The NA LCS has had some successful import stories in players like Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg and Ham “Lustboy”Jang-sik, but nobody on the scale of former SKT T1 Season 3 World Champions Gwang-jin "Piglet" Chae and Eon-yeong “Impact” Jung. Yet after a highly anticipated Week 2 NA LCS debut, the Korean hype train was brought to a sudden halt.
Their rocky first games against Cloud9 and Counter Logic Gaming spawned the jokes "Welcome to NA" and "tilt the Koreans," but it wasn’t that Piglet and Impact had fallen from grace. It was that the veteran players on Cloud9 and Counter Logic Gaming were all finely tuned and on the same wavelength. It seems that no matter how good a team’s players might be, if they can’t communicate efficiently, they’re playing at a major disadvantage.
Lost in Translation
When William "Meteos" Hartman spoke in the post-game interview after Cloud9's victory over Team Liquid, he mentioned that Cloud9, while scrimming Liquid, have the joke ‘tilt Piglet.’ Though that idea was taken and run with quite a ways by viewers, that’s all it was; a joke without substance.
Those still holding onto the idea that NA ganged up on the new kids need to look to Cloud9’s team composition in that game. With an Irelia top, Vi jungle, Lissandra mid, Kalista AD carry, and an Annie support, it quickly seemed as though it was Piglet versus the world. “It was a comp very well suited for bursting whatever focus target we decided on,” Hai "Hai" Lam explained. And as it turns out, what Cloud9’s success really came down to was simply a strong team composition and solid communication.
"I don't really care about player’s past accomplishments, especially if they've been a millenia ago,” Hai says. “You treat every player, regardless of their accomplishments, the same.”
His teammate Zach “Sneaky” Scuderi seems to agree, mentioning in his in-game snippet how Cloud9 don’t worry about who they’re up against on the Rift. Instead, they prepare and play against each team equally.
While Cloud9 can swiftly call for strategies that everyone understands, Team Liquid’s language barrier can hold an otherwise fantastic player back if he’s unsure about a call spoken in English. Piglet may have been to the top during his career, but in a team that speaks two different languages, plans can easily go awry. When speaking to Piglet, he explained to Lolesports that teamwork and English were his biggest challenges playing in the NA LCS so far.
Counter Logic Gaming’s victory against Team Impulse, according to Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black, was no different. They capitalized on mistakes and simply worked as a well oiled machine.
“If you’re cohesive as a team you’ll overcome just a single player god, like if you’re playing against Faker. If you have a really good team and your team is way better, then Faker can’t really do much,” Aphromoo says.
He credits some of CLG’s success to their ease of communication and a lack of a language barrier. Not only can they all fluently speak English, but they’ve all played together or against each other. Because of their history and existing relationships, it’s not hard for them to stay on the same page, and in turn, stay united one step ahead of the enemy.
“Team Impulse has a pretty weird dynamic,” Aphromoo says. “They have a Korean, they have a Chinese player, some NA players, and personally, having communication issues is really a downfall.”
It cannot be denied that Team Impulse lays claim to some serious talent. A former champion, a solo queue king, a reigning MVP mid laner, and an up and coming support. But skill or no, without the ability to easily communicate before, during, or after a game, it may be some time before their cylinders are all firing in unison.
“If I was in that position, I would try and play as safe as possible and hopefully understand my team. Because most of the time it’s just because of miscommunication that you’re messing up,” Aphromoo says.
To see how everyone performs this week, be sure to check out the NA LCS this Saturday and Sunday on Lolesports.
I'd say this is the problem Elements have too. Thinking Rekkles would be the magic X-factor that would fix all their problems when Tabzz was around has proven to be a load of horseshit, especially after this week. Its a case of people thinking talent > cohesion, and it rarely-if ever- works. Might be for different reasons that Elements and Liquid/Impulse fail, but they're fundamentally similar; none of them have fixed the real problems that are holding them back.
Aww man, poor Koreans :/ It must be so tough for them to have to come to North America and have to compete with North Amercians. It's really too bad they don't have their own LCS in Korea that they can participate in. Oh wait...
