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Riot Games’ biggest ever esports event in the world of video game competitions — the 2021 World Championship, is currently in its playoffs phase with the first matches already played.
In this article, covering some of the Worlds 2021 action, we will talk about the group stage games of the Worlds 2021 tournament and also especially focus our attention at the DAMWON Gaming‘s record performance of 6-0 in the event’s main group stage.
Since this year League of Legends’ Worlds series event groups and the additional main event group tiebreaker matches were already played, we can now witness the final results of this tournament’s group stage.
The group stage matches at the main LoL championship, which is held offline at the Laugardalsholl Sport Center in Reykjavík, Iceland, started on October 11 with the games in all of the four Worlds 2021 main event’s groups from A to D.
We already previously spoke just a bit about the Worlds’ main group stage format in one of our earlier articles featuring the initial Riot’s event group drawings.
Moreover, in one of the other articles we previously covered some of the Worlds 2021 games in both of the play-in groups, and the second one was featuring the already pretty high octane action at the subsequent knockout qualification matches of the Riot Games’ play-in event.
Who plays who?
Speaking of main event groups format at this year’s Worlds, let us just briefly remind ourselves that there were four teams coming from the play-in stage of the Worlds 2021 event.
These four winning teams were placed into the main event groups A to D, each team in one of their respective four groups previously filled with already qualified members from different regions around the world, among which were the very best representatives of the LCK, LPL, LEC, LCS, and PCS LoL leagues.
Let us not forget that all of the Worlds series tournament’s games were played using the 11.19 patch, with some of the newer champions disabled. In one of our previous articles, featuring the 11.19 patch changelog review and its analysis, we also discussed most of the in-game changes prior to the Worlds 2021 event in all of the fine details.
At the current Worlds 2021 main group stage, the total of 16 world’s best League of Legends teams faced each other in a Bo1 series and played each other using a double round-robin system. This term means that every team only played each of the other teams twice.
From each of the four Worlds groups, two of the best teams advanced to the final playoffs stage, while the other two teams from each group were out of the Worlds 2021 event.
There were also a few of the tiebreaker matches played that were aimed to decide the exact distribution of the participating teams in the final group standings.
In total, after the whole group stage play finally commenced, the 8 best LoL teams with the most wins advanced to the playoffs bracket. The matches in the playoffs started from the quarterfinals.
The South Korean domination
Starting from the first Group A matches of the main Worlds 2021 event, this group also featured some of the strong contenders such as South Korea’s DAMWON Gaming, China’s FunPlus Phoenix, EU’s Rogue, and also North America’s Cloud9 team.
In today’s story we will mostly try to focus and shift our attention mainly on the victorious path of the DAMWON Gaming team and follow their “road of the gosu”.
DAMWON Gaming vs FunPlus Phoenix
On the first play day in groups, the DK team managed to pick up their first win at the Worlds 2021 event in a Bo1 series against the likes of the FPX squad. The intense DAMWON Gaming vs FunPlus Phoenix match finished in favor of one of the best South Korean teams coming from the LCK region.
Labeled as the opening match of the group A and the epic South Korea vs China rivalry, the competition between both LoL squads was able to instantly keep and tightly hold the attention of many esports spectators around the world.
The DK vs FPX game lasted for a little less than 30 minutes and it was played out strongly in favor of the LCK Summer 2021 winners, who finished the South Korean Summer split with the 12-6 score and then also came first at the subsequent LCK 2021 Summer Playoffs event, beating Faker’s T1 roster in the DAMWON Gaming vs T1 clash with the 3:1 score in the finals.
The South Korean team managed to score first blood around the sixth minute mark, but this first kill was only the beginning and marked the 18 kills spree against the only two opposing frags from one of the best Chinese LoL teams, who managed to come first at Worlds 2019 by beating the likes of the G2 Esports organization and earning more than $800,000 prize money for their glorious victory.
Objective numbers were also not really that close, as the Chinese squad took only two turrets against the South Korea’s eleven turret takedowns, with ten turret plates mostly on top and mid, three drakes, and even one Baron buff acquisition.
The most vivid proof of the DAMWON Gaming’s domination in this opening game was the final recorded 15k gold difference at the end of this match.
