Top Esports, previously known as Topsports Gaming, is a professional League of Legends team that competes in the League of LegendsPro League, the top level league for the game in China. It was founded on 21 December 2017, after the LPL spot of DAN Gaming was acquired.
History
On 21 December 2017, the Topsports Gaming brand was announced, along with the acquisition of DAN Gaming and its LPL spot. The team's first tournament was the 2017 Demacia Championship, where they placed ninth to fifteenth after losing in the third round to Suning Gaming. Topsports was a member of the LPL's eastern conference during the 2018 spring season, placing seventh with a 3–16 record. For the 2018 summer season, Topsports was moved to the western conference where they placed third with a 10–9 record, qualifying for playoffs. The team lost in the first round to Royal Never Give Up. Topsports was one of eight teams that participated in the 2018 National Electronic Sports Tournament, placing second after losing to JD Gaming in the finals. This result qualified Topsports for the 2018 Demacia Cup winter season, where they placed second again after losing to Invictus Gaming in the finals. During the offseason before the 2019 LPL Spring Split Topsports changed up their main roster, which became top laner Bai "369" Jia-Hao, jungler Xiong "Xx" Yu-Long, mid laner Zhuo "Knight" Ding, bot laner Lee "LokeN" Dong-wook, and support Nam "Ben" Dong-hyun. The team finished 3rd in the regular season with an 11–4 record and 4th in playoffs after losing to Invictus Gaming in the semifinals and FunPlus Phoenix in the third place match. At NEST 2019, Topsports fielded their trainee roster and placed fifth to eighth after losing to Edward Gaming in the quarterfinals. On 15 May 2019, it was announced that Topsports Gaming had renamed to Top Esports. Top Esports placed second in the regular season of the 2019 LPL Summer Split and third in playoffs after winning the third-place match against Bilibili Gaming. The team was unable to qualify for the 2019 World Championship after narrowly losing to Invictus Gaming in the last round of the regional finals. Xx left the team on 15 December 2019 and was replaced by LMS veteran Hung "Karsa" Hao-Hsuan. Ben and LokeN followed suit shortly after, and were replaced with Zhang "QiuQiu" Ming and Liang "yuyanjia" Jia-Yuan, and Ying "Photic" Qi-Shen respectively. Top Esports lost to Vici Gaming in the 2019 Demacia Cup semifinals and placed fifth to eighth. During the 2020 LPL Spring Split regular season, Top Esports experimented between QiuQiu and yuyanjia in the support role and originally intended to start former Invictus Gaming player and world champion Yu "JackeyLove" Wen-Bo as their bot laner. However, due to the length of JackeyLove's contract, he was unable to play until near the end of the regular season, with Photic maintaining his role as Top Esports' starting bot laner until then. Nonetheless, Top Esports finished fourth in the regular season with an 11–5 record. After defeating Team WE and Invictus Gaming in the quarterfinals and semifinals respectively, Top Esports made it to their first LPL finals. After a close series, Top Esports lost to JD Gaming at the grand finals, finishing runners-up. On 26 July 2020, TES lost 2-0 in the fateful match against IG. Contestant Jackylove has been accused of not playing his fair share.Despite the loss of the highlight game, TES is still top of the league with the highest win and loss.
