Welcome to Dawnbringer, your daily recap of the 2021 League of Legends World Championship.
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
GAME 1: T1 win
T1 Graves Talon Orianna Aphelios Thresh
HLE Irelia Xin Zhao Zoe Miss Fortune Braum
Oner Keria attack top, FB Morgan, H1. HLE get FT, FD, H2, have some footing. Faker Keria combo well for picks, find Chovy->kill Willer->Baron, close on Baron 2.
GAME 2: T1 win
HLE Renekton Xin Zhao Leblanc Varus Nautilus
T1 Gwen Poppy Lissandra Aphelios Braum
Canna controls Herald 5v5, Faker 2K. T1 big lead, get 3-0 fight at H2, extend lead. Canna catches Deft mid, draws HLE away, T1 Baron. T1 force Baron 2 to end.
GAME 3: T1 win
HLE Renekton Olaf Leblanc Varus Braum
T1 Gnar Talon Lissandra Aphelios Thresh
T1 control bot lane, take plates. Willer Olaf can’t affect lanes. T1 4-0 fight at H2, force Baron at 22:00, ace HLE. Faker has still never exited Worlds before SFs.
Takeaways
Canna’s Big Day
I was impressed with a lot of things about T1’s win today, but Canna especially stood out. He had a fantastic game on Gwen, going 6/1/4 in game 2, but his Graves in game 1 was also very good, without as much flashiness (aside from the moment where he solo dove the bot lane inner turret to kill Deft, that was pretty flashy).
I don’t have time during the year to watch much LoL outside of North America, so sometimes a player like Canna can sneak up on me.
REYKJAVIK, ICELAND – OCTOBER 20: T1’s Kim “Canna” Chang-dong poses at the League of Legends World
Championship Quarterfinals Stage Features Day on October 20, 2021 in Reykjavik, Iceland. (Photo by Lance
Skundrich/Riot Games)
T1’s talent scouting and player development continue to shine, with Canna as a current strong example of it.
Faker Outperforms Chovy
Not only did T1 outperform Hanwha Life Esports in every aspect of this series, but Faker outperformed Chovy in the one lane where HLE was supposed to have a head-to-head advantage.
Faker’s Orianna was instrumental in the game 1 win, linking up with Keria’s Thresh to create key picks or burn cooldowns. Then he picked Lissandra into Chovy’s LeBlanc in games 2 and 3 and had more influence on the game with engage plays, despite Chovy putting up big farm numbers and fancy-footing some fights.
REYKJAVIK, ICELAND – OCTOBER 22: T1’s Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok gestures a thumbs up at the League of
Legends World Championship Quarterfinals Stage on October 22, 2021 in Reykjavik, Iceland. (Photo by Colin
Young-Wolff/Riot Games)
Faker Extends His Legacy
Faker has never exited the World Championships earlier than the Semifinals. He’s obviously won the tournament three times, but also reached the Finals one other time, and now has another Semifinals trip, at minimum, locked in for this year.
Just look at this timeline of his Worlds appearances:
2013: Won
2014: Did not attend
2015: Won
2016: Won
2017: Finals
2018: Did not attend
2019: Semifinals
2020: Did not attend
2021: Semifinals (so far)
Odds are that his journey will end in semis, but you never know what might happen.