G2 Esports stunned the League of Legends world on May 14 by defeating Top Esports and eliminating them from the Mid-Season Invitational 2024. Following their triumph, the Capitals called on Western clubs to stop making excuses for their losses.
In the League esports scene, North American and European teams frequently lose to Chinese and Korean teams, and the so-called “gap” is widening each year. G2 has been the only team that appears to be competitive in the space for some time. Following their victory over TES, Caps promised not to make excuses for himself and encouraged other Western teams to do the same.
“Using excuses like, ‘Oh, we are from Europe,’ or ‘Oh, I am too elderly.’ I suppose it is just excuses. And I’m done with those,” Caps told Dexerto after the win versus TES.
The excuses Caps mentions are prevalent among European and North American players. Western teams typically struggle against Chinese or South Korean teams, owing to the fact that the League is less competitive in the EU and NA regions than it is in the East.
Those who attend South Korea bootcamp frequently appreciate the region’s solo queue, where players are motivated to perform their best and typically play more. The Chinese high-ranked ladder has even earned the term “superserver.” In the West, on the other hand, players frequently discuss ping troubles and others not taking solo queue seriously, particularly in North America, as Zven highlighted lately. Eastern teams also devote more time to practice than Western teams, with the latter citing reasons such as a lack of time or energy.
Western players also express concerns about being too old for the scene. However, Faker managed to win his fourth World Championship in 2023, when he was 27. These are only a handful of the factors cited for the growing gap between the West and the East.
Caps confessed that he felt past his prime and forlorn, particularly after reaching two World Championship finals in 2018 and 2019 and then falling short in the subsequent international championships. More importantly, he recently understood that with enough effort, he can do anything. “I just have to do better. “I know I can improve,” he told Dexerto. “It does not matter that I have not won Worlds yet, or that I am getting older.”
G2 has long been the sole source of optimism for Western supporters in the competitive League. They accomplished this by winning MSI 2019, reaching the World Championship finals that same year, and being relevant in other international tournaments. CoreJJ from Team Liquid has even claimed they want to follow in G2’s footsteps.