The South Korean starting mid lane player for the FunPlus Phoenix team — Kim “Doinb” Tae-sang, could not do much at all during this game as he was given Galio and ended up with the 0-4-2 score and not doing much against the opposing team’s Heo “ShowMaker” Su, who was playing on LeBlanc.
FPX’s jungler Gao “Tian” Tian-Liang finished the match against DK with exactly the same as his fellow mid lane player KDA stats.
In turn, together with his jungler Kim “Canyon” Geon-bu, who picked Trundle this game, ShowMaker managed to earn 7 kills coupled with 23 assists and only die once, against the combined zero kills, eight deaths, and only four assists of the respective Chinese players.
Around the ten minute mark, Canyon was the first to pick the Rift Herald, as he also managed to kill the Tian’s Jarvan IV afterwards.
The South Korean top lane player for FunPlux Phoenix Jang “Nuguri” Ha-gwon on his Jayce was assisted by his teammates and managed to quickly reply by the kill of their own on Canyon’s Trundle.
But then in the early game and afterwards it was practically all in favor of the DK team, which started the game on the blue side of the Summoner’s Rift map. The South Korean squad picked Baron Nashor buff at the 25 minute and the main Chinese nexus building was destroyed in four minutes afterwards.
With this victory over the FunPlus Phoenix squad, the DAMWON Gaming roster gave rise to their epic and lossless march through the Worlds 2021 main event’s first group.
DAMWON Gaming vs Rogue
On the second play of the main groups stage, the mighty South Korean Summoner’s Cup contenders were set to play their second match in the Worlds 2021 tournament against the likes of one of the other group A squads, which happened to be one of the better European LoL teams.
This was the LEC LoL team who came third at the LEC Summer 2021 event and also was able to reach top 3 of the scoreboards of the LEC Summer 2021 Playoffs, losing to MAD Lions with the 0:3 score in the semifinals of the European knockout event and earning the last trip to Worlds 2021 from the LEC region.
Unlike the Chinese squad’s lackluster performance in the first game of the group, the Rogue team managed to fight back against the likes of the South Korean opposition.
In the DAMWON Gaming vs Rogue match, the game lasted for almost 40 minutes and this time it definitely looked not that one-sided for the likes of one of the best squads in the EU region.
The DK organization springed to the action without further ado by picking the first blood in less than four minutes, when Kim “Khan” Dong-ha’s Jax managed to simply solo kill the Andrei “Odoamne” Pascu’s Graves on the upper side of the map, near one of the top lane bushes.
The initial laning phase played out pretty well for the DAMWON Gaming squad, as the South Korean team which spawned on the Red side of the map then started methodically picking multiple plates from the Rogue’s turrets.
Interestingly, the Jax player again single handedly picked Graves off the map before the 10 minute mark, and so Canyon’s Talon was able to defeat the Rift Herald afterwards.
In contrast, Rogue’s Kacper “Inspired” Sloma’s, with his interesting Fiddlesticks pick, was not quite able to outshine the opposition as his champion finished the game with the sort of “uninspiring” score of 1-4-3.
In the meantime, already ahead in his lane matchup and freely roaming, Jax then made a few kills in favor of the South Korean team in multiple locations primarily on the bottom and middle side of the map.
Khan’s champion finished the game with the 5-1-4 statistics as he unfortunately managed to die one time compared to the flawless KDA of 9 on ShowMaker’s Ryze.
The final digits on the game’s scoreboard indicated 15 kills for the DK squad and only nine frags for the losing European LoL team.
The South Korean organization also picked the first turret and was able to take 50% more of them in total — 8 to 4, and also 11 plates against zero bonuses for the Rogue team.
The DK team managed to pick five dragons in their favor, but the European LoL team was able to grab the Baron Nashor kill around the 30 minute mark and then the Rogue squad managed to swing the gold difference from about 6.3k to only 2.6k.
But their efforts were not quite enough as the game was ended by the DAMWON Gaming team in eight more minutes. The final gold difference was recorded when it was nearing the 8k mark.
