League of Legends World Championship: Top Esports, Avoid Another Flop (15/20)

The League of Legends 2024 World Championship kicks off in Berlin on the 25th of September. A total of 20 teams will compete to succeed T1 at the top of the Riot Games MOBA world hierarchy. On this occasion, Sheep Esports brings you a daily feature on one of the teams taking part. This September 19th, the fifteenth episode of our series focuses on Top Esports, LPL second seed.

Top Esports arrive at Worlds in a rather unusual position. For many people, this year's favorite is South Korea, while China in fact has only one serious representative: their champion, Bilibili Gaming. And with good reason: while Top Esports was an excellent team most of the time in 2024, and even kept up with BLG, a few lapses cost them dearly. TES have in fact two faces: the good, which enabled the team to reach the LPL final in Spring, fly over the Group Stage in Summer and put an end to Gen.G's win streak at the Esports World Cup.

And the bad, which cost the team a severe setback against G2 in the MSI playoffs (0-3) and elimination in the LPL Summer Lower Bracket Final against Weibo Gaming. In short, TES always fail to finish the job, especially when they face BLG. All of this adds to the unfortunate reputation of its long-serving AD Carry, Wenbo “JackeyLove” Yu, as a choker. If he has competition from other great ADCs, “JKL” can still lay claim to the world's top 3, especially for his Ezreal. But despite his excellent season in a botlane-oriented meta, he has lost four finals with TES since 2022 (three in the LPL, one in the EWC).

If Top Esports aren't the public's favorite, it's also because the club has never been totally successful at Worlds. In 2020, while TES were probably the best equipped team to challenge Korea's DAMWON for the title, the Chinese found themselves on the brink of collapse against Fnatic in the quarter-finals, and had to reverse sweep to reach the semi-finals. There, they were beaten 3-1 by Suning and thus missed out on the chance to play for the Holy Grail. Despite this, 2020 remains TES' best year to date, as the team was eliminated in the group phase in 2022, but above all missed out on the 2021 and 2023 editions.

In 2024, Top Esports had made sure to build on a solid foundation to avoid missing the most prestigious competition again. The club first brought Bai "369" Jiahao back to the toplane. The toplaner had left two years earlier for JD Gaming and, in 2023, had come very close to the Golden Road. On the midlane, TES placed its trust in a promising youngster from Oh My God: Lin "Creme" Jian. On the other hand, in the support role, Top Esports went for a veteran who seemed impossible to dislodge from EDward Gaming: Tian "Meiko" Ye.

From an individual point of view, two players have particularly stood out in recent months: Gao "Tian" Tianliang and Meiko. The first has been the key to many of TES' Summer Split successes, despite more discreet outings in the play-offs. Tian was named MVP of the regular season in the Summer Split and is logically part of the 1st All Pro Team at the Split... alongside Meiko. Very mobile on the map, mainly with Leona and Alistar, the 2021 World Champion has been his team's metronome. In fact, he is a serious contender for the title of world's best support.

As for the rest, 369 once again proved himself to be the perfect toplaner. Good at weakside when his team plays for the botlane, good at sidelane and good at teamfight. While he may not be as much of a force to be reckoned with as he used to be, 369 remains a safe bet. Creme, finally, confirmed the expectations placed in him. The midlaner didn't flinch against the league's biggest names, thanks in particular to an AD midlane meta that suited him perfectly. Unbeaten on Lucian, he is however one of the players who could suffer from the switch to patch 14.18 for Worlds, which reduces the power of ADCs on the midlane.