Insight Into Iceland is your daily recap of the 2021 Mid-Season Invitational.

Look below for Recaps and Takeaways from today’s games, or watch the video version of the Takeaways.

Recaps

You can also get these recaps live on Twitter.

Game 1: DK vs. RNG – RNG win
DK Sion Udyr Lucian Tristana Sett
RNG Gragas Olaf Orianna Kai’sa Nautilus

BeryL Ghost on attack. DK get FD, H1. Canyon ints at dragon 2 but DK maintain gold lead. Xiaohu mid engage generates fight sequence; DK get dragon but RNG get fight and Baron.

Game 2: MAD vs. PGG – MAD win
MAD Gnar Rumble Orianna Vayne Leona
PGG Urgot Udyr Kassadin Kai’sa Galio

PGG win a couple of skirmishes of top. Carzzy Kaiser get multiple kills in lane, snowball themselves while the game steadily devolves into chaos.

Game 3: PSG vs. DK – DK win
PSG Gnar Udyr Akali Tristana Rakan
DK Sion Morgana Sylas Kai’sa Leona

Canyon paths for dragon control, ints at H1. BeryL ints in mid. DK lucky to get 2nd drake. More dragon fights, DK win one decisively->Baron->mid inhib. PSG decent showing; DK team fighting a bit better.

Game 4: RNG vs.  C9 – RNG win
RNG Lucian Udyr Orianna Kai’sa Gragas
C9 Malphite Morgana Lee Sin Tristana Rell

Wei camps top. RNG H1+FT, transition to mid/bot, huge lead. C9 attack bot; RNG crossmap Baron. Game over? C9 ace at dragon, back in it. RNG backdoor nexus during C9 Baron.

Game 5: PSG vs. PGG – PSG win
PSG Aatrox Udyr Sylas Aphelios Thresh
PGG Sion Morgana Zed Kai’sa Nautilus

Team gap, sorry OCE. River clears fast, disrupts Chazz’s first reset. PSG win mid skirmish, create tempo to dive bot, keep on rollin’. There was a Zed in this game, so that was fun.

Game 6: C9 vs. MAD – MAD win
C9 Sion Rumble Kindred Kalista Nautilus
MAD Sylas Udyr Lucian Kai’sa Leona

C9 play hard for both crabs, lose 3v3 on second one, Elyoya 3K. Rest of the game is a victory lap.

Takeaways

I SEE YOU, XIAOHU: MVP of the day has to go to RNG’s Xiaohu. His Gragas playmaking won the day against DWG KIA, and his Lucian laning against C9 created the pressure point RNG used to blow the game open. (More on that below.) It was a great day for the Chinese top laner and it doesn’t look like anyone at the tournament can really threaten him in lane, or in overall game influence.

CLOUD9 MACRO FAILURES: Against RNG, when C9 failed to defend their top lane against the activation of the first Rift Herald (opting to secure the first dragon instead), RNG used Xiaohu’s preparatory chip damage to break the turret and carry the Herald all the way to the inner turret, breaking that one as well. The next several minutes were a chain-reaction of map control in which Fudge tried to pull waves in and deny CS, and RNG happily took that map setup and played 5v4 through the bot and mid lanes, taking the bot outer turret and then sieging mid outer, knocking it down after some sustained work, as well.

That kind of lead is incredibly overbearing. It gave RNG so much leeway to play out the rest of the game. In fact, if C9 had defended top side instead of prioritizing the first dragon, then their 5v5 team composition would have come online a few minutes earlier and their comeback would have had much higher odds of succeeding. All told, this game was a great example of why side lane turrets are worth far more than their gold value, and also an example of the costs of deep-freezing side lanes.

DWG KIA IN HOT WATER: It seems like DWG KIA took an early trip to the Icelandic hot springs and found themselves in hotter water than they bargained for. I’m sure there’s a volcano element that could be layered into this joke but I’ve been setting my alarm for 5:30 AM on these game days so I’m not quite landing on it.

In a media scrum, Canyon described RNG as “a very good team, but not to the point that we can’t beat them.” Giving some allowance for lost nuance in the translation, that’s not the most confident response. And based on how his team played today, the lack of confidence is pretty justifiable.

The first game of the Rumble Stage saw DK fall to Royal Never Give Up in a reasonably close game, but the ways DK lost involved some issues in their map play and individual mistakes that were honestly pretty concerning. The macro issue that caught my eye most was that more than once they had enough tempo to make fast plays on dragons and accelerate their early lead, but they played their setups very slowly and gave RNG chances to approach and fight. This was supposed to be a preview of the Finals though, so it was fine, until DK took on PSG Talon later in the day and committed even more mistakes before finding the win with their trademarked late-game team fighting.

There’s no way around it: DK were not good today, from awkward drafts to individual mistakes to poor macro. If they don’t put together a much more convincing pair of games tomorrow, it’s going to be tough to see them even reaching the Finals of this tournament.