While LoL has existed for a long time with countless major and minor tournaments, at the ASIAD in Hangzhou, this game remains quite new. Therefore, there have been some discrepancies and controversies regarding the regulations between the game and ASIAD. One of the issues that has divided the LoL community recently is that the tournament will use version 13.12 for competition. This version has been available since the beginning of Summer 2023, and teams have been playing on it for about a month.
According to some initial reports, even a major country in the LoL scene like South Korea does not have the opportunity to use this version. This has raised suspicions that the ASIAD organizers have been somewhat “biased” towards the host teams. The reason is that only Tencent’s servers can roll out this version while other servers are “powerless”. The wave of opposition has only temporarily subsided with additional information that recently, Faker and his teammates have also been able to use version 13.12. However, smaller teams like Japan or Chinese Taipei have yet to confirm whether they can use this version or not.
The ambiguity from the ASIAD organizers has unintentionally made the friendly matches leading up to ASIAD extremely important. Soon, there will be a friendly match between the South Korean team and Vietnam (September 11), followed by the Korea-Taiwan match on September 12. Among these, the match between South Korea and Vietnam is being closely monitored by South Korean media.
The first reason is that this will be the first match for the South Korean LoL lineup at ASIAD. Audiences will get a complete view of the team under Coach kkOma. Moreover, whether the players have trained and adapted to version 13.12 will likely be answered through this match. Additionally, according to South Korean media, the current players in the Vietnamese lineup (Kiaya, Levi, Kati, Bie) are all experienced in international competitions and were part of the team that defeated Top Esports. Therefore, facing a name like Vietnam will serve as a quality warm-up before their second match against Taiwan shortly after.
The Vietnamese players themselves will also benefit from this match as they can use it to test their skills to some degree. Additionally, Vietnamese LoL fans are eagerly looking forward to seeing how Coach SofM has infused his style into the team since its formation.