LoL: Worlds 2020 | Top Esports vs Suning Semifinal Preview

A rematch of the LPL Summer Semifinals is in the making in the Worlds 2020 Semifinal.

The battle for supremacy rages on at the 2020 LoL World Championship. Four teams remain after weeks of competition, hoping to stake their claim in the Finals. But they have one more series each before that. One of these matchups is between two Chinese teams, first seed Top Esports (“TES”) and third seed Suning (“SN”). Last weekend, Suning won a huge upset win over JD Gaming, while TES surprisingly struggled against Fnatic. The LPL is heralded as one of, if not the best region in the world right now, so fans should be eager for a great series here.

Also read: Worlds 2020 | Damwon Gaming vs G2 Esports Semifinal Preview

Win conditions

In the LPL Summer Split, Top Esports ended in first place with a 13-3 record. Meanwhile, Suning ended in fourth with a 12-4 record. Some may have thought this meant Suning was near TES's level, but the playoffs showed that wasn't the case. In the LPL Semifinals, these two teams met, and TES dominated Suning in 3-0 fashion. Because of this fact, TES is still favored, meaning their win conditions for this match are straight forward.

Essentially, TES simply has to take the fight to Suning and dominate them like before. Though Tang “huangfeng” Huan-Feng had a stellar series against JDG, Yu “JackeyLove” Wen-Bo had his number in recent history, meaning a winning bot lane matchup goes so far in shutting down Suning. It's also important to play through Zhuo “knight” Ding, who is renowned as a top-tier mid laner and should outshine his opponent Xiang “Angel” Tao. Overall, TES just has to not mess up draft or make massive blunders against Suning. If they don't, it should be straightforward for them to win as the team with better fundamentals and individual prowess.

On the other side of the Rift, Suning will have a difficult road ahead. If they want to win this series, one of the biggest keys will be enabling Angel with good matchups. This happened in the JDG series and it proved to be very useful, as he linked up with Lê “SofM” Quang Duy to maneuver into other lanes. Another thing that was instrumental for Suning was Chen “Bin” Ze-Bin's Gangplank pick, which he piloted extremely well even into losing matchups while having a good impact on the games. Besides that, Suning has to throw curveballs at TES either in draft or in game, because if they don't TES definitely has the upper hand.

Prediction

It's no surprise that Top Esports is heavily favored in this matchup. Unfortunately, this is probably going to be a similar situation to when Damwon and DRX faced in the Quarterfinals, where after a 3-0 in their domestic league, the #1 seed smashed the #3 seed. Seeing as Suning was destroyed by TES 3-0 before, there's not much hope for them here. A Suning win relies too heavily on TES underperforming and Suning overperforming to reasonably predict a chance for them.

On top of all of that, TES is a tournament favorite for a reason. Well, multiple reasons really. They have the insane individual talent that most other teams in the world can't contest. Like other LPL teams, they also have the trademark Chinese aggression that, again, nearly nobody can properly deal with, meaning stomps are a frequent occurrence for TES. Now, Suning showed the world that they're no pushover by bringing down JDG, who did take TES to five games in the LPL Finals. But this should be very different. After a convincing victory here, TES should make their way into the Worlds Finals to fight for the Summoner's Cup.

Series prediction: TES 3-0

MVP prediction: JackeyLove