Recently, Riot decided to allow the representative from the LPL region (Royal Never Give Up) to compete at MSI 2022 online. At the same time, Riot will provide maximum support to ensure all matches are held with a ping of 35, even for teams competing offline in Busan, South Korea. This has sparked intense debate within the League of Legends community.
While North America and Europe may not see any issues, given their ping is often much higher than 35, the LCK region is the most concerned. With the top-tier development of League of Legends and esports in general, the LCK always strives to provide players with the best gaming experience. The ping levels here are usually very low to ensure players can operate without any delay issues. Moreover, during this MSI 2022, the LCK will be playing on “home turf,” and fans certainly do not want the home team to lose their advantage.
Recently, T1’s AD Carry Gumayusi also spoke out about the 35 ping on his stream. According to him, “Faker’s little brother” stated: “I can clearly feel the difference of 35 ping compared to normal. And from what I’ve known, Faker is particularly sensitive to such delays. He can easily notice if there’s a problem, even when the discrepancy is extremely small, almost hard to detect.”
What Gumayusi said is completely valid. For players who are accustomed to the ideal ping, even a small delay can be noticeable, especially when executing high-speed combos. Moreover, Faker is a player who has spent nearly his entire career in ideal ping conditions, and he is proficient with champions that require extremely high skill, often needing to press many buttons like LeBlanc, Ryze, Azir… so it’s no surprise that Faker can detect even the smallest latency.
But ultimately, Riot’s decision is final, and certainly, unless for some special reason, this publisher will not reconsider. And for the players, especially T1, the only thing left is to adapt to have the best MSI 2022 experience possible.