Top Esports – on the Way to the Top of League of Legends: What do We Know About the Rapidly Developing Chinese Team?
Yuriy SheremetSince 2009 League of Legends has known many heroes and iconic stories. The game from Riot Games has its own Hall of Glory where we can see different teams and players of all periods.
Starting with the middle of 2010s we can see more and more representatives of the Chinese region there. They have declared a silent war against the South Korean grands to take the leadership in the world rating of League of Legends teams. No doubt, there is no rating like this, it is formal but the features of a fight for the prestige is right in front of us: starting with 2018 Chinese teams made it to the tops of the Worlds championships and became a serious opponent of the hegemony of South Korea.
One of such teams is Top Esports. The young team from China hasn’t raised the Summoner's Cup and have not had a serious streak of victories but rapidly proceeded to the top – it deserves respect.
Talking about the ascent of TOP Esports to the peak of the competitive LoL, their main successes and failures.
On their way of establishing the top club – Top Esports in the first years on the big stage
People started speaking about TOP Esports in 2017. Then the company that makes brand sportswear Topsports announced their decision to enter League of Legends.
In December 2017, Top Esports bought a slot from DAN Gaming for a League of Legends tournament in China's titular LPL league. After that they had a rebranding and LPL got a new resident named TOP Esports.
The first roster of the newly formed club consisted of Lies, xx, Ggoong, QiuQiu and Cat. All of them except for Lies were former players of DAN, so the players were familiar with the competitive League of Legends stage.
The players from the new club stumbled upon a challenge at Demacia Cup 2017. The tournament has a special value in the Chinese region of League of Legends.
At the Demacia Cup the participants got a taste of the changes, tested updates and gave a chance for the young roster of the organization to show their potential. It is a common practice for China that borrows the principle of work with young talents from South Korea in terms of the gaming infrastructure.
It is hard to find a better place for practice than the Demacia Cup. Top Esports used the training platform before the start of LPL 2018, having failed the championship.
At Demacia Cup 2017 Top Esports took Top-9-15. Looking ahead, we should point out that the tournament became the worst result in the history of the club.
Another failed event for Top Esports was LPL Spring 2018. The spring split of the main Chinese series of championships was a failure for the newbies in the league.
Top Esports played a group stage with a disappointing result 3-16 which did not allow them to claim the success in the spring league. After the negative experience the management of the club did not act rashly: the roster remained intact and the results improved.
At LPL Summer 2018 their results got twice as good: instead of Top-13 in the spring, TOP Esports took Top-6 in the summer.
The final chord of the season 2018 was second place at the Demacia Cup 2018. The main discovery of the tournament was not the second palace for Top Esports but two debuts for the club – 369 and Knight. In the future these characters will become key players in the regions and will cement their position as one of the most effective performers in the history of the club.
Season 2020 – two steps away from the world championship
The best season in the history of Top Esports можно is 2020. The covid era played into the hands of the club, however, it did not have any sacral meaning in itself.
Success of Top Esports in 2020 comes from reshuffles in the team, competent work of the management and teamwork. Combination of these factors will allow Top Esports to break through to leading positions of almost all major championships from the start of the competitive year.
They started to ascend from the second place at the LPL Spring. Then TES closed the regular season with confidence (11-5 in series and Top-4), after that they climbed to the final where they lost a fight with the Chinese “tiger” – JD Gaming.
Top Esports’s roster at LPL Spring 2020
- Qingtian
- Wayward
- Tian
- Rookie
- JackeyLove
- Mark
Even though the results of LPL Spring 2020 were the best in the whole history of the club, the management decided to change the roster. In May 2020, a few weeks after the end of LPL Spring, Top Esports introduced a renewed roster.
The new formation of ES was represented by 369, Knight, JackeyLove, Karsa and yuyanjia.
The changes of the roster were linked to the start of Mid-Season Cup 2020 that took place in Asia instead of the canceled MSI 2020. The reshuffle was beneficial as Top Esports were on fire at that tournament.
At the Mid-Season Cup 2020, TES met with JD Gaming, IG, FPX, T1, Gen.G, DRX and DAMWON – the most prestigious clubs in China and South Korea. This is when Top Esports deserved a slot among the best.
Having finished the group stage with the score of 2-1, leaving DAMWON and T1 behind, Top Esports got to the playoff where they managed to make it to the grand final after the victory over Gen.G Esports. At the decisive battle of Mid-Season Cup, Top Esports beat FunPlus Phoenix, the champions of last year’s Worlds and one of the most famous clubs in the history of the Summoner’s Rift.
It did not work out well for Top Esports at the Mid-Season Cup 2020. The team was going to win LPL Summer 2020 and later take part in the first tournament of the Worlds series in the history of the organization.
The home Worlds event was taking place from 25 September till 31 October 2020 in Shanghai at Pudong Football Stadium. Then 22 best teams, including TES, were fighting for the prize pool of $2,250,000.
At the beginning of the tournament the team was flying high. In Group B the team lost only one map, losing against FlyQuest on the last gaming day but as a result, the players took first place in Group D.
In the playoff Top Esports faced Fnatic and the match became one of the most spectacular battles of the season. TES was losing 0-2 on maps but thanks to great efforts of all links of the team, especially Karsa, the team managed to reverse the situation and win the battle 3-2.
However, in the next tour they met with their countrymen from Suning, and they did not let TES repeat their trick. Top Esports lost a match with the score 1-3 and left the World Championship on the 3rd-4th position which became the best result in the history of the club.
Problems of the season 2022
After the successful but not iconic Worlds 2020, the team had a few changes and had a pale season in 2021 but the main problems were awaiting Top Esports in 2022. Even though it started smoothly for the team.
The roster with Zoom, Tian, Knight, Jackeylove and Zhuo finished second on LPL Spring 2022. Having tasted success two seasons earlier, Top Esports resorted to changes after the silver at the spring split but they were unable to repeat the success of the LPL Summer 2020.
The LPL Summer 2022 again brought second place to the team. Even Wayward and Mark joining the team did not help.
However, two Top-2 were enough to make it to the Worlds 2022 where TES got to Group B. This is where the team got into trouble.
The opponents of Top Esports in the group stage were DRX who had been having rough games during the season and had barely reached the American championship, and also Rogue, champions in Europe and GAM Esports. The team that had taken second place at LPL and that had won two world championships in the roster (Jackeylove won it in 2018 with IG and Tian in 2019 with FPX), the game in Group C must have become a great opportunity for TES with the last reshuffle in the World Championship.
TES did not make a sensation and did not leave the group, they took third place there. The road of TOP Esports at the second World Championship in history ended with the 9th-10th position for the famous roster.
The financial kitchen of Top Esports: how much money the League of Legends division has brought to the club
Esports club rarely give access to their financial aspects and we can understand it. Players’ salaries, value of bootcamps and income from media activity are the organization’s business but information about the grabs they get at tournaments is available and it can belong to the public.
According to esportsearnings, as at 2023 Top Esports has made it to Top-100 of the richest esports clubs in the world, taking 86th place with the total income of ~2,400,000 dollars. The lion’s share of the sum, ~1,451,000 or 60% from the whole amount, has been earned by the division by League of Legends.
The most valuable players of the team that have made the biggest contribution to the earnings of the club are Knight ($242,479), JackeyLove ($225,544), 369 ($186,352), Karsa ($166,329) and yuyanjia ($157,128).
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Yuriy Sheremet – Expert in mobile gaming and esports among shooters and MOBA games.
At EGamersWorld, Yuriy, as in 2020 when he joined the portal, works with content, albeit with adjustments to his area of responsibility.