Is this the rise of the Chinese teams?

For the first time since the Season 2 World Championships, a Chinese based team has taken out the title as the world’s best team. The finals of the 2018 League of Legends World Championship took place on Saturday, which saw Invictus Gaming defeat the west’s last hope, Fnatic, 3-0 in a clean sweep.

Outnumbered in the semi-finals

This year’s Worlds semifinals was undoubtedly one of the most unpredictable course of events ever, with no Korean teams advancing to the semi-finals stage. In comparison, one North American team, two European teams and one Chinese team were left standing. This situation certainly hyped the League of Legends esports community to a never seen before level, the semi-finals stage of worlds this year being the western region’s highest chance to finally claim the top spot. While the Esports odds were stacked against Invictus Gaming, they completely dominated their way to victory, going undefeated in both the semifinals against G2, and the finals against Fnatic.

Rise of the Chinese

Considering the weakness exhibited by the Korean teams this year, failure to change their meta playstyle would lead to Korea falling further behind. Considering the strengths displayed by the Chinese teams this year (a strength well above EU and NA as shown by Invictus), it’s likely that more LMS teams will claim the top spots in International events like the Mid-Season Invitationals and even Worlds next year.

Judging by the finals match in which Invictus rolled Fnatic over, where they had lost extremely decisively in all three games, completely getting out maneuvered, the China look extremely promising. The competitive League of Legends scene in China has grown exponentially over the past few years, with tens of millions of supporters in the region. While League of Legends may be losing out to Fortnite over in the west, LoL continues to grow in China. If China can continue to dominate the world scene competitively, greater investment will continue in the LMS, pushing the region further ahead of NA, EU and even the long time overlords, KR.