The day of reckoning finally arrived, a chance for either team to claim their first LPL Victory and make a name for themselves.

Top Esports and JD Gaming, the 4th and 2nd seed respectively, are the teams that beat the odds and forced Invictus Gaming and FunPlus Phoenix to a battle for 3rd place. They faced each other in a battle that will be remembered in the new decade of League of Legends.

Game 1

Bans:

[JDG] Zoe, Syndra, Trundle, Braum, Leona

[TES] Kalista, Varus, Graves, Nautilus, Morgana

JD Gaming – Blue Side

Top: Zoom (Ornn)

Jungle: Kanavi (Olaf)

Middle: Yagao (LeBlanc)

Bottom: LokeN (Miss Fortune)

Support: LvMao (Yuumi)

Top Esports – Red Side

Top: 369 (Sett)

Jungle: Karsa (Lee Sin)

Middle: Knight (Lissandra)

Bottom: JackeyLove (Aphelios)

Support: QiuQiu (Thresh)

Game 1 of the Playoffs Finals played at an initially tame pace, followed by a series of chaotic events that snowballed the teams’ leads back and forth. Nothing of note occurred in the first five minutes of the game.

At 6 minutes, Top Esports takes the initiative in objective control and snags the Infernal drake. Two minutes later, they moved to the Rift Herald, and claimed it. The resulting skirmish gave JackeyLove the investment he needed to snowball as he took Kanavi down for first blood gold.

Knight and 369 further cemented their leads by closing in on Zoom, taking him down in a 2v1 while the rest of JD Gaming took the Mountain drake. The duo pressed the attack as their Rift Herald is landed on the toplane and granted two free tower takedowns.

Right after the laning phase, TES now sat at a 4k gold lead as they took down JDG’s middle outer turret. JDG looked to even the score by taking the Ocean drake at 17 minutes. Meanwhile, both teams splitpushed the side lanes, with Knight and Karsa taking down the bottom lane towers while Kanavi and Yagao pushed the top lane.

As TES decided to start playing around the Baron pit, they did not foresee that such a bold play would be their eventual downfall. JDG cleaned the team with three kills to none, shifting the tempo back towards them.

At 27 minutes, a massive teamfight occurred while Kanavi took down another Ocean drake with his team providing security. Zoom flanked on JackeyLove and bursted him in TES’ backlines, and 369 was split away from his retreating team. Karsa, with his last breath, managed to defeat Zoom before Yagao came for backup. Once again, the tempo was slowly shifting to JDG’s favor.

Right after this battle, JDG slayed the Baron, charged towards TES’ inhibitors and destroyed the middle inhibitor and the bottom inner turret. From this point, JDG held the tempo and were not afraid to force a teamfight due to their leads.

At 34 minutes, JDG engaged TES in the jungle, perfect for the crowd control combination of Zoom and LvMao, and the damage output of LokeN and Yagao. They continued the chase of the remaining members towards the nexus, and they finally took down the winning objective. JDG won 1-0, and were now on a 20-win streak since Zoom’s return to the regular season.

Game 2

Bans:

[TES] Graves, LeBlanc, Kalista, Thresh, Braum

[JDG] Zoe, Syndra, Varus, Corki, Sylas

Top Esports – Blue Side

Top: 369 (Aatrox)

Jungle: Karsa (Trundle)

Middle: Knight (Viktor)

Bottom: JackeyLove (Miss Fortune)

Support: QiuQiu (Leona)

JD Gaming – Red Side

Top: Zoom (Ornn)

Jungle: Kanavi (Lee Sin)

Middle: Yagao (Azir)

Bottom: LokeN (Aphelios)

Support: LvMao (Tahm Kench)

In the drafting phase, JDG continued to target ban Knight’s potential picks, especially his Syndra that made a huge difference during TES’ playoff run. Meanwhile, TES banned Yagao’s LeBlanc to cripple Yagao’s pick potential, along with LvMao’s support picks. TES’ decision to ban LeBlanc was in line with their goal to completely dominate the laning phase and end the game with a snowballed lead.

Three minutes in, Karsa ganked the mid lane after Yagao used Conquering Sands for damage instead of escape, granting Knight first blood. A minute later, a skirmish in the same lane occurred, but Karsa’s proactive rotation and being in prime position to countergank has led TES to take two additional kills early on and started to snowball. This was the deciding early game snowball TES was famous for.

Meanwhile, JackeyLove and QiuQiu moved to retaliate against a pushing LokeN, taking him out and managing to return to their tower alive. At this point, TES now has 4 kills to zero deaths on the scoreboard.

