JD Gaming were crowned League of Legends Pro League champions for the first time on Saturday with a 3-2 win over Top Esports in the LPL spring finals.
Game 1 came down to the efforts of JDG top laner Zhang "Zoom" Xing-Ran's Ornn and jungler Seo "Kanavi" Jin-hyeok's Olaf buoyed by an Ocean Drake soul and support Zuo "LvMao" Ming-Hao's Yuumi.
Top Esports' strong neutral objective decision-making won Game 2 for Top, tying the series at 1-1. Top Esports took the series lead in Game 3, with Yu "JackeyLove" Wen-Bo's Aphelios and Zhuo "knight" Ding overcoming a strong JDG early game to shine in the mid-to-late game.
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Aphelios again took center stage in Game 4, this time in the hands of JDG's bot laner Lee "LokeN" Dong-wook, aided by LvMao's strong Thresh performance. In Game 5, JDG locked in one of LvMao's signature picks, Bard, and he proceeded to carry JDG the rest of the way to an LPL title.
For his Bard and his consistently strong performances all series, LvMao earned finals MVP.
This was JDG's second LPL finals appearance and first LPL title. JDG finished second overall in the regular season with a 12-4 series record, putting them automatically into the semifinals. They shocked the LPL community by sweeping reigning world champions and 2019 LPL summer champions FunPlus Phoenix 3-0 in the semifinals.
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