Top Esports mid laner Zhuo “knight” Ding has won the MVP award for the regular season of China’s 2020 LPL Summer Split.
This makes knight the third player in the league’s history to receive more than one MVP title, alongside Invictus Gaming’s Song “Rookie” Eui-jin and FunPlus Phoenix’s Kim “Doinb” Tae-sang.
Knight won the award by a significant margin, tallying 101 points, ahead of JD Gaming jungler Seo “Kanavi” Jin-hyeok with 59 points and mid laner Rookie with 28 points. His performance this split also placed him on the LPL’s first All-Pro Team with Kang “TheShy” Seung-lok, Kanavi, Yu “JackeyLove” Wen-Bo, and Zuo “LvMao” Ming-Hao.
Over the course of the regular season, knight established his dominance on the mid lane, picking up 211 total kills, 22 solos kills, and producing a 7.2 KDA. His contribution to the team led to a first-place finish in the standings with a 13-3 record.
Knight played 18 champions in the regular season, more than any player in the league. His favored champions were Syndra (six games), Orianna (six games), and Sylas (four games). But he wasn’t afraid to play unorthodox champions like Jayce, Neeko, and Lissandra.
TOP Esports has been looking like a beast this season. Top Esports have finished the LPL Summer Split in first place following a dominant League of Legends season.
Their standings will help them going into the playoffs since they’ll need to only win a couple of series to secure the LPL Championship title.
Former world champion JackeyLove secured the first game MVP award after a monstrous performance on Caitlyn, ending the game with a 8/1/9 score and 44 percent of the team’s total damage.
The first game went even for both teams. Both teams acquired early dragons and plenty of kills everywhere on the map. TES’s superior creep score farming eventually allowed them to get ahead on gold.
A teamfight around the Baron towards the end of the game sealed Team WE’s fate. JackeyLove’s superior orb-walking allowed him to turn around a lost team fight and end the game.
After a dominant first game, Team WE adjusted their draft and built around shutting down JackeyLove’s Caitlyn. Their plan was successful considering they picked Ashe, a semi-reliable counter to Caitlyn. As the game went by, Team WE secured crucial objectives and got picks on all members of TES, slowly growing their lead.
After a teamfight win at the 22-minute mark, Team WE equalized the series convincingly.
TES picked the same draft for the game three, picking Caitlyn once again. While Team WE picked Ashe once again and got Senna on top of that to be equal with Caitlyn’s range, it was not enough in the long run.
JackeyLove adjusted his playstyle and didn’t die as often as in the second game. Even though Team WE got a couple of advantages in the top and mid lane, TES’s bot farmed well and maintained a gold lead over the WE bot lane. This was felt as teamfights began where TES had much more reliable damage.
TES started laying siege with Team WE having no way to answer. After a dominating teamfight, TES finished the series.
