China's League of Legends (LOL) club, Royal Never Give Up (RNG), won international title again with less star players and more new blood, after they defeated South Korean team Damwon Kia (DK) 3-2 in the final match of Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) in Reykjavík, Iceland on Sunday.

Chen "GALA" Wei, bot laner of RNG who played all five games as the character "Kai'Sa, Daughter of the Void," was named MVP of the grand final.

"I feel like we won this title not just for RNG, but also for the whole LPL. It feels awesome," said GALA in the post-match interview.

LPL, or LPL Pro League, is the region RNG represents at the MSI, which covers the Chinese mainland.

The last time RNG won the MSI championship in 2018, the team's star was still Jian "Uzi" Zihao. Li "Xiaohu" Yuanhao and Shi "Ming" Senming are the only two members in today's RNG that belong to that roster.

Xiaohu, who played as mid laner at the time, has switched to the top lane since late 2020. He also became the first LOL professional player to win international titles on two different positions.

"Honestly, I think all four teams in the semifinals this time are equally matched," said Xiaohu. "That's why both semifinals were so close. If I have to say the LPL has any advantage, it's the fact that there are several other teams just as strong as us in LPL."

Wei, as RNG's jungler, was facing Kim "Canyon" Geon-bu of DK in the Final. Canyon has been considered as the world's best jungler for quite a while. However, he was clearly outperformed by Wei, who used "Udyr, the Spirit Walker" in all of the five games.

When asked if he thought he'd become the No. 1 jungler, Wei was very modest, saying that he learnt a lot from Canyon.

RNG's mid laner Yuan "Cryin" Chengwei sobbed at the news. He has been seen as the team's weakest player since the LPL Spring Season so much so that comments like "No one can defeat RNG as long as Cryin does not tie the team down" have been hurled at him. Nonetheless, he proved himself in the Final by contributing to the team's victory using four different characters in five games.

"I've always known I haven't been doing well enough and kinda a liability of the team," said Cryin. "But as long as I do it right, we are undefeatable."

Cryin recorded the best kill-death ratio during the 2020 LPL Spring Season, when he was rented to another Chinese club eStar.

DK won the LOL World Championship Series title last year and therefore was considered the strongest seed in this year's MSI. Though RNG beat them twice in the tournament during the Rumble Stage, many were keyed up for the LPL team during the Final.

They had good reasons to be. RNG led 2-1 after the first three games but DK's top laner Kim "Khan" Dong-ha took out his secret weapon "Aatrox; the Darkin Blade," a character that was designed to beat "Gragas; the Rabble Rouser," one of the favorite characters of Xiaohu.

Things went down quickly in Game 4 for RNG. Khan's Aatrox and Heo "ShowMaker" Su "Renekton; the Butcher of the Sands" pinned over half of RNG's squad so hard that they had to watch DK swagger around and reap every drop of resources on the map. DK's advantage was so obvious that its bot laner Jang "Ghost" Yong-jun even achieved a Penta Kill using "Tristana; the Megling Gunner."

A Penta Kill is done when one player served the final blow to every enemy characters in one team fight.

The Final was 2-2 after the first four games and DK managed to pick Aatrox again for Khan for Game 5. RNG had no choice but to stake all on the last cast of the dice.

Unlike the conservative, slow-motion self-destructive style they chose in Game 4, RNG decided to go aggressive in Game 5. Four of the team hunted ShowMaker's "Jayce the Defender of Tomorrow" at the beginning of the game, forcing him to use his flash skill, which takes five minutes to cool down. When Jayce was killed for the first time later, he was only seconds away from being able to use flash to flee again. That became a turning point in the competition.

The other key event was more complicated. DK's supporter Cho "Beryl" Geon-hee did not choose to develop the skill of protecting teammate for his character "Tahm Kench; the River King" when he reached Level 3. As a result, he had to watch Ghost's "Varus: the Arrow of Retribution" killed by Wei's Udyr for first blood. That enabled Udyr to chase Khan's Aatrox for the whole game, keeping Aatrox from farming resources as planned or dominating the game like he did in Game 4.

That's when RNG built their lead which only kept growing from then onward. DK's coach Kim "kkOma" Jeong-gyun admitted after the Final that Varus's death at the beginning was the moment he regret the most in the FInal.

After the MSI, the eleven regional champions will return to their own regions and play the next season, after which the most important championship of the year – the World Championship Series – will be held in China.

LPL and LCK will be awarded additional seeds in the Worlds for their better performance in MSI 2021 and other international events of the previous two years.