League of Legends: LPL predictions – week 2, day 1

The first week of play in the LPL is done, with a few teams already beginning to pull away from the pack while others fall behind. As the week two kicks off on January 21, a look at the coming matches and our LPL predictions for tomorrow’s matches.

Another week of LPL play means another week of us trying to make LPL predictions. Tomorrow sets off the second week of matches, featuring the defending champions, the worst team in the LPL, and two of our most surprising players so far this season. Who do we think will win?

OMG (0-1) vs. Bilibili Gaming (1-0)

Bilibili Gaming was impressive in their dismantling of LGD in week one. In particular, AD Carry Xie “Jinjiao” Jin-Shan played out of his mind in the series. However, Bilibili is far more than a one-trick team, with jungler Zeng “Meteor” Guo-Hao popping off in their first series, and the team still having star mid laner Lee “Kuro” Seo-haeng.

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On the other side, OMG was not predicted to be one of the top teams at the beginning of the year, and they certainly struggled in their first series against Invictus Gaming. Losing to the defending World Champions isn’t surprising, but the young team showed promising signs of life. Particularly, two rookies in the top part of the map – top laner Hu “Ale” Jia-Le and jungler Zhou “l3est16” Zhi-Li were incredibly impressive. After holding his own against TheShy and Duke in the first series, we’ll get a chance to see what Ale can do against weaker competition when facing Kang “ADD” Geon-mo.

Key matchup: You would expect given all the hype after Ale’s first week for it to be the top lane, but instead the focus should be on the mid lane. OMG mid Xie “icon” Tian-Yu had one decent game on Jayce in the first week, and one atrocious game on Urgot where he went 1/6/7 into Rookie’s Ryze. If icon doesn’t show up, Bilibili has a great chance to win through the mid lane.

Prediction: Bilibili

Invictus Gaming (2-0) vs. Rogue Warriors (0-2)

Truly a match of the “haves” vs. the “have nots” in this one. Invictus cruised through their games in the first week, making quick work of OMG and Topsports without dropping a single game. Already appearing to be in midseason form to defend their title, Invictus Gaming rolls on against the LPL’s only 0-2 team.

That would be Rogue Warriors, who were predicted to be the worst team in the LPL entering the season. They were smashed in their first series against FunPlus Pheonix before taking JD Gaming to three games before falling. Their one standout this season has been bot laner Mei “ZWuJi” Hong-Hui who has led the team in gold in each of their games this season and is just coming off an impressive series when he went a combined 9/1/7 facing off against JD ADC Imp.

Key matchup: ZWuJi vs. Yu “JackeyLove” Wen-Bo. If there is any potential for Rogue Warriors to pull off the miracle upset, it will have to be on the back of ZWuJi. Unfortunately, he has his tallest task of the season, facing off against JackeyLove, a champion who has never given up more than two deaths in any of his four games this season.

Which series are you most excited to watch tomorrow? Do you think any of our LPL predictions were wrong? Let us know in the comments!