A lot of action was unpacked this early on in the second week of the LPL 2020 Summer season. The teams that fell to the depths of the LPL during the Spring have made some amazing strides this early on in the Summer.

Some teams have been proving their worth to match with the better teams of the league, and we’re seeing great results so far. Read on for the teams who have been showing up lately.

Week 3, Day 1

Victory Five rises up against Oh My God

Despite ranking the lowest in the Spring split, Victory Five has been starting to live up to their namesake by taking straight wins left and right. They’re not the high-caliber team akin to the likes of Top Esports, but they’re certainly better than before.

V5’s ADC Samd was on point against OMG’s Smlz, and his coordination with his support ppgod was stellar and his mid laner Mole. Especially for Mole, who took the MVP for Game 1, his roams with Twisted Fate are at a level that is expected in the pro scene. He pulled off towerdives with his team pretty well.

Despite not managing to win Game 2 due to OMG responding back with aggression, they adapted properly in Game 3 with Weiwei’s Kindred coupled with ppgod’s amazing Bard plays. It should be noted that ppgod also took the MVP for Game 3 because of that.

LGD Gaming reverse sweeps eStar

While they started on the wrong foot in Game 1, LGD managed to quickly recover and anticipate the anticipation eStar throws left and right among the players of LGD.

Starting in Game 2, eStar’s hyper aggressive plays were reckless enough for LGD to capitalize on. When ES CJJ and Fenfen dove onto LGD Langx, the execution was sloppy enough for Langx to get a consolation prize for that dive.

In Game 3, LGD Kramer made a selfless play in the final clash by stealing the Cloud drake to force eStar to fight them. While that gave him his one death in the game, it bought Xiye time to backdoor the Nexus with his Twisted Fate and close out the series.

Overall, LGD’s team play was solid, and that is the highlight of the series. Rather than winning with a sole carry for a game, LGD carried each other and pushed onwards to opportunities when there is one. It’s good old League of Legends, and it’s the solo queue dream to have excellent teamwork just like what LGD demonstrated.

Week 3, Day 2

LNG Esports takes unlikely win from FunPlus Phoenix

To summarize this series, one can say that LNG Esports had the element of surprise.

While FPX made some mistakes in the early teamfights that led to LNG snowballing, LNG made great use of their resources in Game 2 and 3.

LNG Maple gained a triple kill while LNG Light takes some assists in the Game 2 skirmish, to which they use their leads to efficiently gain more leads and bring everyone else online.  LNG Xx made sure that the leads are guaranteed to spread throughout the entire team, and they transitioned into the midgame with enough firepower.

Game 3 played in a similar fashion: FPX taking a bad teamfight and trying to salvage their chances, while LNG is making every single gold worth the trouble they had to go through. This time, Chenlun17 was the hero of LNG as the Sylas with a huge gold lead spells trouble with his flexible ults from FPX’s team composition.

Top Esports’ decisive win against Rogue Warriors

There’s no doubt about Top Esports’ performance in this series. This team has been making their name known in the domestic as well as the international scene.

If you haven’t seen how Top Esports play, you’re not watching the LPL at all. This team has the powerhouses at every single corner of the Rift when they are playing. Knight is the team’s supreme mid laner, and for good reason. He can play either aggressive melee assassins like Ekko, or scale to late game with Kassadin.

While we’re only mentioning the sole MVP of this series, that doesn’t mean the rest of the team are weaker by comparison. 369 in the top, Karsa in the jungle, and yuyanjia as the support have proven their skill time and time again

 This series, we did not even see JackeyLove, and yet Top Esports dominated Rogue Warriors so hard. It shows that the players’ synergy is extreme, and even if the enemy is at their nexus, it’s not over until it’s over.

Week 3, Day 3

Royal Never Give Up shuts down Vici quickly

RNG embodies the supreme proactive spirit, always looking for the advantages and making sure to capitalize on Vici Gaming’s every single mistake possible.

