LoL - Worlds: Top Esports, the creme of the crop (8/17)

The League of Legends 2025 World Championship kicks off in Beijing on the 14th of October. A total of 17 teams will compete to, again, 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. On October 4th, the eighth episode of our series focuses on Top Esports.

TES had a rollercoaster year: Split 1 champions, they underperformed at the First Stand. In Split 2, they excelled in the regular season, finishing first in the Ascend group with a 15-3 record, but disappointed in playoffs with a loss to Team WE, placing 5th–6th. A change at the support role for the Summer Split revitalized them: they again finished first in the regular season but fell short in the playoff finals against Bilibili Gaming.

Feelings about this team are inevitably mixed, capable of delivering high-level performances over a long period but also prone to collapsing on the international stage or even at home. After starting the year with Liu "Crisp" Qing-song for the first two splits, the team eventually swapped supports with Weibo Gaming, bringing in Fu "Hang" Ming-Hang, which appears to have provided them with greater stability.

During their only international appearance this year, at the First Stand in March in South Korea, the team lost in BO3 series to Karmine Corp, Hanwha Life Esports, and CTBC Flying Oyster, only securing a win against Team Liquid. This allowed them to reach the semifinals, where they were clean swept by the eventual champions, HLE.

The roster we saw in the Summer Split showed improvement. In the playoffs, after defeating Ninjas in Pyjamas and WBG, they took the first two games against BLG before being reverse-swept in the Upper Final. They then beat Anyone's Legend to reach the grand final, ultimately losing 3-2. They may not be LPL Split 3 champions, but as this recap of their year shows, they were very much capable of it—and should not be underestimated at the Worlds, which they will be playing on home soil.

The TES roster this year shows quality across every position. Bai "369" Jia-Hao has long been one of the most consistent toplaners in the LPL. True to his playstyle, his two most played champions are Sion and K'Sante, but 369 is far from one-dimensional—he can play a wide variety of champions, from Jayce to Aatrox, demonstrating a deep champion pool. Lin "Creme" Jian in the midlane is increasingly finding his footing among the LPL’s top players. After a mixed first year with TES in 2024, 2025 has been a stronger season for the Chinese midlaner.

The botlane was more complicated. Early in the year, the combination with Crisp didn’t seem to click, but the arrival of Hang changed the dynamic. He ended the Summer Split with the highest kill participation on the team, over 80%. His AD Carry, Yu "JackeyLove" Wen-Bo, also had a solid year despite ups and downs. JackeyLove had the team’s largest champion pool in Summer, even though ADCs have fewer champions, and he posted the best KDA on the roster. Determined to give his all in what could be his final year, JackeyLove revealed he has been suffering from chronic tinnitus, a condition causing constant ringing in the ears that disrupts sleep, focus, and overall mood.

The most impactful and central player on this team is undoubtedly South Korean jungler Seo "Kanavi" Jin-hyeok. Nearly all of TES’s plays go through him. Over the competitive year, he played 25 different champions—ranging from Olaf, Talon, and Qiyana to Karthus, Shyvana, and Zed—dominating across the board. He is currently one of the best junglers in the world and will likely hold his own against top names like Kim "Canyon" Geon-bu, Lee "Tarzan" Seung-yong, and Lê "Hizto" Văn Hoàng Hải's Sylas.

This will mark Kanavi’s fourth appearance at the Worlds, all three previous ones with JD Gaming: a quarterfinal loss to Suning in 2020, followed by two semifinal exits against T1 in 2022 and 2024. Similarly, Top Esports will be making their fourth Worlds appearance, having reached the semifinals in 2020 against Suning, failed to make it out of the group stage in 2022, and fallen in the quarterfinals to T1 in 2024. Kanavi and TES have never attended Worlds together, yet they have also never been there apart—a shared fate between player and team that could finally bear fruit at Worlds 2025.