FairAndUnbiased
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2011
- Messages
- 10,184
- Reaction score
- -1
- Country
- Location
Basically, in the online game League of Legends, South Korea used to be the best region for years. With their focus on making little mistakes, safely farming in lane, accumulating advantages and scaling up for late game, they simply played better than Chinese, Americans and Europeans who made mistakes.
However, with the rise in Chinese teams, they began to fail. In season 8, Korean teams lost both MSI and Worlds. This continued in seasons 9 and 10. Why were Chinese teams successful in unseating the Korean teams?
Unlike Korean teams, who played to minimize mistakes and accumulate steady leads, Chinese teams prefer gambling with extreme aggression, picking fights early, often, and using leads to further oppress the enemy when they're already down such that they never have a chance to breathe.
For example, in league, if a player gets killed, the opposing team will typically contest an objective. In Korea, after an objective (tower, dragon, baron) is taken, they'll counterjungle a little bit then go back to base to heal and buy. In China, if a player gets killed, the opposing team will use it to force yet another fight when the enemy team is already down, usually resulting in either the enemy fleeing and giving up MULTIPLE objectives, or taking the fight and losing everything.
In Korea, usually teams had well defined roles, with tanks engaging the enemy, marksmen dealing damage from range and the midlaner providing burst damage and/or utility magic. But in China, every role is expected to be able to engage the enemy and start a fight, even supports.
In the past, Chinese teams had a weak late game, because with aggression comes the risk that you gamble it all away when the stakes are high. With Korean coaches, however, their macro play and late game got better. With the innate aggression of the Chinese strategy, honed by some Korean training, they became unstoppable.