Peanut on what holds the LCK back: ‘There aren’t enough Bo5s’

The LCK needs to undergo some major changes if it wants to catch up with the LPL, according to Han “Peanut” Wang-ho.

Gen.G’s jungler had some words to say about the state of the Korean League of Legends competition in a post-match press conference on Sunday. In his eyes, there need to be more best-of-five matches in the LCK.

“The LPL playoffs are so different, in the sheer number of series we get to play,” Peanut said, according to a translation by Korizon. “There are many Bo5s in international tournaments. It’s the playoffs, the Bo5s, that matter the most. I’d say that there aren’t enough Bo5s in the LCK… It feels like the LPL does better at international tournaments because of this difference in the number of Bo5s.”

Peanut backed up his argument by remembering his time with the LPL’s LGD Gaming in 2020. With the Chinese team, he went all the way to Worlds but fell short in the group stage of the tournament. In the 2020 LPL Summer playoffs, LGD played a total of four best-of-five series, before competing in two more in the Regional Finals to qualify for the end-of-year event.

“When you consider that, then consider the LCK in contrast, I’d love the LCK to also have more Bo5s, but unfortunately, the LCK has only 10 teams,” Peanut said, underlining that fewer teams in the league might make it difficult to shift to playing more best-of-five series.

Peanut added that in the LPL, he never felt confident about winning a match against an opponent because the region felt much more competitive, which could be a result of the format and the abundance of best-of-five matches.

Gen.G will return to action on Wednesday, July 13 against Liiv SANDBOX.