Team WE, China’s LPL representative, are a lot like G2 Esports — only better.

Both teams have one of the strongest laning bottom lanes in their region with a support that gets caught out a little too often in roams. Both teams have mid laners seeking redemption after past international performances. Both teams have junglers who take initiative from pushing lanes. Both teams’ top laners spent much of the split suffering in silence as mid and bottom get pressure.

All of this belies the fundamental difference between G2 Esports and Team WE: coordination between jungle and mid lane.

Luka “Perkz” Perkovik and Kim “Trick” Gangyun, G2’s core assets, have let the team down internationally — not just individually, but as a duo. In the first game against Team SoloMid, their rough initial setbacks came from a failure to use mid pressure to roam top as a duo with a low damage top laner. The second game against Team SoloMid, Perkz failed to acknowledge the location of Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen after Trick’s top side encounter. In both cases, G2 lost the early push and fell behind when they advantage was in their hands.

Perkz, to his credit, has performed significantly above his last international showings. He has bridged G2 from the early game to the late game in many circumstances with outstanding performances on Fizz and Orianna.

Su “xiye” Hanwei’s matchup against Perkz has its own historical significance. The last time xiye appeared on the international stage, he overwhelmed and dismantled Tigers’ Lee “Kuro” Seohaeng, but tripped and smashed his jaw into Team SoloMid’s Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg and Svenskeren in the 2v2.

When xiye first debuted on the world stage, he had barely participated in matches for a major league. After only a few weeks of play in LPL 2014 Summer on WE Academy, Son “Mickey” Youngmin — then almost a one-trick Lee Sin mid player — replaced xiye as the team’s starter. xiye spent a year playing with the elite of Ionian solo queue. At 2015 IEM, he had placed top three in the ranks alongside Lee “Spirit” Dayoon and Jin “Mystic” Seongjun. WE added him and Mystic to their starting roster for the tournament at the behest of their current mid laner, Noh “Ninja” Geonwoo.

When TSM identified xiye’s limitations at 2015’s IEM Katowice, they punished his failure to identify an enemy jungler’s approach. Bjergsen avoided his all-ins, and xiye’s targeting unraveled in teamfights without a lane lead. Despite Team WE’s victory over the dominating Korean GE Tigers, they couldn’t win a game against North America’s Team SoloMid.

At 2017’s MidSeason Invitational, however, xiye’s impressive laning displays and ability to flank in teamfights has won him new international fans. His average experience advantage at 10 minutes of 245 throughout the Group Stage dwarf’s even Bjergsen’s, who came in second at only 3.

View photos xiye backstage at MSI (lolesports) More

Thrust into the international spotlight with only meagre experience, Perkz has had a similar career trajectory. When he first appeared on the international stage a year ago during the 2016 Mid-Season Invitational, he had only played for a split in the EU LCS. That year’s MSI and the World Championship that followed displayed a cocky Perkz who collapsed after a handful of mistakes. He didn’t even have the luxury of catching anyone off-guard.

Given Perkz’s history, G2 fans no doubt frowned after his first deaths at the hands of SK Telecom T1. Of all the teams to face first, SKT would certainly lead to G2’s collapse.

Perkz remained steady. A crushing Fizz match with several highlight outlplays against Vietnam’s Gigabyte Marines kept G2 alive in a drawn out game on the second day of the tournament. He has managed to maintain pressure close to even matchups.

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