[LCS] All-Star Tournament - Page 264

On May 26 2013 16:33 caelym wrote:
The dance is at 5:46:20 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnnV7s9NMFA

On May 26 2013 16:27 overt wrote:


I know this will sound like a cop out but I'm 100% confident that if eSports was as big in NA, EU, or China then Korea would eventually be dethroned. Granted I don't think the vast majority of pro players in those regions would be there still because they'd be replaced by people who are just naturally better than them and/or who have a harder work ethic. But yeah, I feel like Korea's eSports culture and infrastructure give it the edge they need.

I also think people are overrating the all-stars match a bit. If Korea dominates Worlds and we have three Koreans in the semi-finals with a Korea vs Korea S3 world finals then ok. We can start talking about Korean dominance. But Korea didn't win S2 and the last international event we had was won by China.

Korea will probably surge ahead I just dunno if it's happened yet (and I'm not confident that China can't end up being competitive with them).

On May 26 2013 16:26 thefreed wrote:



It all comes out to structure. Koreans know how to become competitive in Esports. Look at Street fighter or like KOF, starcraft. I mean they just have this down to a science.

They know that they need a coach that can analyze see things from a cold, logical viewpoint.

Also the teams they practice with, a lot of the teams have a scrim partner like Najin, CJ, MVP. And the level of the teams are all really high, so they build each other up and make them stronger.

And LOL is really getting big in Korea, so a lot of people are playing it I think that has to factor in as well.

Lastly, I really think NA and EU need a really good progamer commentating with them, cause after I heard CloudTemplar commentating, it just made me understand the game more indepth.

Also taking practicing long hours into account, it really depends on the teams. Like some teams in EU and NA practice as much as Koreans, but it's just they don't have a coach, and they're not using their time proficiently.

If you had two teams under one club, then they could also get more opinions from the opponents stand point, but EU and NA don't really get as close as the Korean scene to help each other out.

Taking all these things into account, is the reason why Korean scene is getting stronger faster then other regions...

On May 26 2013 16:24 Caphe wrote:

Ok, just look at regular sports. Basket ball in America, soccer in EU. Talents don't come with large population. Talents are the result of which country has the best infrastructure and system to actually brought them out.
Just look at how big soccer is in EU and how well Germany, England, Spain doing in the world of soccer. It is the result of all of them have a strong domestic league, exceptional youth academy and talent scout.

Korea has the same thing for e-sport. They are well supported by major corporation(Samsung, SK Telecom, CJ etc..), well covered on National TV, good structure of management with coaches for every teams. Its natural that they are successful and the rest of the world can only catch up if they can develop a similar system like in Korea.

On May 26 2013 16:34 Jojo131 wrote:

Yeah, at the end of the day we need to keep in mind that all-stars was really just more of a fan-service type tournament, and that the real results will shine in Worlds when each player is with their respective teams, whom they've practiced with the most/have the best coordination with. For example although I'd never expect EU to win, you can definitely tell that they've underperformed this tournament mostly due to the lack of practice/cohesiveness that wouldn't have been the case if they were with their normal teams. It isn't really fair to say then that EU is THAT bad, considering the circumstances of the all-stars event.

On May 26 2013 16:20 NeoIllusions wrote:


Oh, it's definitely not some bullshit like "oh, Koreans are born to be great at LoL". Fuck that.
The top Korean teams (I'm talking about Blaze/Frost in particular), they practice a shitton, they discuss and strategize, and hone their skills to an art. Do people realize that Frost has made it to every OGN Finals thus far? That's 4 straight. It's obscene.

And it all comes down to practice. Against NA, we saw it most vividly. Every one of Korea's lanes flat out dominated.

Koreans take League serious as hell. There's no bullshitting when it comes to how they prepare.

On May 26 2013 16:41 UnKooL wrote:

Yep, I watched Cloudtemplar yesterday talk about the hardships MIG/Frost faced at the early days of LoL in Korea. Cloud said they lived in a very small room where the computers they played on were right next to/on top of? where they slept and the Coach spent a lot of his own personal money to finance the team and Gunwoong's father helped them financially later on. He also said when they added blaze to the team the room they practiced in only had 5 computers so one team would play at the house and the other would have to go to PC bangs to practice and scrim and they would switch every other day or so.

There is a lot of talk about infrastructure, but Frost didn't really benefit from Korean esports infrastructure at all when they first started, only when LoL started to catch on to mainstream gaming in Korea that infrastructure that was already in place like OGN and other sponsored pro teams helped to grow and foster amazing talent. So I don't really like it when people say that Korea is so good because it already has an esports infrastructure, yes it is a big part of it, but think of the pure passion and effort that a team like Frost/MIG put in to become who they are now. They faced a lot of hardships like many starting teams/organizations expanding different games like BW and SC2, and they don't benefit from the great "korean esports infastructure" until their passion for the game and their countless hours of practice at some point pays off and they gain recognition.

