As previously reported, the EWC 2024 League of Legends tournament has recently concluded with T1 claiming the championship title. Following the end of this event, Riot has released some noteworthy information about patch 14.14 aimed at changing the meta for major leagues like LCK and LPL. Accordingly, a number of extremely strong champions like Corki, Tristana, Zyra, Brand… will face significant nerfs. Additionally, the extremely “overpowered” item Warmog’s Armor will also receive notable adjustments to prevent excessive use in the Support role.
Notably, just hours after Riot Games announced patch 14.14, the LPL media reacted quite strongly to this version. It should be noted that TES had effectively utilized champions like Corki, Tristana, Zyra, Brand… to achieve success at EWC 2024. Therefore, the LPL side believes that Riot is targeting TES by directly nerfing the strongest champions of this team despite them not being the tournament champions.
However, a larger issue quickly pointed out is that LPL teams seem overly dependent on the meta of each patch. Remember at MSI 2024 with patch 14.8, TES was completely read by G2 and was defeated 3-0 in a swift manner. When they played on patch 14.13, which suited them, TES easily defeated G2 in the semifinals of EWC 2024.
The main reason for this is attributed to the superior basic skills of LCK players compared to those in LPL. Additionally, the media in this region has revealed that many LPL players often have a habit of only practicing strong champions in each patch. As a result, after these champions are nerfed and no longer dominate as before, many players encounter difficulties.
Meanwhile, LCK representatives are not overly dependent on the League of Legends patch to achieve success. The superiority in basic skills allows top teams in LCK to adapt well to any updates from Riot. A prime example is the four consecutive LCK championships won by Gen.G in recent years, despite the fact that League of Legends has undergone numerous updates with constantly changing metas during this time.
This has led to considerable concern among LPL media regarding the version that will be applied at the upcoming 2024 World Championship. If this version includes unfavorable adjustments for LPL representatives, they could completely collapse and be eliminated very early. Meanwhile, as mentioned earlier, LCK teams will always find ways to adapt thanks to the strong basic skill foundation of their players.
Of course, it is still too early to assert that Riot’s adjustments will disadvantage the LPL region. However, the dependency of LPL teams on this update shows that they need to significantly improve their basic skills. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be surprising if LPL representatives continue to be dominated by the LCK region in future international tournaments.