Twenty-five minutes into SK Telecom T1's group stage match with China's EDward Gaming at the League of Legends World Championship in Wuhan, China, the home crowd could not be happier. Each kill against the three-time world champion South Korean club SKT raised the audience decibels to the next level. A sea of fans lit up the stands like a Christmas tree, holding signs displaying love for EDG players on light-up boards. In a game in which the crowd favorite, EDward Gaming, needed to get ahead early to have a chance, it did just that. One kill after another, it was on the verge of being one of the fastest and most dominating victories at the tournament this year. SKT wobbled and was out of sorts; every opportunity to stabilize was taken away by EDG, and each successful maneuver was backed by a unified roar of approval from the audience. Getting ahead of SKT was one thing, but this was a whole different scenario. This wasn't a simple snowballing of a first kill into a solid gold advantage. This was an avalanche. But then, EDG was winning until it wasn't anymore. Like countless times before, a new challenger had posed a threat to SKT's claim of best in the world, and once again, that challenger failed in miraculous fashion. When the South Koreans walked to the stage following their historic comeback win over the Chinese league champion, the stunned crowd dropped their personalized signs to the ground and could muster only a respectful cheer, still in disbelief. The fans wanted to believe EDG could become a rival to the best team in the world. Unfortunately, at the moment, SKT has no true rival. And if nothing improves in South Korea or the rest of the world, there won't be a real challenger for the foreseeable future. Although the name Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok is the first one you think of about the dynasty of SKT, the fruits of success of the world's most decorated esports organization were laid long before the gaming prodigy booted up a computer for the first time. |)League of Legends streamer tyler1 announced that his next Solo Queue challenge is reaching Challenger tier on auto-fill. He added that he would be doing this challenge on the Korean server alongside another streamer, Tarzaned. The duo will be flying to Korea in late April. It has been a little over two months since Tyler “tyler1” Steinkamp hit Challenger while playing the role of a support in the North American (NA) Solo Queue. Notably, with this achievement, tyler1 reached the Challenger tier in all five roles in League of Legends (LoL). Following this, tyler1 revealed that he shall be flying to South Korea for his next challenge where he will autofill his way to Challenger on the super-competitive Korean server. It was two years ago in 2020 when tyler1 set out to reach Challenger by creating new accounts for every role to grind in ranked Solo Queue. On 19th February, tyler1 finished his “support challenge” and interestingly, this role was the shortest run for the LoL player and streamer. His achievement was lauded by the community and also Riot Games, which even sent him custom light-up Challenger emblems and medals. Tyler1 reveals his next challengeThe 26-year-old streamer announced on a Twitch broadcast that he would be doing an auto-fill to Challenger run in Korea alongside streamer Julian “Tarzaned” Farokhian. He added that the duo would be flying to Korea in late April. It shall be interesting to see which of the two streamers are the first to make it out of the lower ranks in the Korean ladder and then reach the higher tiers. Korea’s Solo Queue is often deemed as the most competitive server filled with mechanically good players and this might provide top-notch content for tyler1’s streams which are always entertaining. Meanwhile, former Cloud9’s League of Legends head coach Nick “LS” De Cesare, who has lived in Korea for ten years now, opined that the streamer might not be able to achieve what he has set out to do. He stated, “Tyler climbed by being smarter than NA players, while also having advantageous ping. On Korea, the problem is Silver and Gold players will have better mechanics than Tyler’s used to playing in his average games.” LS added that tyler1’s idea of doing the auto-fill might help him deal with some of the “basket-case” teammates in Korean Solo Queue. Despite the level of competition and mechanics that the region offers, Korea has not been spared its Solo Queue woes. In March, Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok, star player and mid-laner of T1, voiced his frustrations about the state of the Korean Solo Queue and compared it to slot machines. tyler1 and Faker at 2019 All Star event According to tyler1, the easiest role to climb the ranked ladder in NA was support. He said that he was on auto-pilot for most of the games while playing support and reached Challenger in a relatively short span of time as opposed to the other roles. It will be interesting to see how the NA streamer adapts to the Korean ranked ladder and use his experience of playing all five roles efficiently. |