Xiaohu led Royal never Give Up to a dominant 2-1 win over Edward Gaming today during the 2021 LPL Spring Split.
The League of Legends series was fierce and both teams gave it all. But Xiaohu’s extraordinary performance on three different picks helped RNG win. He picked up both MVP votes following his dominant performances, finishing the series with a combined KDA of 12/8/18. His surprise Tristana pick also helped RNG secure an edge in the first game of the series as EDG crumbled to answer the top lane ADC.
The series opened up with a draft masterclass by the RNG coach. He picked Tristana for Xiaohu in the top lane as an answer to Gnar, who has a poor laning phase against ranged matchups. The former mid laner used the ADC to dominate the laning phase before roaming to other lanes to secure towers and objectives and help his team achieve a massive gold lead. EDG stood no chance and fell in the first game of this series in 24 minutes.
Going into the second game, EDG banned Tristana after the pick destroyed them in the first match. They went for the Seraphine-mid utility playstyle with carries in the top and bottom lane. RNG held their ground early on, but as soon as teamfights started, EDG ran through them like a hot knife through butter. Seraphine’s constant shields and heals proved to be too much for RNG to deal with and the series was equalized.
Both teams showed great flexibility through the series, and once RNG realized they had no answer to Seraphine, they banned it away in game three. The match started with both teams trading blows for blows with no clear winner from those early-game skirmishes. Once RNG got to their power spikes, however, they started taking over the teamfights with Xiaohu as the main catalyst of their wins. After a fight for the Ocean Dragon Soul, RNG wiped EDG and closed out the series 2-1.
Following this victory, RNG (10-1) dethroned EDG from the first place in the 2021 LPL Spring Split standings. The team’s only loss this split was against a weakened Bilibili Gaming, who have been struggling to get out of the bottom of the standings. Since their sole defeat, RNG have looked unstoppable and are ready to take on new challenges. They’ll be back next week with two easy matchups against eStar and JD Gaming.
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