The LPL Summer Split kicks off later today ahead of its ten-week group stage period.
It felt like just yesterday that Royal Never Give Up won its third MSI title overall while also being only the second team to win MSI in back-to-back years. And now, the LPL Summer Split kicks off later today and will be going on for the next 10 weeks with the last day of the group stage falling on August 14. There has been no word as of yet when the playoffs will start.
Speaking of which, only the top 10 teams will be able to make it to the playoffs. It follows the same format as the LPL Spring Split in which the playoffs will be played in a king-of-the-hill format. As usual, the top two teams will head straight for the second phase of the playoff bracket. As for the teams that placed from third to 10th, they will be separated into two brackets with the third, sixth, seventh, and 10th seed on one side and the other four teams on the other.
All eight teams will play a best-of-five series in their respective bracket to determine the final two teams who will emerge from it. From there, the winner of the first bracket will play the second-seeded team while the winner of the second bracket will play the top-seeded team. From there, the final four teams will play in a double-elimination bracket, which will also be a best-of-five series. The winner will go on to be the number one seed at Worlds 2022.
With the first set of matches slated to begin tomorrow, we will be getting a double-header with Invictus Gaming going up against Weibo Gaming at 4.45 pm UTC+8, followed by a banger of a series between Worlds 2019 winners FunPlus Phoenix and Worlds 2021 winners, EDward Gaming. This is what the rest of the week will look like:
There will be two matches being played every day with most Saturdays featuring three matches during the group stage. MSI 2022 winners RNG will only be playing their first match on June 17 against FPX, who would have played two matches beforehand. It will be interesting to see RNG play catch-up once again, which is what happened last year.
However, the second half of last season is one to forget for RNG. Although they did finish in the top four of the LPL Summer Split last year, their performances were less than ideal and they succumbed against LNG Esports. This meant that RNG had to slog through the LPL Regional Finals and win it to be able to go to Worlds.
They will surely not want a repeat of last year and instead hope that it will be more like their 2018 season, in which they won both LPL Splits as well as MSI. Be sure to tune in tomorrow onwards on Twitch.TV for daily LoL action from the LPL!
