Top Esports eliminated Victory Five from the 2022 LPL Spring Split playoffs today with a 3-1 series win. They’ll move forward into a rematch against Royal Never Give Up in the grand final.

This semifinal matchup was a story of two different levels of dominance throughout the split. For V5, their dominance came in the form of a consistent regular season, noted by three of their five players being named to the LPL All-Pro first team. As for TES, their season is one that has been on the rise, climbing the LPL standings to become the perennial darkhorse. For both League of Legends teams, they were looking to win this matchup to earn a spot in the finals against RNG.

V5 were dominant throughout the first game of the series against TES as the jungle/support duo of Karsa and ppgod routed the team in the early game on Viego and Nautilus. At the 26-minute mark, TES had just one kill to their name to V5’s 11 kills and four dragons. This early-game lead proved to be too much for TES and V5 closed out the first game with a strong 29-minute victory to start the series.

Through the next three games, TES progressively became stronger as a team. In the second game, TES rose to an early-kill lead over V5 but were unable to translate that into a sizeable gold advantage due to constant side lane pressure from V5 top laner Rich. The even battle between both teams was finally thwarted once TES killed three V5 players at 30 minutes. This allowed TES to break further into V5’s base to close out the game in 36 minutes.

The next two games were dominated by the side of TES, specifically jungler Tian, who was deathless in the final two games on Viego and Volibear. Throughout these two games, Tian amassed a scoreline of 11/0/17 and his pressure over V5 in the early game was too much for them to handle. As a result, the series had completely shifted in favor of TES, where the LPL fifth seed closed out the match with two back-to-back 25-minute wins to eliminate V5 from the playoffs.

For V5, this loss to TES in the semifinals is a disappointing finish for the regular season’s first seed.  After dominating the regular season with a 14-2 record, V5 looked poised to qualify for the Mid-Season Invitational as the representative for the LPL. 

But throughout their three series in the playoffs, V5 were unable to translate their best-of-three dominance into the best-of-five format seen in the playoffs. Now, with their Spring Split run officially over, V5 will look toward the offseason to build upon their strong regular season and vie for the crown in the Summer Split.

As for TES, this win has simply been a continuation of their strong end to the 2022 LPL Spring Split, where they climbed from a 2-4 record to fifth place at 11-5. TES have accumulated a total of 20 games and five best-of-five series throughout the playoffs. They now have an opportunity to close out their magnificent run with a win in the finals against RNG.

The 2022 LPL Spring Split finals will take place on Saturday, April 23 at 4:30am CT, where we’ll find out if either RNG or TES will represent the LPL at MSI in Busan, South Korea.

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