Chinese League of Legends teams need to stop recruiting Korean players

China has a bad habit of shamelessly copying others. There’s no doubt that Korean players are superior at League of Legends, so when a few top Chinese teams started recruiting foreign talent, every other Chinese team started to do so as well. Just yesterday, World Elite Academy signed on two more, which means four of the eight LPL teams now have Korean players. And it’s a trend that needs to stop.

(See: 2014 LPL Summer preview: what’s changed in China’s LoL scene)

Royal Club started it all, but when the team was already undergoing a name change, management change, and roster change – why not bring in a few proven and talented Korean players, like inSec and Zero, to fill some gaps? After all, with only Uzi remaining from the original Season 3 World Championship squad, it’s not like there was teamwork to worry about.

Next, it was World Elite. They already hired Korean coach Hiro a while back, so it’s only natural that we would see a few new Korean faces. At least if things go bad, the team still has some very talented benchwarmers available with Ruo and SukiM (but as you can see, it’ll be hard to compete with bear-loving ActSin and bunny-living Ninja).

Then came Invictus Gaming’s questionable move. Officially, YongSu, their new Korean toplaner, joined and replaced PDD before he even announced his retirement. And although the team’s recent results were a bit dismal, adding a communication barrier didn’t seem like the solution. iG’s LPL ranking is also not proving otherwise, currently placing 6th and only above the two new LSPL teams.

Finally, we have WE Academy. The team just brought on Hanlabong, former toplaner for Prime Optimus, and MickeyGod, a solo-queue jungle player with no professional experience.

And I have to ask the organization: what are you doing?

First of all, you have no wins. Assuming the language barrier will not be an issue, assuming these two players just naturally bring about a god-like level of teamwork – what’s the next step? Just having Korean players won’t carry you out of LPL ELO Hell and when you get demoted to the LSPL again, what happens then?

Secondly, you’re adding a Korean solo-queue player with no professional experience. Do you know how this looks for the Chinese eSports scene and hopeful young players? Sure, you could argue that the majority of Chinese solo-queue players are bad, but if only skill matters, then why not replace even more members with Korean players?