The round robin stage comes to an end this Sunday, and will be finishing off with games that will still be consequential to the playoffs structure. While the top four have been locked in, there is still the small matter of which teams will go into the next round as top seeds.

JD Gaming currently top the charts, but have second- and third-placed Top Esports and Royal Never Give Up creeping up on them. While Top Esports play Anyone’s Legend on Saturday and can seal top seed status with a win by any margin, it is RNG that will worry them: a 2-0 win against LGD Gaming will see JG Gaming drop out of the top 2.

Ultra Prime vs Team WE

LoL Predictions: Ultra Prime to win

Odds: 1.54

Betting Site: Odds provided by GG.Bet

When: Sunday, August 14 – 11:15 CEST

In a season that has been marked by five distinct divisions on the leaderboard – the various seed positions, and the rest – Team WE have managed to not be in the conversation for any of those tiers. So much so, that they’re now chalked in to be the holders of one of the most dubious distinctions in LPL history – or competitive League of Legends history, really – if they go on to lose against Ultra Prime; that distinction, of course, will be a 0-16 record that won’t be forgotten for a long time.

Ultra Prime haven’t exactly had a season to boast about either, sitting just one spot higher than Team WE with a 3-12 record themselves. Such has been their level of performance that even against the objective worst team in the league, the bookmakers only fancy them at about -140 in this game, while giving Team WE odds of +105 and thereabouts.

The underlying numbers show that there hasn’t been too much to separate these two. WE’s 9.4 average kills per game (worst in the league) is only slightly bettered by UP’s 9.8, and UP’s average deaths per game of 15.5 (worst in the league) is marginally eclipsed by WE’s 15. On many other metrics too, these two sides have made up the bottom two in the league. This match, if anything, will be a trial for some of those who are currently on the roster for both sides; it is almost guaranteed some of them will not be seen in the next season. Still, there is no denying that WE have absolutely nothing going for them and we expect the 0-16 record to materialize by the time this match ends.

Royal Never Give Up vs LGD Gaming

Predictions: RNG to win

LoL Odds: 1.06

Betting Site: Odds provided by GG.Bet

When: Sunday, August 14 – 13:15 CEST

For context on the previously mentioned odds for the UP vs WE game, RNG are touted as favorites at -1429 versus LGD’s +600 in this game – a proper favorite vs underdog battle. We’ll say it at the outset – we expect RNG to wrap this match up with no fuss.

And to the point about locking in the top seed, we expect that to happen as well. What they need to topple JD Gaming is a 2-0 win against LGD Gaming on Sunday and we don’t anticipate any last-moment hiccups to get in the way of that. If they don’t manage to win, or only win 2-1, their playoff seed will be dependent entirely on whether Top Esports has lost on Saturday.

Now RNG have had a bunch of 2-1 wins over the last few weeks, against Invictus, EDward and JDG themselves. But the last time they lost a game to LGD was in the LPL 2020 summer. The two contests between these teams since then have both ended 2-0 in RNG’s favor, and we don’t expect the defending Spring champions to slip up at this moment of the tournament.

LGD Gaming have played as many as nine players this season, a testament to how unsettled they’ve been as a team, and are likely to experiment further on Sunday as they look ahead. In contrast, it’s been a settled five-man line-up that has shown up in all 40 games this season for RNG; it helps when you have the likes of GALA (second highest kills per game average this season with 5.1) and Ming (fifth highest assist maker with an average of 10.3) on the roster, of course.

On several of the team metrics as well, RNG are comfortably in the upper echelons in this league, and genuine favorites to do the double in LPL 2022. We expect them to put up a reminder of that as they play the last match before the playoffs.