As the LPL moves into the second round of the Upper Bracket Stage in their Spring Split playoffs, we look back at what brought us here. In both matches we saw the loser be one game away from sealing their victory, only to have it all slip away. The resilience of both TOP Esports and Royal Never Give Up has led both teams to where they are now, one series win away from the finals. For Victory Five and JD Gaming, they have no more room for errors. They lose, they go home and have to wait until June to start their climb to the top of the LPL. 

 

 

League of Legends Pro League

Spring Split Playoffs 2022

Upper Bracket: Round 2

April 16th/17th, 2022

(-175) Victory Five v JD Gaming (+137)

(-135) TOP Esports v Royal Never Give Up (+103)

 

 

Fantasy Value Breakdown

Series #1: Victory Five v JD Gaming

Game Breakdown: I am not sure what to bring into this matchup from last weekend’s losses by both teams. You could make excuses for both teams but I think it really comes down to the execution of their game plan. Weird champion picks, terrible rotations, and poor team fighting led to both of these teams failing to close out the series they had chances to win. Zooming out, you have to trust the sum of the parts on Victory Five more than you do for JD Gaming. The angle here for V5 has to be to throw all available resources into nullifying Hope (JDG ADC) while supporting Rookie (V5 Mid) in rolling through his mid lane matchup against Yagao. Yagao is probably the weakest “carry” player on the slate and has an overinflated KDA by playing champions who rack up massive amounts of assists. As a side note by a fan, the jungle matchup of Karsa v Kanavi will be one of the most electrifying jungler duels we will see in the LPL playoffs. 

Favorite Picks: Photic (V5: $11,700/$7,800), Rookie (V5: $7,400), Ppgod (V5: $5,800), 

Value Picks: 369 (JDG: $6,000), Hope (JDG: $7,200), Kanavi (JDG: $6,400)

Cann’s Match Pick: Victory Five (3-1)  
 

Series #2: TOP Esports v Royal Never Give Up

Game Breakdown: The relative closeness in scoreline between RNG and JDG in last week’s match is the only reason TOP Esports is favored on Sunday. In a 1 to 1 comparison, JackeyLove (ADC) may be the only player from TES I outright favor against his competition (GALA). Another close matchup will be in the top lane between Wayward (TES) and bin (RNG). Wayward has had a pretty good stretch in the playoffs, but it appears that most have forgotten some of his regular season struggles. For RNG, bin was the splashy signing that would allow RNG to address their needs in the middle lane (Xiaohu rotated from his top lane position to mid lane position at the beginning of 2022). What has been made apparent is that bin’s success on Suning in years past has come from the injection of early resources into his lane because his carries preferred to scale into the late game. On RNG, most early game focus is in the middle lane and bin can become a second thought. This may open up a strategy for Tian and Wayward to get early leads for TES. I think this ends up falling to RNG because of how bad TES actually looked in games 1-3 and poor drafting by V5 in game three gave them the lifeline back into the series. RNG can let a game get away from them, but you normally see really good adaptations brought in by this coaching staff. These adaptations to haw the series is playing out will be key for them moving on. 

Favorite Picks: JackeyLove (TES: $11,400/$7,600), Knight (TES: $7,200), Wayward (TES: $6,400), Mark (TES: $5,600)

Value Picks: Xiaohu (RNG: $10,500)/$7,000), Wei (RNG: $6,200), Royal Never Give Up ($4,800)

Cann’s Match Pick: Royal Never Give Up (3-2) 
 

Cann’s Example Lineup

DraftKings Classic 

$50,000 Salary Cap

Captain (x1.5): Xiaohu (RNG: $10,500)

Alternate: Photic (V5: $11,700)

Top: 369 (JDG: $6,000)

Jungle: Karsa (V5: $6,800)

Alternate: Wei (RNG: $6,200)

Mid: Rookie (V5: $7,400)

Alternate: Knight (TES: $7,200)

ADC: Photic (V5: $7,800)

Support: Mark (TES: $5,600)

Team: Royal Never Give Up ($4,800)