Let Royalty reign: RNG’s edge and their most immediate flaws

I’ve spun the story of EDward Gaming’s crumbling dynasty so many times that it no longer even feels genuine, yet following a decisive 2-0 loss at the hands of Royal Never Give Up, here we are again. Despite laughable roster changes, EDG maintained their position at the top of their group, but they fell behind in the first week of cross-conference play, losing their definitive first place title.

The narrative of EDG’s dominance has hung over the LPL since their rise in 2014. They’ve lacked a consistent rival to match them for more than a year.

Royal Never Give Up, after warring with EDG throughout 2016, look like the first organization to have retained a core strength following a roster shakeup. They have the ability to drastically alter the perception of LPL for multiple reasons: they’re an all-Chinese roster, and, more significantly, they aren’t EDward Gaming.

Royal Never Give Up have strengths that thrust them above their competition; namely, their ability to play well to compositions. Yet Royal Never Give Up also have several gaps to fill in. This team makes inefficient use of their jungle and mid lane, and their setup for objectives is sometimes rushed or inadequate.

What really makes Royal stand out as the best team in the LPL is their flexibility. While their drafting hasn’t been the best, they’re able to identify the strengths and limitations of their compositions and adapt how they play situationally.

For example, Royal chose a split-pushing top lane Jayce composition in the opening game of their first series against LGD Gaming. In order to make this composition effective, they acknowledged LGD’s stronger late game teamfighting with multiple shields and Twitch. As a result, Jian “Uzi” Zihao could only use his Varus ultimate to disengage, and fighting was situationally based on a pick.

In Game 2, Royal’s strategy had to change drastically. This draft felt less clear-cut overall, and RNG managed to play their picks in a less conventional way. Zyra’s ability to shut down Sivir-based collapse compositions could be sidestepped by smart Ryze ultimates, and separating the back line off with Rumble’s The Equalizer.

Royal’s adaptability in this situation demonstrated that they not only have a stronger compositional understanding than many teams in the LPL, but they are also flexible in how they use their drafts. This usually comes from understanding the strengths and roles of individual players and strong communication. RNG’s task now is to use these principles to fill other gaps in their play.

One of their biggest flaws is in the way Liu “Mlxg” Shiyu plays early game. Especially in this past week, he has pathed suboptimally in the jungle, falling behind in experience to his opponent.

In the first game against Game Talents, Mlxg didn’t take his own krugs camp until nearly 10 minutes into the game. EDward Gaming punished his inefficiencies when, by seven minutes into Game 1, Mlxg failed gank attempts in all three of his lanes, and Zhao “Fireloli” Zhiming managed to take both his gromp and his krugs camp.

Mlxg tends to repeatedly make a few other mistakes. Mlxg will take a camp in one sector of the map, cross the river to place vision in the enemy jungle, then return to his own jungle to clear a second camp in the same quadrant or path to the other side. He doesn’t prioritize gaining an experience advantage over the enemy jungler, even if all of his lanes win naturally, as in the case of the first game against Game Talents. Despite all three lanes pushing in RNG’s favor, Mlxg invaded the enemy jungle and placed shallow wards, but didn’t look to counterjungle.

When all three lanes win, it makes sense to prioritize laying jungle vision to prevent the enemy jungler from ganking and resetting lane control. But in these situations, it’s also easy to identify where the enemy jungler might travel on the map. By taking into account his location by counting CS or mapping out a rough route beforehand and guessing the logical place on the map where he might travel next, it’s easy to deny him experience and ward or avoid sacrificing his own camps to lay relevant vision.

Mlxg and Royal displayed signs of not actively thinking about the location of the opponent jungler. In the second game against Game Talents, Royal’s bottom lane engaged aggressively. Regardless of Liang “Xiaoyu” Jian’s quadrant start, it would make sense for him to be on the bottom side of the map to either double back for Krugs or finish his clear normally. Following Xiaoyu’s successful gank, Mlxg tried to set up a trap for him at his krugs, but Xiaoyu correctly foresaw this possibility and took the less risky option to back at low health.

In the first game against EDward Gaming, Mlxg invaded the top side jungle while his raptor camp was up, despite both lanes pushing in EDward Gaming’s favor. This choice also included failed ganks both top and mid, demonstrating that EDward Gaming had a better concept of what side of the map Mlxg might have been on. Mlxg’s habit of ganking mid at level three makes him somewhat predictable.

