MSI 2021 Knockout Stage
27 MAY 2021 — by League Analyst
It has been a couple of days since the conclusion of the 2021 Mid-Season Invitational and the crowning of the new champions. And despite a couple of interesting series to conclude the tournament, I find myself quite exhausted from the intense schedule for this year.
It took a total of 81 games to reach a somewhat expected result. For me, it felt a bit excessive, especially with how unbalanced the group stage turned out to be. In the end, it was the two pre-tournament favorites that made it to the final, where RNG managed to take down the defending world champions.
Both MAD Lions and PSG Talon fought valiantly to overcome the two giants from the LPL and LCK, but they both fell short in the end. And it isn’t going to get any easier going forward. Worlds 2021 is just around the corner and both the LPL and the LCK have quad seeds for the tournament. So if all teams make it out of the Play-In stage, there will be one seed from both regions in every single group.
The thought of that alone is enough to get me hyped up. If you add some of the top LEC teams and possibly the return of PSG Talon, we have one of the most ridiculous group stages of all time coming up.
The LPL in particular is looking extremely dangerous and could most likely field any team from the top half in the league to compete at the tournament. Just looking at the teams from their spring playoffs is fascinating to me, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see any of them going far at Worlds.
One thing is certain, all four groups at Worlds are going to be stacked no matter what. For now, all we can do is congratulate RNG for their performance at MSI and prepare ourselves for the summer split. LEC will return on June 11th and we’ll continue our coverage of Fnatic’s 2021 season.
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