RNG are your 2022 Spring Champions, defeating Top Esports 3:2 in the grand finals. They have returned to the top of the LPL after failing to win last summer. This will be the first time that the LPL will send the same team two years in a row to MSI. Here’s how RNG did it.
Image Courtesy of @RNG
After making it fairly far into Worlds last year, RNG only made one roster change. They brought Bin in from Suning, and Xiaohu returned to the mid lane. Due to the few changes to their roster, many viewed RNG as favourites from the get-go. After all, a very similar roster dominated the LPL last year. Despite a disappointing start, losing to FPX, RNG quickly bounced back, proving that they belonged at the top.
RNG were inconsistently consistent during the round-robin. They were consistent in the sense that they beat every top-eight team other than Victory Five. They also beat almost every team that didn’t make playoffs. However, questions still emerged in RNG’s losses. Other than the upset to FPX in the first week of play and their loss to V5, they lost to Rare Atom and Team World Elite. While Rare Atom looked dominant for a couple of weeks, they crushed RNG. Meanwhile, Team WE had one of the worst performances in a split the org had in recent years. Both of these losses raised a few eyebrows, but RNG managed to finish in second.
Image Courtesy of @lplenglish
RNG began their run to become the 2022 Spring Champions in round four of playoffs. Due to their second-place finish, they skipped the first three rounds of playoffs, begging in the double-elimination part of the race. Their first match was against JDG, the team that finished in third. While it was a very close match, and JDG started out with a 2:0 advantage, RNG brought it back, managing to complete the reverse sweep and move on to the winners final of the bracket, against Top Esports.
A match that many expected to be just as close as the previous one, managed to be too close for comfort. But the scoreline didn’t reflect that. RNG won 3:1, a more comfortable win on paper. However, this was largely due to mistakes from the side of Top Esports, who cloud have closed the series out in a clean 3:0 manner. Regardless of that, RNG moved on to the Grand Finals, undefeated in the playoffs.
Image Courtesy of Riot Games
Once again, RNG triumphed over Top Esports, but this time it was in the Grand Finals. Beating their adversaries X:X, RNG have cemented their spot at MSI once again. This will be the team’s fourth appearance at MSI, having won twice and finished once in third. In the first All-Chinese finals since 2014, it was RNG’s squad that managed to reign supreme. They also managed to deny Top Esports from becoming the third team to have won multiple LPL Splits.
After a long and arduous split, RNG emerged victorious. Managing to beat out Top Esports during the finals, which proved rather difficult, Royal Never Give Up proved their name sake. Now, with MSI just around the corner, RNG has the chance to defend their title. Will they be able to once again rise up on top? Or will another region’s contenders beat them this year?
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