Royal Never Give Up use mid lane ganks likely as an attempt to compensate for the fact that they don’t mind blind picking their mid laner. The mid lane meta favors Li “xiaohu” Yuanhao’s champion pool, particularly Jayce, Ryze, and Syndra. RNG have demonstrated a willingness to blind pick these champions, opening up mid lane for a counterpick.

xiaohu’s comfort on these champions enables him to go even in matchups where he would normally accrue a deficit. As a result, Royal can prioritize counterpicking bottom and top lane instead.

Having a strong pushing mid lane is more valuable than bottom or top because a mid laner can cover more of the map. This means Royal will often look for ways to win mid even with a counterpicked matchup. Early mid lane ganks have characterized RNG’s playstyle since xiaohu and Mlxg have been on the team, but as other LPL teams become aware of this tendency, they’re harder to execute.

Another example of how RNG have compensated for poor mid lane matchups is the Shen pick in their first match against EDG. Yan “Letme” Junze used his ultimate whenever xiaohu’s Syndra came under threat from a dive at the hands of Lee “Scout” Yechan’s Ekko. As a result, RNG could stall the game to get past Ekko’s two-item spike and turn the situation without falling too behind.

RNG could get away with this in part because of Chen “Mouse” Yuhao’s individual weaknesses. Even with Letme frequently leaving lane, he stayed ahead of Mouse in farm, preventing him from getting ahead as Camille in the late game.

Stronger teams can easily punish this kind of decision-making. By giving up advantages in the jungle and mid lane early, Royal expose the center of the map; a weak mid lane 2v2 could influence the side lanes as well. In order to correct this, RNG should either give mid lane more draft priority or work on prioritizing more farm for Mlxg.

Mlxg doesn’t need to cross river to lay vision between camps in a single quadrant and lose as many camps to his opponents as he does. More time studying conventional jungle paths by different champions would likely help Mlxg avoid situations where he falls behind two levels, as he did against Game Talents’ Xiaoyu.

Perhaps the inability to track the enemy jungler has also influenced Royal Never Give Up’s poor objective setup. At times, they have failed to control vision on the side of the map where they will soon contest an objective.

At 17 minutes into RNG’s third game against Game Talents, they rushed to take control of top side jungle, but instead of trading for a turret, they turned to contest Ocean Drake on its spawn. RNG simply rushed the bottom half of the river without vision. Though the fight went their way, it exposed an obvious problem in their objective setup.

RNG have demonstrated strengths in executing plays and moving to side waves after taking an objective to ensure that they keep minions flowing in their favor if they back. Their biggest gap is in the setup phase of a play.

One significant example is in when RNG lay vision on a push. Royal have a tendency to push forward and overextend without securing vision control in the nearby jungle first. Royal should push a wave, use the passive vision granted by minions in lane to invade and sweep for wards, then continue the push. Their failure to do this frequently opens them up for easy flanks and turns.

This approach falls in line with Uzi’s own reckless aggression. The Chinese League community recently posted gifs of Uzi, fed with six kills on Tristana at 17 minutes, diving into the top side river bush without vision control. While there’s something to be said for memes and “that’s so Uzi” moments, it highlights RNG’s poor setups. Not only had RNG failed to ward the top side bush, but EDward Gaming had shoved out the top wave, giving them zero coverage before the play.

Royal’s decision-making isn’t punished because it’s frequently practiced in the LPL. There’s a certain amount of charm to LPL teams’ apparent unwillingness to defend their own vision or dive a turret without flanking wards, but doing it consistently can easily backfire.

By LPL standards, Royal Never Give Up are playing well. Compositional awareness and quick reaction times make it easy to place them above the rest of the league, but that’s when improvement becomes more difficult.

Royal have already beaten EDward Gaming. LPL’s top team has lacked a consistent rival willing to push them to better themselves, but Royal can do one better and take over their reign. They’ve already evolved from a fixed playstyle and tackled multiple different types of compositions so far this split.

To start, Royal’s most glaring problems require a restructuring of how they play around mid and jungle in the early game and focusing on better setups for objectives. Royal should make sure they ward with purpose and prioritize moves ahead of time rather than looking for the best trade they can make in the moment. Their compositional awareness shows a level of foresight. Royal only need extend it to propel LPL to their previous level of international contention.

You can follow Kelsey Moser on Twitter @karonmoser.