JDG Wins LPL Summer Playoffs 3-2 over LNG
JD Gaming have defeated LNG Esports 3-2 in the finals of the 2023 League of Legends Pro League Summer Playoffs. JD Gaming’s triumph in the five-game epic marked the organization’s fourth LPL title and locked them in as China’s 1st representative seed at the 2023 World Championship.
JD Gaming came into the finals looking to keep the dream of their royal road season after winning LPL Spring and the Mid-Season Invitational earlier this year. LNG finished outside of the top 4 in the LPL Spring Playoffs, but were propelled to a 3rd place finish in the Summer Split and a post-season finals appearance due to the immaculate play of Lee "Scout" Ye-chan. Scout was named the 2023 Summer Split MVP and was the only player on his team to make any of the three All-Pro teams at the end of the split – there was no scenario that LNG would win the finals without yet another incredible performance from their mid laner.
Unfortunately for LNG, Scout was unable to contain JDG mid laner Zhuo “knight” Ding in the first game of the series. JDG AD carry Park "Ruler" Jae-hyuk’s Aphelios came up huge in big moments, but it was knight’s 8/1/3 Jayce that provided the most impact and earned him player of the game honors as JDG went up 1-0. Scout, kept quiet on Neeko in game 1, flipped the script by holding knight to a 0/8/4 KDA in games 2 and 3 and put LNG on match point, 2-1. Not to be outdone, knight took game 4 into his own hands with a 7/0/5 triple-slash and 100% Kill Participation on Ahri.
Ultimately, League of Legends is a team game, and while Scout ended game 5 with a 3.0 KDA on Jayce, the superior team play of JDG firing on all cylinders was the deciding factor in the game and the series.
JD Gaming’s finals win ensured they would head to Worlds 2023 as the LPL’s 1st seed, but their victory also punched the ticket of another Chinese squad. Bilibili Gaming entered the post-season as the first seed after going 15-1 in the Summer Split, but finished 3rd in the Summer Playoffs after suffering back-to-back losses to JDG (3-0) and LNG (3-1), but JDG auto-qualifying as the first seed played in BLG’s favor. However, due to BLG finishing 2nd in the LPL Spring Playoffs, their amount of championship points has locked them into LPL’s 2nd seed at Worlds 2023.
The LPL has 4 seeds at Worlds 2023, so to decide who will join JDG and BLG in South Korea this fall, the top four teams in championship points (sans JDG and BLG, of course) will be seeded in the LPL Regional Final. First LNG and EDward Gaming will face off in the upper bracket, with the winner qualifying for Worlds as the 3rd seed. The loser will face the winner of the lower bracket match between Top Esports and Weibo Gaming, with the last team remaining qualifying as China’s fourth and final representative.
