Analysis and Opinion

Insight Into Iceland: MSI Recap for May 21, 2021

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.

RNG vs. PSG: RNG 3-1

Game 1: RNG win
RNG Lee Sin Morgana Orianna Tristana Braum
PSG Gnar Udyr Azir Kai’sa Leona

PSG attack jungle/mid, FB Cryin, get first 2 dragons. RNG work sides, FT top, gold lead. PSG try to create 5v5s; RNG deny via side lane macro, control Baron, soul, Elder.

Game 2: PSG win
PSG Nocturne Udyr Sylas Tristana Nautilus
RNG Gnar Morgana Viktor Kai’sa Braum

PSG attack Cryin, generate TP adv. Maple TPs bot for a dive. PSG play with pace, extend lead aggressively . RNG fight well but PSG are too far up, win key Baron fight.

Game 3: RNG win
RNG Lee Sin Morgana Orianna Kai’sa Braum
PSG Aatrox Udyr Viktor Tristana Nautilus

PSG invade lvl 1 into Braum, lose FB. River ganks bot to recover but Xiaohu TPs, RNG dive, overstay, give back 3 Ks. RNG still up. Xiaohu gets plates, RNG FT, roll on.

Game 4: RNG win
PSG Gangplank Udyr Sylas Tristana Rell
RNG Gnar Morgana Orianna Kai’sa Nautilus

PSG misplay H1, can’t snowball. GALA free-farms forever. Huge fights for dragons and Barons. RNG inf soul; PSG Baron. RNG faster on Elder, pos. adv. wins fight + series.

Takeaways

DOGGO IS A GOOD BOY: PSG Talon fell short today, but they can take pride in how they represented their region, and especially in the talent they showed from one of their young players, 18-year-old Doggo.

Doggo has been one of the great storylines of the tournament, because of the unusual circumstances of his presence on the team that stemmed from health issues for PSG’s regular starter, Unified, and because of his eye-catchingly aggressive play style.

Doggo was somewhat a mixed bag today. He carried some fights but also threw away key cooldowns in important moments by going in too aggro with Tristana Ws. As a young player on such a high-pressure stage, though, his play left a very positive impression.

THE VALUE OF TEMPO: Throughout today’s games, Royal Never Give Up showed off their primary strength by dominating the side lane ping-pong match and generating far more tempo on the map, which led to faster, crisper neutral objective setups and ultimately decided the series.

It was most obvious in Game 1, where PSG were late to arrive to several neutral objectives in a row as a result of having to react to side lane pushes. The problem was not that PSG were “scared” or tentative; it was that PSG were put into difficult positions where they either had to move to catch minion waves at their turrets, or step into the river to position for the objective and risk losing several hundred gold of CS or turret damage instead. Expressed as jargon: PSG were constantly behind in prio on the side lanes, and they a) moved too slowly to “fix” that prio and b) were unwilling to cut their losses, sacrifice those minion waves, and fight for vision and approach angles on the objectives. Indecision struck as PSG tried to find a solution to their tempo problem, and they ended up looking scared and passive, when in reality they were on the back foot and confused.

Can RNG’s opponent in the Finals do a better job of matching their side wave management? If they can, there are enough vulnerabilities in RNG’s play that they might struggle to take the MSI trophy. But RNG showed today that their mid-game macro is good enough to win them games against great teams.

Photos courtesy Riot Games