The defending LPL champions and 2020 World Championship semifinalists from Top Esports have gotten off to a poor start in the 2021 LPL Spring Split.
After winning the Demacia Cup 2020 right before the new year, fans had high expectations for Top Esports entering the new LPL season. But so far, TES has not been able to carry the momentum after losing to both Suning and Rogue Warriors in its first two series.
????RW 2:1 TES
Nice!! GOOD start!
Thanks for your support&see u next match!
2⃣️ MVP Haro&3⃣️ MVP Forge
#RW #2021LPL pic.twitter.com/UEX1JlDqda— Rogue Warriors (@EsportRw) January 12, 2021
Even though two losses aren’t crucial with a long split remaining, fans and experts are already starting to wonder what is causing the lackluster performance by the defending LPL champions.
To start off the entire LPL season, Top Esports was paired up with its executioners from Worlds, Suning. On paper, Top Esports was expected to win the match by a stretch after Suning’s changes in the offseason, but it didn’t go that way. Top laner Chen “Bin” Ze-Bin and the rest of Suning ended up demolishing Top Esports in 2-0 fashion.
Losing to the Worlds runner-up isn’t something to panic about, and fans expected Top Esports to bounce back against Rogue Warriors. Rogue Warriors has always been a bit of a joker in the LPL, not usually a team to fear at the top of the league. This time around, Top Esports got off a great start to the series and looked like a team on the way to an easy victory.
Unfortunately for Top Esports, the star-packed squad started to fumble in games two and three. In both games, Top Esports had plenty of chances to snowball to a victory but ended up throwing every lead. The loss seemed very uncharacteristic for Top Esports, who will need to get back to the drawing board before its next match against Rare Atom.
Questions and worries about Top Esports are now starting to circulate on social media, regarding if Top Esports is a team capable of topping the charts again. Slow starts to the season are often seen, but it’s very strange that it comes from a side that had just won the 2020 Demacia Cup.
It’s still unknown how Top Esports will bounce back, but the team gets the chance against Rare Atom on January 15.
Top Esports is a Chinese esports organization owned by Topsports. The team was previously known as Topsports Gaming, but rebranded to Top Esports in May 2019. Top Esports is known for participating in the Chinese LPL and was one of the league’s biggest powerhouses throughout the 2020 season. With star players at every position, Top Esports is considered one of the best teams in the world despite its poor start to the 2021 season. In 2020, Top Esports won the 2020 LPL Summer Split followed up by making it to the semifinals at the 2020 World Championship. To close out the year, Top Esports won the 2020 Demacia Cup.
For the 2021 season, Top Esports hasn’t made many changes to its LPL lineup. The only change is in the support position, where the young talent Wang “Zhuo” Xu-Zhuo has gotten the chance as the team’s starter instead of Liang “yuyanjia” Jia-Yuan.
Top Esports 2021 LPL lineup:
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