Today the League of Legends competition in the Asian Games has ended. The Mahaka Square in Jarkarta, the capital of Indonesia, has seen the final phase of its RBA Games MOBA tournament since Monday. As many expected, in the duel for the title of champion faced South Korea and China, the two superpowers of the continent. Of course, the Chinese victory does not seem the most augured outcome.
After a group stage in which Lee "Faker" Sang-Hyeok and company signed a brilliant balance of six victories and no losses that allowed them to go first, precisely in the same group in which China sealed a 4-2 . In the qualifiers, China disposed of Taipei and South Korea of Saudi Arabia to be cited in the final this morning.
Third consecutive title that China takes away from Korea
Korea attended the meeting with a veteran staff (if we omit Kim "Kiin" Gi-in), like the GenG botlane, in which Griffin players do not appear. China, on the other hand, put all the meat in the spit and took to Jakarta to almost all possible stars, Uzi included. With a very aggressive game in the first bars of departure, China took the first map.
Perhaps the biggest success of that first game won for the Chinese was that they forced Korea to play on their home ground. The Kennen of Kiin and the Ryze of Faker could not farmear calm and escalar their statistics since the rival jungle generated a pressure that prevented them to temporize the game.
Korea took note and in the next draft was made with great champions at the time of performing skirmishes as Galio, Kindred or Shen. That allowed them to face with more guarantees key fights around neutral objectives (proof of it the four dragons achieved) and put a 1-1 draw on the scoreboard.
China returned to the path of victory with an enviable trio of crowd control. Gragas, Alistar and Ornn gave the opportunity to Xayah and Kassadin to apply damage to pleasure, resulting in a murder count of 4-17. In the fourth and final game, Korea led for many minutes the leadership in terms of deaths, but the crazy pace returned to prevail, facilitating a victory for China.
The Korean style of play is in question
Moving Gary Lineker's everlasting phrase to the League of Legends, we have something like: "LoL is a sport in which five against five play, and Korea always wins." Of seven World Championships (six if we omit the first in which they did not compete) five have left for South Korea. That supremacy could be in danger since in the last three tournaments in which teams from these countries have faced, the Chinese have been victorious in all.
Both in the recent Rift Rivals, where the LPL won for the second consecutive time, and in the Mid Season Invitational where the RNG of Jian "Uzi" Zi-Hao won with authority. If we add the fall from grace of a legendary team like SK Telecom T1 in the Korean league, it is possible that a paradigm shift in the next Worlds is coming.
Chris "PapaSmithy" Smith, commentator of the LCK for OGN, opened an interesting debate on Twitter in which he states that: "the optimal way to play League of Legends is not the same as it used to be". For him, the disappearance of a large number of vision guards with the farewell to the stealth knife and his wards has benefited the constant fighting style of the Chinese region against the control and pause of Korea. It will be necessary to see if Worlds 2018 confirms or denies this theory.
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