JDG responded by picking Knight with a 3v1 attack, putting fear on the other members who were attempting to take the dragon at the time. It worked as they moved to reset the tempo back to their lanes. At 10 minutes, JDG themselves took the Infernal drake, but TES still held a 2k gold advantage.

TES escalated their lead to 3k gold after taking the 1st tower at the bottom lane, which prompted them to start baiting JDG into unfavorable teamfights. At 16 minutes, a jungle skirmish went in TES’ favor with 369’s clean hits on The Darkin Blade’s sweet spots and Knight’s burst damage as Viktor.

Their pressure-based strategy also worked at 19 minutes when they baited Yagao into taking a bad Teleport flank after pushing the middle outer turret. The consistent snowballing gave TES free objectives such as the Mountain drake and the Baron at 21 and 23 minutes respectively.

At an attempt to swing the lead back to JDG’s favor, they boldly committed to the Baron attempt while JackeyLove solo defeated the Mountain drake as his teammates hovered around. JDG committed the same mistake TES did, with the main difference being that they never had a lead to do such a daring move. TES wiped JDG with 4 kills to 1 death after securing the Baron at 33 minutes.

TES won Game 2 a minute later with a 10.4k gold lead, and the destruction of Zoom’s 20-win streak.

Game 3

Bans:

[JDG] Zoe, Syndra, Aatrox, Jarvan IV, Elise

[TES] Graves, Varus, Kalista, Ornn, LeBlanc

JD Gaming – Blue Side

Top: Zoom (Renekton)

Jungle: Kanavi (Trundle)

Middle: Yagao (Azir)

Bottom: LokeN (Miss Fortune)

Support: LvMao (Yuumi)

Top Esports – Red Side

Top: 369 (Jayce)

Jungle: Karsa (Gragas)

Middle: Knight (Corki)

Bottom: JackeyLove (Aphelios)

Support: QiuQiu (Braum)

JDG, after seeing how Karsa was the first to swing the tempo to Knight and TES’ favor, started to target ban potential jungle picks and negate Knight from taking Syndra. This game, they aspired to become more aggressive than TES could handle.

Karsa questionably invaded Kanavi in his red buff at an attempt to create jungle pressure. Yagao had lane priority, but Zoom moved in and took first blood at 4 minutes. Kanavi took revenge two minutes later by invading him at the Wolves camp, taking another kill for JDG.

While all the jungle battles were happening, LokeN beat JackeyLove in a standard 2v2 fight, putting JDG in the scoreboard with three kills to none. At 10 minutes, they now have a 2.3k gold lead against TES.

To better solidify their leads, TES crashed on the bottom tower and pushed it. A 4-man dive was initiated by TES, taking down the LokeN and LvMao, then Zoom after finishing his late teleport to the lane.

Game 3 had the wildest teamfight of the season. At 27 minutes, TES crashed onto Kanavi, who secured himself with a Stopwatch. JDG quickly turned the fight around and TES was initially defeated by the burst damage from LokeN and Zoom, while Karsa was relentlessly chased by Kanavi and LokeN.

They then immediately moved to take a shot at Baron, but Knight and JackeyLove were ready to dare try a 2v5. Knight dashed through the team with The Package, while JackeyLove started repositioning for optimal DPS and coverage with his Infernum-Severum weapon combo. With Aphelios’ superb damage, he quickly whittled down the health bars of his damaged enemies, then wiped JDG as he took the Baron for his team.

This single turnaround won them the game, putting TES on match point at 2-1.

Game 4

Bans:

[JDG] Zoe, Syndra, Trundle, Kassadin, Corki

[TES] Varus, Kalista, Graves, Olaf, Mordekaiser

JD Gaming – Blue Side

Top: Zoom (Gangplank)

Jungle: Kanavi (Sylas)

Middle: Yagao (LeBlanc)

Bottom: LokeN (Aphelios)

Support: LvMao (Thresh)

Top Esports – Red Side

Top: 369 (Ornn)

Jungle: Karsa (Lee Sin)

Middle: Knight (Lissandra)

Bottom: JackeyLove (Miss Fortune)

Support: QiuQiu (Nautilus)

TES’ botlane duo shoved the wave for a quicker level 2 pressure, and were then successful in pushing out LokeN and LvMao off the wave out of sheer level difference. With the lane priority secured, TES took down the Infernal drake at 5 minutes while Karsa took out Yagao for first blood.

