The postponed 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games marks the first time esports will be considered an official medal event, with a total of seven different esports titles featured in the competition, including League of Legends.
Earlier today, April 14, the Korean e-Sports Association revealed the selection criteria for its LoL national team, but there are some rising concerns about the measures used to choose the players.
According to a report from Inven, the Korean players that will be part of the selection process need to be above the age of 16 and compete in one of the major regions (LCS, LEC, LCK, or LPL) as of February 2023.
In addition, the association will take into account all the results of domestic and international tournaments, from 2021 Summer to 2023 MSI. In other words, they will take the last two years into consideration, changing from the previous review period of four years. Individual accolades (All-Pros, Player of the game, and MVP awards) will also be part of the first review index.
Furthermore, there will also be a secondary review index, which takes the players’ personal stats into account, like KDAs, DPM, Vision Score, and many more. There will also be role-specific stats taken into consideration.
While the first review index is fair, Gen.G’s CEO Arnold Hur expressed his doubts about the stats-based index, claiming that it’s “a tough problem to solve”.
He explained that there might be instances where individually strong players are left out because their team-driven stats are not exceptional, despite not being necessarily the player’s fault.
In response to Arnold’s tweet, Tim Sevenhuysen, the director of esports analytics at 100Thieves and founder of stats site OraclesElixir, said that he would never use LoL stats as the primary pillar for selecting players for a team.
“LoL stats can be very useful, but LoL is just about as contextually complicated as a game could possibly be,” he said.
According to Kevin Kim from Korizon Esports, the initial selections will have a minimum of three and a maximum of four players per role.
The final roster will have a total of six players and it will be locked in by early June. He also mentioned that former DK athletic director and T1 head coach Kim “kkOma” Jeong-gyun willl be the head coach for the national team.
Aside from League, Korea will be competing in three other esports competitions: FIFA Online 4, Street Fighter 5, and PUBG Mobile.
The 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games were supposed to take place last year, but the event was postponed to 2023 due to the concerns of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the tournament starting on September 23 and lasting until October 8.
