Recently, the most exciting news for League of Legends fans is probably Riot Games announcing the Mid Season Cup: LCK vs LPL, commonly referred to as the China-Korea Showdown. This tournament is part of a series of events created by Riot to make up for the cancellation of MSI 2020 a while back. In a few days, similar competitions between Europe and North America or VCS facing PCS (the tournament for former LMS teams and Southeast Asia) may also be announced.
Setting aside other tournaments, the China-Korea Showdown will undoubtedly attract the most attention from viewers as these two regions have a longstanding tradition of facing each other many times. Moreover, the teams participating in the tournament feature world-famous stars and aspiring names eager to prove themselves. It can be said that the China-Korea Showdown will be the tournament with the highest level of professionalism.
Overall, the question remains: which region will be stronger, or which teams have the highest chances? Fans will have countless reasons to believe their team will win; however, individuals with high expertise like professional players or coaches have a very different perspective on the strength of the teams. In the latest stream, G2 Perkz shared his thoughts on this tournament and believes that LPL is much stronger.
G2 Perkz: “I think LPL teams this year are much stronger than last year. The fact that T1 changed nearly half of their roster yet still won the LCK shows that Korea is actually becoming weaker. This is understandable as other teams are also changing players all over the place.”
“You can see that the top teams in LPL and even Europe hardly change their rosters, at most just one player. For instance, in the LEC, Fnatic changed only one player, G2 Esports didn’t bring in any new players, and the Chinese teams are the same.”
It seems that for professional players like Perkz, the stability of a roster is the most important measure of a team’s strength. The strongest teams in Europe rarely change their rosters, while JD Gaming – the team that just won the LPL – has not changed their lineup since last year, except for re-signing Kanavi.
Meanwhile, in the LCK, teams frequently change players; even T1 often alters their roster after a year (Clid and Khan left the team at the beginning of the year), so the stability of Korean teams is generally not very high. This may be part of the reason why LCK teams have been performing poorly in international tournaments, and the China-Korea Showdown is no exception. Although no one says it out loud, everyone understands that LPL teams are stronger than LCK at this moment.