The discipline of the Marines.

The Gigabyte Marines arrived at MSI quietly. The champions of Vietnam and South East Asia qualified to the tournament without much fanfare. For most analysts, they weren’t supposed to make it out of the Play-In stage.

It’s hard to disagree with their opinions, after all, they study the game at the highest level and MSI is a tournament of champions, the pinnacle of international competition and the second most prestigious tournament in League of Legends.

The Vietnamese squad surpassed expectations and surprised teams with an offensive, early game centric play style. Star jungler Đỗ “Levi” Duy Khánh proved to be a fantastic player and the main catalyst for success, his mechanics and ability to impact the map consistently amazed fans and experts alike.

Let’s set things straight, the Marines were not one of the best teams in the tournament, they lost to every team in the group stage and failed to make top 4, but they also beat 3 major region champions and lifted the perceived mantle of weakness that surrounded them.

Playing in the best of 1, double Round Robin format of the group stage isn’t easy for the teams. The erratic nature of the game and the number of opponents they have to face in such a short amount of time makes it hard to find consistent results. SK Telecom, the best team in the world, dropped 2 games to the Flash Wolves and Team WE; the Marines had it harder than everyone, they played a preliminary group stage and 2 best of five series before the main event, and effectively had to prepare for 4 more teams than any other competitor. Despite this disadvantages, they achieved moderate success and showcased their strengths better than any other team in the tournament.

For the Marines, less is more. They started and finished the tournament in the same way. Aside from a few picks and bans adaptations, they approached every match with the same flavor, everyone who followed their run through MSI can speak to their aggression, willingness to fight, skirmish and simple macro play. Signature champions like Ziggs, Gragas, Kennen, Graves, and Kha’zix were almost always picked when available and their team compositions had distinguished siege and dive components to them.

This strong sense of identity and philosophy of playing towards their own strengths deserves nothing but respect, in fact, it was the smartest way of approaching a tournament like MSI. With a field full of champions we can assume that all teams are to some degree competent at the game and given the nature of the format it’s both incredibly hard and counterproductive to be concerned with specific strategies for every team or specific tournament Meta champions, at least until the end of the group stages.

In a tournament where we saw TSM try to pull off a Juggermaw style of team composition when and where we saw the Flash Wolves struggle to adapt to the tournament Meta, the Gigabyte Marines stand out. Their stubbornness to play their style contrasts with the versatility to which they presented said style. The GPL may be a humble region but the Marines are champions too and they know how they succeed. With a secured spot for their region in the world championship and as they learn from this experience, we might see a triumphant return from the Vietnamese line-up in the near future. To take them lightly is a fool’s mistake.





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