With only five days until the Spring Festival break in the first stage of the LPL group matches, the race for the top two positions is still intense in every group. On the previous matchday, AL, JDG, and BLG fought fiercely for first place. JDG and AL played a full three-game series, with AL coming out on top. After seeing JDG’s performance, the question on everyone’s mind was: how bad is BLG to be beaten twice?

In this BO3, JDG’s jungle player was repeatedly outclassed by Tarzan, and Gala’s signature Kaisa failed to perform in the deciding game. Team fights were chaotic, with Gala even mistakenly attacking minions in a panic. Compared to his previous dominant Kaisa plays, Gala’s performance this match was hard to watch. However, Gala played well in the first two games without dropping the ball, while JunJia’s performance was truly baffling—none of his three games looked remotely competent.

Another match on the same day was BLG versus IG, a game with little suspense. Although BLG had lost three straight matches before, their strength was evident. IG, at the bottom of the group, was no match. Top lane Soboro was solo killed by Bin, the bottom lane was overwhelmed by Viper in a 2v1, Rookie in mid was constantly pressured, and Wei hadn’t hit his stride yet. With setbacks on all three lanes, IG was swept 2-0 without winning a game.

Though IG’s loss to BLG was expected, the way they were beaten across all lanes was quite embarrassing. Soboro, once seen as TheShy’s successor, has been underperforming lately. Not only does he fail to gain lane advantage, but he also consistently feeds. Any top laner in the group could easily outclass him. The bottom lane was even worse—two players against one is simply not enough.

After these two matches, AL and BLG both reached five wins. AL currently leads first place by a narrow tiebreaker margin, with BLG in second. JDG dropped to fourth place, while IG remains at the bottom with a 2-6 record. IG is basically out of contention for the top four, having effectively locked in the path of the Knights. For IG to qualify directly for playoffs, they need to win their remaining two matches and hope JDG and Weibo lose all their upcoming games.

A serious bug occurred during the IG vs. BLG match. At 19 minutes and 30 seconds in the first game, Photic killed his own red buff, but Wei’s Pantheon was unable to pick it up, causing the game to pause. After the officials confirmed the bug, they attempted a time rewind, but unfortunately, Wei still couldn’t collect the buff. Meanwhile, the dragon’s health bar inside the pit disappeared as well.

Since the red buff’s absence wasn’t critical, IG didn’t request another pause, and the game continued. The missing dragon health bar was likely an observer bug; otherwise, both teams would have asked for a pause, as losing the dragon has a much bigger impact than losing red buff. Wei was even trying to contest the dragon, but without the health bar, BLG wouldn’t have allowed him to approach, since no one could predict when the dragon’s health would run out.

After climbing back to the top two, many thought BLG had regained form. However, ON cooled fans’ expectations during an interview. When asked about which problems the team had solved, ON replied that actually, none of the issues had been fixed—they kept recurring. Daeny was visibly tense hearing this. Still, BLG’s win against IG was largely due to the players’ individual skill.

Conclusion:

Just beating IG doesn’t prove much. Apart from the jungle, all three lanes crushed their opponents, and as long as they didn’t throw team fights, the wins were easy. Whether their form has truly improved will depend on upcoming performances against WBG and AL. League of Legends right now feels like a makeshift team; having two bugs appear in a single match shows Riot’s code quality is really poor.

So, what do you think—can BLG beat WBG in their next match?

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