Edward Gaming crushed Royal Never Give Up 3-1 today in the first round of the 2020 LPL Spring Split playoffs. They’ll advance to the LPL quarterfinals to face the defending League of Legends world champions, FunPlus Phoenix.
EDG showed their best version of themselves in their match against RNG today, which could give them some hope heading into the quarterfinals.
EDG chose to play top laner Aodi and jungler JunJia over Jinoo and Jiejie for this match against RNG. On the other side, legendary ADC Uzi remained on RNG’s bench and Betty manned the bot lane.
Aodi and JunJia exceeded all expectations in this series by proving to be well-coordinated with the team and showing teamfight superiority over RNG’s scattered squad.
EDG won the first two games with almost the same drafts and strategy. RNG’s ADC Betty couldn’t find the opportunity to deal a ton of damage despite getting all of the team’s resources. EDG, on the other hand, gave space for Hope’s Miss Fortune to shine.
RNG then took the edge in the third game. Langx’s Ornn was finally able to take the fights they needed and Xiaohu stepped up on Zoe. Betty finished the job with Varus, dealing the most damage on the team.
EDG, however, shattered the hopes of RNG in the fourth game by getting the gold advantage in the early game. JunJia took his unexpected Graves pick and rolled through the game, enabling his team to take objectives and more kills. They comfortably won the series, showing a better form than they had during the regular season.
This is the earliest that RNG have been eliminated from the LPL playoffs since they joined the league five years ago. One of the most important reasons why they are eliminated is due to the lack of Uzi, who is taking his annual Spring Break due to wrist injuries. He has said multiple times that his gameplay in the past years have put a huge strain on his wrists. If he continues that than he might not be able to play at all so he takes usual Spring breaks to compensate for this. RNG without Uzi has been looking quite lost and indecisive. Even though Betty has been putting up a good show, it’s not enough to save RNG this year and so that they have been kicked.
EDG will face off against FPX in the LPL Spring quarterfinals on April 25 at 4am CT.