Why Korean LoL players are moving to China (and who might be coming next)

There’s plenty of time left in the LPL’s offseason break, but this has already been a very interesting transfer season. Aside from the much-discussed move of former Korean pro Hiro, who is the new coach of Team WE, Starhorn (formerly Royal Club) recently picked up several Korean players from KTB: jungler inSec, support Zero, and coach Vical. Pro teams in the US and Brazil have also recently picked up Korean pros.

(See: ‘If Team WE gets a Korean player, I’ll stop watching’: Chinese fans rant about WE’s new Korean talent)

So what gives with the Korean exodus? Why are Korean players coming to China? Chinese gaming site Netease Games’s League of Legends editors have some theories, which I’ll paraphrase below.

1. They want to win championships. Korean players are extremely skilled and they’re trained to play with a lot of desire to win. However, because there are so many highly competitive teams in the Korean scene, winning a league championship is far from easy, even for a highly skilled and highly motivated player. Winning the LPL might not be as prestigious as victory in the OGN, but silverware is silverware, and some Korean players may feel they’ve got a better chance of lifting a trophy in China.

2. They want a better chance to get into Worlds. Winning Worlds is, of course, the dream of every League of Legends player, but to be able to win it, you have to be able to get there. That’s not so easy in Korea, where any number of highly-skilled teams have a realistic shot at grabbing a Worlds slot. In China, by contrast, the bar for entry is lower and there are fewer truly competitive teams.

3. They want to earn more money through China’s third-party tournaments. Korea’s eSports scene is highly developed, but there are relatively few tournaments outside of the OGN that pros can participate in if they want to boost their incomes. China, in contrast, has boatloads, from the Demacia Cup (which is coming up and which we will be streaming live in English, by the way!) to a large variety of sponsor-organized tournaments with ample prize pools.

So there’s the why (at least according to Netease editors), but what about the who? Hiro, inSec, Zero, and Vical are already in the Middle Kingdom, but if this is truly becoming a trend, what players might be coming next? The folks at Netease have some thoughts on that, too (although personally I think these are mostly wishful thinking):

Maknoon: He’s getting old (well, for a pro gamer) and his form isn’t what it used to be, but he didn’t get much of a chance to adapt to the new game version in the 13/14 OGN, and a longer stint at a stable Chinese team built around him might be exactly what he needs to find his old form again.

Madlife: The godlike support hasn’t been quite as godlike in recent OGN seasons, but he also hasn’t been paired with a top-quality ADC. If China has any League position it’s good at, it’s ADC, and it’s hard to imagine a bot lane of Madlife and Namei (for example) not dominating the LPL.

Pray: Another older Korean pro whose team has fallen off. There are plenty of good ADCs in Korea already, and while China has no shortage of ADCs either, many Chinese teams would likely jump at the chance to include someone with Pray’s experience playing at the highest level on the world stage.

What other Korean pros do you think might make their way outside of the Korean scene and try to make new headway in China? Do you expect more Korean players to move to Europe, North America, or Southeast Asia as well?

(via Netease Games)