There is a basketball phenomenon that Chinese fans call the “black eight miracle”. It describes the extremely rare upset of NBA’s #8 seed beating the #1 seed in the conference playoffs. It has its own term, because it hardly ever happens.

In NBA’s 72-year history, there have only been five “black eight miracles”. On four of these occasions, after upsetting the #1 seed, the #8 team went on to lose in the very next round. The farthest an #8 team managed to go were the 98-99 season New York Knicks, who beat Miami Heat (#1), Atlanta Hawks (#4), and Indiana Pacers (#2) to reach the NBA grand final. No black eight miracle has ever won an NBA title.

When it comes to the Chinese LPL, the black eight miracle had been a mirage. Ever since LPL’s conversion to bubble race, eight-team playoffs, no bottom-table seed has even managed to reach a stage where they could play a ranking leader, let alone beat them.

That is, until JD Gaming came along.

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JDG’s 8th-place finish in the regular season came as a mild surprise. The team was nothing extraordinary, but they kept up a good pace for the majority of the season, oscillating between 5-6th place on most weeks. Between weeks 7-8, they trailed right behind Royal Never Give Up as a persistent threat to their top 4 position.

But in week 10, JDG crumbled. They dropped a 1-2 loss to LGD Gaming, at the time the third worst team in the LPL, and followed up with a 0-2 defeat at the hands of Team WE. What saved their playoffs spot was the performance of their #8 seed rivals Bilibili Gaming, who went 1-1 in week 10 to finish 9th, just one fewer win than JDG. Had BLG beaten Topsports that week, their better tiebreaker score would’ve locked them for playoffs ahead of JD Gaming.

JDG’s week 10 performance didn’t inspire much confidence in regards to their playoffs prospects.

As a result, JDG’s week 10 performance didn’t inspire much confidence in regards to their playoffs prospects. Gu “Imp” Seung-bin kept losing to mediocre ADCs like Ha “Kramer” Jong-hun and finished the season as one of the worst bot laners in the LPL. Top laner Zhang “Zoom” Xing-Ran, who had been JDG’s rock in so many of their regular season games, also failed to make an impact against WE, partially due to Sung “Flawless” Yeon-jun sloppy ganks and map presence.

There were almost too many problems on JDG and with only four days to remedy their week 10 collapse, there was no justifiable reason to predict a win in the Round 1 rematch against WE.

WeiXiao’s Team WE were JDG’s first victims.

War is deception

As it turned out, JDG’s 0-2 loss against WE wasn’t a sign of weakness, but rather a strategic move, designed by the team’s tacticians to lull WE’s vigilance. Head coach Yoon “Homme” Sung-young knew that the week 10 game against WE carried no meaning. BLG had already lost the deciding series earlier that week and JDG’s #8 position was safe. A win against WE wouldn’t improve their chances and Homme made the decision to lose the battle so he can win the war.

“That game was our last one for the regular season and no matter win or lose, we still needed to play [WE] today. So, we planned to pull some tricks on that day to draw out their strategy, and we did it,” Homme said.

JDG used the week 10 game to feel how WE would draft and play, and gathered precious intel on their opponents. They saw WE would stick to their preferred bans of Zoe, Kalista, and Ryze. If given the opportunity, they’d snap-pick Lissandra for Su “xiye” Han-Wei — his best champion this season — and if banned would try to put him on Le’Blanc. At the same time, JDG were able to appraise how Kim “Poss” Min-cheol would play if allowed to have Zoom’s best champion in Yorick, a rare pick for him in the regular season. They even fielded Đỗ “Levi” Duy Khánh in Game 1 and Ju “Bvoy” Yeong-hoon in Game 2, who each had only played in four games so far in the season.

Homme made the decision to lose the battle so he can win the war.

That day, JDG lost to WE in a total of 45 minutes, but by getting blasted so hard, they baited WE into complacency. They led WE believe they needn’t do anything special to wipe the floor with the underdogs just as they had done the week prior.

“WE still used the same draft as their last series of regular season. I think they didn’t prepare well for today’s game while we did better than them.”

Support LvMao was JDG’s hero against WE.

In the actual playoffs series, JDG showed their true colors. Zoom played four different top laners, including a 3/2/10 Gangplank and a 1/2/14 Gnar and Imp proved he was proficient in the Vayne/Kai’Sa match-up from both sides. The final nail was a versatile Zuo “LvMao” Ming-Hao, who brought back his signature Rakan and closed off the series with a 2/5/20 Fiddlesticks — a champion that had only been played once the entire split and which caught WE completely off-guard.

They day ended with an upset, but surely that was as far as JDG could go. Next on the line were RNG and all coach Homme dared dream of was a final stand that doesn’t embarrass them.

“I just hope we don’t lose the game too bad with a 3-0.”

Uzi’s RNG weren’t enough to stop JDG either. Photo by: Riot Games

Punishing habits

For Round 2 and 3, Homme needed to change his strategy — RNG and FPX would not be tricked like WE. Yet while stronger, both teams had a similar weakness they had telegraphed to opponents on multiple occasions: their over-reliance on a single player. For RNG, that player has always been Jian “Uzi” Zi-Hao, and FPX’s strength lay in captain Kim “Doinb” Tae-sang.

Luckily for JDG, other teams before them had already “solved” their more esteemed opponents. RNG’s untimely exit from Worlds 2018 was blamed on their unwillingness to move away from their bot lane centerpiece and his overwhelming preference for scaling AD carries.

