Chinese gamers respond to iG and Team WE's early elimination from IEM Worlds

Over the weekend, South Korea’s KT Rolster Bullets won the IEM World League of Legends tournament by a commanding three games to none over Europe’s Fnatic. But in China, the story is that the Chinese teams, Invictus Gaming and Team WE, both ended their runs early, failing to qualify for the four-team playoffs in the eight-team tournament.

(See: Invictus Gaming’s LoL team on verge of breakup heading into IEM tournament (VIDEO))

Needless to say, Chinese fans are quite disappointed. The following translated comments come from articles about IEM Worlds on Chinese gaming sites Netease Games, 17173 and QQ Games (1, 2).

Some got analytical:

Fu Shu: “It had nothing to do with mechanics, this is simply an IQ problem. [They] obviously knew that Morgana was popular on overseas servers, and to still not ban her after being blown up by her in the first match; with that level of intelligence what could you hope for them to accomplish?”

Sun Sets in the West: “I watched iG vs. KTB, and iG was in the lead until after that baron and the next couple of teamfights, that’s when they fell apart. WE’s match I couldn’t be bothered to watch because I heard they lost in 26 minutes.”

Kuo: “That was an incomprehensible baron call against KTB, [after that] the game turned.”

Beside:: “Ai, WE’s team is still too young, and three of them have just joined the team, they still need time to be broken in. I believe in the future Team WE will perform very well.”

Ninan: “WE’s jungling skills are not good enough, and it looks like WeiXiao doesn’t have the spirit and passion […] Caomei should shoulder the responsibility of this new WE and not just play a supporting role. But without ClearLove and FZZF, WE is definitely still a distance away from the strongest teams.”

XiaoChongChong: “[China’s LoL client] version is behind other places. Here, they have to play in the LPL [in addition to doing international tournaments], so how can they practice well on two different versions of the game at once?”

Blue Arctic: “That baron ruined it all.”

Some just made jokes:

Xinjiang-based user: “[Tencent] is always yelling about how [League of Legends] has the most players, but so many people playing and we still can’t find anyone who can beat the Koreans…national soccer!”

Tiankong Zhi Jing:“Our soccer team fears Korea and so do our LOL teams.”

(The above comments refer to China’s national soccer team, which despite having such a massive population to draw from, is perpetually terrible and has become something of a national joke).

Snowflake: “China still has CrossFire, in that we’re number one in the universe, because absolutely no one else plays it.”