TOP Esports
TOP Esports is a team that was considered one of the two main contenders to win the whole tournament before it started. Although TOP looked impressive in the group stage, the journey was very close to an end in the quarter-finals. Fnatic, with a 2-0 lead, were unable to close out the series, with all the chances to finish the series and advance to the semi-finals in Game 4. TOP Esports made the most of the opportunities given by Fnatic and changed the history of Worlds as the team that won the playoff series for the first time by 0-2.
Fnatic had some interesting picks for the series with TOP Esports, which contributed significantly to the team's success in the first match. It's hard to say whether SN Gaming would have surprised the TOP Esports team with their championship picks. However, both TOP and SN Gaming are more standard teams that are improving their gameplay, teamwork and individual skill instead of trying out many different champions and trying to adapt them to their respective series.
TOP Esports is undoubtedly the best team in the league in terms of individual skill, with a Top 3 LPL player in each position. JackeyLove is recognised as the undisputed best ADC player in the tournament, while Knight continues to prove that he and ShowMaker are the best Midlane players in the world for a reason. During the LPL season, these teams met 2 times and TOP Esports won both series with a dry record of 2-0 and 3-0 respectively. This suggests that SN Gaming is quite a good opponent for the Chinese champions.
SN Gaming
It's probably no lie to say that SN Gaming is the most surprising team in this tournament. Although many experts have identified them as a potential dark horse of the championship, few expected the team to take first place in the group stage and beat the clear favourites, JDG, in the play-offs.
SN Gaming is a relatively young team, with 2 players making their debut in the top Chinese league in their first season: huanfeng (ADC) and Bin (Top). Despite being practically inexperienced in top level battles, both players don't seem to be weak points of the team and are playing really steady. Huanfeng is even named as one of the best ADC players in the tournament, and given how capable this position is, one cannot help but admire this rating.
As good as the rookies look, the whole game and the whole strategy of the team is based on the jungle position player SofM. The current meta of the game revolves around the Junglers, helping them, and SofM feels like a fish out of water. He plays aggressive, high-impact champions, and often attacks the opposing jungler by going to the opposite side of the map. SofM is a big part of the team's success, and if he plays as well as we have come to expect in this tournament, we can expect a good performance from SN Gaming.
Forecast
Both TOP Esports and SN Gaming have very strong jungle position players and good macro and communication between them. However, TOP Esports has already proved during the regular season that SN Gaming is a good enough opponent for them, and the direct line competitors are potentially weaker than the ones TOP Esports has. Of course, SN Gaming will put up a fight and the matches should be tough, but TOP Esports should close out the series and lose at most 1 match.
TOP Esports, -1.5 game advantage 2.2 kof., betsafe
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