The 2022 League of Legends Pro League summer season has passed the halfway point of Week 6 competition. With games being played every day of the week, there are always many storylines and results to follow without enough time to follow everything, but we at Upcomer have you covered; here are the lessons we’ve learned from Week 6 of the 2022 LPL summer split so far.
Summit is a legit LPL top laner
When FunPlus Phoenix decided to pick up the League Championship Series MVP, Park “Summit” Woo-tae, heading into the 2022 LPL summer season, fans in the west were wondering if it was possible for a former LCS player to do well in China’s top league.
The idea of LCS players doing well abroad isn’t an entirely unique concept, especially if they were imported into the LCS to start with; Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in was a member of Dignitas before going back to Korea and winning a world championship with Samsung Galaxy. However, that same feat hasn’t been achieved yet in the LPL.
Summit joined a terrible FPX team that was desperately in need of some sort of change. As it turned out, a change in the top lane was apparently all they needed; Summit has played seven games in the LPL so far, and FPX, who were 5-16 before Summit’s arrival, have won six of Summit’s first seven games. In that span, FPX has won three straight series, putting them right in the middle of the playoff hunt. Clearly, Summit has been a big part of their recent stellar rise.
According to Oracleselixir.com, Summit leads all top laners in KDA, damage per minute, damage share and gold per minute. To simplify that, not only is he carrying FPX right now, he is currently the highest-ranked top laner in the entire region. Time will tell if this trend will continue especially as FPX fights harder competition, but for now, Summit is legitimately one of, if not the best top laner in the LPL.
Teams at the top are not playing well, outside of V5
The shining light of the LPL at the mid-point of Week 6 is, of course, Victory Five; they’ve outclassed every team they have played on their way to a 9-0 start to the season. But outside of them, there is no real beacon of consistency.
Just this week alone, Top Esports, the next best team in the region and winners of eight straight series, had a scare against Oh My God!; a team that’s struggling to stay relevant in the playoff race. Although the team managed to defeat OMG in three games, it’s concerning to see top teams drop games to teams that are nowhere near them. It’s not just TES dropping games, though; JD Gaming, the other 8-1 team in the league also went to Game 3 in their first series of Week 6 when they played Rare Atom, who look unlikely to even make the playoffs.
Every other top team is a mess too. Royal Never Give Up, Edward Gaming, LNG Esports and Weibo Gaming who are all expected to compete for titles are sitting in the middle of the pack of the standings in what seems to be a race to see who can wake up from their slump first. None of these teams are playing badly, per se, but they aren’t playing at their peak either. On top of all that, playoffs are just a few weeks away.
Anyone’s Legend is anyone’s guess
While the top teams in the league have not been at their best, that has let other teams who are playing at their peak start to rise up. In comes Anyone’s Legend who has been an LPL bottom feeder for years even back before their rebrand from Rogue Warriors. The team had a couple of flashes in the pan in the LPL 2022 spring split when they took multiple top teams to Game 3 and even managed to defeat the reigning Worlds 2021 champions, EDG. But the team still missed out on the playoffs. But so far in the 2022 LPL Summer split, the team is looking great so far.
With a 6-3 record, thanks to their win in Week 6 against ThunderTalk Gaming, the team actually has found themselves in fourth place in the standings; that puts them above LNG, RNG, EDG and WBG. If the season ended today, they would have a two-round bye in the playoffs. And the team has some impressive results too. They took V5 to Game 3 and have a win over WBG. However, they have looked sloppy against lower-level competition dropping a series to LGD 2-0 and in their TT series, that one went to Game 3.
AL have done a fantastic job at capitalizing on the top teams slacking but it’s not clear at this moment if the team are true contenders yet.
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