Day 1 of the 2021 League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) featured an intense Group C showdown between DWG KIA and Cloud9, in which DK’s top laner Kim “Khan” Dong-ha shined.

While many had eyes on the mid lane duel between Heo “ShowMaker” Su and Luka “Perkz” Perković, Khan came through as the match MVP on his terrifying Gnar.

Fudge gets hunted down by Khan’s Gnar in the jungle

Facing off against C9’s rookie top laner Ibrahim “Fudge” Allami, Khan easily locked him down with the cuddly, yet killer champion.

As Fudge was taking the blue buff, Khan ambushed the C9 top laner with a Halting Slash from his Stridebreaker. Now in range, the Gnar player kept auto-attacking Fudge for Hyper stacks, and stunned him with his ult.

Jang “Ghost” Yong-jun then used Jhin’s Deadly Flourish to chain crowd control. This gave Khan the chance to execute the Gangplank player using a simple Boulder Toss.

Throwing C9 into a wall, Khan’s Gnar stuns

Khan found another opportunity to punish Fudge in the jungle, but this time, it developed into an incredible outplay by the DWG KIA squad.

Perkz’s Viktor and Rober “Blaber” Huang’s Kindred rallied to ensure their top laner’s escape, but Khan stunned the C9 duo into the jungle wall and handed three kills over to DWG KIA.

Khan’s Gnar closes the game with a three-man Nexus slam

Khan hammered the final nail in the coffin with another definitive Gnar powerplay.

As Cloud9 found themselves stuck inside in their own base, Khan swiftly moved through the minions with his Hop and Stridebreaker dash, and transformed once again to initiate a slam right under the Nexus turrets.

Stunning three members of Cloud9 with his Gnar ult, Khan and DWG KIA quickly followed up for a few kills and claimed the first-ever Nexus of MSI 2021.

With a 1-0 record in Group C, DWG KIA will face Infinity Esports today at 11 p.m. GMT+8.

You can catch the action on the official Riot Games Twitch channel.

READ MORE: ‘EU players are unusually obsessed with dragons,’ says DWG KIA’s Ghost