To prepare for the ambition of winning a gold medal at Asiad 2022, KeSPA has meticulously planned to select the strongest League of Legends team to represent South Korea. With many stars in the world’s top League of Legends tournament, choosing the final 6 names for the roster is not an easy task at all.
Therefore, recently, KeSPA has started to announce the selection of this lineup. With a series of criteria listed in detail, along with a separate training plan to finalize the roster. However, this plan has been continuously changed, leading the community to doubt its effectiveness.
Remember at Asiad 2018, when League of Legends was still a demonstration sport and did not count for medals, the voting method was quite simple. Fans were allowed to vote, with a maximum limit of 2 players from one team.
Another approach used by China and many regions is to hold a selection tournament or to use the lineup of the most recent domestic champions as the national team. This is seen as a very effective method that ensures complete connectivity among the 5 players. However, with a region that has a large and critical audience like LCK, this method is difficult to implement. Otherwise, selecting the entire T1 lineup that recently won the LCK Spring 2022 to participate in Asiad 2022 is entirely feasible with the ambition of winning a gold medal.
And the LCK fan community believes that KeSPA also has this thought. Therefore, the introduction of criteria, a shortlist, and then a focus plan for selection is seen as a way to legitimize the choice of as many T1 players as possible.
First are the criteria such as individual skills, teamwork ability, international experience, and collective and individual achievements in the domestic league from 2019 to now. Except for Faker, who meets all criteria, the other 9 players on the list all lack some criteria. This makes names outside of T1 like Kiin and Deft not have many advantages when compared to Zeus, Gumayusi, and Oner.
Next, KeSPA just announced the cancellation of public practice matches with PSG Talon and Detonation FocusMe. Instead, there will be internal practice matches among the 10 players. The coach for the Korean League of Legends team, kkOma, along with his staff, will be responsible for dividing the lineup and supervising each of these matches.
With T1 having up to 5 players on the shortlist, they will have better opportunities to coordinate with their teammates regardless of how they are divided. Meanwhile, Chovy, Kiin, Deft, or even Canyon will somewhat feel out of place. And clearly, these are internal matches so how the coaching staff handles them is something the audience will find hard to verify.
It is known that the Korean Olympic Committee has postponed the athlete registration deadline from the end of April to the end of May and early June. Therefore, the selection process will still be ongoing. And by the time the final lineup for Asiad 2022 is confirmed, if the entire T1 lineup is chosen (or at least 4), the community will find it hard to argue against it.