A few years ago, specifically in 2021, Edward Gaming reached its peak, showing an incredibly high level of performance that made the entire LoL world take notice. Although they were the reigning champions of the LPL at that time, EDG was not rated as highly as FunPlus Phoenix. They then surged all the way to the finals of the World Championship, defeating the then-powerful DWG KIA, reclaiming the world championship title for the LPL and bringing names like Flandre and JieJie to the pinnacle of glory. Meiko collected a full set of titles while Scout was officially seen as having successfully escaped the “shadow of Faker“.
Knowing that LPL teams often go through a downward cycle after winning the World Championship, as seen with Invictus Gaming and FunPlus Phoenix before, no one expected EDG to be in a worse situation. Once regarded as the pride of LPL, but EDG rapidly fell into despair following their 2021 championship. They almost missed out on the 2022 World Championship and completely vanished in 2023. Currently, EDG holds a record of total defeats – a performance that, among the four major regions, with the exception of the concluded LEC, only OKSavingsBank BRION fares worse than EDG.
However, if EDG can maintain their passion and unity, perhaps things wouldn’t be so tragic. Yet, in a recent clip capturing EDG’s behind-the-scenes moments, head coach ClearLove couldn’t hide his disappointment and directly criticized his players: “Do we always have to wait for the Jungle to come down and gank the Bottom Lane? Isn’t the enemy’s Rell in the Abyss? Do we have vision? And then what do we do? Honestly, if we keep this up, we won’t have the skills to compete in the LPL. We might not even have the level to play in the LPL.”
ClearLove is one of the longest-standing players of EDG who continues to work for this team. He has experienced many ups and downs with EDG, but perhaps this is the toughest phase for ClearLove. He bears the primary responsibility for his players’ performances. But besides directing, encouraging, and motivating, ClearLove finds himself helpless.
EDG now bears no resemblance to a top-tier team, let alone a team that once won the World Championship, even though JieJie is still there. And if their poor performance continues, a drastic overhaul, even a complete disbandment to rebuild from scratch, could happen after the Spring season concludes.