Indie Label: Machi 17 defies the LMS hierarchy
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It's been a hard road for Jun-Dee "Dee" Chen and Jian-Hong "Dreamer" Ceng. The Machi 17 bot lane duo are all that's left of the original team that challenged the Garena Premier League in 2014, only to get mired into trouble at the very onset with sudden player bans and frantic last-second recruits. For a while, even organization founder and hip hop artist Jeffrey Huang stepped in to play for them, technically making him the oldest pro player in esports history.
Machi was among the teams expected to qualify into the new LoL Master Series the following spring. The hard knocks and harsh lessons learned over the course of 2014 was supposed to give them an edge over their Nova League peers back home in Taipei. But that never materialized. At the last second, their slot was swiped out of their hands by the team now known as Never Give Up -- a very nearly lethal turn of fortunes for the team’s esports dreams.
But Machi are back now. And more importantly, they're winning.
Meanwhile, the original squad was down to two men, their professional careers seemingly on their deathbeds.
"I thought about giving up back then," said Dee. "Dreamer and I just spent the time [over Spring] playing solo queue, not knowing what to do."
Organization founder Jeff Huang was naturally upset, given the nature of their qualifier loss. "My guys are pro players, they play full time, they lost to an amateur team. It's not right, right? It's like a college team beating an NBA team.” After the loss, top laner Chan-Chin "Ender" Liao entered military service, while jungle and mid were let go, leaving only Dreamer and Dee. “I felt that the two guys I had [left on the team] worked really hard throughout the year, and they deserved a second chance."
Recruiting for the three open spots proved challenging, given the region's small player population and Garena's approach to player offenses. "We looked through the whole Taiwan group, and there's a lot of players, but a lot of them are banned for Elo boosting," said Huang. As a result, it took time to nail down the final members of the Machi roster.
Though they eventually acquired former HK Attitude Priest player You-Lin "Bobo" Wang, that still left the crucial mid and jungle openings to fill. Huang eventually settled with following an international trend: recruiting promising Korean talents to fill in roster gaps. Enter mid laner Geun-Tae "Republic" Bong and jungler Yun-Sang "Fiesta" Lee, drawn out of Korean solo queue with the help of Huang's South Korean contacts.
Established teams like TPA and Flash Wolves spend most of their time practicing on Korean servers as well. Given the difficulty in acquiring Korean accounts for new teams, it makes it difficult for them to enjoy the same level of practice. Yet in the face of these complications, even the players that have suffered the most hardships under Machi are confident of their long-term odds.
"Korea's solo queue is stronger than Taiwan's only by a little bit," claimed Dee. "The difference isn't really the server you play on, but the amount of time you put into practice. The bottom four don't practice as much as the top four. We practice enough that we have the qualifications for being a top four team."
Machi might not be reliant on Korean solo queue or staff, but it might still be the Korean influence that ultimately pushes them over the edge. Republic and Fiesta's example has a transformative effect for the team. "I've seen the dedication and amount of time Korean players put in, and it's much higher than the kids in Taiwan," claimed Huang. "And just bringing one onboard, I think it inspired Dee and Dreamer to see what was possible."
Machi 17 is currently among the top four teams early into the summer split. Huang isn't satisfied yet, though. "We're not playing for top four," he says. "We're playing for the number one spot."
Dreamer, Dee, BoBo, Fiesta and Republic have their crosshairs set for the Flash Wolves and ahq E-Sports Club, the current frontrunners of Taiwan’s LoL Master Series. The circuit broadcasts weekly, Wednesday through Friday, at Garena Taiwan’s Twitch.tv channel.
Rough audition
Though the Machi brand did make it into the Spring Split for the first couple weeks, it wasn't for very long, and it wasn't with Dee or Dreamer. Huang had acquired the qualified roster of Team Hopeless in January, temporarily branding them as Machi Crew, the organization’s second team. But in echoes of the main squad's misfortunes last year, their top laner was quickly suspended, and struggled to find relevance even against other rookie teams. Machi Crew separated from Machi only a few weeks later, and the latter became the ill-fated team of Dream or Reality that infamously failed to pick up a single win over the entire split.
Meanwhile, the original squad was down to two men, their professional careers seemingly on their deathbeds.
"I thought about giving up back then," said Dee. "Dreamer and I just spent the time [over Spring] playing solo queue, not knowing what to do."
Organization founder Jeff Huang was naturally upset, given the nature of their qualifier loss. "My guys are pro players, they play full time, they lost to an amateur team. It's not right, right? It's like a college team beating an NBA team.” After the loss, top laner Chan-Chin "Ender" Liao entered military service, while jungle and mid were let go, leaving only Dreamer and Dee. “I felt that the two guys I had [left on the team] worked really hard throughout the year, and they deserved a second chance."
Recruiting for the three open spots proved challenging, given the region's small player population and Garena's approach to player offenses. "We looked through the whole Taiwan group, and there's a lot of players, but a lot of them are banned for Elo boosting," said Huang. As a result, it took time to nail down the final members of the Machi roster.
Though they eventually acquired former HK Attitude Priest player You-Lin "Bobo" Wang, that still left the crucial mid and jungle openings to fill. Huang eventually settled with following an international trend: recruiting promising Korean talents to fill in roster gaps. Enter mid laner Geun-Tae "Republic" Bong and jungler Yun-Sang "Fiesta" Lee, drawn out of Korean solo queue with the help of Huang's South Korean contacts.
Going Indie
As happens with multinational squads, there was always a possibility of communication issues within Machi 17. Fortunately, Huang has tools to alleviate those issues. "I speak a little Korean, so I handle a lot of the translation myself," said Huang. "I try to force these guys to practice Chinese and English to communicate more. So far, I think it's improving every day -- but I would grade our communication skills at a D- right now. When we play against ahq, I would say we're at an F+." A lack of strong scrim partners compounds the team's difficulties at present. Teams like TPA and Flash Wolves are known to regularly practice against LPL and LCK teams. But Machi's exposure to the greater Asian circuit is limited. "If we had beaten ahq [in Week One], we would've probably gotten more scrims," said Huang. "I don't really think scrims will be a problem if we do well, but if you don't do well, people don't want to scrim with you. You're wasting their time. It's a very cutthroat scene."
Established teams like TPA and Flash Wolves spend most of their time practicing on Korean servers as well. Given the difficulty in acquiring Korean accounts for new teams, it makes it difficult for them to enjoy the same level of practice. Yet in the face of these complications, even the players that have suffered the most hardships under Machi are confident of their long-term odds.
"Korea's solo queue is stronger than Taiwan's only by a little bit," claimed Dee. "The difference isn't really the server you play on, but the amount of time you put into practice. The bottom four don't practice as much as the top four. We practice enough that we have the qualifications for being a top four team."
Machi might not be reliant on Korean solo queue or staff, but it might still be the Korean influence that ultimately pushes them over the edge. Republic and Fiesta's example has a transformative effect for the team. "I've seen the dedication and amount of time Korean players put in, and it's much higher than the kids in Taiwan," claimed Huang. "And just bringing one onboard, I think it inspired Dee and Dreamer to see what was possible."
Machi 17 is currently among the top four teams early into the summer split. Huang isn't satisfied yet, though. "We're not playing for top four," he says. "We're playing for the number one spot."
Dreamer, Dee, BoBo, Fiesta and Republic have their crosshairs set for the Flash Wolves and ahq E-Sports Club, the current frontrunners of Taiwan’s LoL Master Series. The circuit broadcasts weekly, Wednesday through Friday, at Garena Taiwan’s Twitch.tv channel.