After the final game of the League of Legends World Championship quarterfinals, the members of Samsung Galaxy, who had just decisively decimated H2K, sat down for a press conference. Crown, the mid laner for Samsung, was asked why his team was able to defeat the best European team in a swift 3-0 victory: “I think it’s pretty obvious why. It may sound rude, but I think we won because we were better than them.”
Korean Dominance
Out of the four teams that made it to the quarterfinals, three were Korean and the only other contender, H2K, got knocked out pretty easily. The H2K vs. Samsung Galaxy game was a relatable stomp compared to the other series of the weekend, SK Telecom vs. ROX Tigers. SKT are the reigning world champions and ROX Tigers are their LCK rivals, who have never been able to beat them in a best-of-five series.
In some of the craziest games of League Of Legends ever broadcast, both teams duked it out on Summoner’s Rift. SKT won game one with smart rotations and team fighting, but ROX Tigers managed to win games two and three with Miss Fortune support, something that nobody expected. Each game was full of highlights, from Bengi’s first professional game on Nidalee to Faker’s mechanical outplays.
Korea dominating a World Championship is nothing new, five out of six of the LOL World Championships have had a Korean team in the finals. Still, this year was the first where NA and EU looked to have a fighting chance of winning the whole thing. Team SoloMid, North America’s pride and joy, managed to secure first place in the NA LCS and performed well at international tournaments like IEM, only losing to the Korean SK Telecom.
Cloud 9 and Counter Logic Gaming are no slouches either, with each team having multiple NA LCS titles and international wins.
The fact that no NA team made it out of the group stages wasn’t only disappointing to fans, it was disappointing to the players of the region. TSM forgoed streaming during the Summer split to practice as much as possible, choosing to make less money to improve their performance. They brought on a special sports psychologist full time to help the players with their emotional well-being. TSM decided to forgo profit to stand a chance at winning Worlds, and they didn’t even make it out of groups.
The only team that managed to pull off swift victories against the top-tier Korean powerhouses was Albus Nox Luna, a wildcard team from Russia that managed to beat the ROX Tigers twice. H2K knocked NOX out in the group stages in a 3-0 series similar to H2K vs. Samsung.
Ruler, Samsung Galaxy’s ADC, said in the same press conference: “During our games at worlds, Chinese teams gave us the most trouble. I also think NA teams were very good and thought they would make it to quarters and semis, but I was surprised that they didn’t make it far. I was also surprised that Europe was a lot better than I thought.”
What Can The Rest Of The World Do?
Next weekend, SK Telecom square off against Samsung Galaxy in an all-Korean finals. No matter what the rest of the world does, it dosen’t seem like it’s possible to beat peak Korean performance. Korean teams tend to practice more than most, playing for 12 hours a day and only stopping to eat or sleep.
In Korea, esports stars like SK Telecom’s Faker are on par with movie stars and celebrities, in terms of popularity. That’s not the case here; if Bjergsen from TSM was walking down the street, I doubt he would get the same reception as Tom Cruise.
Can the rest of the world even catch up to Korea? After this year’s World Championship performance, it doesn't look like it. Even with every team putting in 110 percent, they still fell short of even getting close to a Korean team. TSM took a solid first step, putting in the infrastructure that Korean teams have had since their inception.
Next year, I hope to see a North American team make it past groups, semi and quarterfinals and hoisting the Summoner's Cup above their heads in pride.
