In 2022, the team Cloud9 signed two South Koreans in League of Legends who were not previously on anyone’s radar: an 18-year-old rookie and a 23-year-old veteran. The two South Koreans have enhanced a roster that was previously considered quite mediocre, turning it into the best LoL team in the USA.
Who are the two South Koreans?
- The only 18-year-old Kim “Berserker” Min-cheol comes from the Academy team of the super team T1 from South Korea. He is a bot laner and has replaced the strong player Zven, who was regarded as a star and around whom Cloud9’s game revolved for years. After a tough half-year in South Korea when his team fell to 5-13, Berserker comes to the USA. Although he was the best player on that team, it was a career setback.
- Park “Summit” Woo-tae (featured image) is a 23-year-old top laner who played for the mid-tier team Sandbox Gaming in South Korea. They finished fifth in 2021. Summit replaced the solid top laner Fudge at Cloud9, who is moving to the mid lane.
- Berserker was hardly on anyone’s radar before 2022. Summit was far from being a South Korean star player known in the West, like Khan or Nuguri, the well-known top lane stars.
How good are both now in the USA? Both are quite fantastic:
The ADC Berserker has a KDA of 6.9 – the second highest in the LCS league behind mid laner Bjergsen. The 18-year-old immediately became the pivot point for Cloud9, with his supporter Winsome tailoring his game to push him. The jungler/mid laner also supported him with strong early-game heroes. Berserker impressed from the start of the season despite his young age.
The top laner Summit has only a “normal” KDA of 3.0 but has the league’s best stats regarding gold and creep advantage after 10 minutes. This means: He practically always wins his lane. After 10 minutes in a match, he averages 471 gold more than his opponent, significantly leading the statistics. It is now often stated in games that Cloud9 wins, that “Top Difference” made the difference – Summit was simply better than his counterpart.
When looking for reasons why Cloud9 is in first place in the LCS this year, one inevitably arrives at the two South Koreans.
In the scene, Berserker shows his class; he seemingly withdraws from a fight only to force the decision seconds later:
Cloud9 lets go of its 3 best players – Is 2022 better than before?
What makes this so impressive? The exciting thing is that Cloud9 was actually built around 3 star players in the relatively successful “2021 season”:
- Mid laner Pekrz, considered one of the best players in the West. He was said to be very expensive
- Bot laner Zven, an experienced and celebrated ADC. After all, he holds the record for pentakills
- the supporter “Vulcan”, who has been considered one of the greatest talents in North America for years
The other two players on the team were regarded as rather average. Especially jungler “Blaber” was clearly identified as a weak point: Reportedly, Zven was so upset by a particularly poor play of the jungler that he lost it and was consequently relegated to the second league.
This action by Blaber is considered one of the “worst” plays of all time in a major LoL tournament:
But all 3 stars from Cloud9 left the team after 2021. Now the supposed “no-names” from South Korea are performing better than the stars did before, and they are managing to make Fudge and Blaber look better.
Cloud9 defeats the All-Star team led by Bjergsen
This is how good Cloud9 is now: Just how good the new “Cloud9” is was demonstrated a few days ago against “Team Liquid”. They took a completely different path than Cloud9 and practically only recruited the “big names.” They now have players like Bjergsen, Bwipo, CoreJJ and Hans Sama. It’s an “All-Star” team.
But in the direct comparison, the veterans looked quite outdated: In a balanced match, Summit (5-2-3) and Berserker (3-0-3) ultimately prevailed.
Currently, Cloud9 is in first place in the USA with 11-2, while Team Liquid is in second place with 10-3.
What’s behind this: It is a “running gag” that South Koreans are simply much better at LoL than Americans and Europeans. For several years, the image had faded when G2 could achieve significant successes internationally, and their chaotic play and antics served as “kryptonite” against the controlled Korean playing style. But currently, there is much evidence that the old prejudice “Korea is just two or three levels better” is resurfacing.
For years, importing Koreans wasn’t attempted because it was thought the language barrier was too high, and instead “seasoned veterans” were brought in, who no longer wanted to endure the stress of the LCK like Impact or Huni. Now, Cloud9 has definitely taken a risk with the 18-year-old Berserker, and that seems to really be paying off.
This is a bitter realization for the US LCS league. Apparently, two really good purchases from the second tier of South Korea are enough to form the “best team” in the USA. It seems that coaching and strategy at Cloud9 have also been well executed.
The fact that the second-best team consists entirely of “foreigners” and has no North Americans in their ranks is not very flattering for the skills of North American players and continues a trend that successful US teams play with few to no North Americans.
Nowadays, people are talking:
- about Cloud9 as “Korea9”
- about “Team Liquid” as “Team LEC,” because they have 4 native Europeans participating
From the outside, Cloud9 had a really strange season. Because the coach who shaped the style and turned Cloud9 into a “Korean satellite” was let go early:
1.1 million people watched a video on the topic that the entire LoL community is puzzling over
