Suning Upset Top Esports To Advance To ‘League Of Legends’ Worlds Final

Suning are in the final on home turf.

Riot Games Inc. via Getty Images

In one of the more shocking results of the League of Legends World Championship 2020, Suning defeated Top Esports 3-1 in the semi-final earlier today. The win means the third seed from China will now play against Damwon Gaming in the final next weekend. 

Heading into the match Suning was undoubtedly the underdog, with Top Esports being the favorite to win Worlds since the start of the tournament and some impressive displays so far in the competition. Add in the fact that despite facing off multiple times this year in the LPL, Suning had only ever beaten Top Esports once and this starts to look like a very one-sided game. 

In game one of the best of five series, Top Esports started strong, as expected and built a small but crucial lead. But after some massive plays from Suning the tables turned, and as soon as that happened Suning had a big advantage, which seems to shock Top Esports, as they fell apart and Suning took game one. 

Most people put this down to a bit of a misstep from Top Esports and expected that they would bounce back in the second game. That is exactly what they did, but this too was a close game, with Suning really pushing Top Esports throughout the match. At this point, it became clear this would not be the simple series that many expected from the two Chinese sides. 

Game three was pretty crazy for a number of reasons, not least the pick of a jungle Shen from Suning, that worked surprisingly well. As far as dominant performances in this series go this was about as good as it gets, as Suning dominated the game and really sent a message to Top Esports, if you watch one match from this series make it this one, because Suning looked so good here. 

Game four ended up being the final game of the series, but there were times where it looked like a game five might be coming our way. Suning was pretty much always in control of this match, although with Top Esports taking the first three dragons there was always a chance of a turnaround. But Suning was just too good when it came to team fights, and eventually managed to push past Top Esports to secure the 3-1 win and a spot in the final. 

Suning will now take on Damwon Gaming, the Korean team who took down G2 Esports yesterday, in the final on October 31. There is no doubt that this will be an epic matchup, but even if the action on the Rift is underwhelming Riot Games always puts on an amazing show for the final, so you do not want to miss this.