Through the eyes of Korean high-elo: the Korean LoL server mentality

The Korean League of Legends community is generally blessed with high-skilled players. However, with strengths, come weaknesses. We all know about the strengths of Koreans; they dominated the Season 3 World Championships, with SKT T1 Faker taking the spotlight. They are famous for exceptional players such as Madlife and Piglet, and they are known for their hyper-aggressive playstyle. These impressions may have left a permanent mark on the general League of Legends community.

My first impression of Korean League players was that their general skill level seemed higher in comparison to when I played on the North American servers, and the Koreans seemed more knowledgeable about the meta game. However, the more I played, the more I learned that the Korean servers have flaws and weaknesses of their own, too. Recently, we came across an opportunity to speak with several high ranked players from Diamond 3 to Challenger, and have gotten a little more insight into the Korean League of Legends community.

In the Korean League community, people like to use the word “mental”. This word seems to be a replacement for “morale” but is used more frequently in games. Hearing phrases like “my mental is broken” or “oh my mental!” has become something I’ve grown used to as a Korean-American player. The thing that really surprised me the most, though, was how many games the Koreans would give up on instead of playing through. Nmare, a Diamond 1 Support player, had an explanation.

“Like I said before, Koreans love FAST. We love fast things. We are not patient.”

I’ve lived in Korea for a long time and I’ve come to notice how much value time seems to have in Korean society. The driving here is hectic; people will cut you off whenever they feel like it, they will run red lights if they feel safe enough, and they will speed 20 kilometers over the limits. In fact, Korea has a highly popular navigation system which will tell the driver when to slow down to avoid being ticketed by an automatic speed scanner.

Renekton or ZeD, a Challenger in Season 3 and Support-nim Mikaels Please, Diamond 3, have a different take on this, though. Renekton or Zed thinks that the reasons vary from person to person:

”I think the biggest reason is that solo queue consists of five people who don’t know each other. If their opinions differ, it’s very likely that they will begin to argue. I see more people opening mid in order to protect their pride, they open mid [because they don’t want to lose too hard]. People who run solo queue often will talk about their broken mental more often, and will bring that same mental to the next game. It’s a cycle, really.”

To Supporter-nim Mikaels Please, it’s also about pride

“Hmm.. Koreans are very prideful. Many times, if they don’t like how the game is going, they will give up or troll. If it’s not “their way”, they will fight. I think that’s the biggest reason they give up on a game.”

This seems plausible since Koreans do have a lot of national pride. The Korean pride stems from the Japanese occupation. After finally winning back their freedom from Japan, the Korean Civil War erupted June 25th, 1950. This resulted in a split nation with a split pride. The thought process in the typical Korean citizen goes like this: small land, constantly invaded and bullied by larger nations such as China and Japan, but still alive in culture and people; definitely something to be proud of. Fueled by pride in their nation, South Korea quickly advanced both economically and technologically and managed to be among the top.