Suning, the No. 3 seed out of China, pulled off another upset in the 2020 League of Legends World Championship knockout stage on Sunday and reached the world final with a 3-1 win over tournament favorite Top Esports.
After taking down the LoL Pro League’s second seed, JD Gaming, in the quarterfinals, Suning upset the top seed out of their region to reach the Oct. 31 final at Pudong Stadium, where they’ll face South Korean squad DAMWON Gaming for the international title.
DAMWON Gaming became the first South Korean team to make the League of Legends World Championship final since 2017 and took down the G2 Esports team that eliminated DAMWON last year with a 3-1 win on Saturday in Shanghai.
The win came with the fastest game in League of Legends World Championship history, with DAMWON shutting the door on G2 around the 19-minute mark in a decisive Game 4.
When G2 Esports met DAMWON Gaming in 2019, G2 were a few series away from completing the Royal Road: winning every major event that they participated in domestically and internationally. DAMWON were an upstart LoL Champions Korea team that provided a beacon of hope for the LCK after South Korean teams had struggled internationally following their 2018 worlds collapse. Like Griffin before them, DAMWON came to 2019 worlds with the hope that a younger, aggressive team was more suitable to the current meta.
Although G2 did not complete their Royal Road, they did overwhelm DAMWON in the quarterfinals with a similar 3-1 scoreline to what we saw Friday. DAMWON didn’t have answers for Luka “Perkz” Perković and Rasmus “Caps” Winther’s champion flexibility. In particular, then-starting bot laner Sin “Nuclear” Jeong-hyeon was completely outclassed by Perkz.
Fast-forward to this year, where DAMWON players like mid laner Heo “ShowMaker” Su have talked about how much they want this rematch with G2 Esports to prove how much they’ve grown in a year. Bot laner Jang “Ghost” Yong-jun was a much more stable fit for the team in 2020 and took on a shot-calling role, while support Cho “BeryL” Geon-hee evolved into an aggressive innovator. ShowMaker himself improved significantly and, most importantly, DAMWON’s jungle-focused playstyle around Kim “Canyon” Geon-bu suited DAMWON much better than the efforts G2 made to play around Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski.
DAMWON put together a highlight reel during this series, but the best one is definitely the fervor with which they attack G2’s Nexus with the Rift Herald in Game 4 to firmly shut the door on G2 in under 19 minutes. This was a team that desperately wanted to prove that they were now better than G2, that they had shed their mental hangups of 2019, and they proved themselves convincingly!