Week 7 of the League of Legends Pro League 2022 spring split was filled with battles between the best teams of the LPL, and even saw some of the top teams fall. After the dust settled, a ton of movement happened in the LPL standings. Here are the lessons we learned from Week 7 of the LPL 2022 spring split.
Wheels have fallen off EDG
Starting 2022 right where they left off after winning Worlds 2021, Edward Gaming looked phenomenal. Worlds 2021 Finals MVP Lee “Scout” Ye-chan was in the running for LPL 2022 Spring Split MVP and the team was firing on all cylinders. But after a Week 5 loss to Weibo Gaming, cracks started to appear in the EDG engine. And then a week later, the cracks grew more apparent. With what was assumed to be a band-aid fix with Li “Flandre” Xuan-Jun being benched, EDG didn’t do much better.
Week 7 was another rough week for EDG despite actually going 3-2 in overall games. After defeating the bottom-dwelling LGD Gaming squad, EDG got a real test against Royal Never Give Up. But despite pushing them to Game 3, EDG came up short once again. The close series means nothing in the wins column as EDG fell once again to a playoff team. In fact, EDG’s record against current would-be playoff teams sits at just a 2-4 record with both wins coming against lower placing competition which include the seventh-ranked JD Gaming and 10th ranked Oh My God!.
With Flandre returning in Week 8, EDG still have time to recover, but the wheels are currently off and the team looks to be in freefall as they have gone from first in the LPL to sixth in just three weeks’ time.
Royal Never Give Up are scary now
In the LPL when a top team starts to crumble there is almost always a team that seems to take their power and place. This time around EDG’s free fall has benefited RNG the most. Last year’s MSI champions have been quiet over the course of the LPL 2022 Spring Split, but have come alive late in the split. Heading into Week 7, RNG came off a couple of 1-1 weeks, which put them in the middle of the pack of the standings. But looking at the roster, it’s clear that the team just needed to hit their peak. In Week 7, that peak started to become visible. In one of the hardest weeks on the schedule, RNG came out looking strong.
RNG started out the week with a convincing 2-0 victory over the LPL frontrunners WBG, and then took down EDG in their last series of the week. On paper, this RNG team is even better than last year’s version, with Li “Xiaohu” Yuan-Hao moving back to mid lane to make room for their new top laner Chen “Bin” Ze-Bin. Both of these players are leading the late split charge for RNG as Xiaohu is in the thick of the MVP race and Bin is second on the team in Player of the Game honors behind him.
RNG clinched a playoff spot with their win against EDG and the team now sits only a game behind WBG and Victory Five for first place in the LPL.
Watch out for JD Gaming
A forgotten team from 2020’s past, JD Gaming came into 2021 looking to find the form that let them challenge for an LPL title, but they couldn’t seem to find it. Up until Week 7, JD Gaming just looked like another random LPL team that would stumble into the playoffs as they sat at just a 5-5 record. But during Week 7, in their match against the first-place team in the LPL, V5, they managed to give fans a taste of that 2020 magic.
The JDG versus V5 series only lasted two games, but was a back and forth battle throughout both. Ultimately, it was JDG that came out on top each time. Both games went past the 35-minute mark and both games combined only had a 6k difference in gold. But JDG managed to pull it out as a team with every player stepping up. In fact, across the four games they played in Week 7, which all were wins, four different players took home Player of the Game honors.
The clean sweep week only puts JDG at 7-5 overall but the team looks like they are on the same page and in the LPL, if a team gets into the playoffs hot and can work together anything is possible.
