Drake's "Hold On We're Going Home" as their anthem and it probably wasn't to be ironic when they surprisingly made it out of Groups. This was a team that seemingly did not expect to ever leave the Group Stage, even with GAM Esports unable to attend.
The fact that they, without infrastructure or a proper league in the wake of the OPL's collapse, managed to make it out of Groups at all is honestly a remarkable achievement. The fact that they took a game off of C9 doesn't mean that they're a better team or that C9 is horrible, but you could see how loose Pentanet.GG were going into that game. They played standard against C9 — unlike the necessary tricks they pulled out against RNG, who they had already faced numerous times in Groups — and emerged victorious. Let it also not be forgotten that they nearly bested RNG with that single-game strategy as well. Yes the expectations were and will continue to be different between Oceania and North America due to legacy and monetary investment, but we all could do with having a little of Pentanet.GG's swagger.
**6. Three lies and a truth**
In true esports fashion, [I have to crib something from my predecessor][1] so here's three lies and a truth, the one thing that will allow my predictions to be correct (for once).
DAMWON KIA will win MSI.
Royal Never Give Up will win MSI.
PSG Talon will win MSI.
MAD Lions will win MSI.
[1]: https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2019/05/10-thoughts-going-into-msi-knockout-stage/