On May 26 2013 16:39 caelym wrote:

At the same time, All Star allowed regions to show off how good they are. Korea definitely did that, and so did China to a lesser extent (and NA to an even lesser extent).

On May 26 2013 16:45 Caphe wrote:
First of all, Infrastructure consists of a large amount of sponsors comparable to regular sports.

1.We see Samsung, LG, Olympus, Panasonic, ST Telecom, CJ etc in Korea. Do you see the same calibre of sponsors anywhere in the world? In NA most sponsors are small business of world giants like they are in Korea.

2. Broadcast on TV, first country to do so and only a decade later the rest of the world realise that its viable for them too. Even in China, there is no gaming channel only internet stream at best.

3. Small leagues in many games, there are middle school competition, high school and university competition. As far as I know none other countries has this.

4. Important of coaching, even now, NA/EU LOL teams don't have coach while BW teams in Korea has coach like a decade ago

5. The acceptance of the public.

Gaming culture playing an important part here I admit that, but gaming culture can only breed good to very good amatuers players. If you want to compete in the world stage, systematically training and marketing are required. China has a very large gaming population and very large numbers of PC Bangs too thus breed alot of very good amature players but when they turn pro, they can't compete with Korea.

On May 26 2013 16:32 Vlanitak wrote:
not sure if playing devils advocate but: Dota 2, China and the Western scene is bigger in that than Korea. I cant think of a single Korean team (as a casual viewer) that has done well in Dota 2, Korea isnt the mecca for ALL esport. They are extremely good and have a really good infrastructure built around it, but they arent unbeatable.

On May 26 2013 16:46 ketchup wrote:


Thank you for this information on the early days of LoL from other countries. I don't really know of any way for someone in NA to know this type of information. Slowly learning a Korean a bit to be able to read articles/get this information, but motivation is difficult for learning a language. At least the Korean alphabet is pretty straight forward.

On May 26 2013 16:41 UnKooL wrote:

Yep, I watched Cloudtemplar yesterday talk about the hardships MIG/Frost faced at the early days of LoL in Korea. Cloud said they lived in a very small room where the computers they played on were right next to/on top of? where they slept and the Coach spent a lot of his own personal money to finance the team and Gunwoong's father helped them financially later on. He also said when they added blaze to the team the room they practiced in only had 5 computers so one team would play at the house and the other would have to go to PC bangs to practice and scrim and they would switch every other day or so.

There is a lot of talk about infrastructure, but Frost didn't really benefit from Korean esports infrastructure at all when they first started, only when LoL started to catch on to mainstream gaming in Korea that infrastructure that was already in place like OGN and other sponsored pro teams helped to grow and foster amazing talent. So I don't really like it when people say that Korea is so good because it already has an esports infrastructure, yes it is a big part of it, but think of the pure passion and effort that a team like Frost/MIG put in to become who they are now. They faced a lot of hardships like many starting teams/organizations expanding different games like BW and SC2, and they don't benefit from the great "korean esports infastructure" until their passion for the game and their countless hours of practice at some point pays off and they gain recognition.

On May 26 2013 16:41 UnKooL wrote:

Yep, I watched Cloudtemplar yesterday talk about the hardships MIG/Frost faced at the early days of LoL in Korea. Cloud said they lived in a very small room where the computers they played on were right next to/on top of? where they slept and the Coach spent a lot of his own personal money to finance the team and Gunwoong's father helped them financially later on. He also said when they added blaze to the team the room they practiced in only had 5 computers so one team would play at the house and the other would have to go to PC bangs to practice and scrim and they would switch every other day or so.

There is a lot of talk about infrastructure, but Frost didn't really benefit from Korean esports infrastructure at all when they first started, only when LoL started to catch on to mainstream gaming in Korea that infrastructure that was already in place like OGN and other sponsored pro teams helped to grow and foster amazing talent. So I don't really like it when people say that Korea is so good because it already has an esports infrastructure, yes it is a big part of it, but think of the pure passion and effort that a team like Frost/MIG put in to become who they are now. They faced a lot of hardships like many starting teams/organizations expanding different games like BW and SC2, and they don't benefit from the great "korean esports infastructure" until their passion for the game and their countless hours of practice at some point pays off and they gain recognition.

On May 26 2013 16:50 Azarkon wrote:


They don't play Dota 2. There's no way to judge a scene's ability in a game they don't have a large population of players for.

But to play the devil's advocate myself, there is one genre where there are a lot of Korean players, but where they aren't the best country: FPS games. Instead, Sweden and other EU countries are the best in that game. I've yet to understand this myself, though I figure it does have to do with Kespa teams not being involved.