Meanwhile, at 7 minutes in the toplane, Zoom came out of a jungle skirmish with a kill and two assists. Given JDG’s history with Zoom, giving him a lead tends to spell doom for whoever opposes JDG in that match. To negate this, 369 and Karsa ganked Zoom at 9 minutes, while JackeyLove took down LokeN and shoved the waves at bot lane.

At 15 minutes, there was barely any gold difference between either team. What was the winning factor, however, was whichever team could maximize Baron’s potential to the fullest.

JDG started to build up towards this win condition through excellent pick plays on Karsa and Knight, then taking the Mountain drake, and the Mountain soul. While all of these were happening, TES were struggling to get close to the objectives and were unable to commit to anything. This play brought JDG to gain a noticeable lead, and they eventually closed the game in 29 minutes.

Game 5

Bans:

[TES] Graves, LeBlanc, Kalista, Yuumi, Zoe

[JDG] Syndra, Varus, Trundle, Corki, Gragas

Top Esports – Blue Side

Top: Knight (Sylas)

Jungle: Karsa (Sejuani)

Middle: 369 (Aatrox)

Bottom: JackeyLove (Aphelios)

Support: QiuQiu (Braum)

JD Gaming – Red Side

Top: Zoom (Ornn)

Jungle: Kanavi (Rek’Sai)

Middle: Yagao (Kassadin)

Bottom: LokeN (Miss Fortune)

Support: LvMao (Bard)

The final battle and the conclusion to the LPL 2020 Spring Playoffs was Game 5, which was a proper way to end such a beautifully orchestrated battle of wits and skill between two excellent teams.

At a surprising turn of events, Knight and 369 swapped lanes. Knight brought his Sylas to the top lane against Ornn, while 369 brought his Aatrox against Kassadin. The former matchup is common in competitive play, and is usually in Sylas’ favor; hence they made this play to improve their win states. Kassadin cannot do much with his passive against a physical damage bruiser and a bully, making his scale to the lategame difficult.

However, Zoom was not going to falter to this counter strategy. At three minutes, Kanavi got first blood on Knight through a river gank, while Yagao cancelled 369’s Teleport to the toplane with his Null Sphere. The same trend continued later as Knight’s over-aggression led to him dying under Ornn’s tower, and then to another 2v1 gank. Knight sat at a miserable 0/3 score at 7 minutes.

JDG closed the laning phase with a 3/0 score and 1k gold advantage. They continued to snowball their lead by next ganging up on the defending 369 at bottom lane.

At 18 minutes, JackeyLove managed to shut down Zoom with a 3v1 gank at bot lane, pulling the gold differences closer. TES took Cloud drake at 20 minutes, and at another bold move to win the game quickly, moved to attempt Baron immediately. They were not prepared to deal with it yet, thus JDG used this weakness to gain some traction once more. They traded three kills for two deaths before both teams disengaged.

This was where LvMao’s Bard started to shine. At 25 minutes, LvMao landed a massive Tempered Fate to setup his retreating teammates to re-engage. All went well as they landed a clean combo on most of TES’ players, then committed to taking the Baron.

At 27 minutes, LvMao flexed his talent again with a Tempered Fate on two crucial members of TES. As they made quick work of those who were unfortunately caught, they quickly chased the fleeing members in the jungle and wiped the entire team out.

There was no time to waste with the death timers, and at 28 minutes, JDG finally won their first 2020 Spring Playoffs.

Concluding Thoughts

The amount of skill these teams have are not to be looked down upon. TES may have lost, but they pulled off some excellent plays on their own respects. There were some questionable plays from both teams, but not enough to discredit how much work both put out to win their first domestic tournament.

Teamfights were well-executed by both JDG and TES, especially the 2v5 teamfight that TES miraculously pulled off in Game 3 that netted them the win for that match. The amount of micro involved in JackeyLove’s Aatrox, coupled with the decisive placement of Corki’s Package, was insane.

The opposing junglers played optimally as well. Having the best rotations, while being close enough to countergank whenever, is a difficult but amazing skill that only junglers could perform. Karsa’s Trundle in Game 2 was the perfect demonstration of a jungler ready to support his team and get them ahead of the curve.

Lastly, LvMao’s support performance should be recognized. He peaked in Games 4 and 5, when JDG’s backs were against the wall. Had it not been for the clean Thresh hooks and Bard’s Tempered Fate, JDG might not have had a better chance of reversing the series’ tempo.

Overall, this was a great spectacle to watch, and I personally hoped that the LPL gets recognized more as they have professionals that are able to match and outwit the people of the West. There is so much potential for the unexplored territory of LPL teams, and it shows why they have been the producer of World Champions for two years now.