Is the LPL still the best region heading into Worlds 2022?

Like last year’s League of Legends World Championship, the LPL will send four teams to Worlds 2022. JD Gaming, Top Esports, and current world champions EDward Gaming have been slotted directly into the group stage, while Royal Never Give Up will have to go through the play-in stage.

In 2021, the Chinese region returned to the top of the world, with EDG winning the championship against DWG KIA. Despite being the only LPL team left among the top four, EDG crawled their way to their first World title. 

This leaves fans to wonder how strong are the LPL teams this year and what the expectations are for them coming into the biggest League tournament of the season. Here is our regional preview of the four seeds from the Chinese region at Worlds 2022.

Worlds 2022 LPL region breakdown

Ever since the region won its first World Championship with Invictus Gaming in 2018, the LPL has been regarded as the most competitive league in the world. With a total of 17 teams, the overall level of gameplay skyrocketed. And every year, the best LPL teams have always been considered big favorites for the trophy. Needless to say, this year is no different. 

All four teams from the LPL have shown such a high level of play that they could all be in contention for the title. It is not a surprise that in a bot-centric meta, all the LPL teams that qualified for Worlds have formidable bot lane duos, especially AD carries.

GALA, Viper, Hope, and JackeyLove have all shown they have strong carry potential and the mechanics to take over teamfights. 

Not only that, but all of these bot laners are not afraid to make aggressive trades during the laning phase and look for even the smallest advantage that can build up to a lead later on. 

This also applies to all of the other roles—jungle included. LPL teams are clean in exploiting lane priorities correctly and pressuring enemies around the map, forcing them to give up resources or objectives. Doing this requires strong coordination and communication, which most teams can’t replicate at such a high level. 

While most teams say LPL teams love constantly fighting without any seemingly meaningful reason, we’re more of the line of thought that the Chinese teams have been accustomed to contesting every single action, if possible. Consequently, teams will often find themselves skirmishing or fighting for small trades that might become a way to initiate a fight.

Of these teams, though, EDG seems to be the one to play more conservatively. It might be due to the influence of Scout and Viper, who both come from Korea, which is known as a slower-paced region, always being cautious in taking the right fights. Regardless of whether that’s true, EDG are the team among the LPL representatives at Worlds with a slightly different approach.

RNG, instead, feels like a downgraded version of Top Esports and JDG. They are similar in both the qualities of the players as well as their playstyle, but their execution hasn’t been as consistent. Occasionally, they take bad fights and make greedy calls that put them in adverse situations, like in the first dragon fight of the last game of the regional finals against EDG. When this happens, RNG seems like they don’t have the capability of finding comeback opportunities when playing from behind. Between the four LPL teams coming into Worlds, they are generally considered the weaker team.

As for the other two LPL squads, TES and JDG, we think they are close to some of the best competitive League teams we’ve seen. These two teams faced each other twice in the LPL Summer Split playoffs, and on both occasions, it went to game five, proving how equally matched they were. 

On one hand, TES excels more at finding opportunities at all stages of the game, with jungler Tian being the team’s main playmaker. If TES can build up a wide enough gold lead, it becomes hard for the enemies to recover. 

JDG, on the other hand, have showcased greater teamfighting ability and understanding of their own positioning relative to their enemies. They are better at playing around the neutral objectives and making sure they are coordinating with one another to ensure they come out on top of the action. 

When TES were able to match JDG in the finals, it was mainly thanks to Jackeylove finding ways to carry teamfights without getting caught. Having such an important role in the team proved to be a double-edged sword. Whenever the former IG player messed up, TES had no way of winning the fights—and that’s what happened in game five of the Summer Split finals. 

Overall, JDG and TES are well-rounded teams who shine in different situations of the game. They have been a tier above the others and have all the right cards to succeed at Worlds 2022. Despite the meta potentially shifting toward the top side due to the nerfs to the bot lane of the previous meta carries, such as Zeri, Sivir, Lucian, and Kalista, these teams should be fine regardless since their top laners can play both weakside and strongside. Similarly, RNG should also be able to adapt. 

The LPL team who might raise the most doubt is EDG. Flandre is known for playing weakside or, generally, a less resource-intensive role within the team since all of them get funneled into the super carry, Viper. If the top laner cannot take up a carry role, it might cause major draft issues at Worlds. 

With that being said, EDG remains one of the best teams in the world, and that issue will only impact them when facing teams that are at a similar level. RNG will likely get through the play-in stage in a dominant fashion due to the gap between them and the wildcard regions, so we might see four LPL teams in the main event’s group stage. 

In the eyes of many League fans, the LPL is still the best region in the world by a large margin. While other regions might have teams that can put up a fight against these Chinese squads, no other league can count on four potential title contenders.