Lunar New Year – a time of joy, family reunions, and relaxation after a long year of hard work and study. This is also a common holiday, not only in Vietnam but also in other countries like China and South Korea. And perhaps many have realized: Korea and China are indeed the two regions with the strongest League of Legends scene in the world. In recent years, the Lunar New Year break has become a topic that needs to be discussed thoroughly among teams, especially for those names that are performing exceptionally well in their domestic leagues.
Disruption of Focus
The first and most obvious issue is that players who are in peak form, fully focused on their matches, and accustomed to their daily schedules will suddenly have everything turned upside down. They will have time to relax, do as they please without worrying too much about match results. This is a reasonable break. However, there is also a significant downside: their period of focus and dedication to their professional matches will be temporarily interrupted. This is particularly true for young players who, after a tough year, will likely want to let themselves relax during the New Year.
Halting All Training Activities
In professional League of Legends, besides ranked games, scrims are also essential. Not to mention, there are strategic analysis meetings, discussions about scrim results… And of course, this cannot happen during the Lunar New Year break. Therefore, players will have nearly half a month without touching League of Legends. Besides performance, not keeping up with updates is also a disadvantage.
This will affect teams, especially smaller ones. For example, Fredit BRION in Spring 2022. Before the Lunar New Year break, they only lost to larger teams and had a decent record of 2 wins – 4 losses (the losses were against T1, Gen.G, DRX, and DK). But after returning, BRO immediately faced 4 losses and only won 1 match. Notably, BRO lost even to weaker opponents like Liiv SANDBOX and competing teams like Kwangdong Freecs.
Playing Sensation
Currently, players are actively using ranked matches to regain their competitive feel. However, this will be hard to compare with actual matches or at least the familiar scrims that are part of a professional player’s routine.
Conclusion
The Lunar New Year break is a necessary time for rest but will be full of challenges. Teams themselves need to make reasonable decisions, balancing the time of their players. To maintain good results after a long break, time management and focus on career goals are very important during this period.