Royal Never Give Up has been eliminated from the 2021 League of Legends World Championship in a narrow 2-3 defeat at the hands of fellow LPL representative EDward Gaming. After the match, RNG joined the media for a post-match press conference to discuss the team's loss and 2021 at large.

Poppy, though this isn't the end result you and your players wanted, RNG had success throughout the season. Are you able to reflect on this year as a whole?

Aside from this result, I'm pretty satisfied with this year. At the beginning, we didn't imagine we could reach this level, but we still have a bit of regret that we were stopped in this quarterfinal. We hope EDG can continue our will and reach the final.

Xiaohu, besides the matchups themselves, what made it interesting for you to play Lucian and Syndra in top lane this tournament?

Syndra is situational, but it's my advantage that I'm pretty good at these champions.

Cryin, we saw you bring out the Annie for the first time in your career today; a champion who has rarely seen professional play as a mid laner. Why did you start practicing Annie in the first place, and why was she a good pick today?

I think we've had pretty good results with it, so that's why I chose it.

Xiaohu, were you impressed by any of the less experienced top laners you played against, such as Fnatic's Adam "Adam" Maanane  or Hanhwa Life Esports'  Park "Morgan" Gi-tae?

I don't have a very big impression of them.

Poppy, were you expecting EDG to ban Annie in game 5, or were you hoping you could play her again?

We had a pretty good outcome during practice, which is why we picked Annie.

Poppy, how did you see your team's performance as a whole after this result?

We are not satisfied. I made a lot of mistakes.

You've had a lot of clashes with EDG at the top of the LPL. Would you like to continue the story of this rivalry next year, and what would you need to do to change the result from what it was today?

Regardless of the team that we are playing against, I wish that we will always have good results. We will continue to fight each and every game.

Xiaohu, this was your first professional season as a top laner. How do you feel you performed overall, and what do you think is the biggest thing you need to work on as a top laner?

Aside from Worlds 2021, I'm pretty satisfied with my performance throughout this year. From the beginning, people looked down on me, but I put in a lot of effort, despite the result not being good. As far as improvements, I need to expand my champion pool.

Poppy, which aspects of the game do you think EDG outplayed RNG on today?

I think that the fact that both sides of their map were playing well meant that we didn't have as many strategies for that situation. In that aspect, they may have done better than us.

Poppy, how ware you feeling about the team's season as a whole?

As of this whole year, we don't have many regrets. We tried our best in this best-of-five to play our style, so I don't think there are too many regrets.

GALA, how would you comment on your individual performance at Worlds 2021?

I don't have many feelings about it.

Cryin, what have you learned from Worlds 2021?

I think I need to prepare more.

Xiaohu, what do you think was the biggest change for you in going from mid lane to top lane this season?

In the mid lane, I need to care about the overall situation. In top lane, I only need to focus on my own lane.

Which lane do you prefer?

They are both fun. I'm still relatively new to top lane, so it's a fresh experience for me.

Xiaohu, RNG won MSI this year, but was eliminated in the quarterfinals of Worlds. This is the exact same trajectory as RNG in 2018. Why do you think RNG fails to perform well on the Worlds stage?

I think for this Worlds, we were playing against a team we knew very well in EDG. We don't have many counter-strategies against them, so that's why we lost.

Poppy is there anything you'd like to the RNG fans and supporters?

We are very sorry we let you down. Thank you for your continued support. Thank you very much.

GALA and Ming, Viper and Meiko are considered one of, if not the best, bot lanes in the world. Today, they focused heavily on enchantress supports. Is there anything both of you would do differently if you were to play this best-of-five series again?

I think they are doing very well. In this matchup, I think we should have played more attention to the details if we had the chance to play this match again. I know Meiko very well - in the past, I've learned a lot from him, and I will still try to learn from them.

All images by: Riot Games