MSI 2021 Group Stage
11 MAY 2021 — by League Analyst
The Group Stage of MSI 2021 is now behind us and 6 out of the 11 teams have progressed to the Rumble Stage. With the first week of the tournament over, we now have a small break to analyze the remaining teams and how they made it out of their respective groups.
Group A
Royal Never Give Up supremacy was the big story of group A. The LPL seed absolutely slaughtered the group and ended the first stage with an 8–0 game score. Behind them, it was a close fight for the second seed between Unicorns Of Love and Pentanet.GG.
Despite the fact that most people considered the Unicorns clear favorites, Pentanet was able to force a tiebreaker for 2nd place and clutched it out to progress to the next stage of the tournament. Their methodical gameplay and fresh draft approach surprised the world and granted them a spot in the Rumble Stage. They are the first team in LCO history to make it out of the Group Stage at an international event.
Going forward, RNG will be the team to beat from group A and I would consider them a clear favorite for the tournament based on the play we’ve seen so far. For PGG, every victory past this point will be a huge accomplishment and they will be the big underdogs in the next stage.
Group B
In group B, the two big favorites; MAD and PSG proved that they should be considered two of the strongest teams at MSI. That being said, many games were closer than most would have expected and some shaky mid- and early game performances from the LEC and PCS representatives made the group quite competitive. In the end it was quite clear that MAD and PSG were the two best teams in the group, but gameplay wise there will be quite a lot to clean up for both teams.
In the next stage, both MAD and PSG will have to raise their level of play to get out in a commanding fashion. There is a quite a big chance that these two teams will be battling for 3rd and 4th alongside Cloud9 in the Rumble Stage. Having the edge in Group A is a good sign for MAD, but don’t expect the opposition to give up without a fight.
Group C
The last two teams to advance to the Rumble Stage were the two favorites from group C. But before we look at those two teams, we have to recognize the admirable performance from the LJL team, DetonatioN FocusMe. Despite not having their full roster available, the team was able to take a game from Cloud9 and forced the NA seed to fight hard for the 2nd seed in the group.
All said and done, it will be C9 and DK that advances to the next stage. But it has to be said that both teams has a lot left to be desired in terms of gameplay, especially in the early game, were both teams showed some clear weaknesses that has to be cleaned up before the Rumble Stage begins.
Rumble Stage Prediction
(x) = Pre tournament power ranking
- Royal Never Give Up (2)
- DWG KIA (1)
- Cloud9 (3)
- MAD Lions (4)
- PSG Talon (5)
- Pentanet.GG (8)
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