This is going to be the rematch of the Spring split winner semifinals and grand finals. Both times RNG came up ahead, and while the semifinals encounter was fairly one-sided, the grand finals was much closer and TES came really close to taking the throne. The only difference now is that RNG will be playing Chen “Breathe” Chen in the top lane, but other than that, it’s going to be the same level of League of Legends we are used to seeing from both teams.
Last week, we shared our LPL esports picks featuring both Top Esports matches, and they ended up winning effortlessly. This time is going to be different as they are going up against the 2022 MSI champions, so without further ado, let’s jump right into it!
Top Esports Only Lost 1 of their First 7 Matches
It was in their encounter against JDG Gaming in the opening week where Top Esports dropped the ball, and even though the series went all the way to the 3rd game, JDG was clearly the better team by a lot. The way they lost was quite unusual because TES is known for having such a great laning phase and always finding the right play to get an early game advantage. Luckily for them, that was just a bump on the road, as they went on to win all of their following matches, but facing RNG is going to be their toughest challenge so far.
Most recently, we saw Top Esports square up against Weibo Gaming, and it wasn’t an easy task for them at all. There is one thing that is hard to deny, and it is that Weibo is somewhat of a wildcard team, as it’s really hard to predict what they are going to do in their games. Wayward ended up playing Sejuani in both wins over WBG, which was something strange to see because we have to take two things into consideration.
First of all, his lane opponent was TheShy, and we all know that you want to shut down players like him, not give him an easy time in lane. Second, we’ve seen Wayward play as the protagonist in some of TES wins recently, with picks like Camile, Jayce and Gwen, though his Gwen wasn’t really effective against WBG in the second game of the series.
Luckily for TES, when you have a roster this stacked, you have many more options when it comes to strategies. Knight is another one of the TES ultimate weapons, a player that has picked 8 different champions already, though champions like Galio, Lissandra, and Taliyah are his best ones. If Knight manages to be a bit more consistent, then we could be seeing him take down the best LPL mids consistently.
RNG is Ramping Up Really Fast
Even if their scoreline doesn’t look that great at 4-1 series (9-5 games), RNG is definitely still considered one of the strongest teams in the Chinese region. The only series they dropped was against Victory5, which currently is the only lossless team in the league. And to be fair, it was one of the most exciting encounters we’ve had so far this summer split. While a lot of series might end up going to the 3rd game, the games itself are quite one-sided, but this match was an exception.
Let’s remember that V5 wasn’t using Rookie as their starting mid laner, instead, they were fielding Tan “Dream” Wen-Xiang, who was selected to play throughout the first month of the summer split. Victory5 started strong off the gates, picking Rek’Sai and Ahri for Karsa and Dream respectively. Now, the 1st game of the series was always in control of V5, but RNG wasn’t going to give up easily yet.
Now we had the chance to see one of RNG’s most iconic playstyles, which is a really fast-paced early to mid game. The core of this is Xiaohu’s Lissandra, because we all know how good he can be with a champion like this, especially if his jungler, Wei, is playing Lee Sin. It didn’t take long into the game before RNG started hitting their 1/2 item power spike and unleashed their wrath on the V5 players.
Game 3 of the series was quite a mess, to say the least. It wasn’t necessarily a blood bath, but it seemed that both teams were out to roll over their opponents. On one side, we had V5’s very teamfight-oriented composition, while RNG aimed to have a clean early game, letting Corki and Aphelios scale while Gwen had the task of taking over the side lanes. In the end, the 2022 MSI champions ended up making very crucial mistakes, and after 43 minutes of very exciting League of Legends, V5 closed out the game.
Now they are going up against Top Esports, one of the best teams in the league, though definitely not as strong as V5. I think that RNG is past their MSI hangover and they are starting to get back on track.
Top Esports vs RNG Game Information
- Date: Saturday, July 9
- Time: 7:00am ET
- Top Esports vs RNG Live Stream: Twitch.tv
Top Esports vs RNG Predictions
First of all, let’s talk about what made RNG the better team in the spring split playoffs, where they took down Top Esports in a best-of-5 twice. If you are into League of Legends betting, and more specifically the LPL, then you should know that in the spring split, TES excelled throughout the laning phase, and on the other hand RNG looked better in the later stages of the game.
That’s not to say that TES was bad at teamfighting, not at all, but RNG’s side lane control and their ability to identify their power pikes and when they were stronger than their opponents is what made them the LPL winners and the 2022 MSI champions. Just take a look at the grand finals alone, even in their losses, TES was either even or ahead 15-20 minutes into the game, and in their victories they completely smashed RNG early on.
If we look at the stats of both teams, they are fairly similar. The biggest difference between these two teams is how fast their games are. Top Esports is sitting on a 32:33 avg game duration, and on the other hand, RNG is at 30:39, almost 2 whole minutes of difference. Let’s remember that they’ve only lost 1 match so far, so the stat isn’t really skewed.
Overall, Top Esports seems to be a bit more reliant on having a stable early/mid game, as they are also leading the LPL Dragons Per Game rankings with 2.82 (RNG is at 2.36). On the opposite side, RNG is out for blood, and they are being successful at it. Taking everything into consideration, even if the lol odds don’t favor them, RNG definitely seems to have the upper hand in this matchup, especially if Gala and Ming can show their MSI form.
