Since Edward Gaming's World Championship (EDG), LPL representatives have been short of breath compared to the LCK teams in the largest playground of the League of Legends village. At Worlds 2022, the LCK area has 3 representatives participating in the semi -finals. When I arrived at Worlds 2023, LCK only T1 was to this round. However, the common point of these 2 Worlds is that the LCK representative is still the champion team and the LPL teams failed to regret.
The last two World Championships are representatives from LCK
The consequence of this is that the LPL tournament gradually becomes less attractive even to the home audience. Specifically, even the focal match of LPL Spring 2024 is JDG confronting BlG, only reaching less than 1 million. Meanwhile, the match between RNG and IG (2 teams not too prominent) at LPL Spring 2023 can reach 1.6 million views.
Views of LPL Spring 2024 decreased significantly compared to the Spring tournament 2023
In the latest interview, former King of Worlds 2020 – Nuguri shared some noticeable facts about the League of Legends players at LPL. Most likely, this is one of the reasons why LPL teams have been short of breath compared to the LCK representatives in recent years.
“I realized that there was a very clear cultural difference in LPL and LCK. Although LCK had a lot of good players, only a few were considered idols, such as Faker.
I myself decided to go to LPL to play with half of the cause from making money. The other half was because FPX then had many players who have won the world champion. At first, I really wanted to try it once abroad. It was not until I really went to LPL to realize that the practice time was much less when I was playing in LCK ” – Nuguri shared.
Nuguri shared that the “idolization” at LPL made the player's practice time shortened quite a lot
At LPL, many players are considered idols and fans who have many “shocking” actions. The latest is the fact that Scout's fans are constantly texting threatening, asking LNG to change the coach. The reason is because they think that this coach's play applies makes LNG play badly and does not help Scout shine.
“A lot of fans have sent a threatening message, asking LNG to dismiss Cresent coach. Many Scout fans are willing to send money to LNG just for them to break up with this coach.”
Naturally, the good side of the “idolized” player is to help the player himself or the host team to make money extremely well. In return, practice time to really improve skills, tactical thinking will be less. In the context of the LCK teams constantly improving, the exchange of training time of LPL players is likely to make them play badly and short of breath in Worlds.
WBG “lost” 0-3 before T1 in the Worlds 2023
After 2 consecutive Worlds, not winning the championship, the beliefs of fans in LPL representatives have decreased quite a lot. If they continue to miss the title of Worlds 2024, the LPL side needs to actually review their League of Legends.