Not quite my tempo.
One of my favorite films of all time is “Whiplash”, it’s a movie with a lot of emotion, a lot of depth, and the music was great.
It is after all a movie centered (superficially at least) around music, since it’s about a young kid that wants to become a monster at drumming.
The music was so good that I remember not actually leaving the cinema room in a hurry after the movie to talk about it, and only a couple people left when the credits rolled, the biggest part stayed for the credit song, and that felt great.
Side note : the same director, Damien Chazelle, also directed a movie I liked earlier this year, La la land, which I would also recommend. This one touched me as well, due to the emotions of the caracters when they feel forced to give up their dreams and do regular jobs, it resonated with me, going in between medschool and my league of legends dream.
In one of the scenes of Whiplash, Fletcher, the teacher, is trying to make his drum player reach the perfect tempo, and is quite frustrated that the main character cannot actually play to his tempo.
“NOT MY FUCKING TEMPO!” he says very calmly.
Link to the actual scene : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4IBGL_RphA
Now, I really liked both these movies, but let’s be honest, I love league of legends a lot more, and this article isnt about movies I liked, it’s about the pace at which teams play around the globe.
It’s about how fast the tempo of the game is for western regions, and the ultimate regions, Korea and China. I say ultimate regions, because both these regions, teams play the game fast, really fast. Sometime they will mess up, China more than Korea, but they showcase a will to play fast, gather speed, and become unstoppable.
While I like to think of myself as an expert of the game, I will put myself as a simple observer and compare through a couple pro matches from each regions, and see how they match vs Korea tempo.
Once again, dont think of “tempo” as the straight forward notion in league of legends pro scene, even if it’s very linked, I mostly talk about the pace of the game when I say tempo.
First things first, let’s have a look at the first minutes of the KR finals.
Game 2 https://youtu.be/wpE-t5PStfQ?t=478
2.50 in game timer.
Cuzz will invade and willingly look for Blank in order to make his toplaner feel safe and abuse his matchup under tower.
Blank has done buff to buff to gromp with machete, which provides faster mono target clear, and Cuzz decides to “sweep” all of topside, he could take the plant over the wall, but decides against it, despite having mid + top prio, because to him, his laners are the world, and if he went over the wall, there would be a chance Sejuani has sneaked into topside of river without Gragas seeing. Meaning Jayce would be stopped in his bullying, or in darker times, possibly die.
Because of this, he loses scuttle to Seju’s E damage, and Blank sneaks a ward on Raptors.
On this play, Cuzz will still do a full walk in into the jungle, to secure the fact that, yes, you are in a 1v1 top Khan, go for it, do your thing.
He also ends up securing the wolves. Which is something I guess.
3.40 in game timer.
Cuzz didnt insta recall, and is spotted on a ward dropped by Blank.
The answer doesnt wait, Blank rushes bot and goes for it.
This is pretty standard, invading here for a gromp could be risky I guess, and this here doesnt awe me. And nor should it you.
This ward by Blank though, makes it very very hard for Cuzz to have a backlash happen on Wolf and Bang.
Blank only leaves when Cuzz is spotted on his way out, he is a patient one, he knows that in Korea, people want to bear onto the game, and are ready to seize all opportunities.
4.33, Cuzz is spotted on the map by Blank’s ward.
4.39, Faker goes for a hard trade. This isnt random, this is incredibly well played, and let me explain why.
Couple things are going SKT’s way :
1- Faker has TP, trading HP pool is super fucking good for him, he can always go for a free refill, and has a champ that can insta push the wave if left alone.
That’s a great tempo creation tool. He also is reaching 1050g powerspike, which empowers him a great deal.
2- Blank has the faster recall timer/reached his 650+ already, so will insta invade and take over the vision game.
3- Shen has taken care of boucing the wave, and Khan has to respect it, therefore it’s slowpushing toward Red side, and it’s an opportunity to strike for SKT.
4- It’s super early, and Taliyah cannot match the roam because pre 6. After doing such a huge mistake of trading HP vs a TP user like that, Bdd has to reset (if not, he is useless because shoved into tower and cannot play the game due to low HP) and run top because this is too big, Khan dying on 2 stacked waves of minion can make the game.
5.06 in game timer.
Faker uses TP on lane instantly, and hard shoves.
Meanwhile, Cuzz is trolling because he is doing wolves, while a big crashing wave and he cannot get under top tower to impact the game, sad. Koreans can bleed.
Faker initiates a roam to toplane.
Blank invades and drops his wards and pinks.
Bdd receives the wave mid, and cannot go through the jungle alone, or risks dying if he doesnt know where Ekko and Seju are.
Due to Cuzz not recalling before, Bdd cannot match the roam.
Due to Bdd not being conservative with his HP pool facing a TP + Fast pusher, Khan dies on this play.
It doesnt matter who ends up benefitting the most out of this play. Some smart asses will point out that the play was actually a one for one, but this isnt the subject of this article.
In answer to this quick jab by SKT, what could longzhu do?
6.26 in game timer.
Faker is stuck top and has his base time delayed.
Bdd goes back to mid, pushes quick, and forces (somewhat questionnable, but I can see early farm advantages be hard abused by this lvl of players) Shen’s TP.
Taliyah has reached 6, and is unlocked on the map.
To me, Blank trolls a bit, and fails to see the potential tempo play by Bdd, thinks this is a dead tempo and doesnt look to ward up river and find the taliyah.
6.38 in game timer, Bdd is impacting the map, and Wolf makes a sick W outplay with rakan.
6.59 in game timer.
While Blank kinda fucked up by allowing this roam to happen, he will now path in order to deny an easy path by Bdd back to midlane, and therefore create tempo by making Bdd late to catch the wave, and steal blue.
Since SKT has stolen the blue, LZ has to make sure that the SKT side blue doesnt go onto Faker’s Ekko, or it would spell impending DOOM due to pushing, harassing, and basically giving him midlane priority.
LZ spots Blank going to red.
Blank kites his red buff to topside, and Wolf is on the move, he knows that if he denies the blue buff denial by LZ, he will have an easy game because Ekko will be everywhere, and Taliyah will be under her T1. He understands how important it is, and that is something some people dont know.
Sad but true, Khan has invested all his mana into this toplane priority play, and he doesnt get the blue buff.
Had he gotten the blue buff, Shen would have been stuck under tower, and Khan would have been roaming the map, shooting EQ comboes on Faker who would have been stuck under his T1 mid.
Alas, the fat man is chased, and drops. Not on a random member of the team though, on Faker.
All these plays, counterplays, you can see that they flow fast, the game is fast paced. The edge of Korean teams is not blunt, they are sharp as fuck.
Do one mistake, and they will pounce on you. Every single time.
Sometime, they will fail mechanically, and that’s life you know, you’ll miss your skillshot, and as a coach, that’s not what I am looking at, that’s ok.
Missing skillshots is ok, missing tempo plays, on the other hand, fuck that.
Fletcher, the music teacher in Whiplash, would probably exclaim “That’s my fucking tempo!” if he watched this game.
Watching Korean league of legends always feel great to me, especially the top teams.
Every second matters, all the tempo is used.
To finish the korean region tempo assessment, I’d say they are pretty fast.
Those composition drive fast, and they can pilot them as LS would say.
It’s lovely to watch, and they will crush the west, not because the player’s micro (and that’s questionable) is much better, but because they move better around the map, because they understand the flow of the game better.
I will try to find time to go over early games in other regional finals ASAP, but they are also a lot less enjoyable to watch to me. The more traction this gets, the faster I will upload content as well.
Thanks for reading :D!
