Top Esports has qualified for the League of Legends World Championship 2025 semifinals after defeating G2 Esports 3-1 in the quarterfinals.
As a result of today’s series, no more Western teams remain at Worlds 2025. Top Esports, on the other hand, has recorded its best world championship result since 2020.
Swings and Roundabouts
The first game of the series was certainly one to forget for G2 Esports, with the LPL third seed producing a dominant display to seal a 30-minute victory. The clash saw Top Esports take control from start to finish, consistently gaining crucial objectives and maintaining a gold lead.
With three G2 players unable to secure a single kill in the 23-6 game, Lin ‘Creme’ Jian dominated the Rift with a KDA of 11/2/6 on Akali.
Whilst game one was a nightmare for G2 Esports, game two saw Europe’s representatives show signs of life following a dream start by bot laner Steven ‘Hans Sama’ Liv to gain an early advantage on Lucian.
Despite the French player being targeted throughout most of the game, particularly by Seo ‘Kanavi’ Jin-hyeok on Qiyana, G2 Esports managed to maintain decent objective control and secure the Atakhan at the 20-minute mark, despite the best efforts of Kanavi. With the gold lead relatively close for most of the match, it seemingly came down to which team would secure the Baron.
In the end, it was the LEC Summer Split champion that walked away with the crucial objective, taking down three members of Top Esports in the prior teamfight as well. This momentum allowed G2 Esports to eventually topple Top Esports’ base and secure a 32-minute 23-11 victory to keep its hopes alive.
Top’s Decisiveness Defeats G2 Esports
Games three and four, despite featuring different compositions thanks to Fearless Draft, told a similar story.
Drafting a unique composition that featured Ivern (Jungle) and Thresh (Support), G2 Esports was unable to turn a first blood in the top lane into any real momentum, with the gold lead still there even heading into the 15th minute.
As the kill score tied at 1-1 by the 20th minute, it was clear the game was about objective control. While G2 Esports managed to secure the Rift Herald, Top Esports were two dragons up and surprisingly secured an uncontested Atakhan.
Following the objective Top Esports played the aggressor, claiming two kills to put the team one Dragon away from Dragon Soul. With the gold lead still even, Bai ‘369’ Jiahao on Aatrox sealed G2 Esports’ fate with a crucial triple kill to give Top Esports the Dragon Soul. Shortly after, Top Esports secured the Baron and scored a sub-30 minute 14-4 win.
The final game of the series told a similar narrative; however, the gold was relatively even for most of the game until one crucial fight crushed European fans’ dreams. What was different, though, was that G2 Esports’ aggressive play style gave the team a clear win condition — Hans Sama’s Draven.
Despite getting the first blood, first tower, a dragon and Rift Herald within 15 minutes, G2 was unable to establish a big enough gold lead, maxing out at around 1,000 in the 12th minute. Despite its good start, it was Top Esports’ decisiveness around crucial objectives that was too much for the LEC representative.
Winning a huge teamfight and securing the Atakhan was enough for Top Esports to turn the game in its favour. Moreover, securing Baron in the 27th minute put an end to any chance of a G2 comeback, resulting in Top Esports walking away with a 3-1 series win.
What’s Next?
Following today’s series, only one more quarterfinal match-up remains — the reigning champions T1 vs China’s Anyone’s Legend.
Kicking off on October 31st at 7am GMT, the match will be streamed live on League of Legends’ official esports Twitch and YouTube channels, alongside accepted co-streamers.
