The REAL reason LPL beats LCK every year 👑 

YES DOM. WE LOVE VIDEOS LIKE THIS. This is an impressive format where you get to flex your extensive knowledge to fully prove a point. People who are really interested in esports benefit from your in-depth videos.

Very true. The more you compete in a game 5 situation, the more comfortable you’ll be next time it happens.

Fun fact : In 2021 spring playoffs FPX played more games than all 6 LCK teams combined (FPX 20 - LCK 18)

LPL 2020 playoffs was insane too. TES vs JDG twice, two BO5, and thats clutch LvMao ult in game 5 of spring playoffs to win the chip.

It's LCK autumn once again

What's hilarious is that for the last 3 finals Dom has always predicted the lck team to win but lpl is just so clutch.

It`s funny to watch it after watching T1 oblirating whole LPL in worlds.

It is like a plant in the actual jungle vs. a plant in the green house.

It's obvious to me why. The lpl plays against every possible style in their split. There's so many types of teams the lpl have and the lck basically has one play style that you don't have to draft for and can win on skill alone. I typed this before watching the video. I can't believe I finally agree with you on something. Double elims or not the lck is too top heavy. You could have all lck teams in the tournament and t1 would never go to a game 5 against those teams.

LPL have verbal beatdowns, LCK dont have verbal beatdowns.

LPL A league vs LPL B league (LCK)

Who would have thought that having practice and experience in a previous game 5 would improve your chances of performing better.. Crazy stuff. AMAZING video Dom, 100% agree. More playoffs grinding matches = more chances of success in the games that matter, simple as that

Middle of the pack LPL teams >>>> Middle of the pack LCK teams. That has been the problem of the LCK. It is too top heavy for the LCK to be a better competition than the LPL.

LOVE when you do serious content breakdowns like this

The real reason? % of overall LOL accounts of the world: China: 57.19% vs. Korea: 6.44% This is the real reason but LCK won this year :)

I love this type of content from you, really plays to your strengths

bing shilling

Wonder how many LCK Twitter threads this video is gonna provoke... cant wait!

Just slam dunk on any doubts that LPL is the premier league now. Great content Dom I loved it

I can tell you one fact of the LPL, in game 5, LPL will always go for team fight comps, just because LPL game 5 will be exhausting, and if you got tired and blink, your team fight is over, thats how LPL works and LCK will never do the same thing because its not their way of playing the game.

Love when esports opinions are actually explained

One important thing to mention that showcases your point is that LCK teams never pull off upsets at Worlds or domestically.The last team that pulled off a major upset from LCK was Samsung when they won worlds,but that was in the Ardent meta that couldnt have been better for Samsung

The weird thing is that the LPL always walks in looking like the underdog. I remember last year at world EVERYONE was sure that DK would have won, some people expected 3-1 and other even predicted a 3-0 and no one thought it was impossible. Even this MSI everyone expected T1 to win, they were the perfect team and Faker was back to his god shape... nope again.

I feel like draft is just a cop out answer when the main problems are just in game issues

tl;dr : practice makes perfect

Here is a point that I strongly agree with: Even if you are a top pro player, after 4 intense games, your reaction, your patient, your performance will drop no matter how good you are. Maybe you can dodge a cc in game 1, you can't do it again in game 5, simply because we are humans. That kinda explain why lpl teams tends to have an engage team with more CCs. With more CCs, they can play more proactively, they know how game 5 works. On the other hand, lck teams dont even have a chance to play a game 5.

We always appreciate content like this brother Dominico.

If you made T1 play bo5 against whole region to go to msi they still wouldnt get a single game 5 in there because LPL has so many good teams and LCK has one or two at most who are just dominating everyone.

