LPL: The ten chosen to attack the title and qualify for Worlds. Preview before the first round of the LPL playoffs

The Chinese LPL has completed the main part of the summer split. The top ten will play in a wild playoff for glory and a chance to play Worlds.

The craziest and biggest playoff in League of Legends is upon us once again. From the original seventeen, we’ve whittled it down to the chosen ten. That will be reduced to the final two to battle it out for the title in a multi-round playoff.

However, the road is not over for the unsuccessful teams, after the playoffs are over, a tally will be made based on the performances for each split. The top four, minus the teams that directly qualify (two teams), will then compete for the last available spots (China is sending four teams to the tournament).

Below, we take a look at the individual participants and evaluate their performances so far in the regular season. Primarily, we will focus on the teams that finished 7th-10th and will start the playoffs first. Then, as the playoffs go on, we’ll also look at the teams that jump into the playoffs later.

RNG (7th place – score 8-8 (+4) vs. Ninjas in Pyjamas (10th place – score 7-9 (-6))

RNG underwent some big changes before the summer split. The team literally shocked both domestic and international fans with the departure of the team’s biggest stars (Angel, GALA, Ming). Many did not understand the move. But the reality was that RNG did not play optimally during the spring and there was considerable discord within the team.

So on the surface, it would appear that the team would be noticeably weaker with the departure of the stars. But as time has shown, the new reinforcements have shown enough quality to allow the team to comfortably slip into the playoffs. Even if it didn’t look like it at first.

Their opponents will be the pleasant surprise of the summer split – Ninjas in Pyjamas. They may not have expected their next valuable experience in the LPL to be literally historic. The playoff debut for the otherwise very famous organization – known mainly from Counter-Strike, will also be a big test.

The battle between these teams will have one shattering level. NiP’s mentor is Angel, who defended the colors of RNG in the spring. At the same time, NiP managed to dominate their regular season clash (2-1).

If NiP has a chance to show something, now is the perfect time. The winner of this duel will go to the black horse of the league – Weibo Gaming. So will there be a surprise in the first round? Or will RNG show that they can still play?

EDG (8th place – score 8-8 (-1) vs. Team WE (9th place – score 7-9 (-1))

The first round of the playoffs will definitely have one surprise representative. EDG, the team that welcomed China’s all-time biggest star Uzi back to the LPL waters with much fanfare and has a phenomenal team on paper, finished only 8th.

This embarrassing situation puts one of the league’s huge favorites to the realization that the team has a lot of work to do in order to think about advancing directly towards Worlds. Ironically, the team that was the biggest favourite for the title in the spring together with JDG has not yet shown anything of its absolute strength.

At the start of the playoffs the team will face Team WE, who on the surface should be an easy bite and a great opponent to warm up. However, the WE players are experiencing something of a renaissance, and the team is subtly returning to its former days when it was one of the best in China.

Yes, ninth place is no outward miracle. It’s just that WE wasn’t expected to make such a leap after the spring crash. Plus, the team managed to beat favored Weibo and keep pace with LNG, another league dark horse.

If WE can stabilize the occasional lapses in performance, EDG won’t get a free series. After all, EDG is already significantly handicapped with their participation in the first round of the playoffs, and a potential crash could even knock them out of contention in the regional qualifiers. For the third team in the spring split, that would be a major embarrassment.

Source: LPL, Leaguepedia, Onivia