How Team Impulse tipped the scales
Riot·3/27/2015, 9:00:01 PM·0 votes·14,385 views
"Communication is the big problem for me."
"Communication is the biggest problem on our team."
"Because of the communication, we didn't play well."
Every player on Team Impulse gives me the same answer when I ask what their biggest hurdle has been this split: the fact that their teammates speak three different languages.
Team Impulse is a diverse group of dudes. In early 2015, they left their separate homes in Korea, China, and USA to play League of Legends together in Southern California. They have plenty of in-game experience -- heck, one of them even won Worlds in 2013 -- but learning how to play together has been a whole new Baron to battle.
"The organization treated me really well," XiaWeiXiao says. "And I love NA fans and players -- they're the main reasons I decided to stay."
The other two veterans on the squad approached the team from completely opposite directions. AD carry Apollo "Apollo" Price -- previously known as Wizfujiin -- left the University of Washington in early 2014 to play on Team Coast, but was relegated out of the NA LCS at the end of the split. After that humbling experience, he subbed on Challenger teams for six months before joining TiP to prove that he's finally ready to take on the best teams in NA.
But top laner Jung "Impact" Eon-yeong doesn't have to prove anything. He joined TiP with the highest pedigree: winning Worlds in 2013 with SK Telecom T1. After dominating the international stage with his Korean teammates, Impact says that he was eager to move to North America for his next challenge, and accepted the best offer he received.
The other two components of TiP were unknowns. Support Adrian "Adrian" Ma's only professional LoL experience was playing for XDG in a short playoff tournament for the NA LCS Challenger Series last November. He was just happy to be on the TiP roster.
Likewise, jungler Lee "Rush" Yoonjae had no professional experience. He had originally hoped to land a starting gig in his home country of Korea, but nothing worked out.
"Korean teams didn't want to recruit me as a main player -- only a sub," Rush explains. "I was a pure amateur who had no experience in the pro scene. Chinese teams made some offers to me, but I wanted to communicate in my own language. So I chose to join TiP, who recruited me as a starter and would let me communicate in English."
Although Rush didn't have much experience speaking English before joining TiP, he had taken classes in school and was already quite good at reading it.
"This is a completely new team," he says. "On LMQ, we played together for quite a long time and knew each other well. On TiP, it took a while for us to learn each other's playstyle. But everyone on the team is very friendly and we get along very well."
After talking with the players on TiP for awhile, I noticed two big trends: friendship and humility. They're eager to learn from each other, not blame each other. They sincerely want to improve as a team, and become friends while doing it. It reminds me of talking with the members of Cloud9 in their early days, when their unrivaled philosophy of "friendship first" lead them to unrivaled success in the region.
But TiP certainly didn't enjoy unrivaled success at the start of this split. It wasn't until Week 7 that they broke their curse of losing one game every week.
English is the team's main language used during games, and everyone is pitching in trying to improve communication. XiaWeiXiao, who's been working on his English ever since he moved from China to America over a year ago, practices constantly with Apollo and Adrian -- the only two native English speakers in the team's organization. Rush, who studied reading English in school, is trying to learn the spoken side of the language, while also doing his best to teach fellow Korean, Impact.
"As pro players, they don't have the time to take English lessons," Alex explains. "I'm not a native English speaker either. Judging from my own experiences, the best way to learn English is to have a good environment and learn from daily life."
So the team encourages the players to talk to each other in English whenever they can. But when they get stuck or need help learning, the full-time translator that lives in the house with the team jumps in to help them.
Alex noticed a key improvement in their language skills that he believes is reason behind the team's recent surge of success in the LCS. "They have started spontaneously speaking English with each other by themselves [without the translator]," he says, "which is the huge thing behind the improvement of communications."
Teaming Up
There's only one thing more diverse than TiP's hometowns -- their reasons for joining the team. Charismatic mid laner Yu "XiaoWeiXiao" Xian was always going to be the heart of this team. When LMQ rebranded as TiP during the offseason, only XiaoWeiXiao returned, and he did it for a very specific reason: the people.
