22/03/2023

E-sports

Game CMD 368

Who will Define the League of Legends Worlds Meta?

League of Legends

The Competitive League of Legends in 2020 was unlike the opposite season that came before it due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Most regions have stopped to play at some point within the season and came back as online leagues. China’s LoL Pro League and South Korea’s LoL Champions. Korea were both able to return as fully offline tournaments at points, although the LCK went back online during playoffs thanks to a rise in COVID-19 cases within the country.

the League

Never before had the regions been so separated from each other. With Mid-Season Invitational cancelled completely, the only international tournament this year was an online Mid-Season Cup between LPL and LCK teams won by Top Esports on the identical ping of roughly 30ms. Teams from Europe and North America typically would have made their due to either China or Asian countries to boot camp before the championship began, but no international bootcamping was possible for everything of the year. This led to some pocket metas from region to region that then made their appearance at worlds, moreover as a more rushed worlds “bootcamp” as teams passed their 14-day initial quarantine before moving to the event hotel before the worlds play-in stage

Despite everything, this was one of the more balanced and stable worlds metas. In previous years, G2 Esports and Invictus Gaming (whose playstyle was somewhat characterized because the general “aggressive LPL style”) dictated the worldwide metagame after their worlds victories and 2019’s FunPlus Phoenix was no exception. For the first two-thirds of the year, teams and mid laners all around the world talked about how they wanted to play within the shape of Kim “Doinb” Tae-sang and FPX. When FPX didn’t qualify for worlds, it absolutely was seen as a testament to how strong the LPL was from top to bottom and also the way the meta had already shifted faraway from them, and more towards teams like LGD Gaming and Suning. it had been more a problem of meta than regional strength.

Finding the perfect meta team in DAMWON Gaming – League of Legends

For the past two years of worlds the question of which team suits the current meta versus the worlds meta has been at the forefront of worlds analysis. Arguably, even further back in 2017, the world’s meta shift dictated how Samsung Galaxy won their championship. nvictus Gaming, G2 Esports, and FPX all had their turns dictating what teams around the world were trying out.

This year it had been DAMWON Gaming’s turn. DAMWON struggled compared to the expectations set for them throughout spring, but came into their own when their bot laner Jang “Ghost” Yong-jun joined the team in mid-to-late spring and remained because the team’s starting bot laner throughout the summer. because the summer meta evolved into one that was perfect for a carry junglers, pushing solo lanes, and a more utility-focused bottom lane (Senna, Ashe, Ezreal) this was perfect for DAMWON, who could naturally play this fashion around jungler Kim “Canyon” Geon-bu.

Head coach Zefa added that while DAMWON was well-suited to the meta and more aggressive than other LCK teams, actuality strength of DAMWON was the flexibleness of individuals’ champion to use a variety of compositions and be  flexible as possible if it necessary. This was made apparent with picks like top laner Jang “Nuguri” Ha-gwon’s Kennen, despite the actual fact that he spent the bulk of his finals games on Ornn.