At the same time, while Gao “Tian” Tian-Liang had been an important playmaker for FPX, the regular season winners still needed their mid lane leader to be in good mental condition and comfortable in lane so they can rally behind his high morale.

Sever these heads, and the giants fall.

Doinb, the heart of FPX. Photo by: ESL

As RNG and FPX drafted to their strengths and preferences, they allowed JDG to pick comfort line-ups themselves, which is what they wanted and needed to get in order to topple the higher seeds. Even when Zoom locked off-meta picks like Swain and Kayle in Games 4 and 5 against RNG, JDG were still playing their game.

“This is the quintessential JDG comp,” LPL caster Clementh Chu said. “Great frontline picks, bruiser picks throughout. They can push forward and have Imp follow behind with the damage.”

While they couldn’t quite contain Uzi, especially with Hung “Karsa” Hao-Hsuan diligently helping bot, JDG successfully railroaded the series into an Uzi vs. Zoom brawl. The underdogs counted on their top laner to win the deadlock for them, and by playing these late-game, team-fighting bruisers, Zoom delivered a combined 15/0/14 tour de force across the two deciding games to eliminate RNG 3-2.

The “focus Doinb” plan also worked and JDG copied the strategy RNG and TOP used to beat FPX in the regular season: force Doinb out of his style picks and apply pressure until he breaks. Had it not been Flawless’ poor showing that day, the series could’ve perhaps ended even quicker, but a 0/5/5 Rek’Sai and 2/2/2 Lee Sin in Games 1 and 3 allowed Doinb and Tian to take over.

“My personal physical condition was not very good and it affected my performance in game,” Flawless admitted after the game. I felt that my poor performance dragged my team down, so it was a huge relief to me when we won.”

If earlier in the playoffs Homme didn’t dare dream big, a ray of confidence was now creeping through the dark clouds of bad odds.

“It’s difficult for new teams like us, FPX, and TOP to adjust their form and mentality in а best-of-5 series. We are less experienced while old teams like RNG, EDG and IG are better in this aspect. But after all this best-of-5 experience, I think our team is getting better at managing our mentality.”

2018 world champions, Invictus Gaming. Photo by: Riot Games

One last test

On Saturday, after beating the #5, #4 and #1 LPL seeds, JD Gaming will play for the LPL title, contesting reigning world champions Invictus Gaming. Two weeks ago, betting on the black eight miracle would be madness.

Today’s JDG is different. The larger the obstacle is, the stronger and hungrier they get.

“I think we did so well because we are all players who only get more excited when facing bigger challenges,” LvMao told VPEsports. “We are confident and we trust each other completely and that make us play better and better.

“We are all players who only get more excited when facing bigger challenges.” — LvMao

Moreover, in daily life we are all very upfront when disputes or disagreement occur. We will sit down, discuss with each other and figure out solutions. We don’t really do pep talks. We joke around but deep down we trust in each one of our teammates.”

“Actually, we would panic a little bit when our opponents would get to match point in a series, but our coach would step up, ask us to trust him completely and follow his strategy,” Zoom added. “I think the feeling of knowing that someone is there to back you up really helps us calm down.”

JDG’s top lane boulder will need more than Homme’s encouragement tomorrow, however. If he wants to get to the trophy, Zoom will have to go past Kang “TheShy” Seung-lok — world’s best top laner.

Photo by: Riot Games

This is a new kind of test for Zoom. In previous playoffs rounds, JDG faced either ADC-centric teams like WE and RNG, or mid-centric ones like FPX. This meant more freedom for Zoom and, consequently, more opportunities for him to spearhead JDG into victory in the mid-late game.

IG, however, are known for the murderous hegemony TheShy and Gao “Ning” Zhen-Ning exert in the top corner of the map, which puts Zoom in a very difficult position. Teams haven’t really found a consistent answer to that duo either. Most try to leave TheShy alone altogether, which then leads to him taking over the map, much like Zoom tends to do in JDG’s victories. Others try to camp top, only to find that Ning is almost always there, an approach that then feeds kills to IG and ends with TheShy taking over the map anyway

There aren’t many places where JDG can look for a morale boost. Although they did beat IG in the regular season — and with their substitute AD carry at that — this was only in the second week of the split and IG have recovered their top form since. JDG have also lost the only best-of-5 they’ve played against IG so far, at the 2018 LPL Summer Playoffs semifinals.

Yet IG have been broken before this season, most recently by TOP who stole a game from them in the semifinals last weekend exactly by focusing their attention up top. In addition, Zoom is having the tournament of his life. He is leading the playoffs MVP rankings and the confidence and fervor in his play makes even TheShy wonder whether IG are strong enough to take him.

“Watching him play makes me feel we should work harder.”

Everyone fears Zoom, as they should. Photo source: Weibo

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Hours before their first ever grand final, JDG are feeling the trepidation that only comes with the approach of a title match. Looking back, the black eight miracles cannot have any regrets. If they lose, it’s a defeat everyone will understand. This is IG after all: the team that lifted the Summoner’s Cup as the best in the game.

But if they win, then beware, world, because JDG feast on chaos and unpredictability.

“If we could make to MSI, it would be our debut on an international stage. I am not sure how we well can perform, but this feeling of uncertainty makes me really excited,” Zeng “YaGao” Qi said.