Royal Never Give up is the most storied organization in the LPL. Once called Royal Club, RNG is synonymous with the name Uzi, their superstar ADC, who, for the longest time carried the team to finals or semifinals but could never win anything domestically or internationally.
Uzi left RNG in 2015 to join OMG, in one of the biggest trades of all time. Miraculously, a year later, in 2016 RNG finally won their first domestic title, without Uzi. They proceeded to slump after that though until they picked him back up from Newbee. Together Uzi and RNG would go on to win the LPL spring split again in 2018.
The prize for winning the spring split is a trip to the international competition MSI or Mid Season Invitational. In 2018 RNG stomped the competition, winning their first international title. After returning home they won the LPL summer split and were the favorites to win worlds 2018 alongside Korean team KT Rolster.
At worlds 2018, despite being the favorites to win it all, RNG fell in the semifinals to European team G2 esports. 2 years later after losing at worlds twice more, Uzi retired due to his physical and mental health, and RNG replaced him with their current ADC GALA.
Now RNG consists of Toplaner Xiaohu, Jungler Wei, Midlaner Cryin, ADC GALA, and Support Ming. This team pictured here, just won the LPL 2021 spring split and is currently playing in Iceland at MSI. They, alongside current world champions Damwon Gaming are favorites to win the championship.
FunPlus Phoenix is a reletively new organization in the LPL, but have a lot to show already. They are a team centered around supercarry DoinB, their midlaner, known for playing outlandish champions that no one else can. In 2019 with a roster of Gimgoon, Tian, DoinB, Lwx, and Crisp they were favorites to win the spring split, but lost to JDG and ended up finishing third. They came back with a vengence in summer, winning the title and heading to the world championship as LPL's first seed.
At worlds 2019 DoinB made the statement that if he didn't win that he would retire. They won. FPX smashed G2 in the finals 3-0 and claimed the world title for the LPL for the second year in a row.
Despite that they signed a new Toplaner from Korea, Khan, the next season. It didn't end up working out and FPX missed out on worlds in 2020.
Going into 2021 they made another huge move, picking up 2020 world champion Nuguri to replace Khan in the toplane. During the split though, their main jungler Tian suffered a wrist injury. They subbed in their backup jungler Bo and started to look like a potential first place team again, until Bo was found to be matchfixing in the lower leagues and was removed from play. Now they were playing with their second backup jungler and things just weren't clicking.
Right before playoffs started Tian came back and they started to win again. In playoffs they sent RNG to the lower bracket, sent EDG to the lower bracket as well, and made it all the way to the finals, where they would play RNG again. This time RNG got the better of them and won the spring 2021 split.
As MSI is currently taking place FPX are biding their time until they can revenge in summer.
EDward Gaming is another Chinese organization with a long history. In 2015 they beat SKTelecom T1 at MSI to take China's first international title with legendary names like Pawn, Deft, and Clearlove. On top of that they have won the LPL title twice, once in 2015 and once in 2017, and always make it to the worlds stage. Since then they have been pretty mediocre though, always finishing top 8, but never actually looking like they can beat the other top LPL teams.
This year though, after picking up Toplaner Flandre, pictured here, and renowned ADC Viper they've blasted themselves back to the top of the leaderboards. They are a top 3 team who just barely lost to RNG in the lower bracket 3-2 just a few weeks ago.
TOP Esports is one of the newly crowned kings of China along with FPX. And just like FPX, their rise to supremcy comes from their midlaner, Knight. In 2019 and 2020 Knight (middle) was heralded as the best midlaner in the world, and is still one of the top contenders today. Though, in 2019 and the first half of 2020 the best midlaner wasn't enough. The team needed one more piece. At the very end of the the 2020 spring split the team picked up former world champion, legendary ADC, Jackeylove (second on the left).
TES won LPL Summer 2020 with Jackeylove and went the world championship as the heavy favorite. They left many disappointed, losing in the semi-finals. This team while not as good as last year still shows flashes of greatness, and is by no means bad, finishing a hefty fourth in this year's spring split.