With a 2-0 victory over OMG in the recent LPL Summer 2021 group stage, Top Esports – the former champion of LPL Summer 2020, has officially become the last name to join the list of 10 teams participating in the Playoffs, meaning another former champion – JD Gaming has officially exited the competition.
This result is leading to quite an interesting situation in this Summer LPL, as the 4 Chinese League of Legends teams that participated in Worlds 2020, including Top Esports, JD Gaming, Suning, and LGD Gaming, all risk watching the tournament from home.
LGD has been confirmed as eliminated, while JDG, unable to qualify for the Summer Playoffs, has also lost control over their fate. Only SN and TES still have a chance to recreate last year’s achievement at Worlds, but the sad truth is that with their current performance, this is indeed a daunting task for them.
According to the official competition rules from Riot Games, the 4 seeded teams from LPL participating in Worlds 2021 will be allocated as follows:
– The champion of LPL Summer 2021 automatically has 1 slot as the number 1 seed.
– The team with the highest Championship Points (without being a champion) will be the number 2 seed.
– The 4 teams with the highest accumulated points, excluding the champion and the number 2 seed, will compete in the regional qualifiers for 2 slots as the number 3 and number 4 seeds.
Given the current standings, based on the Championship Points statistics, FunPlus Phoenix, EDward Gaming, and RNG are the 3 teams with significantly superior accumulated points compared to the rest. However, the problem is that these 3 teams are also championship contenders, and if they do not win, they will still have a very high amount of accumulated points. It is not impossible that 2 out of these 3 names will hold the 2 slots for Worlds 2021.
The competition for the remaining 2 slots will be a battle among 1 of the 3 teams FPX, EDG, RNG, with the other names including TES, SN, JDG, RA, WE, BLG, LNG, OMG. Among these teams, LNG, RA, and WE have a good chance to accumulate an additional 10 – 40 points, as these teams are almost guaranteed to finish in the top 6 of the group stage, which means they will have a pass to skip the first round of the Playoffs and finish in the top 8 overall.
As for the case of JDG, TES, and SN, JDG has been eliminated and will certainly not gain any more accumulated points this summer. Theoretically, the opportunity for the former champion of LPL Spring 2020 has nearly ended, as if just 2 out of the 3 teams Rare Atom, Team WE, Suning make it to the top 8 (win the first round of Playoffs), JDG will automatically be pushed out of the group of the top 6 teams with the highest Championship Points.
SN and TES have only 20 and 30 accumulated points from Spring, respectively, so they are also in a precarious position. If they want to dictate their own fate, SN and TES need to reach at least the third round of the Playoffs (of course, winning the championship or being the runner-up would be even better, but this scenario is very difficult to achieve, even for the most optimistic fans).
To briefly discuss the current situation of LPL, among the 4 LPL teams participating in Worlds 2020, LGD has exited the competition, JDG is almost… hopeless with no control over their fate, while SN and TES still have hope, but the road to Worlds 2021 will be extremely challenging. The LPL Summer 2021 Playoffs will be a very tense climb for SofM, Karsa, and their teammates.
Last year, a similar case occurred when the 3 LPL teams participating in Worlds 2019 – Royal Never Give Up, FunPlus Phoenix, and Invictus Gaming, all could not participate in the 2020 Worlds, even when FPX was the defending champion of the tournament.
It can be seen that the professional League of Legends environment in LPL is indeed very harsh, and every year there are new powers rising, along with the restructuring of old giants, creating an extremely chaotic landscape where the throne and the dominant role in the tournament are constantly exchanged. However, that is what makes the charm of this tournament.