"The organization treated me really well," XiaWeiXiao says. "And I love NA fans and players -- they're the main reasons I decided to stay."
The other two veterans on the squad approached the team from completely opposite directions. AD carry Apollo "Apollo" Price -- previously known as Wizfujiin -- left the University of Washington in early 2014 to play on Team Coast, but was relegated out of the NA LCS at the end of the split. After that humbling experience, he subbed on Challenger teams for six months before joining TiP to prove that he's finally ready to take on the best teams in NA.
But top laner Jung "Impact" Eon-yeong doesn't have to prove anything. He joined TiP with the highest pedigree: winning Worlds in 2013 with SK Telecom T1. After dominating the international stage with his Korean teammates, Impact says that he was eager to move to North America for his next challenge, and accepted the best offer he received.
The other two components of TiP were unknowns. Support Adrian "Adrian" Ma's only professional LoL experience was playing for XDG in a short playoff tournament for the NA LCS Challenger Series last November. He was just happy to be on the TiP roster.
Likewise, jungler Lee "Rush" Yoonjae had no professional experience. He had originally hoped to land a starting gig in his home country of Korea, but nothing worked out.
"Korean teams didn't want to recruit me as a main player -- only a sub," Rush explains. "I was a pure amateur who had no experience in the pro scene. Chinese teams made some offers to me, but I wanted to communicate in my own language. So I chose to join TiP, who recruited me as a starter and would let me communicate in English."
Although Rush didn't have much experience speaking English before joining TiP, he had taken classes in school and was already quite good at reading it.
A Shaky Start
No one on the team expected to have perfect chemistry immediately. Rush didn't even arrive in the country until three days before the NA LCS kicked off and Impact missed Week 1! They were far from perfect in their first games together, but XiaoWeiXiao saw promise."This is a completely new team," he says. "On LMQ, we played together for quite a long time and knew each other well. On TiP, it took a while for us to learn each other's playstyle. But everyone on the team is very friendly and we get along very well."
After talking with the players on TiP for awhile, I noticed two big trends: friendship and humility. They're eager to learn from each other, not blame each other. They sincerely want to improve as a team, and become friends while doing it. It reminds me of talking with the members of Cloud9 in their early days, when their unrivaled philosophy of "friendship first" lead them to unrivaled success in the region.
But TiP certainly didn't enjoy unrivaled success at the start of this split. It wasn't until Week 7 that they broke their curse of losing one game every week.
Understanding Each Other
What's amazing is that they still managed to win half of their games while struggling with even the most basic forms of communication. Remember, these five players spoke three different languages -- English, Korean, and Chinese -- with very little overlap at the start. At first, they tried to use single words during games to call for specific rotations or pushes onto objectives. But even that simple plan went askew, leading to conflicting actions in important moments. The problem was bad enough that the team's GM/COO Alex Gu added a section to the post-match analysis just for discussing their game vocabulary. "In every review section after our scrim," Alex explains, "we always have a small section to discuss the communications in the game. Which phrases we used, does the player understand what they all mean, or should we use an easier word instead, and so forth."English is the team's main language used during games, and everyone is pitching in trying to improve communication. XiaWeiXiao, who's been working on his English ever since he moved from China to America over a year ago, practices constantly with Apollo and Adrian -- the only two native English speakers in the team's organization. Rush, who studied reading English in school, is trying to learn the spoken side of the language, while also doing his best to teach fellow Korean, Impact.
"As pro players, they don't have the time to take English lessons," Alex explains. "I'm not a native English speaker either. Judging from my own experiences, the best way to learn English is to have a good environment and learn from daily life."
So the team encourages the players to talk to each other in English whenever they can. But when they get stuck or need help learning, the full-time translator that lives in the house with the team jumps in to help them.
Alex noticed a key improvement in their language skills that he believes is reason behind the team's recent surge of success in the LCS. "They have started spontaneously speaking English with each other by themselves [without the translator]," he says, "which is the huge thing behind the improvement of communications."
