The League of Legends season is back with the 2023 LPL Spring Split! After the two months break, Chinese teams will resume action on Jan. 14, with three matches per day.
To start the year in full force and make some sweet returns, it’s time to break down the Matches of the Week, with the best LoL odds for each prediction.
Let’s jump right into it!
LPL Spring Split 2023 Kick-Off & Week 1 Preview
We have an amazing Kick-off event ahead of us, and two important matches to break down that both will be played on Day 1. First up, four “mix” rosters will play the initial series to get us warmed up. Side selection will be decided with a coin toss.
The rosters and “bracket” are shown below:
After these matches conclude, we get started on the LPL 2023 season officially,
FPX vs WE
FPX kicked off their 2023 season in the worst way possible, getting dominated by a team of streamers during the Demacia Cup. The team crumbled apart in the least expected way, which inevitably puts question marks on their values coming into the LPL Spring Split. That said, their first opponent is Team WE, which isn’t really a big dog.
During the offseason, they were able to get their hands on former JDG’s ADC Hope and Iwandy from LNG, as well as rookie Heng in the jungle. While they should be an upgrade over last year’s roster, it’s still too early to say anything about their potential, especially after they were eliminated by IG during the Demacia Cup.
FPX will have to rely on their ADC Lwx to carry the team, who missed out on the Demacia Cup. His return will surely add some firepower to the squad, with the hopes that it will be enough for the team to get a good start. It won’t be easy, however: this will likely be a 3-game series with closer games than expected.
BLG vs JDG
It will only be day 1 of the LPL Spring Split and we will already get the chance to see JDG’s new super roster in action. Ruler and Knight are two of the most hyped players in this 2023 season after both left their legacy in the respective old teams with the only goal of winning Worlds.
We already mentioned in our LPL Roster tracker that JDG will be the front-runners in the league so there’s a high chance that the team will run over BLG.
Speaking of BLG, the team is quite an interesting one and it has the potential to be fighting for playoffs. The team only kept Bin from last year’s roster and proceeded to upgrade its roster all around: Elk and ON look to be a strong bot lane duo and Xun has shown improvements. The team also won the recent Demacia Cup and came second at the Weibo Cup, taking one game from the other LPL super team Weibo Gaming.
The most exciting storyline about the series will be in the mid lane: Yagao will go up against his former team and the player that replaced him going into 2023. Who knows, he might have that X factor to allow BLG to take one game, but the odds are not that high. JDG should be heads and shoulders above everyone else and there are only a few teams (like Weibo Gaming) that should be able to match them. Unfortunately, BLG is not going to be one of them.
May the rush for 2023 begin!