In the final teamfight of the match, Khan’s Jax and Jang “Ghost” Yong-jun’s Aphelios managed to kill the opposing main damage dealers. The ADC and also the mid lane player of the Rogue — Lucian and Orianna, were both eliminated.
Odoamne, in turn, killed the enemy bottom lane duo, but this final effort was not enough as the nexus turrets fell and the Rogue’s nexus itself was also destroyed.
DAMWON Gaming vs Cloud9
On the third play day of the Worlds 2021 main groups event, the South Korean esports organization was fighting against the main North American hope — Luka “Perkz” Perkovic’s Cloud9 squad.
One of the best NA LoL teams, C9 managed to come forth at the LCS Summer 2021 event and placed third at the LCS 2021 Championship by beating the TSM roster in the epic Team SoloMid vs Cloud9 clash. The C9 squad then lost with the 1:3 score to the other Worlds 2021 contenders — the 100 Thieves team.
In the result of the North American competition the C9 team ended up being the last organization to jump the Worlds 2021 bandwagon.
C9 were set to start their games in the Iceland’s international tournament during the initial play-in phase of the event. There, the North American squad managed to earn their trip to the main group stage event as they ended up stronger than the Australia’s PEACE team in a Bo5 knockouts — 3:0.
We also previously reviewed this match in all of its details as a part of our already linked earlier Worlds 2021 coverage which was especially devoted to the final play-in phase of the Riot Games’ event.
The first DAMWON Gaming vs Cloud9 match in group A of the Worlds 2021 tournament lasted for a little more than half an hour, with the South Korean LoL teams grabbing roughly 50% more additional kills including first blood.
The game ended with the 15-7 score in terms of the kill difference between the two opposing teams. DK’s objective control in this game was pretty flawless: stunning 1000% more turret picks with 11 to C9’s only one, four drakes, and two Baron Nashor buffs to none of the opposing team.
The acquired turret plates score of 13-3 was also heavily in favor of the DK squad. The final gold difference was nearing 15k as the South Korean team were steadily building their unwavering positional and strategic advantage throughout the course of the map.
Robert “Blaber” Huang’s jungling Quiyana did not do much at all this game. She died to Khan’s Graves on the second minute of the match in the result of the first blood and was seemingly acting as an inadequate support with the 0-4-5 score.
The Miss Fortune which was picked by Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen started the game pretty ok-ish. She first died in the result of the bot lane skirmish from Ghost’s Jhin, but then the American duo replied with the two kills on their own by killing the Korean ADC two times around the fifth minute mark.
In total, Zven’s MF did almost 15k damage to champions, but she was still unable to carry the game in favor of the North American Lol team.
The final teamfight happened on the 30 minute mark when three of the C9 members died to the South Korean team, and Cloud9 also lost all three inhibitors afterwards.
The DK team then picked up two of the C9’s remaining champions and quickly destroyed the remains of their open base as the game was over for the Cloud9 team.
DAMWON Gaming vs FunPlus Phoenix
The series of next matches in the first group A of the Worlds 2021 main group stage resumed again, but it happened only after the participating teams were able to rest for nearly two days in a row.
The South Korean esports organization yet had to lose a single game, and on the fourth play day it was heading right into their already second face-to-face meeting versus the Chinese Worlds champions FunPlus Phoenix.
Remember, that the first match of the Asian squads at the Worlds 2021 event ended up in favor of the top Korean LoL squad. The teams were heading into the pick-ban phase of the match with the 3-0 and 2-1 records for DK and FPX, respectively.
In this game, the DK squad, which is also known in the LoL esports community under the DWG KIA handle primarily because of their sponsorship contract terms, was able to once again close the game in their favor in less than 30 minutes.
Playing as the red side team on the Summoner’s Rift, ShowMaker’s squad was able to take the Bo1 clash with the 14-4 kill difference and strong objectives control with 9 to 5 five turrets destroyed, equal drakes, and one Baron Nashor to zero.
This was definitely not the best game of FPX’s top lane player Nuguri on Gragas as the Korean import had zero kills and died 6 times with three assists. Instead, DK’s Ghost could boast of 10 KDA and nearly reached the 300 CS mark on his MF.
