The final week of the League of Legends Pro League regular season has just about wrapped up. Outside a couple rescheduled matches, the playoff field has been decided — and some teams have shifted around in the standings. Here are the lessons learned from Week 9 of the LPL 2022 spring split.
V5 are safely the best team in the LPL
When looking back at Victory Five’s journey thus far in the LPL 2022 spring split, anything outside of a last-place finish would have been an improvement. But nine weeks and 15 matches later, the fact that the team nearly flipped their 0-16 record is nothing short of a miracle.
When looking at how V5 has managed such success, nothing about their journey has been a fluke. Heading into the final week of the LPL 2022 spring regular season, V5 were alone in first place for the first time in the organization’s history. Due to Weibo Gaming stumbling late into the season, V5 finally had a chance to claim the throne as their own. All they needed to do was make sure they had a clean end to their season
In Week 9, V5 went up against the bottom-dwelling ThunderTalk Gaming. In no surprise, V5 made quick work of them with a 2-0 victory. Then they matched up with FunPlus Phoenix to wrap up another 2-0 week. The win also clinched them the number one seed heading into playoffs.
V5 still has one match on their schedule, a rescheduled series against Anyone’s Legend from Week 8. However, with the first seed locked up, V5 are the current kings of the LPL.
JDG are in 2020 form
JDG Gaming had so much going for them in 2020. After fighting at the top of the LPL standings in both spring and summer, they were among the favorites to win the 2020 League of Legends World Championship. However, they bowed out of the tournament with a disappointing exit in the quarterfinals.
Since then, JDG have just been mediocre. In the spring of 2021, they managed to secure a top-four seed but lost early in the playoffs. In the Summer of 2021, they failed to even make the playoffs. And the current split looked like more of the same — at least until something clicked in the last few weeks. In this case, the click they needed came in the form of their jungler Seo “Kanavi” Jin-hyeok.
JDG have lived and died by Kanavi, who was the LPL 2020 spring MVP. When he is on, JDG are good. But when he falters, the whole team does, too. Through the first six weeks, Kanavi just played OK, and JDG’s 5-5 record from that stretch reflected that. But since then, Kanavi stepped up.
Heading into Week 9, JDG were riding a four-series win streak, which put them safely into playoffs. However, JDG didn’t step off the gas in their final matches against two playoff contenders, WBG and Rare Atom.
Instead, JDG aimed to make statements, and their aim was on point. Both matches were 2-0 wins for the side of JDG with Kanavi picking up all four player of the game awards.
JDG are the hottest team in the LPL, Kanavi looks like the best player and the return of 2020 JDG is here.
RA are the epitome of average
Rare Atom are a weird team. Through the first half of the LPL 2022 spring split, the team sat at an abysmal 1-5 and did not look good in any match. But then they pulled of a four-series win streak to put them in the thick of the playoff hunt.
From there, they overperformed and were 8-6 with serious momentum heading into Week 9 and the playoffs. Then they fell flat.
Week 9 saw RA go up against two playoff contenders in Edward Gaming and JDG. RA got 2-0’d by both of them. They still successfully locked up a playoff spot, but it was a deflating end to their regular season.
Their game score is also near even at 20-18, highlighting their ability to beat teams worse than them and struggle against teams that are better. Although they have also shown an ability to punch up at times, they have also lost to teams that are worse than they are. At the end of the day, RA are just an average team.
