We start the Mid-Season Invitational season with a series of articles about each Group at this year’s event. Let’s set some expectation about each group and team coming to Reykjavík next week.
Unicorns of Love & Pentanet.gg are going to have a massive chance at MSI 2021: at least one of these two wild-card teams will go to Stage 2 of the tournament. This is because the 4th team of the group, GAM Esports, will not attend the tournament due to Covid-19 restrictions.
With only 3 teams in Group A, and RNG most likely taking the number 1 spot, let’s see which team between UoL & Pentanet.gg will have a higher chance of getting through.
The new Oceanic League, the LCO, replaced the former OPL starting from this year. Many of the players who used to play in the region have now changed teams to look for bigger opportunities elsewhere. This left the LCO with a lot to rebuild: MSI is the perfect chance to see what their level is compared to the stronger regions.
Pentanet.gg Roster
The LCO’s representative, Pentanet.gg, destroyed their enemies with good performance both in the split as well in playoffs. The roster plays in a very traditional way: a mid-bot oriented team, with the jungler helping the lanes to get leads. They usually enjoy playing front-to-back and, so far, it works. What’s more interesting about PGG is their creative draft. While they don’t deviate in terms of playstyle, they have a good variety of champions that they can pilot. It might not make a big difference, but getting an edge is always something that you want, especially in important tournaments.
Unicorns of Love has been one of the legacy teams in Europe. After leaving the EU LCS, they found their way to the Russian League, the LCL, with the intent of keeping the Unicorns alive.
While they had an easy run in playoffs, beating CrowCrowd in the finals, their regular split performance wasn’t that great. They finished 4th in the standings with a 10-4 record and really had to step it up during playoffs to take the crown.
UoL won against CrowCrowd to qualify for MSI
Now that they will be at MSI, expectations will be different once again. Every time an LCL representative gets to the international stages, it’s really hard to assess their overall level. They’re famous for being always pulling something out-of-the-box that will shock many fans. They might not have the best individual talent, but they’re always trying to innovate and look for “unusual” ways to compete with the best.
With RNG looking very likely to advance as the first-place team, the question left is of the two teams will advance to the Rumble stage. The odds are in UoL’s favor: the LCL representative is definitely favored. The LoL betting providers seem to also favor the CIS representatives.
They have stronger talents as well as having the crucial experience of playing internationally. This last factor is extremely important: many strong domestic teams failed once they went to MSI or Worlds.
While it goes for both teams, Pentanet.gg is at its first appearance on the international stage: getting a win over any of the other two teams will be gold. What they have to do is get the best training possible and work to improve once again when Worlds comes around.
With that being said, we expect RNG & UoL to get through the next stage, as Pentanet.gg will likely end up 3rd place.
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