After Team WE’s unprecedented victory against 5th seed eStar, they faced a higher wall, one who harbored the crowd’s vote and cheers: Top Esports. Sitting at 4th seed waiting for their opponent, who won this battle of divided support? Was it the black horse of the Playoffs, or was it the fan favorites?
Game 1:
[TES] Pantheon, Galio, Jarvan IV, Graves, Aurelion Sol
[WE] Azir, Sylas, Trundle, LeBlanc, Ornn
Top Esports – Blue Side
Top: 369 (Kennen) Jungle: Karsa (Olaf) Mid: knight (Ekko) Bot: JackeyLove (Kalista) Support: yuyanjia (Blitzcrank)
Team WE – Red Side
Top: Morgan (Renekton) Jungle: beishang (Lee Sin) Mid: Teacherma (Syndra) Bot: Jiumeng (Aphelios) Support: Missing (Thresh)
Game 1 was the most explosive game of this quarterfinals series, because of how back and forth the lead was. Each team played extremely well, showing why these teams garnered some crowd support for their performances prior to this game.
Karsa and beishang split the map into two, with the latter taking toplane and the former taking botlane. Three minutes in, 369 was now under constant jungle pressure, first giving his summoner spells and eventually dying to first blood at 4 minutes. While this all happened, Karsa took the Ocean drake for the game.
Between 9 minutes and 21 minutes, the advantage was unclear because of how many skirmishes had occurred. Top Esports initially had an advantage at an early game teamfight, while Team WE neutralized the gold difference through objectives and pushing power.
In 22 minutes, Team Esports had a blunder as a failed pull from yuyanjia and a subsequent questionable re-engage brought their numbers disadvantage deeper. From here on, Team WE with their known tendency to make a comeback in the midgame had finally shone upon them, and even getting close to an Infernal soul.
Team Esports also mitigated any further snowballing by 29 minutes, with Knight picking Jiumeng off the map with his Assassin Ekko, and later takes up Baron themselves. This Baron buff did not do much for them though.
Team WE successfully took the third Baron of the game, and in a bold attempt, Knight starts to desperately splitpush Team WE’s inhibitors to negate the devastating shove of the Baron buff. This was not enough, and Top Esports was in a numbers disadvantage before Knight could recall back. The game ended in Team WE’s favor at 1-0.
Game 2:
[TES] Pantheon, Jarvan IV, Kalista, Galio, Ornn
[WE] Azir, Trundle, LeBlanc, Sylas, Zoe
Top Esports – Blue Side
Top: 369 (Jayce) Jungle: Karsa (Lee Sin) Mid: knight (Syndra) Bot: JackeyLove (Varus) Support: yuyanjia (Tahm Kench)
Team WE – Red Side
Top: Morgan (Sett) Jungle: beishang (Olaf) Mid: Teacherma (Aurelion Sol) Bot: Jiumeng (Miss Fortune) Support: Missing (Thresh)
Game 2 became significantly different from Game 1. Team WE’s plan was to negate 369’s Jayce from scaling, to negate the latter’s midgame powerspike. Constant aggression stormed 369’s toplane leaving him with little agency for this game.
Top Esports, however, was more than happy to take this trade. 369 himself, being constantly under gank pressure from both Team WE’s midlane and the jungler, freed up Top Esports’ other lanes and objective control. This permitted Knight to dominate Teacherma and restricting his roaming potential. Subsequently, this allowed Karsa and JackeyLove, the MvP of Game 2, to scale extremely well towards the later stages of the game.
By 15 minutes, Top Esports had a 1.8k gold advantage. A minute after, a teamfight in extreme favor of Top Esports came up, and by 21 minutes their gold advantage went up to 9000. They immediately ended the game at 22 minutes with a staggering 12k gold advantage, tying the score with a 1-1 series.
