After defeating every opponent this year, RNG can become a real legend if they win World Completion.
Royal Never Give Up is the first team who join the season-ending World Championship without losing a champion match. If they can finish off a Royal Slam by winning the Summoner’s Cup too, they will go down in the history of League of Legends.
However, it just put more and more pressure on them that no team has experienced like this before even when SK Telecom T1 was at their peak and everyone expected them to win.
RNG is going into an unknown area which makes their road to winning more attracting than ever before.
The Road to Make History
Great sports players often have the same situation with RNG this year. Tiger Woods became the youngest to win the 1997 Masters Tournament, but the completion of his Tiger Slam in 2001 made him a living legend. Steffi Graf’s Golden Slam in 1988 still stands alone in the annals of tennis history. These achievements are hard to forget for everyone. Up to now, they are still a symbol of incredible effortless and rare talent.
RNG became extremely hot when they upset Invictus Gaming in a five-map semifinal following the LPL Spring Split. After that, they defeated EDG to win MSI, the Demacia Cup, and the LPL Summer Split. At the 2018 Asian Games e-sports exhibition, RNG stars went 2-0 in the finals of Rift Rivals and helped Team China beat Team Korean to win gold medals. Therefore, if RNG can win the World Champion in Korea, they will become immortal.
One of the brightest stars of RNG is Jian “Uzi” Zi-Hao (known as Uzi) who is regarded as the best player in the League. Now, the time has come, he has to grab his chance, and win his first and China’s first World Championship. The whole nation is putting their hope on him and the rest of RNG.
They have to change the way they approach the game to get a remarkable result.
Unpredictable flexibility
Skirmish-heavy play style has been with LPL teams for years. This style mostly relied on bloody fights and made light of high-level macro play. Fight first and ask questions later are the way China play.
However, from last year, this play style was no longer used by RNG. They developed into a 1-3-1 split-push team that knew how to control the map and used that advantage to take objectives. They finished seventh kills by this strategy. It is not a joke to say that they start using their brain instead of their flashy mechanics.
The team has played in a more strategic way than before. Therefore, Uzi’s early wrist injury in the split is not a difficulty for them at all. The team has a chance to test different strategies and Young ADC Dai “Able” Zhi-chun can show off himself more. Meanwhile, Mid laner Li “xiaohu” Yuan-hao can be more flexible between roles, even bot lane. In top lane, Yan “Letme” Jun-ze splits time with former IG and Snake starter Liu “Zz1tai” Zhi-Hao.
However, the highlight point this year is the combination of two junglers: Hung “Karsa” Hua-hsuan of Flash Wolves, who signed a contract with RNG and RNG player Liu “mlxg” Shi-yu. Both of them will make RNG’s comeback greater than ever before.
Like when Bruce Lee created Jeet Kun Do, the style of no style, RNG found out that in intense best-of-five matches, they need to play various styles. They were the first LPL team to master the 1-3-1, and now they’re the first one to stop using it. They spent most of that fifth game vs. IG in a five-man ball and that’s how they won the final team fight.
RNG has stood out from other LPL teams because they learn things that others don’t. They learn from their failure like Uzi stopped at second place in the region and at Worlds when the Uzi-less roster was relegated in 2015.
They have overcome the difficulties and started over from the low place and the name “Never Give Up” is proof of their unstoppable desire to win. However, there is one mission waiting for them. The price of becoming a Legend is not cheap but it’s worth putting everything in it. This year, World will come to Korea, but the most worth watching is RNG, the best story in League esports.