How Southeast Asian teams are preparing for Worlds: interviews on the eve of LOL’s biggest tournament

The League of Legends Season 4 World Championship is right around the corner, and Asia’s teams are all getting ready to dive headfirst into one of the year’s biggest eSports events. Southeast Asia’s LOL fans have its hopes pinned on the two teams from their region to made Worlds this year: the Taipei Assassins and AHQ eSports club.

Just days before the group stages begin in Taiwan and Singapore on Thursday, Chinese gaming site Netease Games caught up with both teams to find out how their preparations for the big show are going.

Taipei Assassins

How have practices been going recently?

Winds: Recently we’ve been scrimming with all kinds of foreign teams, and every region’s teams have a bit of a different rhythm, so playing is going a bit differently than what we had expected. It’s fair to say it’s been tough, but we’re learning a lot of new ideas and deciphering a lot of new strategies. These international teams all have some distinguishing features in terms of the way that they play, so we need to think more, discuss more, and really study them. But currently, the team’s preparedness situation is pretty good, and our coach has helped us to design several Ban/Pick strategies, so well just have to see how we do when the time comes.

So how has all the training over this past month helped?

Winds: We’ve practiced a few different tactics more. We’ll be playing different teams, so our own tactics will have to be a little different as well. The overall strategy will be based on the groups, but broadly we’ve improved a lot, especially in terms of learning a bunch of small techniques and details while scrimming foreign teams. Once we play them, we’ve learned from them.

Will this create a conflict with your team’s original style?

Winds: Not really. We’ve always had a few different strategies and used them all pretty well, so this doesn’t have much of an effect.

The teams in Group B look pretty close [in terms of strength], do you have thoughts about who your toughest opponents will be?

Winds: Of all the groups, I think Group B is the one with the closest match in terms of skill levels, so it’s difficult to say. Everyone has a chance of getting out.

What other players are you paying special attention to?

Winds: UZI! He’s a very tough player, a god in the new generation of ADCs.

Achie: UZI and Zero, they leave a powerful impression on you.

Jay: I also think UZI and Zero.