One indicative difference Dom quickly mentioned is the styles between two regions. LPL teams always favor more sort of a team fight comp in game 5 with a big cc sup and some retired pros from LPL explained that it’s always assuring to see that you have stable cc in game 5 instead of some protective sup champs that seem to allow more mistakes while it’s not true

I think what Dom's pointing out is simply the number of games available for LPL teams to adapt; the best of fives, besides the clutches, give LPL teams a chance to lose and they literally get a second chance for all their coaches and players to sit down and revise what the meta is, what the draft is, how they play their potential new comps, and what the priorities are for each side. Regardless of MSI's tournament issues, RNG's win is bred through practice against different styles to adapt to not only the most meta and strongest picks but also the hustle and the grind of trial and error to surprise the insane win rate teams from other regions. Obviously, the 17-team league LPL has helped, but that's population size difference: for other regions to catch up, it's gotta be a balancing of teams and simply a format that allows more games for testing the waters and being experimental: the meta might seem obvious, but there's always the one pick you get surprised by through the number of games that slaps the b/p aside and ruins the comps practiced. This MSI was the lissandra counter-pick to ahri, which was dominant the whole tournament - teams can't exactly adapt to a new pick comfortable immediately, and for LCK; it was clear that they went with comps they were comfortable with rather than adapt to the draft changes LPL makes, and thus fail to adapt to their familiar team comps and strategies when something unexpected occurs.

One of the best analysis videos in recent time. I don't get how double elimination is still not a thing in LCK playoffs and I also don't get how EU and even NA doesn't play regualr bo 3-s in their splits. It is crazy how much more time the LPL and even LCK practices than the western regions.

Rng is that good, they played 2 finals in 2022, Sheesh

Other region leagues should look to learn from LPL

LPL playoffs format showing that pressure makes diamonds

This is great content. Thanks for videos like this

I 90% agree but the non top 2/3 teams in LCK are usually not great so I don't know how competitive it would be even with DE, more games would be good for the top teams though for the experience I guess

Can you do a new video for 2022 Worlds on why every lpl team lost?

Image putting T1 in LPL playoff against RNG,EDG,V5,TES,JDG,LNG,WBG etc . How many BO5 can T1 handle. Or putting the top 4 LPL teams in MSI, can T1 ends up 2nd place or even make it to the final? Even if T1 make it to the final , it definitely won’t be 3-0 sweep in semifinal. I’m saying LCK is way too less competitive, many seasons back team SNAKE had to play 2 BO5s in the same day and both series went 5 games.

very well put together, dope content

Loved the video and the angles you took to make your argument. Hopefully the LCK folks seriously consider changing their format to double elim.

Why does LPL team lose to LCK every year should be the next video😅

Meanwhile the LEC teams are playing only about 60 games (at most) a year, whereas the LPL/LCK teams are playing double that.

Love videos like this, not just going around with some bias “facts” but actually breaking down the formula that is in place and critiquing it and providing a solution to make it better. Great work on the video Dom would love to see double elimination implemented in all the leagues but I know that won’t happen for separate reasons. If we can get more videos like this one I’d be one happy subscriber (already am happy with the content you put out, I’d just be more happy with the content lol)

RIOT logic: sooooo we decided to ban lpl's double elimination system because it made them too op against other regions

Aged like milk

Videos like these show your best side dom. Pls make more, I’m sure ppl on the fence about u would love these vids as well.

that's why you shouldn't get hyped for teams with insane winrates. it just means that nobody really tested them. its not like t1 were getting really good drafts during their winstreak and because there wasn't double elim they didn't have to recover/adapt after a loss or face tougher competition. the ability to do so is what separates the best teams from good teams. resilience is why players are promoted to G.O.A.T. the same way you would rather have perkz on your team over larssen in a game 5, you would have better odds picking a team who had been through more over a team who hasn't had any resistance

Personally, I agree with Dom here. LPL has too many teams and some teams are really good in certain aspects of the game, e.g. brawling, tempo. This environment makes it easier to learn mutually from each other. LCK definitely has more talents but pro-plays are different from ranked soloqs, as it emphasizes more on how you strategize and run the game. Another reason why LCK will lose is that LPL has a caster called guanzeyuan, whose prophecies always backfired. He predicted FPX victory from spring to summer to worlds and FPX lost in the finals of both splits and thrashed in group stages. IIRC he also predicted DK will win as well XD.

imo it rlly just comes down to competiton within region. for example this last spring split EDG/Weibo/TES/V5/JDG all looked extremely strong. A good arguement could be made that any of those teams could have won MSI, while in LCK GenG was the closest thing to competition T1 ever had. I think LPL’s level as a whole is much much higher than that of any other region which therefore causes significant improvement during splits.

