The LPL 2020 Spring Playoffs have finally settled down, and it is now down to two teams to win the championship battle. Top Esports versus JD Gaming, the respective 3rd seed and 2nd seed, are ready to compete, and earned the right to do so by winning against renowned LPL teams like FunPlus Phoenix and Invictus Gaming.

For the entire run of the playoffs, two of Top Esports’ premier roster garnered the MVP Award more than once: TES Knight and TES Jackeylove, the team’s mid lane and bottom lane players.

Before and After

How are the two players holding up since they started their playoffs run?

Zhuo “Knight” Ding had spectacular numbers for the 8 games he had played this playoffs compared to the regular season, enough to merit three MVP awards during their current run.

Across 8 games that Top Esports had participated in, he had a staggering 8.9 KDA ratio with 48 kills, 11 deaths, and 50 assists. He also had 75.4% kill participation and 33.5% damage dealt against champions, which heavily implies how aggressive he plays with his team. His farming is excellent with an average 9.4 CSPM (creep score per minute) and 27.6% share of the team’s gold. If there is criteria for mid lane peak performance, I think Knight surpasses that standard by a huge margin.

In the spring season, across 31 games he had a 5.4 KDA ratio with 182 kills, 80 deaths, and 247 assists. His kill participation was at 74.6% and dealt 29.5% of the team’s damage against champions, which is not too far off from the present numbers he had. His farming statistics were pretty good as well, having 8.3 CSPM and 24.8% share of the team’s gold during the season.

Compared to his performance in the spring season, his playoffs standings have been nothing but upgrades.

Yu “Jackeylove” Wen-Bo likewise had commendable numbers, garnering two MVP awards. It should be no surprise given that he was in iG’s team during the 2018 World Championship, winning the championship as the first Chinese team to take home the Summoner’s Cup trophy.

Similar to Knight, JackeyLove’s numbers showed why he was part of the renowned Invictus Gaming and became successful for the succeeding years including his current team.

This playoffs, he had a 4.7 KDA ratio with 36 kills, 18 deaths, and 49 assists. He had a 65.4% kill participation and 31.9% of the team’s damage dealt against champions. His farming as a professional bot lane player is great, with 9.2 CSPM and 26.2% share of the team’s gold, second only to Knight on both categories.

In the spring season, he played only for 6 games because he had recently joined Top Esports on April 3 and played on Week 7 of the Spring season. Regardless, the numbers are impeccable for a player of his calber. With JackeyLove on board, Top Esports never lost a single match in the final week, going 2-0 against Victory Five, eStar, and FunPlus Phoenix.

During these games, he had a 4.3 KDA ratio with 35 kills, 20 deaths, and 50 assists. He had 64.9% kill participation and 31.1% of the team damage dealt against champions. He also had superb numbers for farming with 9.4 CSPM and 26.8% of the team’s gold share.

The difference in JackeyLove’s farming between the regular season and playoffs is negligible, but overall there was also an upgrade in his performance when it was time to play in the Spring playoffs.

Playoffs Finals Predictions

With these monstrous numbers (especially Knight’s), it’s no surprise to see that they had the competencies needed to stand high in the playoffs finals. Against JD Gaming who pulled a clean sweep against FunPlus Phoenix during the semifinals, one can say that they have finally found a worthy opponent and that this battle will be legendary.

Because these two teams are not what loyal LPL viewers had expected, this grand finals match should be explosive and exciting for all spectators and analysts. To see the teams that took down Invictus Gaming and FunPlus Phoenix finally compete with each other shows how stacked the LPL has become lately.

Maybe we can actually see a three-time Chinese World Champion in our hands soon? Can the other contending regions match up to the LPL hype?

Statistics utilized in this piece is from Oracle’s Elixir, with data as of April 30, 2020.