The final gold difference on the scoreboard indicated the roughly 6k lead of the DK squad, though the graph was holding tight and went pretty back and forth almost until the 25 minute mark, four minutes before the game ended.
There was no meaningful action on the map up until the 7 minute mark, when Khan’s top lane Jayce with the assistance of his jungler Canyon on Poppy and mid laner ShowMaker, playing Twisted Fate, was able to draw first blood in the match by killing Nuguri’s Gragas.
The next series of events was in favor of the FunPlus Phoenix organization as the Chinese LoL team playing on the Blue side was able to establish map control and grab multiple turret plates around the mid and top sides of the map.
Canyon took first drake on the 13th minute while both teams were exchanging the kills of their top laners. The first tier 1 and tier 2 turrets were also falling pretty evenly in favor of both teams.
Some of the hot action began around the 25 minute mark and the game quickly swinged in favor of the DAMWON Gaming roster, as they won one of the main teamfights of the match where Canyon’s Poppy made a double kill against the Chinese bot lane duo and grabbed one of the drakes and also the Baron Nashor buff soon afterwards.
The Korean team then closed the game after destroying all of the turrets, inhibitors, and also killing a few enemy champions here and there. After two of the nexus turrets were gone, Ghost killed the Chinese bot duo and the FPX’s nexus was destroyed in a matter of seconds. ShowMaker and Ghost finished the match boasting the KDA numbers of 12 and 10, respectively.
DAMWON Gaming vs Rogue
The second South Korea vs Europe matchup of one of the world’s best LoL teams at the Worlds 2021 main group stage was also played out during the fourth and a pretty intense final day of the group stage event in Iceland.
The Rogue team earlier in the day already lost their 25 minute game to the likes of the Cloud9 team, and the EU team were heading to the clash against the 4-0 Koreans with the somewhat unconvincing 1-3 record in the tournament.
One of the longer games during the main group stage event, the match lasted for almost 40 minutes. The gold graph was looking pretty even until the later stages of the game, when around the 25 minute mark it finally started swinging a bit more in favor of the DK team and peaked at more than 13k when the game was already over.
The objective control in this game was also in favor of the South Korean squad, with 10 turret takedowns to only 3 turrets destroyed by the Rogue team and 7-4 score in terms of the turret plates.
The neutral monsters were also taken less by the European squad, as they took control of only two drakes against the 50% more number for the opposition who also had two Baron power plays throughout the course of the match.
The match’s kill score ended up being 19-11 and it was in favor of the DAMWON organization.
The first blood happened around the fifth minute when Khan’s top lane Lucian soloed the opposing Jayce controlled by Odoamne, but Inspired’s Olaf then instantly managed to score a reverse kill of his own.
Olaf moved on to the top lane while Jayce, even though he was underleveled, started attacking the enemy Lucian since the lane was pushed up high enough for the potential flanking gank to work out.
Jayce soon went out of mana during this skirmish and Lucian flashed on top of him under the turret for the last auto attack. Lucian grabbed the sweet +400 gold reward for the first blood kill on the enemy top laner.
He then ended up being low health himself, OOM, and also ate a turret shot, so Inspired who was by the time already coming from behind was able to easily take the somewhat equalizing kill in the match.
Khan’s Lucian soon became a real monster and he carried the match with the most convincing score of 10-3-6 and 342 CS.
In turn, Jayce did not have much of an impact with the 1-5-3 score of his own.
The South Korean top lane player also managed to deal about two times more of the damage to champions than his Romanian opponent. Lucian was so fed that in the end he was nearing the 40% mark of the DK team’s summarized firepower.
Khan’s champion was responsible for the Pentakill which happened in one of the teamfights on the top side of the map at the 33 minute mark. Shortly after, the South Korean team without any hindrance or stoppages were headed to pick their second Baron Nashor buff of the match.
Speaking of the player stats, Rogue’s mid lane player Emil “Larssen” Larsson on his Ryze also did not impact the game at all and had a very poor score with one kill for four deaths and equal amount of assists.
Rogue’s ADC player Steven “Hans sama” Liv’s Miss Fortune was holding better and went almost on par with Ghost’s Draven, but she was also unable to solo carry the game for her team. The opposing Draven finished the game with the highest KDA of 11.0.
