Worlds 2021 – Who has the best cards in the play-in phase?

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League of Legends World Championship

Today the League of Legends World Championship starts with the Play-Ins. There it will be decided who will be allowed to enter the group stage. But which teams will they be?

Today the Worlds 2021 finally start and like every year it begins with the play-ins. There are still a total of four free places in the group stage. But which LoL teams are competing at all and who has particularly good cards?

How the Play-Ins work

There are also groups in the play-in phase. The first group consists of teams Hanwha Life Esports, LNG Esports, INFINITY, PEACE, and RED Kalunga. In group 2, Cloud9, Beyond Gaming, Unicorns of Love, Galatasaray Esports and DetonatioN FocusMe await us.

The top two teams from each group will then move on to a group stage group where their respective region is not yet represented. This means, for example, if Cloud9 were to successfully make it through the play-ins, they could end up in Group A or C for the group stage, as no team from the North America region is represented there yet.

Group A play-ins

In Group A, the favourites are LNG Esports from the LPL (Chinese league) and Hanwha Life Esports from the LCK (Korean league). In general, the Asian teams are often very strong, which is why it is speculated that they will enter the group stage.

Hanwha Life Esports did not make it to the playoffs in the summer, but they have improved steadily since then. Moreover, the team is partly made up of genuine Worlds veterans. In particular, mid-laner Jeong “Chovy” Ji-Hoon is a feared player who has now made it to the Worlds three years in a row. His mechanical ability means he is often regarded as one of the best players in the world.

Bot-laner Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu has also been on the Worlds stage countless times and is constantly improving. These two players alone suggest that Hanwah Life is likely to secure a place in the group stage.

But LNG Esports also has a coveted player in Lee “Tarzan” Seung-yoon in their team. The Korean is considered by many to be the best jungler in the world and thus has high potential to take down his opponents in the play-ins. So expectations are high against these two teams.

Group B of the Play-Ins

In the second group it is much more difficult to determine a clear winner. Although the favourites are the teams Cloud9 and Beyond Gaming, even these competitors weaken from time to time. Especially Cloud9 was neither during the MSI nor in the LCS on a high level and both the Jungle and the Bot-Lane give a rather bad picture.

Beyong Gaming showed some good games against PSG Talon, but the team is not yet used to international competitions. As a substitute, ADC Chiu “Doggo” Tzu-Chuan impressed fans when he played for PSG Talon at MSI. But now he is playing with other teammates, which might be unfamiliar for him.

The other teams in the second group do not look weak in principle either. Unicorns of Love made it to the group stage last year with the same team members and DetonatioN FocusMe has also been on the Worlds stage many times. The Turkish team Galatasaray Esports also looks promising and could surprise the spectators.

So we could be in for a few surprises in the Group B matches, while the Group A results are quite predictable.