It’s been a fairly solid start to another year of the KeSPA Cup. With a few upsets and great individual performances, what can fans take away from these matches? Let’s take a look at a few takeaways from the elimination round of the KeSPA Cup as the competition continues.
LCK Teams Struggling
While it’s obvious that teams will struggle in the first tournament of the season with their new teams, a few LCK teams have struggled quite a bit so far. From KT Rolster’s disastrous early game in Game 1 against KeG Ulsan to Afreeca Freecs’ struggles in Game 2 against Rockhead, there have been quite a few scary moments for these teams. While these two team were able to take advantage of their roster’s veteran presence to win out in the end, newly promoted APK wasn’t as lucky in their match against former Challengers opponent Brion Blade. APK would struggle through the whole series and look much weaker without the presence of jungler Lee “KaKAO” Byung-kwon.
While these rosters are still fairly new and lack synergy, KeSPA Cup is still a fairly reasonable indication of how teams will do to start the season off. As such while these teams don’t have to panic just yet, it could be a bad sign of things to come especially considering the performances of some other teams.
Challengers will be Competitive
As mentioned before, it’s still too early to tell, but the upcoming season of Challengers Korea could be a very entertaining one to follow. With some great performances so far from the likes of Brion Blade and Team Dynamics, the teams continue to look better and better after being at the top of Challengers in 2019. Along with some new and improved rosters from both Jin Air Green Wings and Spear Gaming, the competition in Challengers Korea will be better than ever.
Overall, with all the great teams in challengers, both Challengers Korea and the future Promotion tournaments will feature some strong competition. Will fans see the rise of a new Griffin this year? It’s definitely too early to tell for now, but it’s looking more and more likely.
The Future Remains Bright
Despite all the doom and gloom surrounding the Korean region after two seasons of lackluster performances internationally by their representatives, the future continues to look good for the region. With some talented young players in Challenger like Lee “Rich” Jae-won and Kim “Asper” Tae-gi; DragonX’s roster minus the veteran Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu; and the KeG teams, there’s some great talent to look forward to.
Will the young players of the future have what it takes to make Korea the top dogs again? For now, not yet. But with the help and leadership of the veterans of the league, they’ll quickly become unstoppable.
To watch League of Legends tournaments, visit watch.na.lolesports.com. For more information on the Split, teams, standings and players, visit www.lolesports.com. Recaps of former weeks and other LoL content can be found at https://thegamehaus.com/league-of-legends/.
Featured image courtesy of @KeSPAen twitter.
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