The 2021 League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational continued on Saturday with Royal Never Give Up demolishing Unicorns of Love in a routine victory. Things began to get more interesting during the game between DetonatioN FocusMe and DWG KIA. The World Champions faced their first real test and looked set to taste defeat but managed to capitalize on DFM’s error to win the game. Moreover, the rest of the day also featured close games and first wins for some teams. Day 3 of MSI showed that upsets could happen even to tournaments favorites and that DFM is here to play. Here are some of the takeaways from Day 3 of MSI 2021.
Pentanet. GG and Cloud9 finally win at MSI on Day 3
Congratulations are in order for both Oceania and North America’s representative after winning their first game of MSI 2021. Pentanet won their game against Unicorns of Love in under 31 minutes with 15 kills and a 5,000 gold lead. Pentanet’s top laner Mark “Praedyth” Lewis displayed an MVP worthy performance on the Samira. He went deathless in the game and finished with 13 kill involvements.
Cloud9 took down Liga Latinoamérica’s Infinity Esports with Luka “Perkz” Prkovic’s Tristana running the show. He contributed to nine out of his team’s 11 kills. C9 closed out the game in under 33 minutes with a 10,000 gold lead.
DFM, the dark horse we didn’t see coming
Even though DetonatioN FocusMe lost their game against DWG KIA, they certainly gained a lot of attention given how close the game was. It can even be argued that DK only won that game because of DFM’s poor final decision making. DFM took advantage of DWG KIA relatively weak early macro game. DK’s top laner, Kim “Khan” Dong-ha experience a very rough game on the Gangplank, dying three times before 16 minutes.
Furthermore, DFM continued to get all the objectives and maintained their lead. They started knocking on the base of DWG KIA around the 30-minute mark with baron empowered minions. However, Mun “Steal” Geon-yeong’s dive in an attempt to end the game in DFM’s favor turned into how they lost everything. DK capitalized on the overstep, shutting down all DFM players and quickly marched on to end the game, taking down their opponent’s nexus.
DFM continue to catch the eyes of a lot of viewers at MSI 2021. Their near-win against DK and defeat of C9 shows that they have the potential to cause troubles for these major regions. With C9’s win against Infinity, there is still a lot to play for in Group B as three teams currently share the second spot.
MAD Lions 100% win rate at MSI 2021 does not tell the full story
After their close game with fastPay Wildcats on Day 2, MAD come away with a similar win again. paiN Gaming’s Felipe “brTT” Goncalves could not believe their loss as he was only a few auto attacks away from taking down MAD’s nexus. While MAD Lions had a better early game, paiN fought their way back into the game with some good picks starting with MAD’s Marek “Humanoid” Brazda.
Moreover, paiN Gaming’s mid laner, Thiago “tinowns” Sartori kept finding crucial openings to keep his team in the game. paiN reduced the early gold deficit and almost secured dragon soul. paiN kept on playing the side lane game as their top laner, Leonardo “Robo” Souza had helped open a top inhibitor.
The game came to a breathtaking end when paiN Gaming decided to leave the baron fight and use their side lane advantage to take down MAD’s nexus. However, they failed to stop the recalls of certain MAD players who got back in time to stop paiN from winning the game. After killing all of paiN’s players, they marched on to take down their nexus, securing their third win of MSI 2021.
While MAD remain undefeated at MSI, two of those wins came from games that could have gone either way. Here is what Irfan “Armut” Tukek had to say about their near defeat:
https://www.upcomer.com/despite-their-near-loss-armut-reassures-fans-that-mad-lions-can-contend-for-the-msi-trophy/
fastPay WildCats remain the only winless team at MSI Day 3
After losing to PSG Talon, TCL’s fastPay Wildcats remain the only team without a win at MSI 2021. The Turkish representatives have played well but their macro gameplay in certain instances continues to cause issues. They will have to win their rematches against all teams in their group to keep their Rumble stage hopes alive.
Tune into Day 4 of the 2021 MSI Group Stage on May 9 at 6.a.m PST with Unicorns of Love vs RNG as the opener.
2021 MSI standings as of May 8:
- Royal Never GiveUp (4-0).
- MAD Lions (3-0).
- DWG KIA (3-0).
- Unicorns of Love (1-3).
- paiN Gaming (1-2).
- PSG Talon (2-1).
- DetonatioN FocusMe (1-2).
- Infinity Esports (1-2).
- Pentanet. GG (1-3).
- Cloud9 (1-2)
- fastPay Wildcats (0-3).
