Newbee kicked off Week 1, Day 3 of the League of Legends Pro League in style on Friday, narrowly edging out Suning Gaming in an action-packed, two-and-a-half hour 2-1 series win in Shanghai.
Suning Gaming (0-1, 1-2 match record) drafted a teamfighting composition centered around AD carry Lee "Fury" Jin-yong's Kog'Maw, while Newbee picked up several skirmishing champions to go and kill him. Newbee started Game 1 with a lead after top laner Bae "V" Bo's Renekton picked up a clean kill for first blood, but Suning stayed within 1,500 gold going into the mid-game. Throughout a chaotic mid-game, rotations from both sides would eventually lead to picks, with both teams taking turns picking and being picked. After catching three members of Newbee in the bot lane, Suning found the necessary space to secure a Baron kill and an Elder Dragon around 37 minutes. With Fury online as a late-game terror, eventually finishing with a 6/1/10 KDA (kills/deaths/assists), one push is all it took for Suning to take one final teamfight before crushing Newbee's Nexus to take Game 1 in 40 minutes.
Game 2 saw Newbee (1-2, 2-1 match record) draft another high damage team composition, while Suning opted for a stronger teamfighting combo featuring jungler Fan "Avoidless" Jun Wei on Olaf and mid laner Li "dian" Guo-Peng on Galio, respectively. Newbee's started off strong as it found kills around the map through quick map rotations, but Suning hung around due to farm advantages in the top and bottom lanes. Suning's lead would get torn apart by Newbee jungler Baek "Swift" Da-hoon's Lee Sin, though, who applied consistent lane pressure and effective ganks after hitting level six that put Newbee ahead in all three lanes. Newbee rode this early lead to a 22-minute Baron kill, rendering Avoidless and dian effectively useless. Flooding into Suning's base, Newbee took Game 2 to even the series out at 1-1.
The teams swapped roles in Game 3, with Suning taking high damage champions such as Renekton and Kassadin into solo lanes while Newbee drafted a "Protect the Kog'Maw" composition for AD carry Lin "Lwx" Wei-Xiang. After a scrappy early game, Suning came out on top by winning a 3-for-1 teamfight in the bot lane at the 17-minute mark. Suning pressed its lead and looked to fight, but Newbee took advantage of Suning's over aggression to bring the gold back to even. As both teams danced around the map waiting for one to make a mistake, Suning's misplay in the mid lane led to a free Baron kill at 35 minutes for Newbee. Using the buff to great effect, Newbee quickly pushed into SNG's base and closed out the series at 2-1.