After a 1-2 start to the 2023 Spring Split, Royal Never Give Up has found a familiar face to help its quest toward another LPL championship.
Veteran leader Shi “Ming” Sen-Ming has re-signed with the organization, confirmed by a welcome video posted by the team on Weibo. This marks his seventh year as the team’s support, where he will be joining superstar AD carry Chen “GALA” Wei in the bottom lane as the duo attempts to improve on RNG’s current record.
The 24-year-old support has been with RNG since 2017 when he joined alongside players like Liu “Mlxg” Shi-Yu, star mid laner Li “Xiaohu” Yuan-Hao, and one of the greatest marksmen of all time, Jian “Uzi” Zi-Hao. Since then, he has won three Mid-Season Invitational tournaments, four LPL championships, and has been on the All-Pro First Team seven times in his career.
Since last year’s MSI, however, RNG hasn’t had as much success as in years past. The team was eliminated in a disappointing sweep against T1 during Worlds, and this season, they are struggling a bit to get the fire going again with the absence of Xiaohu affecting their overall firepower. Adding back an experienced support to help guide the team should help their case for the remainder of the regular season.
With a ton of the season left to go, RNG still have plenty of time to gather some momentum and rise up the ranks before the playoffs come around in March. There’s plenty of tough competition ahead of them, including Invictus Gaming and LNG Esports, who are currently undefeated during their spring campaign.
You can catch RNG in action when the defending MSI champs head back onto Summoner’s Rift against Edward Gaming on Sunday, Feb. 5.
