It was a long, dry spell. LNG Esports picked up their first series win on Sunday in over six months. Their previous victory indeed dated back to October 5, 2024, when they defeated Dplus KIA to close out the Swiss Stage of Worlds with a perfect 3-0 record. They were later eliminated in the quarterfinals by Weibo Gaming. This long-awaited win came against Ultra Prime in the LPL Split 2, within the Nirvana group — a crucial result given that the bottom two teams in the group won’t qualify for the Summer Split.

Roster moves to turn things around

Of the roster that competed at Worlds, only Tang "Zika" Hua-Yu and Wei "Weiwei" Bo-Han remained. They were joined by Zhang "Haichao" Haichao in the midlane, coming from LGD Gaming, as well as the botlane duo from Ninjas in Pyjamas, Ying "Photic" Qi-Shen and Wang "Zhuo" Xu-Zhuo. The roster struggled to find its footing during LPL Split 1 — though the format was unforgiving, as the team only played three best-of-fives. They managed to take a single game off ThunderTalk Gaming before losing the series 3-1, and went on to suffer defeats against both Bilibili Gaming and EDward Gaming.

LPL Split 2 resumed with the placement stage, and after six best-of-ones, LNG failed to take a single Nexus — falling to JD Gaming, Invictus Gaming, and LGD. In response, the team benched jungler Weiwei and brought up academy player Zeng "5t5" Jun, as well as Li "LP" Fei in the AD Carry role, replacing Photic.

High-stakes best-of-threes

A third jungler, Fang "xiaofang" Zhe-Yu, also joined the roster and played his first best-of-three against Ultra Prime — a match LNG won, marking a crucial victory for the team. With only two series remaining against Oh My God and Royal Never Give Up, both still winless in Split 2, the fight to avoid permanent elimination from the 2025 competitive season in China is shaping up between OMG, RNG, LNG, and UP, as LGD and EDG have already secured two wins in the Group Nirvana.