The 19th Asian Games are meant to celebrate sport and bring out the best of the best, but it seems that there are quite a few issues for teams competing in the esports category of the event this year.
Missing esports action right now? In that lull between LCS, LCK and LPL finals and Worlds 2023? Well then, the upcoming Asian Games in Hangzhou should get you pretty excited. This is going to be the biggest tournament before Worlds, and some teams are playing for huge stakes.
Players from all over Asia will compete, with household names like Faker, Knight and Levi all competing and representing their nations. But, there are some issues that are keeping teams from truly shining...
LoL Asian Games: Old Patch Causes Problems For Practice
Not too long ago the official handbook of the 19th Asian Games was revealed and in it fans were pretty horrified to realize that the games at the event would be played on a pretty outdated patch – LoL Patch 13.12. This was the patch for June and July for most professional regions.
League of Legends freelance caster Alex "Nymaera" Hapgood, who has been on the LPL and LEC broadcast, has added fuel to the fire by revealing that Team Japan is unable to practice due to there being no 13.12 training servers available.
Apparently there are no 13.12TR servers left for pros to practice on for Asian Games, since it's been so long since that patch.
— Alex 'Nymaera' Hapgood (@Nymaera) September 5, 2023
Word coming from the Japanese community is they don't have a way to practice, though I don't know whether Korea or China has found a solution to this.
He is not sure whether China and South Korea are facing the same issues, but it seems like this is only adding more frustration for fans who want to get excited about this tournament. Without proper practice on the right patch, it could be difficult to create strats against their opponents.
It seems that between September 17 and October 2, 2023 there will be training servers opening up, but that still means teams won't officially be able to train before then on the correct patch. Since we're already halfway through Patch 13.17, many things have changed, with multiple champions not even being meta anymore.
Seriously, we're going to be seeing a lot of LeBlanc, Kai'Sa, Rell and Vi at this tournament, all champions that have received significant nerfs throughout the last few patches. Add in the fact that the finals are only a best of three, and fans are getting less and less invested in this tournament.