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JD Gaming 3 -- Rogue Warriors 0 JD Gaming made a statement by picking up a 3-0 sweep over Rogue Warriors on Wednesday in the League of Legends Pro League Summer Split 3rd place match in the RNG eSport Center in Beijing. Coming into the 2018 season, the attention was on Rogue Warriors to perform well, stacked with castaway talent, including mid laner Kim "doinb" Tae-sang. While doinb and company were projected to shine, doinb's former team, JD Gaming, was treated as an afterthought. JDG was written off after an early exit from the Spring Split playoffs, but the tables have since turned. JD Gaming's new team-oriented aggression has been a breath of fresh air for this organization, with LPL rookies like top laner Zhang "Zoom" Xing-Ran and mid laner Zeng "Yagao" Qi leading the charge. Yagao did a phenomenal job of keeping doinb in check throughout the series, while Zoom took lane bullies into whichever top laner Rogue Warriors decided to line up across from him, dominating the top half of the map and swinging fights with great TP usage. That's not to say that the rest of JDG didn't do much; jungler Kim "Clid" Tae-min was a monster on Gragas in Game 1 with 86 percent kill participation, while support Zuo "LvMao" Ming-Hao did a great job as Braum of keeping his carries alive throughout all three games. Ultimately, though, it was AD carry Lee "LokeN" Dong-wook who rose to the occasion against formidable competition in RW's Han "Smlz" Jin. Playing Kai'Sa in Games 1 and 2 and Vayne in Game 3, kills seemingly materialized at will, as he took advantage of JDG's sublime vision control. Earning a 23/1/17 combined KDA (kills/deaths/assists), with his only death coming in Game 3, LokeN was a big reason why JDG was so dominant. Once LokeN got ahead in Games 1 and 2, things quickly snowballed for JDG, ending things in 27 and under 23 minutes, respectively. Rogue Warriors, meanwhile, looked as if it had just gotten out of bed. RW was smacked around in Games 1 and 2, as it still appeared to be unsure of which top laner + jungler combination to commit to. Meanwhile, support and LPL freshman Liu "Killua" Dan-Yang struggled heavily, getting caught out time and time again across all three games. With the rest of his team on the back foot, doinb couldn't do much than watch his team fall, though he almost led Rogue Warriors to a rallying Game 3 win on his signature mid lane Kled. Unfortunately, when on even footing, JDG's coordination was simply too much for RW's smashmouth style to handle, and so RW fell in disappointing fashion. Both teams will now turn to the regional qualifiers which are set to kick off on Saturday. JDG will need to win a pair of series in order to qualify for Worlds, while Rogue simply need to shore up its issues and take one last best-of-five to lock in the final LPL seed. The Regional Qualifier action kicks off when JD Gaming takes on Edward Gaming at 3:35 a.m. ET on Saturday.
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