2022 LPL Summer Playoffs: JDG Reverse Sweep TES in Series of the Year!
In what could only be described as quite possibly on the best Bo5 in League history, Jingdong Gaming find the reverse sweep against rivals Top Esports in a match for the ages!
Game 1: Bot Diff
The Winner’s Bracket Finals of LPL Summer 2022 starts off with perennial heavyweights Top Esports and Jingdong Gaming slugging it out in a massive banger!
TES got off to a fast early lead with JackeyLove’s Draven answer into JDG’s first pick Lucian/Nami, annihilating Hope in the 2v2 and setting themselves up for what looked like an easy Game 1 win.
JDG’s topside answered back in force however, with both 369 and Kanavi abusing JackeyLove’s lack of summoners to pick him off in crucial Dragon fights, allowing Hope to rebound back into the game with cleanup kills.
Despite their fantastic team play in order to get themselves back into the game, the massive single target lockdown from TES’s Camille and Lissandra picks meant that Hope did not get to play teamfighting on his terms, and TES were able to stop JDG’s potential comeback with clutch Poppy ults from Tian as well as an MVP performance out of Jackey’s Draven.
It will be interesting to see how JDG responds to this potential bot discrepancy moving forward in this series. Will they draft scaling for Hope and play more around mid/jg?
Or will they double down on their identity and funnel more resources into Hope in order to help him defeat the looming threat that is JackeyLove and his team?
Game 2: Jackey Does it in Style!
In probably the most back and forth game of the year, JackeyLove carries TES to a 2-0 lead against JDG with a massive Zeri performance!
Hope got the help from his team this time around and was able to accelerate ahead with his Lucian/Nami duo. He bounced back nicely from his Game 1 woes, and was easily the win condition of his team with his ability to chunk TES members out in mid game and force disadvantageous fights.
However, JDG got too cute with their Ocean Soul lead and tried to force a premature end when they could have easily peeled back into Elder Dragon, and JackeyLove simply went off, obliterating JDG with pristine Zeri teamfighting.
He even did 22k damage in a single teamfight to save his nexus from certain doom – the most I have ever seen any player deal in a single fight!
JDG are a strong team with great team coordination and very good players that can all carry at a moment’s notice. But even Hope’s best game cannot seem to overcome the monstrosity that has been JackeyLove in this series, with back-to-back MVP performance against the JDG ADC.
With their backs against the wall, we’ll see if JDG cook up a different game plan because playing through bot doesn’t seem to be working by a long shot…
Game 3: JDG Bounce Back
JDG bounce back with 369 carrying the early game with Eclipse + Ghostblade Aatrox into Wayward’s Gnar!
Even though Tian was able to make some action happen botside, 369 simply rolled Wayward in the top matchup after help from Yagao’s Ryze pick.
Hope was able to compound his teammate’s advantages with his Kalista pick, which he picked after JackeyLove took away his Lucian, and matched the seemingly unstoppable TES ADC in teamfights to push JDG into a wining position.
TES’s fate was sealed after an ambition Baron sneak from JDG, playing around the false security that topside scuttle gives, and JDG closed them out quickly afterwards.
This game was more reminiscent of the usual JDG playstyle, especially given how 369, who is arguably the best top laner in China, has been beating out Wayward in this series thus far.
It’s better to focus resources topside and have Hope weakside against JackeyLove, even when he’s on Kalista, which is traditionally a pick that teams play around and stack Dragons with.
In any case, I am just happy to see more games, with JDG crushing TES in a 25 minute stomp in Game 3 to avoid the sweep!
Game 4: A Fateful Pause
JDG pull another one out of the hat as the match of the year continues with this banger series, as they pull TES to a Game 5 following a Baron wipeout straight out of a pause.
Tian got the ball rolling early for JackeyLove’s Lucian but it seems that Zeri definitely has the upper hand in this series, with Hope making up for his lackluster games with a good performance across this game.
The game soon devolved into a slugfest between both of these LPL titans as they tried to exploit every nook and cranny into an advantageous position.
369 once again proved the danger man for JDG with clutch teamfights on his forgotten Gangplank pick, keeping the fights and the gold disparity close until the fateful Baron fight, where JDG collapsed on a flanking Knight, killing off the TES mid laner into a full team wipeout.
Game 5: A Reverse Sweep for the Ages!
In probably the best reverse sweep in League of Legends history, Jingdong Gaming pull out the win and punch their ticket to 2022 Summer LPL Finals with another comeback win against eternal rivals Top Esports!
Top started off with a massive Herald victory in the early game, where JackeyLove scored early kills. The game seemed pretty doomed from there, with TES compounding that Herald win into objectives and more pick offs with Tian.
However JDG were able to comeback yet again with a massive TP Flank from Yagao, which turned around the fortunes for his team. JDG’s unwavering conviction was on full display as they fought and clawed their way back into the game with each successive pick/
Hope eventually shut the door on TOP’s face with a monster teamfight at the end, kiting away TOP members in a rapid frenzy while his team killed off JackeyLove, clinching the series!
