On Dec 15, Chinese organization Royal Never Give Up made several major announcements about their 2020 League of Legends roster. The first of these is the introduction of their new superstar jungle player Li “Xiaolongbao” Xiao-Long (李小龙).
The League of Legends development league
The League of Legends Development League is the equivalent to the academy leagues of the west. However, the LDL has a much higher focus on developing talent, rather than allowing the lower-tier squads to move up into the main LPL league.
Throughout the years of the LDL, it has developed some of the best players in the entire world. One example of this newfound talent is Jian “Uzi” Zi-Hao (简自豪), who is now regarded as one of the best AD players in China.
Royal Never Give Up adds Xiaolongbao
Xiaolongbao only made his entry into the development scene of League of Legends this year. Nevertheless, working under the Young Miracles banner, he led his team to the LDL 2019 Spring Playoffs victory. This victory came after placing 2nd in the regular season. Following this, Young Miracles managed to place 4th in the regular season of the LDL 2019 Summer season. This is made more impressive when you consider that the LDL fields a total of 25 different teams, making it one of the largest competitive leagues of all.
Xiaolongbao will now follow in the footsteps of past Royal junglers, which have historically been some of the best players of all time. The most notable of these is Choi “Insec” In-seok (최인석), who at the time was the best jungler in the world. Others include Liu “Mlxg” Shi-Yu (刘世宇) and Hung “Karsa” Hao-Hsuan (洪浩軒). Mlgx retired earlier this year following a 4-year career with Royal, while Karsa was bought out by Topesports, another of China’s largest organizations, earlier this month.
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