Both the World Championship and the menagerie of off-season tournaments are usually pretty good indicators of how teams will perform throughout the next season. When TOP Esports convincingly won the Demacia Cup 2020 and looked pretty hot for most of Worlds, we expected them to look similarly dominant  for at least the regular Spring Split of the LPL.  

How naive we were.  

Week 1 of the LPL has already delivered some of the most insane upsets in competitive history, but we’ve hand-selected three that you should definitely check out.  

# LNG 2-0 IG
There’s an adage in Chinese discussion boards that there are three teams that are the most difficult to beat in the regular season of the LPL. While you may think that FPX, IG, and TES are those three, the actual explanation is a little more tongue-in-cheek. The three teams in question are:  

- LGD Gaming once they’ve been eliminated from Worlds contention  

- World Elite (now Team WE) during the later stages of the split

- Snake Esports (now LNG Esports) at the start of the split  

Now, even with a rebrand, LNG have stuck true to form, upsetting an IG team that looked pretty dominant just a few days prior with finesse.  

This series served as a reminder that Lee “Tarzan” Seung-yong still has immense potential. Many critics pointed to the once-best jungler in the LCK as cashing out, signing a lengthy contract with a lower tier LPL organisation for the expected remainder of his career. Yet through one week of LPL competition, Tarzan led not just Junglers, but the entire LPL, notching a 21.0 KDA (6/1/15).  


<div class='twitter-tweet' style="width: 100%; display: flex; justify-content: center; max-width: 100%">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">A beautiful triple stun from Iwandy&#39;s Alistar leads to a clean ace for LNG Esports! <br><br>Don&#39;t miss out on more insane plays as <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LPL?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#LPL</a> returns with JDG vs BLG at 10:00am CET / 1:00am PST! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TheLeagueIsBack?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TheLeagueIsBack</a> <a href="https://t.co/hVkjNpwlHv">pic.twitter.com/hVkjNpwlHv</a></p>&mdash; LPL (@lplenglish) <a href="https://twitter.com/lplenglish/status/1349537009463930884?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 14, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>

# SN 2-0 TES
After how the Demacia Cup played out, no one could have expected Suning to look this coordinated… or for TES to look this bad.  

In fact, the two teams had night and day performances at the aforementioned Demacia Cup. Suning looked terrible, with communication and decision-making all over the place, while TES looked nearly untouchable.  

Fast forward a mere couple of weeks and suddenly we have TES sitting comfortably at the bottom of the LPL standings.   

Another saying from the LPL message boards is that Bai “369” Jia-Hao’s namesake comes from the fact that he rolls a pair of dice before every game. He either rolls a 3 and plays poorly, a 6 and plays slightly above average, or a 9 and handily wins games by himself.  

Suffice to say, in this series the dice landed on a 3, landing middle-of-the-pack across all key stats amongst LPL toplaners in Week 1.  

On the other hand, Chen “Bin” Ze-Bin was a monster, and toplane enthusiasts should watch this series with a keen eye.  


# RW 2-1 TES
Rogue Warriors have always been towards the middle-lower end of the LPL. Never one to draw star talent, the established organisation typically wins versus lower end teams and gets convincingly dispatched by anyone above them in the standings.

Franchise player Chen “Haro” Wen-Lin set out to make this season different from the past, however, and brought a pretty crazy Nidalee to the table.   It was, however, the LMS/PCS components of this roster that truly stood out this series. With AHQ Esports Club ceasing operations in League of Legends after over eight years, the merger with Rogue Warriors came as somewhat of a surprise. Said merger also brought over tenured toplaner Chen “Ziv” Yi, who played tremendously well this series as a rock-solid frontline for the squad.

It also didn’t help TES that 369 rolled another 3, but hey - we all have off-days (or weeks).

-


These aren’t even all of the upsets from this week, and certainly won’t be the last of this split. The LPL is already well under way, so if you still need that extra shot of professional League after a fairly quiet off-season... jump right in!

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The Three Craziest Upsets of LPL Week 1

ibrizlol

@ibrizlol

5:51PM on Jan 17, 2021

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