The interview with Young American on LPL
After a long and wonderful match day of MSI tournament, we still feel happy because of the games played and the fascinating blue sky in Florida. On the second day of the tournament, we caught some audience between the matches started to ask them something about their views on China and Chinese League of Legends.
The audience we interviewed come from different background and of course carry different thought on our questions. Some of them never thought about travelling to China, while some audience showed more enthusiasm about Chinese culture. Most of them didn’t play League of Legends as their first game. But today, they all come here because of the game.
The interviewees actually have something in common when we talked about our country. They’dall never been to China before, but they did hear of LPL league. Also, they told us Chinese teams are always very competitive for the champion.
And of course we luckily met some audience who are quite familiar with Chinese League of Legends situation.
Jacob is a native boy who’s been playing League of Legends since 13 years old. His best rating was Diamond II in the NA platform, though he doesn’t pay much attention to the ranking system. He told us that the most interesting part of League of Legends was that every game was a fresh different experience as the game started.
When we told them we came from China, this young boy excitedly told us one of his favorite champion in LOL was wukong. “I like his W skill very much. You can almost feel the confusion and wrath when your enemies are cheated.” Jacob could become so excited when he talked about League of Legends. So when he knew the Middle-season Invitation event was held in his own town, he felt happy about it.
Like Team WE in China, TSM is the most popular team in the USA. Even the team doesn’t play well in the games, the crowd will always yell out their names to cheer the team up. Jacob likes TSM too.
“I always support TSM, it’s my favorite League of Legends team. I’m big fan of Bjergsen. They crushed down their enemies in LCS this year. They deserve a world champion of their own.” Jacob told us these words before TSM started their games.
When asked about the LPL league and Chinese players, Jacob surprisingly knew the names of Chinese teams and players so well.
“Team WE played quite well in IEM in the past. And I know something about EDG which already came here for the MSI, too. We’re all talking about how strong EDG is, and they could be a great competitor for the final champion. As to players, Uzi is the first Chinese player I knew. He looks small, but he can be so cruel and powerful during a game.”
We also interviewed with a couple of friends named John and Andrew. They are both college students who are about to graduate from school soon. John, the nerdy one, is planning to be an accountant.While Andrew, the muscle one, wants to try to take League of Legends as a career.
When we asked them their opinions about Chinese League of Legends, Andrew told us he thought EDG was always good at making decisions and executions. He also thought the ban/pick strategies of LPL league and LCK league should be learned by other leagues. His friend John said to us that Chinese players always have the strongest personal technology just like Korean players. But their teamwork and preparation job didn’t do so well as Korean teams. And Chinese players seemed to carry more pressure during the game which may led to bad performance.
Comparing with Chinese native players, these audience seem to know better about the Korean players in LPL league who became famous during S4 finals. Korean Players like Deft and Pawn are quite popular here.
Diamond is a student from a business college who has the same name with the famous juggle player from Team GMB. He has been a fan of Pawn since Pawn was in the Samsung White. He think it’s a good thing that more and more Korean players transferred into other leagues.
Another interesting thing we know from the audience is that the number of people who watched S4 finals was even larger than the number who watched NBA grand finals and the famous super bowl. Even traditional media like ESPN broadcasted League of Legends matches already.
Before we said to Andrew and his close friend. He asked me to be the guide if he has an opportunity to Shanghai. But the reason why he wants to go there seems to be kind of funny. He said he wants to experience the “Chinese unique pressure” in Shanghai because he doesn’t feel any pressure at home. As a Chinese, I don’t quite think he can handle that so easily as he might think.
Andrew said to us that he liked Shanghai because the Hollywood movie “Shanghai Noon” Stared by Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson. Since I didn’t watch the movie before, so I guess we have our entertainment plan this night when we get back to our hotel.