So far at Mid-Season Invitational 2023, Chinese and Korean teams have reigned supreme over European and North American ones, beating them in convincing fashion. Following their 3-0 defeat to T1, MAD Lions’ head coach outlined one gameplay element in which LCK and LPL teams are way better than the Western squads.
James “Mac” MacCormack explained there are many differences between Western and Eastern teams, though the biggest one is teamfighting, he said in an interview with PentaQ Esports on May 10.
“There are many many factors [of shortcomings of Western teams compared to Eastern ones], like there’s fundamentals, there’s kinda individual player mechanics. […] If I had to choose like only one thing I would say it’s teamfighting,” Mac claimed.
“Teamfighting from LCK and LPL teams, teamfighting around dragons, teamfighting around Nashors was really really good, and I think you could see that in our series today,” he added. Furthermore, the coach specifically pointed out the first game between MAD and T1, where the European representatives got themselves a significant early lead, but couldn’t transform it into a victory due to T1’s teamfighting prowess around objectives.
So far, looking at MSI 2023’s results, it’s impossible to disagree. G2 Esports were hammered by LCK champions Gen.G with a 3-1 score, and MAD were obliterated on May 10 by T1, losing the third game in 16 minutes and 50 seconds, which was the second-fastest international League of Legends BO5 in history. In each of these games, European teams were trying to get ahead via early advantages, but Eastern squads shut them down with exceptional teamfighting and macro.
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We’ll shortly see if the NA representatives have any idea on how to counter these aspects. Cloud9 enters the fray on May 11 in a match against LPL’s Bilibili Gaming, while Golden Guardians face the Chinese champions JD Gaming the following day.
