As teams have a significant gap to fill between now and the League of Legend’s World Championship, many have decided to head to Korea, to play with the best in the world. Fnatic is doing just that, and on fnatic.com, ziminaite has taken the time to talk to the team via skype to see how it is going. Let see what they think of Korean Solo Queue:
Bootcamping in Korea brings some main benefits: better quality of solo queue, a new variety of scrimming partners and a ping unusually low by European standards. “In my opinion we are trying harder here than back in Europe. It has been just a bit more than a week, but I feel that we are getting a lot out of it. A bootcamp in South Korea is definitely worth it because of better solo queue quality and a very low ping which allows us to train mechanics very precisely. It is very good to practice your reaction time here; all the animations and actual character movement in Korea seem smoother because of the low ping. You can predict and dodge attacks better. I think the difference is pretty substantial. Ping-wise, it is about the same as playing on the LCS stage in Europe”, – says ReignOver.
Although already in the Korean Challenger ladder, Febiven admits getting there demanded some effort. “In Korean solo queue, the players are more skilled for sure. The individual play is super good and the teamplay is amazing. Of course, there are trolls and similar people, but not so many as in Europe. The quality of solo queue games is much higher. When I was playing Master tier it felt hard. Martin and I duo queue all day and we have a 75-80 percent win rate. In Europe I could get 90 or 95 percent. But it’s not like we are trying to get as many wins as possible or play for the points – it’s not what we should be doing, it’s not the reason we play solo queue. We play it to practice”, – he says.
At the same time, the Fnatic guys are eager to face their top-tier opponents also in the solo queue. “Obviously it’s not our goal to get highest possible rank in the ladder, but the best practice happens on the top level. Climbing there and getting those insanely helpful games against players like Faker is a small goal by itself, because it will eventually help us to become better players. We are trying really hard, but even the Master tier is really good. Last year I couldn’t get high in the Challenger ladder and I was pretty disappointed, but this year I think I can manage it, I feel that I’m a much better player and it would be great to face players like Deft or Imp”, – admits Rekkles.
He also is convinced that during the practice time in Korea they have been able to fix some mistakes they were even not aware of. “When you are facing better opponents you definitely expose your flaws. In the game, all the benefits of the Korean ladder come at a certain price. I never got punished for some of the risks i took in Europe, and I was using the same tactics from game to game. Here in Korea, I could never get to the point when that risk would have paid off. I was punished earlier and people would capitalize on my habits. I had to change and often go for plays with less risk and less reward. I try to be open-minded and change all the mistakes I make. Also, the players are so skilled here that I sometimes can figure out things about champions that I’ve played for a long time that I wasn’t aware of. There is so much to learn, and that is why I’m extremely willing to spend all of my time in Korea in front of a PC”, – Rekkles states.
There is a lot going on, and Fnatic has only been in Korea a week, so expect more to come. This is only part one of Fnatic’s Bootcamp series, so we cannot wait for part 2, hopefully with stories of Rekkles and Febivan playing against some pros like Faker! Until then you can read the full article here.
