"You want to be the star of this league? Come and beat me."
The opening sequence of the 2018 LoL Pro League Spring split begins with one of China's legacy players: AD carry Jian "Uzi" Zi-Hao. He begins by saying that the LPL continues to change. The video bookends his opening words with a challenge to all of the rising AD carries in the LPL.
Come and beat me.
These words have a bittersweet tone. Uzi is an uncrowned prince, without one LPL title in his lengthy career. In order to ascend to become the best team in China, you must go through Uzi. Yet Uzi lacks a title himself. When he was 15, Uzi burst onto the international scene when he faced off against a rising SK Telecom T1 in the Season 3 World Championship Finals. He and his team, Royal Club, were quickly dispatched by Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok and company. Since then, he has represented China at the 2014, 2016, and 2017 World Championships with various iterations of the Royal organization.
He still has not won a domestic title. Instead, he's the last man standing between another team and its title.
RNG was not the expected team to come out of its side of the LPL bracket this year; Invictus Gaming's place in the finals was all but assured. iG's Yu "JackeyLove" Wen-Bo, was the latest in a new crop of Chinese AD carries ready to challenge Uzi for best in the region. Instead, everything went wrong for iG, while RNG outclassed iG in several key aspects of the game. Some of that had little to do with Uzi himself, although he certainly bested Jackeylove, who had a poor performance throughout the four-game series.
With starting top laner Kang "TheShy" Seung-lok out with a hand injury, Lee "Duke" Ho-seong took over iG's top lane against RNG. Duke performed well and, with his signature split-pushing style, he arguably gave iG better sidelane control. Yet, iG never knew quite how to play around Duke's pressure, and Duke was not comfortable when joining up with the rest of iG for teamfights. RNG was not only able to spread out pressure on the map better than iG through its own splitpushing, but also out-teamfought iG when the time came to group up for fights. This is where RNG's strong communication, especially after starting jungler Liu "Mlxg" Shi-Yu and mid laner Li "Xiaohu" Yuan-Hao were able to shine.
Through commitment to Mlxg in the iG series, RNG made the most of the jungler's quirky style. Mlxg is often focused on clearing his initial few camps before opting into a Level 2 or 3 gank on an opposing lane. This means that he falls behind in experience -- last year he earned the moniker "king of catch-up XP" which was half admiration, half a dig at his unique pathing style -- to his jungle opponent but hopefully makes up for it by getting one lane, or several, ahead. It's a style that can be punished and exploited, but will catch opponents off-guard, especially if they don't play against it frequently. RNG started Mlxg in all of its playoff games this spring, but had previously opted for former Flash Wolves jungler Hung "Karsa" Hau-Hsuan for most of the split following the Lunar New Year's break. Starting Mlxg certainly worked well against iG, a team that focuses on getting pushing lanes and pressing opponents backwards onto their side of the map.
Uzi and company now find themselves in an all-too-familiar situation: facing off against EDward Gaming in the upcoming LPL finals. These teams have met three times before in this situation, most recently last summer. The one time Royal Never Give Up won this matchup was in 2016 when Wang "Wuxx" Cheng was the team's AD carry, not Uzi.
EDG has its own problems, although it begins with an embarrassment of riches. Of nine possible LPL finals since the organization's inception, including the upcoming match, EDG has qualified for seven of them and won five. In the three times that EDG has faced RNG in the finals, EDG beat RNG twice. Despite the team's steady accumulation of LPL titles, EDG has not won a spring title since 2015. After a back and forth finals against LGD Gaming, that EDG team went on to win the inaugural Mid-Season Invitational against SK Telecom T1. RNG beat EDG in 2016 Spring, and EDG failed to make the spring finals last year.
This year, EDG struggled to adjust and evolve as a team. For the first few weeks, and with longtime jungler Ming "Clearlove" Kai on the bench in favor of rookie Chen "Haro" Wen-Lin, it seemed like EDG was finally diversifying the team's playstyle from a sole focus on destroying the bottom tier 1 turret by the ten-minute mark. With a strong split-pusher in Jeon "Ray" Ji-won, and a stagnant bot lane meta at the start of the split, Haro was seen on the top side of the map more frequently.
Yet, almost as if it was inevitable, EDG shifted focus back to the bottom lane of Tian "Meiko" Ye and Hu "iBoy" Xian-Zhao, facilitating iBoy and trying to destroy the bot lane turret early. This made the team fairly predictable, and other LPL teams were able to take advantage of this by camping the bottom lane, which at times exposed Haro and mid laner Lee "Scout" Ye-chan's inconsistencies. For EDG, Clearlove came to represent a certain steadiness, but also a capped potential. Haro is more volatile but plays differently from Clearlove, giving the team more dimension. Both junglers in the starting lineup gives EDG slightly more flexibility, despite a continued bot lane focus.
Looking at its performances throughout the regular season split and playoffs, this seems like RNG's final to lose. Royal was the stronger East Region team while EDG was unable to beat the top East Region teams like iG, Rogue Warriors, and RNG during the regular season, and also struggled with the Eastern mid-tier teams like Suning Gaming, despite a 2-0 victory. But Uzi and RNG have been here before and EDG has denied them twice. Against Rogue Warriors in its semifinals matchup, EDG also showed that it's willing to consider slightly off-meta picks like Kindred against Trundle and Kai'Sa, both of which RNG used well in the victory over iG.
It's still RNG, and Uzi's, title to lose, but the games will be closer than most would expect based on regular season performance, especially with Clearlove back in the starting lineup for EDG.