I’ve spun the story of EDward Gaming’s crumbling dynasty so many times that it no longer even feels genuine, yet following a decisive 2-0 loss at the hands of Royal Never Give Up, here we are again. Despite laughable roster changes, EDG maintained their position at the top of their group, but they fell behind in the first week of cross-conference play, losing their definitive first place title.

The narrative of EDG’s dominance has hung over the LPL since their rise in 2014. They’ve lacked a consistent rival to match them for more than a year.

Royal Never Give Up, after warring with EDG throughout 2016, look like the first organization to have retained a core strength following a roster shakeup. They have the ability to drastically alter the perception of LPL for multiple reasons: they’re an all-Chinese roster, and, more significantly, they aren’t EDward Gaming.

Royal Never Give Up have strengths that thrust them above their competition; namely, their ability to play well to compositions. Yet Royal Never Give Up also have several gaps to fill in. This team makes inefficient use of their jungle and mid lane, and their setup for objectives is sometimes rushed or inadequate.

What really makes Royal stand out as the best team in the LPL is their flexibility. While their drafting hasn’t been the best, they’re able to identify the strengths and limitations of their compositions and adapt how they play situationally.

For example, Royal chose a split-pushing top lane Jayce composition in the opening game of their first series against LGD Gaming. In order to make this composition effective, they acknowledged LGD’s stronger late game teamfighting with multiple shields and Twitch. As a result, Jian “Uzi” Zihao could only use his Varus ultimate to disengage, and fighting was situationally based on a pick.

In Game 2, Royal’s strategy had to change drastically. This draft felt less clear-cut overall, and RNG managed to play their picks in a less conventional way. Zyra’s ability to shut down Sivir-based collapse compositions could be sidestepped by smart Ryze ultimates, and separating the back line off with Rumble’s The Equalizer.

Royal’s adaptability in this situation demonstrated that they not only have a stronger compositional understanding than many teams in the LPL, but they are also flexible in how they use their drafts. This usually comes from understanding the strengths and roles of individual players and strong communication. RNG’s task now is to use these principles to fill other gaps in their play.

One of their biggest flaws is in the way Liu “Mlxg” Shiyu plays early game. Especially in this past week, he has pathed suboptimally in the jungle, falling behind in experience to his opponent.

In the first game against Game Talents, Mlxg didn’t take his own krugs camp until nearly 10 minutes into the game. EDward Gaming punished his inefficiencies when, by seven minutes into Game 1, Mlxg failed gank attempts in all three of his lanes, and Zhao “Fireloli” Zhiming managed to take both his gromp and his krugs camp.

Mlxg tends to repeatedly make a few other mistakes. Mlxg will take a camp in one sector of the map, cross the river to place vision in the enemy jungle, then return to his own jungle to clear a second camp in the same quadrant or path to the other side. He doesn’t prioritize gaining an experience advantage over the enemy jungler, even if all of his lanes win naturally, as in the case of the first game against Game Talents. Despite all three lanes pushing in RNG’s favor, Mlxg invaded the enemy jungle and placed shallow wards, but didn’t look to counterjungle.

View photos Mlxg falls behind two levels after multiple sweeps of the opopnent’s jungle (lolesports) More

When all three lanes win, it makes sense to prioritize laying jungle vision to prevent the enemy jungler from ganking and resetting lane control. But in these situations, it’s also easy to identify where the enemy jungler might travel on the map. By taking into account his location by counting CS or mapping out a rough route beforehand and guessing the logical place on the map where he might travel next, it’s easy to deny him experience and ward or avoid sacrificing his own camps to lay relevant vision.

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