Spot on, time has changed and LCK needs to catch up to LPL now

Loved this. Need more of these types of vids where you just spew your intellect of the game. Maybe one predicting the meta shift

I'd love to see more analytic content from you, Dom. These videos always deliver. Maybe some LEC Summer predictions/expectations/teams analysis? 👀

Love these more analytical vids!

they also show that playing safe isnt 100% playing smart, they went and grabbed every important game match by the balls and came out on top every single time, you dont just fluke that 3 years in a row, though lck has put up decent fights their drafts are what really hold them back, id rather see lpl win though cause they have so many goddamn good teams whereas korea is like 1-2 and thats it, eu and na id only want to win worlds for the memes but if its a lpl win even when i think it might not be im never disappointed

Not exactly on theme, but i'm sick of players saying they are burnt out. I mean ofc it is an important factor and playing 24/7will get to you, and you need to stay healty mentally and physically to perform at your best. Also i know that scrimming and reviewing is a lot more stressful than just spamming solo queue games. But with all of this said, the western schedule is not demanding at all. we are taking of 2/3 games at week, plus 4/5 a week in playoff, withonly finals weekend being the exception. Saying they are burnt out for this little amount is really like spitting on my office job, which requires 8 to 10 hours daily 6 day a week, plus all the non paid extra you need to do on your "free" time, and just to get paid a misery. this was just to say: we need more series in europe, (also na but i wouldnt watch them anyway).

i love doms tone of voice in these type of videos. sounds so convincing

I feel like LPL also has a lot more parity. It doesn't matter what the playoff system is if you only have 1 team that's really contending for the championship. In LPL the top 6 teams could all win the championship if they play well.

This was a great fucking video

Dom's LCK bias is getting insane. He keeps incorrectly predicting T1 and DK will win international finals and has to come up with an excuse. When we get to Worlds Dom will pick whichever LCK team is playing in the finals over the LPL team.

It’s not only that the LPL team gets more best of 5 practice, it’s that the format selects the LPL team that is most clutch, and the best at adapting and learning. For example, what if Gen G was actually super good at learning and adapting and clutch this year, and had they had a lower bracket run, they would have learned in time in order to beat T1. While T1 was too stagnant. Now you get to international and Gen G can play vs LPL and learn and adapt and beat RNG easily. You also are selecting for the teams that can actually play clutch in high pressure as you said. Not just that the team has more practice in clutch moments. For example in Game 5 if RNG and TES play, the team that doesn’t come in playing super scared to make mistakes will be the ones that win. While you don’t have that selective pressure in the LCK playoffs.

I can't wait for the LS review of this video

I completely agree with this format issue. One other thing is just than even the lck had double elim, let's say last year, DK would've theoretically breezed through regardless. Maybe some 3-1s but mostly would've breezed through in my opinion. Teams just seem to be a lot less aggressive when it comes to playing against certain "strong teams" DK last year, T1 this year. For example teams just didn't contest T1 for heralds in the LCK, or never tried to smite flight those baron flips, but for LPL maybe even LEC, lower standing teams can still be aggressive and put up a fight.

I love the stream and game highlights you put out but really enjoyed this video and breakdown. Would love to see more content like this!

very interesting take dom, love it

Love the draft analysis

Great vid! Only thing I'd say is I'd love if you had someone bring an opposing view to discuss points like this with. To be clear I love the talkshows and vids like this are a welcome addition. Sort of like when yourself and monte discussed goats of league, makes for a really interesting listen when there's different opinions or views on topics like this.

LPL format requires a league with more teams and teams being more competitive. The 3 other major regions are all very top heavy and with 10 teams each. Seems really hard to duplicate

Really insightful stuff, Dom. Love it.

Nice vid, it really opened my mind.

And to add LPL is far more entertaining compared to Lck. Lck has maybe 15 kills per game. LPL there’s like a fight happening constantly.

excellent vid, Dom. thanks for this

This is a very good video, learned a lot. Thank you Dom.

I went to look up the LPL 2021 Summer and was gobsmacked to see Victory 5 LAST PLACE in the split! Not only that, but then they got 1st place 2022's spring split, and 3rd place in the play-offs. they changed the ENTIRE Team with the exception of Invincible. This is so absolutely crazy how the team turned themselves around in 5 months to become a top 3 contender. It shows just how competitive the orgs are over in china.

