Xiaohu moves back to mid lane, RNG sign Bin

After a second Mid-Season Invitational trophy and a Worlds quarterfinal finish, Royal Never Give Up retool their roster once again in pursuit of that elusive World Championship. Royal Never Give Up was not on anyone’s minds as an international title contender at the start of the 2021, with Li “Xiaohu” Yuan-Hao swapping roles into the top lane, and getting what seemed like a downgrade to take his place in Yuan “Cryin” Cheng-Wei.

The team bowed out of the Demacia Cup early, which set the tone for how the fans and analysts would think about them going into the spring split. It looked like this experiment would simply fail. In the spring split, however, the team massively improved: by having Yan “Wei” Yang-Wei and Cryin play around Xiaohu, the team seemed to have gained identity, despite appearing to be one-dimensional. They took the spring split championship, and went to surprise fans as they took the trophy against Damwon Kia 3-2.

RNG at Worlds

Going into the summer, however, things were different. Cryin’s champion pool was hit in the patches following MSi, and the lack of mid lane priority made RNG unable to transition better into the later stages of the game. The team usually had to rely on Xiaohu or Chen “GALA” Wei’s heroics to win in the later stages. As a result, they bowed out early from the LPL summer playoffs, and had to secure a Worlds spot through the regional qualifier.

At Worlds, they dropped one game against a Fnatic that did not have their starting bottom laner, and they dropped their second round robin game against Hanwha Life Esports. They won the tiebreaker, however, and secured a quarterfinals spot. Their quarterfinal was a hard fought best of five against eventual World Champions Edward Gaming, who defeated them 2-3.

Going into the 2022 season, the changes they had to make were very clear: Cryin was a liability, and improving on this position was looking like a clear solution.

And Xiaohu is clearly a better mid laner than Cryin. He switched back into the middle lane after a season of winning LPL and MSI in a different role, and Chen “Bin” Ze-Bin was signed by RNG in order to replace him in the top lane. GALA and Shi “Ming” Sen-Ming re-signed with the organization, and so did Wei.

RNG sign Bin

Bin is still the hyper-aggressive top laner that people have come to know in past years, making it all the way to the finals of the World Championship in 2020. He is the only player to have secured a pentakill on the Grand Finals stage. Bin is immensely mechanically talented, shining on champions like Camille and Fiora. If given resources, he will always be a threat. Wei is also fairly aggressive, and is an efficient jungler, looking to help his lanes out. However, with a stabler mid laner, he may have a bit more freedom to punish opponent junglers.

At some points of 2021, GALA’s champion pool looked rather suspect, but a lot of times he picked what he picked because that is what the team compositions required, and Ming usually needs a more self-sufficient laner so that he can go influence the rest of the map. Aside from being usually good in the lane, Ming is also vital to what this team usually does. With supports being more and more important in professional League of Legends, RNG being able to still keep Ming makes it sure that they can be a threat in the coming season.

With deadly laners all around, this team could probably carry from any position, which means that they will be dangerous in the draft phase. However, with the LPL looking more and more stacked as the rosters are confirmed, we might be in for one of the most competitive splits in China ever.