Royal Never Give Up took down ThunderTalk Gaming in a clean 2-0 sweep in week 8 of the 2021 LPL Summer Split.
With this victory, RNG climbed to sixth place in the standings and extended their win streak to seven series after a disappointing start to the split. The MVP votes were picked up by Ming and Xiaohu. The support player played Rakan in the first match and roamed around the map to help his team, securing kills left and right against his opponents who kept disrespecting the roaming support. Xiaohu played Kennen in the second match and was a force to be reckoned with. After winning his lane, he grouped and destroyed the TT roster in teamfights with a combination of Flash and his ultimate. He finished the match with a KDA of 6/1/3 after his strong performance.
Even though mid-laner Zhang “Yuekai” Yue-Kai had a strong debut in today’s match on LeBlanc and Lucian, he didn’t secure any MVP votes as he was enabled mostly by his teammates, securing kill after kill. It’s unclear whether he will start over the experienced Cryin, who is regarded as one of the best mid laners of the league, going forward.
The first match of today’s series opened up with a nice, calculated play from the RNG roster, who look stronger than ever. After getting a couple of levels, they started looking for aggressive plays and succeeded in building a decent gold lead after a couple of skirmishes. Ming was a huge enabler of these early game plays with his roaming on Rakan, helping his team scale into the mid-game and finish the first match quickly.
In the second match, Xiaohu took the driver’s seat and carried his team with a marvelous Kennen performance. After winning his lane and acquiring his core items, he started grouping up for teamfights, leading his team to a 30-minute clean victory.
Related: Here are the 2021 LPL Summer Split standings
RNG (8-5) are in a safe spot to qualify for the playoff run in sixth place. However, they shouldn’t drop their guard. Winning the next matches will avoid a comeback from other teams, where they wouldn’t be able to qualify for the playoffs and lose a shot at winning another LPL title plus the chance to get to this year’s world championship. TT (2-11) are disqualified from playoffs after a disappointing split and most likely will rebuild going into the next season.
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