In a battle to keep out of the bottom of the table in Group B of the League of Legends Pro League, Suning Gaming took an action-packed 2-1 series over JD Gaming on Sunday in Shanghai.
JD Gaming (0-4, 3-8 match record) had a slow start to Game 1, but recovered beautifully with a 3-for-0 teamfight at 16 minutes. JDG's late game teamfighting composition ensured that it merely had to wait until AD carry Xu "Barrett" Qiu-Bin's Kalista got a couple of items before taking over the game, but that happened much earlier than anticipated. Suning Gaming (1-2, 3-5 match record) got demolished in a 4-for-0 fight at 28 minutes, giving a Baron over to JDG and putting crucial gold in Barrett's pocket. Ten minutes later, Barrett realized his destructive potential with the LPL's first pentakill of the year, finishing with a 10/1/3 KDA (kills/deaths/assists) as JDG took Game 1.
After looking lifeless in Game 1, Suning Gaming subbed in jungler Yang "H4cker" Zhi-Hao and drafted a 1-3-1 split pushing composition that worked wonders in Game 2. SNG took full control after an 11-minute 3-for-0 fight in mid gave it first tower gold, leading to a roughly 4,500-gold lead at 26 minutes. Despite being a bit afraid to commit to major objectives due to JDG's late game teamfighting composition, SNG still took a drake to give it the edge needed in the late game. With an Infernal, Cloud, and two Mountain Drakes, SNG finally took down its first Baron at 29 minutes, followed by a 39-minute Baron that all but sealed the deal. In a final desperation teamfight, substitute mid laner Dong "fenfen" Wei came up huge as Ekko, picking up a quadrakill to close out a 5-for-2 ace and a 40-minute SNG win.
Both teams drafted high damage compositions in Game 3, trading early kills in an even early game. SNG's pick composition started to pull ahead of JDG's pure damage composition as the game went on, though, thanks in large part to top laner Xie "XiaoAL" Zhen-Ying's Jarvan IV and support Kim "Yoon" Byung-yoon's Rakan, the two of which combined to initiate devastating teamfights for SNG. After jumping ahead at 17 minutes, Yoon showed how Rakan was meant to be played by dancing in and out of a 23-minute teamfight, helping SNG pick up a 5-for-1 ace. A short while later, XiaoAL landed a huge Cataclysm to give SNG a 4-for-0 teamfight while en route to a 5/1/15 KDA, allowing SNG to secure a Baron at 26 minutes. From there, Suning just pushed down the mid lane, killing JDG members on its way to JDG's Nexus and a sudden 29-minute win.