After the LPL Split 1 match between Top Esports and Weibo Gaming, fans accused TES jungler Yang “naiyou” Zi-Jian of match fixing. Riot Games launched an investigation and permabanned Naiyou from all of its and Tencent’s competitions. Top Esports has now recruited Gao “Tian” Tian-Liang to replace him.
In the LPL Split 1 playoffs, TES met WBG in round 2 of the loser’s bracket. The match went to five games, and game five drew everyone’s attention. While Lin “Creme” Jian had one of the best games of his career on Smolder, Naiyou made a number of odd mistakes. Missing Skarner ults, botching his Es, the jungler was not making positive contributions.
In the end, TES lost with Creme finishing the game with an 8k individual gold lead against his lane opponent. Maybe this was just Naiyou underperforming and having a particularly bad game, this happens to everyone.
However, the real suspicious part was his itemization. The jungler fully went into magic resistance against a near-exclusively AD team comp. Worse even, the item he bought was Spirit Visage, an item doing very little for Skarner.
Then for the worst part, he tried buying a second one (buying the components of what could only be Spirit Visage). This was what roused serious suspicion.
Four days later, on March 6th, TES announced that they launched an investigation into Naiyou’s performance. After three weeks, the League officials decided to ban the jungler for life from any events, effective immediately.
All eligibility for any official honors or awards is revoked. TES also terminated his contract and stated they will never employ him again.
World Champion Tian joins Top Esports as their new jungler. Image Source: Michal Konkol / Riot Games
To replace him, TES recruited Tian as their new jungler. Tian is a former World Champion, claiming the trophy with FunPlus Phoenix in 2019. The jungler has already spent three years with TES from 2022 to 2024, before ironically playing for none other than WBG in 2025.
At the same time, Top Esports will once again field Yu “JackeyLove” Wen-Bo. The star ADC also won a World Championship in 2018 with Invictus Gaming and took the first split off to take care of his health.
TES will play in the LPL Split 2 starting April 4th.
Featured image source: Riot Games
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