Game 3:
[WE] Azir, Sylas, Thresh, LeBlanc, Zoe
[TES] Pantheon, Jarvan IV, Trundle, Galio, Elise
Team WE – Blue Side
Top: Morgan (Renekton) Jungle: beishang (Olaf) Mid: Teacherma (Rumble) Bot: Jiumeng (Kalista) Support: Missing (Taric)
Top Esports – Red Side
Top: 369 (Ornn) Jungle: Karsa (Lee Sin) Mid: knight (Syndra) Bot: JackeyLove (Varus) Support: yuyanjia (Braum)
Game 3 proceeded similarly to Game 2, but the midlane priority played much more of a role than before with Teacherma’s Rumble versus Knight’s Syndra matchup, along with Olaf versus Lee Sin for the team’s respective junglers.
Team WE claimed the Ocean and Cloud drake in 5 and 10 minutes, and even won a teamfight at the latter, giving them a slight lead. At the transition to the midgame, JackeyLove proactively moved to pick kills for Team WE. They immediately turned the tables by winning a disadvantageous teamfight, then taking the Mountain drake.
This match’s midgame exhibited several back-and-forth advantages, concluding in Top Esports’ favor as they eventually took the Mountain soul at 34 minutes and beat Team WE with a zoned Morgan, reminiscent of a Round 1 game against eStar when Xiaobai’s Renekton could not make an impact against Team WE’s dragon fight in Game 2.
The final teamfight during 37 minutes was barely a contest for Top Esports as they almost wiped Team WE with 4 kills to none; fast forward to the Nexus destroying a minute later and now they are at series point towards the Semifinals.
Game 4:
[WE] Syndra, Sylas, Ornn, Zoe, Azir
[TES] Pantheon, Jarvan IV, Kalista, Blitzcrank, Alistar
Team WE – Blue Side
Top: Morgan (Camille) Jungle: beishang (Trundle) Mid: Teacherma (Galio) Bot: Jiumeng (Aphelios) Support: Missing (Braum)
Top Esports – Red Side
Top: 369 (Renekton) Jungle: Karsa (Lee Sin) Mid: knight (Corki) Bot: JackeyLove (Varus) Support: yuyanjia (Thresh)
With the threat of being eliminated from the Playoffs, Team WE had to start adjusting. Ironically, this was the tamest game of the series because of the lack of bloodshed in the early game. Objectives were contested, but not a single soul died until JackeyLove dives Missing at 13 minutes for first blood.
By 15 minutes, Team WE gained a steady lead of 3k gold advantage. Not for long, for Knight’s scaling Corki started to show results by the 20 minute mark after he picked up a shutdown from Morgan two minutes earlier.
Team WE responded by taking down two of Top Esports’ midlane defenders, and immediately transitioed to attempt Baron with a numbers advantage. At a shocking turn of events, JackeyLove shots a Piercing Arrow to steal the Baron away and pick up a triple kill in a 3v5 situation. The gold difference evened out through this amazing play.
The longer the game went, the more powerful Knight’s Corki scaled. At 27 minutes, Top Esports wiped out Team WE and takes the Baron, in exchange for a measly single kill on their ranks. One final teamfight decided the series’ fate in 30 minutes, and Top Esports moves on to the Semifinals against LPL’s highest obstacle: Invictus Gaming (IG).
Takeaways
Props should be given to Team WE for putting up a good fight, but there were some glaring faults in the games following their victory.
Unfortunately for Team WE’s Teacherma, he had to deal with one of LPL’s potentially best midlaner, Knight. In Season 10, solo lanes with more agency have better chances to win games, and Top Esports certainly capitalized on the fact. By picking Syndra, a natural long-range bully with burst damage and great waveclear, gaining lane priority was harder for Teacherma.
In Game 2 when Team WE ganged on 369’s Jayce, I personally thought this was a bad move that made the game a landslide victory for Top Esports. By putting all the pressure on the isolated toplane, securing botlane for the scaling marksmen and Dragon Soul win conditions was certainly not a problem. Had Team WE chosen to relieve Teacherma of Knight’s pressure, they may have had less of a disadvantage.
Team WE target banned Knight’s famous midlaners like Zoe, but his raw individual skill was enough to make up for it as evidenced by the two games he brought Syndra and then Corki for the final game.
This series was an example of “mid diff”, showing how perfect the role is for players who wish to succeed through raw mechanics and good macro. Notable players like Doinb won with excellent macro to make up for playing champions with simpler playstyles, which cements further how much control winning the midlane can have for your team.
