Since being recognized by Riot as a separate region, VCS has gone through many ups and downs. From proud achievements on the international stage to dramas and scandals that have shaken both League of Legends (LoL) and Esports. Many teams have disappeared, but there are also quite a few new names emerging. However, compared to the past, it can be frankly stated that VCS has not really progressed much, especially in international competitions.
Besides objective reasons such as pandemic issues or visa problems that caused VCS teams to miss many important international tournaments in 2020 and 2021, some inherent weaknesses are still clearly present, even in “undefeated” teams like GAM Esports. The psychological weakness may lie in the subjectivity of each player, but recently, SofM and Optimus pointed out another more critical weakness common to all VCS teams: poor macro skills.
According to SofM, VCS teams focus too much on fights and who fights better wins. Regardless of whether they win or lose the lane, whenever there is a major objective, they only want to fight and do not think much about whether to abandon the objective or which objective to focus on. In addition, SofM also stated that in a match, there are many ways to win, such as controlling vision or split-pushing… Coaches in VCS, even experienced ones, need to have a player’s perspective to guide their students in various situations, thereby training their macro skills more proficiently.
Optimus also agrees with SofM’s assessment that macro mistakes are a critical weakness of VCS teams. According to Optimus, as long as players are good at macro, even with little communication, they can still understand how their teammates intend to play and what they need to do. Optimus believes that VCS players still tend to need to call out specific actions in the game, which is unnecessary, if not useless, especially when entering team fights. Optimus also acknowledged SofM’s point regarding coaches being correct. However, he emphasized that players themselves must have the qualities to understand what coaches convey and strive to improve themselves.
From what SofM and Optimus shared, the macro skills of VCS teams need to be greatly improved, and this is definitely not a task that can be accomplished overnight. Moreover, during this process, there will be significant filtering and elimination if teams are determined to carry it out. However, this is an extremely important skill and will certainly be very beneficial for VCS teams, especially when stepping onto the international stage.