After the first blood incident, the RGE team replied with the more confident jungle objectives control by taking drake and Rift Herald before the 10 minute mark.
But the DAMWON Gaming team then replied with drake, first tower takedown, and a Herald kill of their own.
The Rogue team killed another drake before 20 minutes, but then all of the other objectives belonged to the first LoL team coming from the LCK region. They grabbed three drakes, and also two Barons.
DK players Ghost, Khan, and Canyon killed the entire Rogue team during the series of final fights.
Hans sama and Odoamne then replied with the two kills, but this was not enough, as the remaining structures of the European team were already falling and their entire base was in shambles.
DAMWON Gaming vs Cloud9
With the another win against Rogue, the reigning DK team went on to the 5-0 record and 100% winrate in their Worlds 2021 main group stage matches, and the South Korean team in their minds were definitely aiming to make a clear statement with the last and flawless finisher. In turn, the C9 team were 2-3 in the event before this match.
The last match for the DAMWON Gaming squad against the North American multigaming esports organization was going for a little less than 40 minutes.
The DK team took first blood in the game against the likes of Perkz’s Twisted Fate in the mid lane, in an organized attack when Canyon’s Lee Sin was assisted by his support player Cho “BeryL” Geon-hee’s Shen and also the laning ShowMaker’s Kassadin.
Shortly after, Cloud9’s top lane player Ibrahim “Fudge” Allami’s Kennen, who was also assisted by Blaber’s Graves and Philippe “Vulcan” Laflamme’s Leona, was able to reply with the C9’s top lane dive against Khan’s Jax.
The total number of kills on the map was settled down to 21-15 in favor of the South Korean LoL team.
The control of objectives on the Summoner’s Rift during this match was also in favor of the DAMWON Gaming team, as they were able to pick 11 turrets to only 3 opposing takedowns of the North American squad, 5 versus 3 in turret plates, and four drakes to two.
Roughly before the 12 minute mark, the C9 team managed to take one dragon and also grab a Rift Herald in their favor. Importantly, to close up the game against C9, the Koreans needed to take two Barons to none of the opposing team.
The gold graph was looking quie equal almost until the end of the game, and it only started moving downwards for the NA squad after the 30 minute mark of the match.
In the end, the overall gold difference was registered at 11k in favor of the DK team.
BeryL’s Shen and Canyon’s Lee Sin were able to kill Vulcan’s roaming Leona, who continued to roam around the map and ended up being around the middle lane in the seventh minute of the match.
Shen then continued to roam near the top lane and helped Canyon to kill Blaber’s jungling Graves before the 10th minute.
Both teams were exchanging turret plates with C9 being able to take a lot of them in the mid lane. Before the 20 minutes, Khan’s pushing Jax was able to take all of C9’s tier 1 turrets on the map. The C9 squad then replied with only two takedowns of their own.
In one of the massive teamfights, C9 were able to find a really good fight for themselves as they came ahead of their opponents by killing four champions of the DK team and equalizing the kill numbers with the 7-7 score. Then both teams were exchanging kills and their tier 2 turrets also started falling.
In a teamfight at the 30 minute mark the Cloud9 squad was entirely swept by the South Korean LoL team. The DK pushed mid and got tier 3 tower destroyed. The top lane turrets were also rapidly falling. Both inhibitors of the NA team were destroyed by the DAMWON Gaming team at the 38 minute of the match.
The final teamfight of the game went in favor of the South Korean squad. Ghost’s MF killed four of the C9 members, including their main carries TF and Kaisa who died first, and ShowMaker’s Kassadin finished Fudge’s Kennen.
The Cloud9’s base was then open wide. The bottom lane inhibitor fell down, the nexus turrets and the nexus itself were also gone for the wiped out North American team. The final moment of the falling Cloud9’s nexus marked the end of the story for the DAMWON Gaming team at least in their Worlds 2021 main event group play.
The South Korean LoL team managed to finish the group phase with the perfect record of 6-0, which was a unique achievement itself in this year’s Worlds event. As the first South Korean seed, the DK team was confidently heading to the quarterfinal stage of the Iceland’s Worlds 2021 tournament.