A few days ago, coach Tinikun unexpectedly announced that “GAM Zeros” had shocked the League of Legends community. It was thought that our “Demon King” would go abroad to China to compete with League of Legends “masters” like Khan, The Shy, LangX, Gimgoon… but in the end, Zeros remains in Vietnam.
Of course, when Zeros continues to be with GAM Esports, the black-and-yellow team and their fans are the happiest. They continue to have an outstanding top lane player, arguably the strongest ever in Vietnam, meaning a very solid and unbeatable upper map. Thus, GAM, or specifically Levi, can focus on the bot lane, which has been their weak point since last year.
And who else is happy with Zeros’s return? The answer is no one; the teams facing GAM Esports at VCS Spring 2020 are extremely worried about how to deal with the “Demon King” in the top lane. When there is a team as strong as GAM Esports, the question left is how to take down this monster. Sometimes being too focused on one position can disrupt your entire tactical system.
Some teams will try to execute a plan, but they may end up losing badly as they did in last summer’s tournament. The other teams lacking the strength may give up and create meaningless procedural matches. Such matches are truly very “boring” to watch. And this directly relates to the next group of worriers, which is the VCS organizers.
For a tournament to be more attractive, the championship race must be truly dramatic; only then can viewership increase. For example, this spring’s LEC was extremely dull for the first three weeks as G2 Esports kept winning, but since they lost to both Misfits and Schalke 04, things became more interesting and viewers began to return.
Looking back at the VCS story, with Zeros returning to GAM Esports, this team is automatically the strongest, and no one can dethrone them. Back in the summer of 2019, when Team Flash or Lowkey Esports had a formidable roster, they still couldn’t defeat them; so who can now? When the tournament has become so predictable, it’s understandable that the VCS is losing its appeal; the ones worrying are definitely the tournament organizers.
The ones who do not want this to happen anymore are the viewers, those who want to follow the local League of Legends teams. As neutral viewers who love League of Legends, everyone enjoys an exciting and dramatic tournament; if one team just goes straight to the championship, why bother watching and wasting time, right?
Finally, there is GAM Esports itself; their dominance over the VCS is hurting them in major tournaments. Remember back to the 2019 World Championship, GAM Esports was considered a candidate to advance from the group stage alongside the very strong FunPlus Phoenix, stemming from the belief that GAM was strong and could handle the other teams. Indeed, they are strong, but the teams in their group were even stronger, and the result was five losses and a crushing disappointment after the World Championship.
Perhaps Zeros staying with GAM Esports is both a good thing and an unfortunate situation. The good part is that they can easily win VCS Spring, while the unfortunate part will affect most of those involved with VCS, from the organizers, fans, teams, and even GAM Esports in one way or another.