Inside story of LPL’s crushing defeat revealed, Korean coach turns traitor! Crème dissatisfied with Redmi, 369 overlooked

Hello to all LPL viewers and League of Legends summoners, this is Tianxia Game Report.

At this year’s World Championship, the LPL region was utterly defeated; the best-performing team was TES, who made it to the top four, while other teams were knocked out at different rounds.

Editor

Recently, the official documentary of the LPL region was made public, revealing some crucial causes of the LPL’s defeat.

LPL failure exposed, Crème unhappy with Redmi

During the Swiss stage of this S15 World Championship, TES started strong with a 2-0 record, advancing to the knockout round. However, they lost to KT in the knockout round and missed the chance to enter the quarterfinals. After missing that opportunity, TES only managed to qualify in the final round by defeating BLG in an internal match.

The documentary features many segments about TES, including explosive parts where mid-laner Crème expressed strong dissatisfaction with coach Homme’s BP (ban/pick) strategy.

In an interview, Crème said that the day before the KT match, they practiced a lot of matchups, but all that preparation was wasted during the game. Crème’s exact words to the coach were: “It feels like you guys are really scared of BDD in the BP. I don’t know why; the Sylas ban was endless. We planned to give BDD Sylas and I would play Aphelios, but after practicing all night, the next day in the match, they suddenly told him to triple ban mid, letting the opponent have Aphelios, and we ended up with Xin Zhao, Nidalee, and Annie.”

Crème felt this lineup was unreasonable, saying there was no frontline champion at all, so how was this comp supposed to work? The BP was done without consulting the players, and no one informed him before the game despite the long waiting time on stage. This BP made him very frustrated, feeling like the coach didn’t trust him. He said the game felt laughably abstract and asked if it wasn’t embarrassing to play like that.

Homme turns traitor, 369 ignored

From Crème’s words, it’s clear he was very unhappy with the coach’s actions. In the documentary, coach Homme later apologized, explaining that during the BP discussion the previous day, things weren’t finalized. He said he wanted to see if they could get a better lineup for the team.

However, the result was poor, and now there’s nothing much to say. He planned to hold another meeting to discuss how to improve.

This response sounded very formulaic. Homme’s handling before this round of matches was basically traitorous and indefensible. Many believe LPL players often don’t want to follow coaches’ instructions and blame players for failures, but Homme is a well-known coach with great influence in TES. Clearly, he failed at the World Championship, especially with the last-minute BP changes against Korean teams. The offseason departures of Homme and Kanavi already raised doubts, and after this documentary’s release, fans’ opinion of them worsened.

Besides Crème, 369 also criticized jungler Kanavi in an interview, saying he received no support from the jungler. It wasn’t that 369 wanted more team resources, but Kanavi didn’t even share basic early-game jungle information, leaving 369 clueless about the enemy jungler’s path, making the game very difficult.

Champion mentor duo leaves, LPL career more positive than negative

After this season’s transfer window, Homme and Kanavi left the LPL region to join HLE in the LCK. In some team interviews, they indirectly shared their views on the new and old teams and teammates. Homme once told Kanavi: “You used to say if you had teammates like Zeus or Delight, you could beat T1.”

Kanavi also hinted during interviews that LPL players have stricter makeup standards.

Based on today’s LPL documentary content, I personally think Kanavi didn’t trust his teammates much. The documentary showed he was unwilling to help 369 or even communicate. It’s worth noting that 369 and Kanavi won a championship together during their JDG days.

Kanavi also made many mistakes in matches, such as stealing JKL’s kills, which drew heavy criticism from fans.

Furthermore, Homme’s reason for changing BP on the spot might stem from mistrusting Crème, believing Crème couldn’t outperform BDD. The BP change made things even harder. This was only part of the Swiss round; behind-the-scenes details of the T1 match have yet to be revealed. Everyone wants to see what the atmosphere was like offstage during TES vs. T1. Overall, Homme and Kanavi moving to the LCK might have been planned long ago.

TES signed Homme last year mainly because of the mentor-student bond between Kanavi and Homme. Homme likely won’t push the team as hard as he did in JDG’s early days to achieve breakthroughs.

In summary, regarding this champion mentor duo’s LPL career, I believe their achievements outweigh their mistakes. They did win several league titles and one MSI championship. However, in the crucial S13 season, JDG failed to complete the golden path, and Kanavi’s immature playstyle remained unchanged. We can only wait and see what results they achieve in the LCK in the future.