At Worlds 2023, JD Gaming is being hailed as the top contender for the championship. Currently, every position on their team is performing exceptionally well, especially the Korean duo: Kanavi – Ruler. Moreover, the motivation for JDG’s players to believe in the championship is the opportunity to achieve the first “Grand Slam” in professional League of Legends history, having already won two domestic titles and MSI 2023.
However, recently, many viewers have noticed a truth: Ruler still does not communicate well with his Chinese teammates, especially in tense moments during matches. Specifically, in the match against Team BDS, as Ruler was preparing to move to the Mid Lane to clear minions while his teammates were gathering around the Baron pit, Missing and Knight warned that Adam (with Garen) might be lurking somewhere. But Ruler did not grasp the situation.
Fortunately, afterwards, although Ruler was silenced, he still had enough health to wait out the effects and unleash all his skills, from Flash to Kai’Sa’s Killer Instinct to escape. Of course, Ruler was not killed, but the JDG players also lost a timing on Baron and had to temporarily retreat afterwards.
However, for the audience of LoL, this only highlights how terrifying JDG truly is. Ruler joined at the beginning of 2023, but to this day, the communication issue indicates that this weakness has persisted since Spring 2023. Nevertheless, despite this, JDG has still won two domestic championships, defeating strong opponents like T1 and Bilibili Gaming (which consists entirely of domestic players) at MSI 2023 to claim the title. Therefore, some opinions suggest that once this weakness is addressed, JDG will become an even more perfect team than they currently are.
The players themselves have likely recognized the issue. They still have ample time at Worlds 2023 as JDG has already advanced to the Quarterfinals early. Once JDG truly eliminates these communication weaknesses due to language barriers, it may be difficult for any team to stop this roster from achieving greatness in the League of Legends scene.