BILIBILI GAMING made short work of TOP ESPORTS. The 2-0 sweep in LPL Week 5 on August 21 was about as clean as a best-of-three gets, with BLG ending the first game in under 26 minutes and taking the second without much more resistance.

Across the two games BLG out-killed TES 47 to 19 and finished each map with more than 12,000 gold over their opponents. The tower count tells the same story: 20 for BLG, five for TES.

Viper and Knight carry the load

The bottom lane was where the gap looked widest. Viper went 15/3/16 over the series, and his 33,343 damage on Ezreal in the second game was the highest figure on either side in either map. Next to him, ON was involved in almost everything. His 1/0/19 Karma line produced an 87% kill participation, and he died just twice across the series.

Knight was not far behind. The mid laner went 14/4/14 on Syndra and Annie, and his 26,801 damage on the latter put him second to Viper in that game. With Bin also finishing both games with a positive KDA, BLG had damage coming from several directions, and TES never had one obvious threat to focus.

A rough day for TES

For TES, the box score makes difficult reading. JackeyLove ended the first game 0/7/5 on Varus, and Creme's 22% kill participation in that map suggests the mid laner was rarely part of the action. ZUIAN put up respectable damage numbers in both games, yet he died 12 times across the series.

The second game offered a little more for TES to hold on to. They secured four dragons to BLG's one, and Creme and Zhuo both finished above 80% kill participation. That dragon control turned into very little, though. BLG took both barons and 11 towers, and closed out the 32-minute game with a 23-10 kill lead.

For BLG, a series where nearly every line on the stat sheet favored them is a strong result to take into the rest of the split. TES face a harder question: how four dragons and a closer kill count in game two still produced a gap this wide, and whether the next opponent will punish the same problems.