The 2021 League of Legends World Championship entered the last portion of play-ins on Friday, with four of the remaining six teams going head-to-head over the last spots in the Group Stage.
The days match ups saw Galatasaray Esports face Beyond Gaming with PEACE taking on RED Canids. Whichever teams won would move on to the finals of the second round of play-ins to face Hanwha Life Esports and Cloud9, respectively.
It’s never over until it’s over
Galatasaray Esports appeared to have their match versus Beyond Gaming in the bag when they went up 2-0 in the best-of-five. The back-to-back matches were drawn out affairs, with one going to 42 minutes and the second going to 39. The wins were hard fought, but they went in the favor of Galatasaray.
But on the brink of defeat, Beyond Gaming did what they needed to keep themselves alive. In the fastest game of the series, Beyond Gaming earned their first win.
The best-of-five snowballed after that, with Beyond Gaming’s Chiu “Doggo” Tzu-Chuan popping off in the bot lane. After a staggering 39 kills, ten deaths and 44 assists from Doggo across the entire series, Beyond Gaming ultimately punched their tickets to face HLE for a chance to escape the play-ins.
PEACE gets one step closer to groups
Oceania’s PEACE finished Group A in the middle of the pack setting them up for a rematch against RED Canids. Winning would mean only Cloud9 stood in the way of PEACE making it to the Group Stage of Worlds. But since the first match of the day had already gone to a game five, PCE and RED decided to keep the same, nail-biting energy going.
ヽʕ •ᴥ•ʔﾉ RAISE YOUR KOALAS ヽʕ •ᴥ•ʔﾉ
@pce_gg eliminate @REDCanids! #Worlds2021 pic.twitter.com/9hx1ownipP
— LoL Esports (@lolesports) October 8, 2021
Despite some of the fastest games of play-ins, neither team wanted to roll over and call it quits at Worlds. RED Canids stuck first with the longest game of the series to start 1-0 in the best-of-five. But in games two and three, PEACE hit back to take the lead. It also took PEACE less than an hour to win both matches, which was just eleven minutes longer than the first match against Galatasaray and Beyond Gaming.
RED Canids brought it back in game four to force a game five, but by then PEACE was finished playing with the Brazilians. With the fastest game of the entire play-in stage, at just 23 minutes, PEACE crushed their opponents to set up the monumental task of tackling Cloud9.
