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: EDG win
EDG Jax Jarvan IV Orianna Lucian Nami
GEN Gwen Lee Sin Seraphine Miss Fortune Lulu
Viper Meiko kill Ruler 3x. EDG FT top. GEN win 5v5s, Bdd picks Viper, GEN 2 Barons. EDG 2-0 soul fight. Clid caught, EDG inhib. Flandre frontdoors nexus during Elder footsies.
GAME 2: GEN win
GEN Renekton Lee Sin Azir Jhin Rakan
EDG Graves Jarvan IV Ryze Jinx Lulu
EDG camp top, FB dive. Rascal solo Ks Flandre. GEN H1, pick JieJie mid, FT. Big GEN lead. EDG fish for comeback fight, GEN punish. EDG desperation Baron, Clid steals.
GAME 3: GEN win
EDG Gwen Jarvan IV Viktor Lucian Nami
GEN Renekton Lee Sin Zoe Miss Fortune Lulu
GEN 2-0 at H1, huge lead via turrets. GEN waffle mid-game, valueless inhib. Baron brawl, Ruler secures; EDG win fight. EDG soul but GEN punish weak map formation, end.
GAME 4: EDG win
EDG Kennen Jarvan IV Zoe Lucian Nami
GEN Graves Viego Azir Miss Fortune Lulu
Mid 2v2 gets Scout fed. EDG out-rotate for H1, goes mid. EDG dive bot, FT. EDG 4-1 drg fight off Flandre ult. Clid smites keep GEN in it. Scout smurfs soul fight, Baron, win.
GAME 5: EDG win
GEN Renekton Xin Zhao Orianna Miss Fortune Rakan
EDG Graves Jarvan IV Ryze Jhin Leona
Bdd poor position, gets FBed. EDG clean H1 macro. Scout TPs bot, GEN pushback flops, EDG 4-1, FT. EDG 5-2 dragon fight, Baron. EDG tick the boxes to close.
Takeaways
Most Entertaining Possible Outcome
Two 5-game Semifinals? A Silver Scrapes overdose? A truly international Finals matchup? Who could ask for anything more?!
REYKJAVIK, ICELAND – OCTOBER 31: EDward Gaming pose backstage at the League of Legends World
Championship Semifinals Stage on October 31, 2021 in Reykjavik, Iceland. (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot
Games)
A Final between DWG KIA vs. EDward Gaming has almost as many storylines available as the DK/T1 semi. Can’t wait to see what the production does with it, and what story the teams tell in-game.
Distributed Stardom
So often, my eyes are pinned on the junglers, but in both yesterday’s and today’s series it’s been the mid and bot laners who have stolen the show. Obviously ShowMaker, Faker, and Gumayusi got a ton of attention yesterday, and today it was Bdd, Scout, Viper, and Ruler taking turns — and, okay, yes, a healthy dose of Clid thrown in thanks to his smite dominance and a couple of Lee Sin plays.
Overall it’s my opinion that Viper was the best player on the Rift today, though there’s also a strong argument for Meiko, who was really good with Nami bubbles especially, and who controlled a lot of the lane phases alongside Viper.
I guess I’d say this was a series more about the teams and players taking turns standing out, rather than one or two players hogging the spotlight. That might not be as exciting from a storytelling standpoint but it makes for tense games and great individual highlight moments.
As a side note, if you aren’t that familiar with Scout’s story, I can recommend checking out Gbay’s documentary about him.