Very informative, great video

Silly Dom, it was just the ping xD

That's what I'm saying. Game 5 is very different because of the amount of pressure that you will take. and LPL has so many best of 5 games if you are in middle of the season. t1 doesn't have an experience in game except faker. so that is the difference

Great video. I would have liked an analysis of blue-side wins vs. red-side wins to debunct the myth of the blue-side superiority.

Thank you, Dom, for the perspective! I never thought to look at formats like this, your analysis is great!

This is a very good take. Good vid Dom

I really like double elim but one thing I really think they should fix is that winners side grand finals can lose a single series and be out. FPX won a series 3-0 and lost a series 1-3 and yet EDG won the tournament. A true double elim would mean that FPX would get another shot at grand finals in a second Bo5 against EDG. For scheduling reasons this may not be feasible, but I think a good alternative would be a Bo7 where the winner’s side teams starts up a single game. So FPX would need 3 wins before EDG got 4. That way you are still capped at 6 games rather than 10 (with bracket reset) making scheduling feasible

Double Elims help, but the numbers make it possible. The LPL has 17 teams which makes allows for a 10 team playoff. That alone adds way more games and then double elims give the opportunity for even more.

KEEP GOING DOM

This is sick content dom. Good work.

LCK is just too much about idolizing players and not enough on learning the meta. When there are too many fans and pressure nobody wants to make mistakes, but that also severely limits a proactiveness thats really needed this meta.

Blue side is the biggest bs I have ever heard... and I say that as the least sane T1 fan. Sure T1 could have won with better draft etc. but its not about that - the LCK format has always ALWAYS been shit for years we had this "king of the hill" format with one bo3 into three bo5s... with the 1. place seed only playing one series Even then people said that the 1. place is actually at a disadvantage due to the lack of practice / on stage games he gets. Now we improved to this current format - but of course its sill not great... 1. LCK needs more teams, just allow sister teams - all top teams have enough talent in the challenger leagues, 2. similar to the LPL or West - a play off format with more Bo5s // double elimination...

I think that a big reason is that the LPL has more good teams than any other region which allows for much better practice

For the last 3 world's stage finals I always predicted LPL partly because I'm a big LPL fan , no matter how stacked the odds are against them. Time and time again LPL prove that they always have something to bring to the table, and im proud of them.

Great video!!! Love this type of content from you

thank god for these videos

LPL is the hypest league but the gauntlet is part of how they are so resilient but probably also why they chose so hard cause they're super exhausted. I'm pretty sure they finish the last of any league because of the amount of games in their playoffs. meanwhile EU and NA have a 18 game season. what a god damn joke. and we wonder why we get shit stomped when we have best of 1s for the regular season. battle tested indeed. It's such a joke that a game with such diverse possible champion combinations is shoe horned into a "meta". Teams should be good enough to pick more unorthodox champions/lanes and push through with advantages and close games out. Be forced to adapt so we get more variety it's exciting. Give me more lane 1 v 1s how can such an over tuned champion like yone barely see any play in comp when you have some of the craziest big dick players. yeah yeah yeah solo q =/= competitive but why can't we get exciting pop offs. cause people are so god damn scared to lose. double elimination is just better for the game. For the people who think a best of 1 upset is exciting... enjoy that cheese falling apart and them getting fisted in a best of 3 or 5 after getting banned out or just outplayed. It's not good for anyone for these limp dick formats.

You've really got some insights into this...High quality video

Your analysis was brilliant. Thanks

1AM on a Sunday is def the best time we have our best thoughts. LCK should have there tournaments on Sunday mornings.

Good stuff as always dom!

The fact that LPL as more teams does play into this. The LCK has enough fandom and players they could probably make a few more teams

I think it's the regional style thing. Teams in lck don't like to make mistake. They play like a machine. They like to play through laning phase and building leads. Then slowly chock others to death. Lpl On the other hand. Its kinda messy. Teams in Lpl r always believe They Can pull up miracle fight so they constantly to find opportunity to fight. Edgs coach zhukai said outloud in their documentary " i rather u guys stand up to fight to death than u knee down to win. " so i think that's why Lpl Teams r more mentally prepared in game Five.

Lec and NA must also watch this.

good fcking video. Very informative and well researched.

video edit error rng vs dwg was MSI 2021

great content dom and good points