The JDG team, backed by ecommerce giant JD.com, on Saturday lost 1-3 against South Korea’s T1 team in their best-of-five semi-final match. That defeat proved a big letdown for Chinese esports fans, who expected JDG to go all the way to the 2022 League of Legends World Championship finals. — SCMP
China has failed to reach the finals of the League of Legends World Championship, the esports industry’s biggest tournament, for the first time since 2018, triggering an outpouring of disappointment online among Chinese video gaming fans.
The JD Gaming (JDG) team, backed by Chinese ecommerce giant JD.com, on Saturday lost 1-3 against South Korea’s T1 team in their 2022 League Worlds best-of-five semi-final match held in the United States, at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia. T1 advanced to the finals that will be held on Nov 5 in San Francisco, where the winning team will get to hoist the coveted Summoner’s Cup trophy and a pool prize money of US$2.225mil (RM10.53mil).
“Our Season 12 journey comes to an end here,” the JDG team said in a statement posted in English on Twitter and in Chinese on domestic microblogging service Weibo. “Unfortunately, we failed to be the ‘chosen one’... Nobody wanted to win the ticket to the next round more than we did.”
The last Chinese esports team to make it to the tournament finals was Shanghai-based Edward Gaming, which beat South Korean defending champion DWG Kia to win the 2021 League Worlds title in Reykjavik, capital of Iceland, last November. China’s FunPlus Phoenix and Invictus Gaming won the League Worlds title in 2019 and 2018, respectively.
JDG was formed in 2017 after JD.com acquired the roster and spot of the QG Reapers team in the League of Legends Pro League (LPL), China’s top-level professional esports tournament owned by Tencent Holdings. The LPL playoffs’ top-three finishers get automatic berths at the group stage of the League Worlds, while the fourth seed from LPL enters through an earlier play-in stage.
After winning the 2022 LPL Summer tournament, JDG took part in the 2022 League Worlds alongside Chinese rivals Top Esports, Edward Gaming and Royal Never Give Up. The League Worlds, founded by Riot Games in 2011, started this year on September 29, with 24 teams from around the world competing in matches held in multiple cities across the US and Mexico.
While its three Chinese rivals were eliminated early in the tournament, JDG defeated DWG Kia and European teams Rogue and G2 Esports on its way to the 2022 League Worlds semi-finals.
Following JDG’s semi-finals defeat, there was renewed speculation and online discussion about China’s three-hour weekly video gaming restriction for players aged under 18 and its impact on the mainland’s esports development.
“Clearly, there was a disparity in their strengths,” a Weibo user with the handle “Voyager” posted on Sunday, referring to the skills of the JDG and T1 teams. “JDG used up all the skills they have, but there was no way to win.”
That was the main takeaway from various esports fans in China, the world’s largest video gaming market, as they aired their disappointment on social media after JDG’s semi-finals defeat.
“We need to go back to become apprentices again,” said LPL commentator Wang Duoduo in his post on Weibo, as he lamented the absence of an LPL team in the finals of the League Worlds.
The National Press and Publication Administration, China’s top watchdog for video gaming and other forms of online media, issued in August last year the rule that limits gaming time for players under 18 to between 8pm and 9pm only on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and statutory holidays.
That immediately made it difficult for the country’s esports sector to form and train under-18 groups of players, as well as sustain its growing domestic fan base. In esports, 18 is generally considered a mature age for a professional player because most of them retire in their early 20s.
Four out of the five players on the finals-bound T1 team, for example, are no more than 20 years old. Their youngest player Choi Woo-jethe, also known as “Zeus”, is just 18. By comparison, all players on JDG are above 21 years old. – South China Morning Post