RNG brought largely aggressive champions and pulled an all-out attack on VG. They are making plays happen in every moment of contact, and with powerful aggressive champions like Nidalee, Wukong, Akali and Syndra are all complementary to that gameplan.

Every single Rift Herald was optimally placed to open up the map, and RNG is playing so dominantly that it looks like a Clash tournament with smurfs. Vici could not breathe with the cadence RNG is playing and executing, and RNG played so well even with Uzi retiring.

JD Gaming proves against Suning why they’re the best

Suning definitely played well for the two games in this series, but they’re far from a perfect team. JDG proved their champion title by managing to pull themselves back from the disadvantage with clean punishments for Suning’s misplays.

JDG brought their games from the depths with their signature teamfighting prowess. While Suning was able to make critical picks, if JDG will be able to collapse on them, it’s obvious on who will win. JDG was able to take some leads through the leads set up by Zoom and Kanavi, giving LokeN the powerspike he needs.

While JDG won with a 2-0 score, don’t sleep on Suning’s performance that made JDG work their way towards winning that series. As earlier covered, Suning is slowly rising through the ranks. However, JDG will be taking this win as expected.

Day 4 Preview

Dominus Esports versus eStar

The odds are heavily staked in eStar’s favor (1.19 to win), and even a rookie spectator of the LPL can tell why.

Dominus (3.6 to win) has not been at the top of their game, belonging to the bottom four of the Spring season and losing their first series to Victory Five in Week 1 of the Summer split. Their scores are reflecting their performance, and the overall coordination is missing from the team, given their earlier series.

eStar on the other hand knows how to play like a team, and a pro-level team at that. While they did lose to LGD in an earlier series, they still have some hiccups. Against Dominus though, their hiccups will be more forgiving and they can play decent enough to win this series.

Team WE versus Invictus Gaming

Finally, the top 4 in the LPL region, Invictus Gaming will be battling Team WE on Day 4 of Week 2.

After Leyan left the team, iG (1.49 to win) is now back to its original roster with little deviation in the support position with Reheal and Southwind ready in the main roster. Ning is now the only jungler for iG, and here’s hoping to TheShy and the entire team finding their groove once more.

Team WE (2.25 to win) has won one series and lost another, and both series ended up in Game 3. Matching them to one of LPL’s biggest teams might their first series to end in Game 2, but the win wouldn’t be theirs—assuming Invictus Gaming actually picks up the slack they made during the spring playoffs and the Mid-Season Cup.

Day 5 Preview

Royal Never Give Up versus LNG Esports

Royal Never Give Up (1.15 to win) has been playing so well lately, despite the ADC legend Uzi retiring from the LPL. The legacy is now being carried by Betty, and the entire team is with him to prove that their team has absorbed everything from the legend himself. So far, their tournament run has been clean with not a single game loss.

LNG Esports (4.1 to win) is the team that amazingly capitalized on FunPlus Phoenix’s blunders during their series on Day 3. As the underdog of the summer split and the fact that they lost 0-2 to Suning in Week 1, the team to topple the World Champion has to have some glances at this point.

Against RNG, however, LNG should not leave their fate to luck on this series.

FunPlus Phoenix versus Bilibili Gaming

Bilibili Gaming (4.28 to win) has one of the worst records so far in the summer split, losing to Vici Gaming with absurdly high death rates for an LPL team. While this is a region that thrives on explosive gameplay, this amount of team deaths have to be at the solo queue inting level.

Some avid LPL fans have commented on BLG’s terrible player management and importing good players on paper, but terrible on practice. After sending some of their players back to academy and then back to the main roster during April, there doesn’t seem to be much of a drastic change on their performance.

While all teams can make mistakes, only few can make blunders. There’s no doubt that FPX (1.13 to win) will have this easy win to make up for their unfortunate loss against LNG Esports in an earlier series.