Welcome to Dawnbringer, your daily recap of the 2021 League of Legends World Championship from the bleary eyes and chilled fingers of a ever-more-rapidly-approaching-middle-aged man in the Godforsaken Pacific time zone. Yes, my alarm was set for 3:35 AM today. Thank you for asking.
Every day of Worlds competition, I’ll post a brief rundown of each game, along with some larger takeaways about the team and player performances we’re seeing and what it might mean for the rest of the tournament.
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Game Recaps
HLE vs LNG: LNG win
HLE Irelia Sejuani Tryndamere Ezreal Karma
LNG Jax Qiyana Gragas Miss Fortune Rakan
Tarzan FB gank, but HLE farm out early, maintain vision, get neutrals. HLE play too slow; LNG punish their pushes with combos on frontline, fights -> Barons.
INF vs RED: RED win
INF Kennen Jarvan IV Sylas Lucian Nami
RED Camille Lillia Sett Miss Fortune Leona
Whitelotus Ackerman survive gank pressure. Lots of action mid; Whitelotus gets fed and INF stack dragons. But RED find picks in mid-game, get ahead and don’t let go.
LNG vs PCE: LNG win
LNG Fiora Qiyana Leblanc Aphelios Leona
PCE Gangplank Zed Galio Miss Fortune Amumu
Tarzan effectively picks on Vizicsacsi with ganks, helps Ale get early kills and all 5 plates by 11:00. LNG play a bit happy, but dominate start to finish.
HLE vs INF: HLE win
HLE Renekton Lee Sin Azir Ezreal Leona
INF Graves Xin Zhao Zoe Miss Fortune Amumu
HLE awkwardly punish an awkward early dragon by INF. At 15:00, HLE awkwardly pressure jungle and get 4-1ed. Vsta nice engages/picks get HLE going; Baron secures it.
UOL vs DFM: DFM win
UOL Jayce Lee Sin Orianna Lucian Rakan
DFM Gnar Talon Leblanc Miss Fortune Leona
Steal gets 2 early gank Ks, good pace. BOSS’ pressure creates a gold lead, but UOL mismanage dragon and strong/weak setups; DFM punish with tempo, picks, Baron, soul.
GS vs BYG: GS win
GS Kennen Qiyana Ryze Miss Fortune Bard
BYG Jarvan IV Xin Zhao Orianna Ezreal Braum
GS play for top dives; BYG get dragons. GS win fight at drg 3, lead isn’t growing until they pick Doggo, get Baron. BYG Baron bait w/o vision->GS wreck them to win.
DFM vs C9: C9 win
DFM Gnar Xin Zhao LeBlanc Jhin Alistar
C9 Irelia Qiyana Sylas Miss Fortune Leona
Fudge and Blaber control top. Zven Vulcan gank mid. C9 leading, and they don’t let go. Vulcan some nice playmaking, and Perkz snowballs hard.
UOL vs GS: GS win
UOL Camille Trundle Leblanc Ezreal Amumu
GS Gwen Talon Twisted Fate Miss Fortune Rakan
Galatasaray win top side both proactively & reactively, using Bolulu’s TF mobility and Zergsting roams. It’s a stomp (but GS allow it to look close for a while).
Takeaways
Cloud9 Are Here To Play
The opening game from Cloud9 was a huge statement win over DetonatioN FocusMe, one of the teams that humbled them at MSI and had some fans anticipating a repeat, given that DFM are now able to field Gaeng, their intended Support, and especially after DFM looked pretty good in their win over Unicorns of Love earlier in the day.
But C9 came out and punished DFM’s drafting, blew open the top side of the map with strong laning and top/jungle coordination, activated their bot lane into mid, and ran away with the game, with Perkz ending the game on a monster 8/0/2. DFM looked for some comeback plays and found minor footholds, but after the first 8 or 10 minutes the result wasn’t really in doubt.
It’s obviously very early, but Cloud9 fans couldn’t have hoped for a better start or a better sign of what kind of shape their team is bringing into the tournament.
Hanwha Life Esports Aren’t Very Good?
HLE losing to LNG Esports was not really a big deal, abstractly speaking. They’re supposed to be the two best teams in Play-Ins, in most people’s eyes, and one of them has to come out on top. But the way HLE lost was concerning, with so much inactivity passivity, and desyncs on their forward pressure when they did try to push up on the map.
Their win over Infinity was even more concerning. Sure, they were outskilling early on, with Chovy controlling his lane the way you’d expect and INF fumbling a dragon setup to give HLE a couple of early kills. But HLE’s decision to contest that dragon in the first place was questionable given the map state, and once again their pressure into the enemy half of the map was disjointed and led to punishment.
It’s just two games, and HLE are 1-1, so things will probably work out fine, but so far I’m not liking what I’m seeing out of the LCK 4th seed.
Photos courtesy Riot Games / Getty Images