Riot Games, the company that presents the video game League of Legends (LOL) and operates LOL eSports events, announced on Friday the matchups of the coming 2021 League of Legends World Championship (Worlds 2021) in Reykjavik, Iceland.

The Chinese mainland's LOL league, the League of Legends Pro League (LPL), will have four teams attend Worlds 2021 – FunPlus Phoenix (FPX), Royal Never Give Up (RNG), Edward Gaming (EDG) and LNG Esports (LNG).

LNG will start from the play-in tournament and meet Hanwha Life Esports (HLE) from League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) in their first match on October 5. Four of the 10 teams, which are divided into two pools, will be able to make the group stage of Worlds 2021. LNG and HLE (plus Cloud9, C9, from North America's League of Legends Championship Series, LCS) are considered as the three biggest hopefuls for the group stage.

LNG will meet HLE in their opening match in the first round of the play-in competitions. In the first stage, each team will play the other four teams twice in best-of-one (BO1) matches. The top-ranked team in each of the two pools will advance to the group stage directly. The remaining teams will have to compete for the final two spots (one for each pool) in best-of-five (BO5) matches.

LNG's jungler Lee Seung-yong (Game ID: Tarzan) used to form a well-performing pair with HLE's mid laner Jeong Ji-hoon (Game ID: Chovy) in LCK's Griffin. Now they two will become rivals in the match.

The group stage of Worlds 2021 will begin on October 11 and the first match will take place between Worlds 9 champion FPX and Worlds 10 title winner Damwon KIA (DK) in Group A. Worlds 9 FMVP Kim Tae-sang (Game ID: Doinb) and Worlds 10 FMVP Heo Su (Game ID: ShowMaker) are considered the top 2 mid laners for this year's event. Despite their different play styles, Doinb and Showmaker are expected to bring one of the most eye-catching contests in Reykjavík.

One more interesting part of the FPX-DK match is that DK's top laner Kim Dong-ha (Game ID: Khan) has been teammates with all of the members of both teams with the exception of FPX's top laner Jang Ha-gwon (Game ID: Nuguri). That's why every time the two teams were mentioned, many would call them "Khan and his eight world champion teammates." Can Khan make himself a world champion this time?

RNG and EDG will also appear in Day 1's matches. RNG is scheduled to play Paris Saint-Germain Talon (PSG) from the Pacific Championship Series (PCS). The two teams met in the semifinal of the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) in May. RNG beat PSG 3-1 back then. That gave PSG every reason to put on their best form and get vengeance from RNG.

Of course, RNG has their own score to settle as well, with Fnatic (FNC) of LCS. Back in 2019, RNG lost to FNC in the group stage and failed to advance. RNG's bot laner Jian Zihao (Game ID: Uzi), who was seen by many as the greatest attack damage player in LOL history, had finish his last Worlds in this way. Though Uzi already retired, RNG will still be driven to get payback.

EDG is playing 100 Thieves (100T) from LCS in the first match. But what really carries the most weight will be EDG's clash with T1 of LCK on October 16. There are two major reasons that no one should miss this match. First, three-time Worlds champion mid laner Lee Sang-hyeok (Game ID: Faker) of T1 returns to the event after missing it in 2020; second, EDG lost to T1, which was known as SK Telecom T1 (SKT) back then, in a key match in the group stage of Worlds 2017. Not only did EDG waste a 10,000+ gold lead, the loss also cost EDG the chance to make the playoff stage.

It seems like the theme of Worlds 2021 is settling the score with your old enemy.