Yesterday, the last Western team was eliminated from the LoL Worlds 2021: For the first time since 2017, only Asians are in the semifinals. 17 of the remaining 20 players at the World Championships in League of Legends are South Koreans. The coach of the last US team explains why this is the case and why it will remain so if nothing changes.
This is the situation:
- Yesterday, Gen G. clearly defeated the Americans from Cloud 9 in the last quarterfinals with 3-0. Thus, the 3rd team from South Korea is in the semifinals. The 4th team from South Korea, the “Church of Chovy”, was eliminated only because they had to face another team from South Korea: T1 with the “unkillable demon king” Faker.
- The South Koreans are so dominant in the Worlds 2021 that 17 of the remaining 20 players are from South Korea. Because in Korea, only Koreans play. And the last team from China, EDward Gaming, has 2 Korean mercenaries in its ranks. With Viper, who is arguably the best ADC in the world.
- Before the Worlds, Asian teams were highly favored to win the Worlds. But the bookmakers thought that at least Mad Lions or Fnatic could keep up somewhat – but these hopes quickly shattered. Since 2017, League of Legends has not been so firmly in the hands of Asian teams as it is now.
“It is extremely unfair”
This is what a US coach says: The coach of Cloud 9, Alfonso “mithy” Rodríguez, explained at a press conference after the defeat why the West is so weak (via youtube):
“I think the way the entire league system is designed, it is extremely unfair. The Korean teams make scrims against the LPL and against the LJL, against all these teams, and we are left with only the teams from Europe and North America.”
Mithy, Coach Cloud 9
According to Mithy, Koreans could compete against strong competition, while the best teams from Europe and the USA can only face comparatively weaker teams. Time differences and restrictions prevent Western teams from competing against world-class teams from Asia under competitive conditions.
A solution to the problem would be boot camps in South Korea. But there is little time left for that:
“For a Western team to perform well, we would need to do boot camps in South Korea for a longer time and participate in tournaments there. But that is very difficult because we have to play a lot of meaningless games in the Spring Split when we could actually be doing a boot camp.”
Mithy, Coach Cloud 9
It would be important, says Mithy, to allow LoL teams to “travel the world” and participate in “better and more exciting tournaments” at an international level.
Mithy believes that if nothing changes, it will be very difficult for the West to ever perform well in such a tournament again.
Without the top team G2, the West looks ancient in LoL
Is he right? From the perspective of the USA, he is certainly right. No team in the USA has reached top level in League of Legends for years.
But his analysis does not work quite as well for Europe: Europe had in recent years G2, a team that competed for the championship. Even without boot camps in South Korea.
And the performance density in Europe has broadened in recent years with the rise of Rogue and MAD Lions, yet the performance peak seems to be declining from year to year.
Here is the question of how to explain the extreme performance drop of G2 in the last 2 years:
- G2 was in the finals of the Worlds in 2019 and had eliminated DWG KIA on the way there – back then they were still called DAMWON Gaming.
- 2 years later, G2 did not even qualify for the Worlds and DWG KIA seems like the best LoL team of all time.
In 2019, G2 already had the “competitive toughness” that DWG KIA lacked back then. The young Koreans were considered “training world champions” who crumbled under the pressure of competition. However, G2 only had that advantage for 1 year. 2020, they were eliminated without a chance against DWG Kia.
In Europe, there seem to be problems with motivation and the passion to improve even when one is “actually” already the best team on the continent by far. Especially under Covid, the stars apparently found it difficult to motivate themselves: Competitions took place without an audience, and players seemed to feel the walls closing in on them.
When Mithy says that the games in the Spring Split are meaningless, it highlights the problem of LoL teams to stay motivated and work on their performance throughout the year. South Korean teams seem to find it easier, although there are significant performance fluctuations among individual teams in China.
But Korea currently seems to be the dominant region in LoL. Perhaps boot camps could change that in the long term. In the short and medium term, however, the chances for teams from Europe and the USA to make an impact at the Worlds look bleak.
Much for 2022 will depend on how G2 reestablishes itself. Otherwise, teams like MAD Lions, Fnatic, or Rogue would have to take a giant leap forward. The US teams have a lot of money, but apparently, that cannot buy international success.
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