League of Legends MSI Series Breakdown

This tournament will begin with a group stage with a round robin phase of play to determine the top two teams who will move on to the “Rumble Stage”. The group stage has all of the winners from all winners from each region. The seedings are made by how well each region did in the previous World Championship (regardless of whether or not that team actually participated in the last World Championship). This year the groups are uneven with Group A having only 3 teams but Groups B and C having four teams a piece. Only two teams will make it out so it really has no impact on whether or not teams make it out of groups but it is something to look at as far as stats go later in the tournament. It would have been three full groups of four but the VCS champions (GAM Esports) are unable to attend due to Vietnam’s COVID restrictions.  

After the original round robin phase, there is a second double round robin phase with all teams playing best of one series. Once every team has played each other twice, the top four teams will move on to the bracket round. The knockout stage will be three best of five series with each match being a single elimination series. 

Group A: RNG should have a clean 4-0 in groups here. In fact this group should be fairly chalk. In terms of players to watch here I think GALA should run through the bot lanes of UOL (Lodik/SaNTaS) and Pentanet.GG (Praedyth/Decoy) but I do worry some about the consistency of RNG. They were a bit streaky in the playoffs and did go a full 5 game set against TES and EDG before beating FPX 3-1 (after losing to them 0-3 earlier in the playoffs). My choice for most likely to move out with RNG in this group would most likely be UOL. They are a seasoned organization who used to be part of the LEC. They have a flashy mid laner in Nomanz who had the third most kills in the LCL Spring Split (74 kills in 15 games) and then lead the LCL in kills in the LCL playoffs (59 kills in 8 games). UOL do not play as conventional game in terms of scaling into the late game and playing through their bot lane carry. Instead UOL likes to focus on early skirmishes and get Nomanz online to carry into the late game. Pentanet.GG is coming in from the shell of the Oceana league and most pundits think this is probably one of the weakest teams at the tournament. Praedyth (Bot lane) is their carry and posted 48 kills and 45 assists in their playoff run. Interestingly enough, only the Pentanet.GG won the LCO with only one player averaging a lead at 10 minutes. 

Cann’s Group A Winner: RNG

Cann’s Group A Runner-Up: Unicorns of Love

Group B: In each of the groups the projected winners should be the major region teams. For Group B, this should be MAD Lions. They are a bit of a volatile team, but have a ton of skill top to bottom on their roster. The fight for second will be pretty exciting to watch. From Turkey we get to see the Istanbul Wildcats who are fast and wild with picks like Wu Kong, Volibear, and Samira which all fly in the face of what other teams are playing right now. PSG Talon from the Taiwanese league is an absolute dominant force in their region who did not drop a single game through their regional playoffs. To round out the group you have paiN Gaming who has had quite of bit of domestic success but have not been to an international event since 2015. There should be a lot of series trading (teams going 1-1 against each other) and this group is the most likely to come down to some final day tiebreaker games. 

Cann’s Group B Winner: MAD Lions

Cann’s Group B Runner-Up: Istanbul Wildcats

Group C: This is your “Group of Death” and to be frank, the only real reason it is called that is because there are two major regions in the group. I really think that if Cloud9 from the LCS playoffs show up it should be 6-0 for DWG KIA and 4-2 for Cloud9. That being said, in recent history Cloud9 have struggled to play at a super high level consistently but there are hopes that the addition of Perkz will help with that. DetonatioN FocusMe is a fun team from the Japanese league who pick very obscure picks like Cho’Gath, Shen, and Qiyana makes other teams have to stay honest in their own draft and gameplanning which means that the heavy hitters in this group could find themselves losing games they shouldn’t. The Latin American representatives in Infinity Esports are pretty solid but definitely not the same in terms of firepower as the Rainbow7 teams (Former kings of LLA) in the past. 

Cann’s Group C Winner: DWG KIA

Cann’s Group C Runner-Up: Cloud9

Now keep your eyes peeled for my team by team breakdown coming over the next two weeks! Fantasy Alarm will be your go to place for MSI coverage for this year! Be sure to follow me on Twitter (@CannsComments) for my daily thoughts on the matches as we get started May 6th!