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Category:
League of Legends

Rogue Warriors pick up unexpected victory over Top Esports in 2021 LPL Spring Split

JackeyLove tried his best to carry, but it wasn't enough.
Image of Eva Martinello
Eva Martinello
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Published: Jan 12, 2021 12:20 pm

Rogue Warriors bounced back from their disappointing loss to Team WE last week by unexpectedly taking down Top Esports 2-1 earlier today in the second week of 2021 LPL Spring Split.

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As one of the LPL teams with the highest expectations heading into this season, TES were the favorite going into this League of Legends series. They started it off well by winning the first game and keeping the lead of the second one until the very end, but they couldn’t translate their next early leads into victories.

As expected, TES won their lanes in every game of the series, even when their players had a weak matchup against RW’s laners. World-class AD carry JackeyLove had clean performances on Kai’Sa, taking kills with his assassin playstyle even when he was at a clear disadvantage.

TES support Zhuo had solid engages throughout the series, but they weren’t always followed up by top laner 369 or the team in general. This could be explained by RW’s draft strategy, though.

“Top Esports have been playing together for a long time now, but Zhuo is a rookie player so we targeted Zhuo’s champion pool in the draft,” RW top laner Ziv said in the post-match interview.

Overall, it looked like TES weren’t exactly on the same page. The team fell apart after the end of the laning phases. This was even more noticeable in front of a team like RW that heavily overhauled its roster during the offseason but showed good synergy nonetheless.

Related: LPL power rankings: 2021 Spring Split preseason

Screengrab via Riot Games

RW jungler Haro, the only player who remained on the roster after the 2020 season, appeared to be the cornerstone of the team’s success. He successfully secured multiple contested objectives with perfectly timed smites and unleashed tons of poke on the opponents with his Nidalee.

His performance granted him the MVP title of the second game, while former ViCi mid laner Forge was voted as the third game’s MVP thanks to his clutch ultimates on Twisted Fate.

Both RW and TES will play their next series on Friday, Jan. 15. Rogue Warriors will kick off the day by facing off against eStar Gaming at 3am CT, followed by TES vs. Rare Atom, formerly ViCi Gaming, at 5am CT.

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Author
Image of Eva Martinello
Eva Martinello
Eva is a Staff Writer from Paris. Her part-time job is charging into walls with Reinhardt. She has been covering League of Legends esports and other titles for six years. She still believes in a Moscow Five comeback. She also fell into the MMO pit and covers FFXIV and Genshin.
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