Insight Into Iceland is your daily recap of the 2021 Mid-Season Invitational.
Look below for Recaps and Takeaways from today’s six games, or watch the video version of the Takeaways.
Recaps
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Game 1: PGG vs. RNG – RNG win
PGG Gnar Volibear Orianna Kog’maw Lulu
RNG Lee Sin Udyr Sylas Kai’sa Leona
PGG take a poor skirmish for top crab, fall behind. Wei runs away with the game on sheer farm pace. GALA solo-dives Praedyth multiple times. Mismatch game.
Game 2: UOL vs. RNG – RNG win
UOL Gnar Trundle Viktor Kai’sa Braum
RNG Lucian Olaf Ryze Xayah Alistar
Trundle clear speed is slow so RNG jungler gets Wei ahead, dives top early. AHaHaCiK gets ganks off but RNG starve out the entire map with good, clean macro. Game over p. early.
Game 3: INF vs. DK – DK win
INF Gnar Lillia Lucian Kalista Alistar
DK Sion Graves Syndra Varus Sett
Ghost and BeryL destroy Whitelotus and Ackerman in lane. Canyon is all over the map. ShowMaker gets a solo kill. DK crush it; not much to say.
Game 4: DFM vs. C9 – DFM win
DFM Gnar Udyr Zoe Kai’sa Alistar
C9 Jayce Nidalee Orianna Varus Leona
Blaber ints away FB, leads to DFM H1/FT/snowball. DFM take over with tempo but fumble mid-game macro / fights, C9 lingering. DFM find engages mid and flanks at dragon, overwhelm C9.
Game 5: IW vs. MAD – MAD win
IW Nocturne Udyr Ryze Tristana Leona
MAD Wukong Volibear Viktor Kai’sa Nautilus
Carzzy Kaiser throw punches. Elyoya poor dives get punished. MAD explode mid-game gold lead; IW ace, take lead back. IW good map work but MAD comp 5v5s better; they win at Barons.
Game 6: PNG vs. PSG – PSG win
PNG Karma Hecarim Ryze Tristana Rell
PSG Gnar Rumble Lucian Kai’sa Leona
River ganks top better than CarioK does. Maple gets a double kill in a 2v1 dive. Almost every little thing goes PSG’s way and they make this look like RNG vs. PGG.
Takeaways
GROUP C GRUDGE MATCH: Despite losing to paiN Gaming yesterday, Istanbul Wildcats coach Robogod had strong words in a media scrum today, claiming that PNG would struggle to reach the playoffs in the TCL. PNG and IW will play again on Monday, so IW better hope they win convincingly to back up those bold words!
A GAP IS CLOSING: Cloud9 dropped a game to the LJL’s DetonatioN FocusME and the MAD Lions were in trouble against Turkey’s Istanbul Wildcats but managed to team fight their way to a win. Both of those games, on the surface, should have been a major region team mopping up a minor region team with relative ease, but that was very much not the case. MAD can feel better about their game, not only because they found a way to win, but because IW played quite well against them. Cloud9, in contrast, should feel incredibly embarrassed by their performance and will now have to work very hard to keep their mental game in check, because DFM handed them all kinds of opportunities to come back.
MISTAKES-BASED GAMEPLAY: In a media scrum, Gillette Infinity‘s SolidSnake spoke to the way he and his team are seeing their mistakes be punished much harder by international opposition. That’s a common theme we hear at events like this, and it’s illustrative of the way pros tend to think about the game: the focus is on identifying the correct thing to do in every circumstance, and coaching ends up being all about pointing out mistakes. That has always felt like a very negative way to approach things, from my perspective, and I know many coaches make an intentional effort to praise good plays and use positive reinforcement, as well. I hope the language and mindset around these things can shift a bit more in the direction of positive assertion rather than being so purely mistakes-oriented, but that is partly the nature of the game.
HOORAY FOR GROUP A DAY: We are all looking looking forward to watching RNG do this four more times on the last day of Group A competition, right?
It’s such a shame GAM Esports couldn’t come out and make this group a lot more interesting, but that’s life.