Preface: The S16 season matches have officially started, and it’s believed that the vast majority of players have been paying attention to the recent clashes. The LPL region’s contests have been fiercely competitive. Looking at the overall picture, the major teams’ performances are still not very stable. After JDG's consecutive wins against BLG, they also suffered losses, including a defeat to AL, which made them a hot topic for criticism online. Their team fights have been too hasty. However, there have been some standout moments; Gala’s Ezreal in the mid lane, under no vision, dodged the Rock’s Flash R with a 0.2-second reaction, causing the match to pause and the chat to flood with "Check the card!"—this reaction was incredibly fast.

Gala’s 0.2-second blind dodge of the Rock’s Flash R

Most players are quite interested in JDG as a top-tier esports team. They invested heavily during the transfer period, and their performance this season has been decent, especially in the regular season where they double-killed BLG, leading many fans to believe they could be strong contenders this year. However, recent matches have revealed some issues. Their aggressive plays and the young players’ mindset have caused JDG to suffer. In the match against AL, they had a clear chance to win but were too impatient to start fights.

In this match, Gala had some impressive plays, with the most remarkable being the mid-lane Ezreal moment. AL’s jungler Tarzan, playing the Rock, flanked to the top river bush near F6 and, with no vision, flashed his ultimate there. This combo is almost guaranteed to hit in both casual and professional games, with very few players able to dodge it. Yet Gala’s Ezreal showed godlike reflexes, pressing Flash within about 0.1 to 0.2 seconds to narrowly avoid it. Honestly, at this point, no player seems to match this level of Flash dodge reaction, not even the legendary iBoy.

Immediately after, the match was paused, and the chat exploded with "Check the card!" It must be said, the reaction was unbelievably fast—muscle memory alone would struggle to pull that off. It seemed his hand was already on Flash, anticipating the enemy’s initiation. Even caster Guan Zeyuan joked during the pause, saying they really needed to check if a USB drive was plugged in. Unfortunately, JDG couldn't win the crucial third game, making too many mistakes, mainly due to the jungler Zhao Xin’s two overly aggressive initiations that ruined their early game positioning.

The first fight happened at the top river. The casters noted JDG only needed to stall, as their main damage dealers could output steadily. But right after, Junjia’s Zhao Xin used his explosive fruit to dive deep into the enemy team from a long distance without any crowd control to hold them, and he was also too far from teammates to help. After using his ultimate to initiate, AL split the fight apart. If there was still a chance to stall after that, the next mid-lane fight was completely baffling. While both teams were contesting near the dragon pit, Zhao Xin flashed in with his ultimate directly onto the ADC Lulu. Facing a shielded AD Lulu, it was impossible to kill her instantly, and Zhao Xin ended up using all his skills only to be disengaged by the enemy. Predictably, JDG was crushed in that team fight.

Farewell thoughts

Losing to AL, Junjia definitely takes the blame. Their lineup only needed to stall and farm to output damage. Both Master Yi and Swain are late-game carries, and Kai'Sa can dive into the backline. But Zhao Xin was just too impatient. While many joke about Gala’s Kai'Sa repeatedly diving into the enemy backline and dying, it should be noted that Saint’s ultimate was already committed, so if he didn’t dive in, he would have been killed by Saint anyway. This team is still very young, and all their plays are aggressive.

What do you all think about this situation?