While it took a bit longer to get there than expected, Team WE locked up its first series win of China's League of Legends Pro League Spring Split with a 2-1 victory over Newbee.
The opening 20 minutes of this game were incredibly slow-paced, with neither team gaining much of an advantage. But WE gained ground after knocking down the first tower and winning the subsequent first major teamfight. Parlaying the initial gold advantage into multiple teamfight wins, WE never relinquished their stranglehold on the lead. WE's Jin "Mystic" Seong-jun was the hero of this game, always finding himself in the right place at the right time en route to a 6/1/5 KDA (kills/deaths/assists).
Game 2 belonged to Newbee from the get-go. Newbee's Baek "Swift" Dae-Hoon's Kha'Zix got two quick kills on WE's Ke "957" Chang-yu's Maokai before 10 minutes had passed, completely setting the tone of the match. While WE's Xiang "Condi" Ren-Jie did pull off a huge Baron steal at the 28-minute mark, erasing most of the 7,000 gold lead Newbee had amassed, the comeback would eventually fall short after WE was aced in a teamfight around the Elder Dragon, ending the contest in under 40 minutes.
Despite an ugly Game 2 performance, WE rebounded well enough to claim a series win. Condi started off the game with the first blood in the top lane on Newbee's Bao "V" Bo. In addition to first blood, WE also took down the first tower, giving the team enough staying power to snowball into a gold lead. It would then win the first big teamfight as a 4-for-3, only exacerbating the lead further. As a result, WE claimed what amounted to a fairly quick and easy win to secure their first series victory of the 2017 Spring Split.