In the most anticipated match of the 2021 League of Legends World Championship, top seed DWG KIA took down their Korean rivals T1 in a 3-2 barnburner semifinal series on Saturday.
Coming into this series, the main storyline was the clash of eras represented. T1 mid laner and long-time face of the game Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok hadn’t won a major title in more than five years. Standing in his way was Heo “ShowMaker” Su, the new king of the mid lane and the main catalyst for DWG KIA’s World Championship run last year.
While the action between Faker and ShowMaker was intense, it was their supporting casts who defined the series.
Game 1 saw DWG KIA win thanks to their all-star jungler Kim “Canyon” Geon-bu. Canyon, who is regarded as the best player at his position in the world, put on a jungle masterclass as Lee Sin, routinely bullying T1 jungler Moon “Oner” Hyeon-joon’s Poppy in the early game to put DK ahead. Once ahead, DWG KIA had the free rein to secure objectives and routinely blast T1 in teamfights, especially with support Cho “BeryL” Geon-hee’s surprise Maokai pick, setting up kills with Nature’s Grasp ultimates. DWG KIA rode the wave of momentum into a 29-minute win.
In Game 2, Oner got one back on Canyon as Lee Sin, playing an immaculate game along with the rest of T1’s teamfight wombo-oriented composition. Early on, the gold lead went back and forth, but T1 managed to get through some rough early matchups relatively unscathed. Eventually, T1 was able to reliably teamfight with their Yasuo-Rakan-Lee Sin initiation package, leaving Faker’s Lissandra and bot lane carry Lee “Gumayusi” Min-hyeong’s Jhin to further lock down enemies and deal damage. DK would try to pull ahead with a Hail Mary Baron Nashor attempt, but Oner stole the Baron and helped T1 dominate the ensuing teamfight en route to a win in 37 minutes.
Game 3 saw BeryL return to his Maokai pick, but T1 was ready for it, putting support Ryu “Keria” Min-seok on Zilean. Keria’s Zilean worked out exceptionally well in this match, using Chronoshift to save his teammates from DWG KIA’s high damage en route to a perfect KDA of 1-0-19 (Kills-Deaths-Assists) for 91 percent kill participation. With DK unable to pick off single targets if Keria was around, T1’s teamfighting composition shined as T1 took just the second game from DK all tournament long in 37 minutes, threatening to take out the tournament favorites.
DWG KIA got it together in Game 4 in a lopsided win that started in the draft. DWG KIA put ShowMaker on LeBlanc and Canyon on Qiyana, which allowed the two to pick on Faker’s immobile Ryze early on and get the assassins fed. ShowMaker was unstoppable as the game progressed, one-shotting lone T1 members throughout the mid game and finishing with an 11-0-3 KDA and a game-high 24,100 damage dealt — more than double that of the best-performing T1 member. With the game out of hand early, DK cruised to a 30-minute win, forcing a tiebreaker Game 5.
T1 went back to Keria’s Zilean in Game 5, but even Chronoshift couldn’t save T1 from the lethal poke of ShowMaker’s Zoe and bot lane carry Jang “Ghost” Yong-jun’s Ziggs. After a neutral early game, Ghost and ShowMaker came online at roughly the same time, annihilating T1’s health bars before they had a chance to engage or set up their teamfighting composition. With T1 constantly at low health and fearing for their lives, DWG KIA had all the objective control, taking a Mountain Soul and a fully stacked Elder Dragon. While T1 had some good teamfighting openings, they just couldn’t overcome DK’s raw damage as DWG KIA picked up the win in 36 minutes.
With the win, DWG KIA advanced the Grand Finals, where they will look to defend their title against the winner of the other semifinal matchup between Korea’s third team in the Knockout Stage, Gen.G Esports, and China’s EDward Gaming.
Matches in the Knockout Stage are best-of-five all the way through the Nov. 6 grand final. The championship team will receive 22 percent of the total prize pool, which would equate to $489,500 based on the minimum guaranteed payout of $2.25 million.
The semifinals finish on Sunday with one best-of-five matchup:
Gen.G Esports vs EDward Gaming
–Noah Waltzer, Field Level Media
