LMS Spotlight: Hong Kong eSports (HKES)

HKES, or Hong Kong eSports, are a relatively new team to the LMS region. They were formed in October 2014 by Stanley, DinTer, Toyz, GoDJJ, Awei and Yezi. Awei has since been replaced, instead seeing the support position filled by ‘Olleh’; a Korean player formerly of KT Rolster Arrows and Brazil’s pAIN Gaming.

Due to recent changes with regards to the Garena Premier League (GPL), teams from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao have moved into a new Riot league – the LMS or ‘League of Legends Master Series’. Eight teams compete over Spring and Summer split, with the top two going to the World Championships in Europe in the autumn.

The Team:

Hong Kong eSports technically already existed last year, under the mantle of Hong Kong Attitudes. The team did well and finished joint top of the GPL table but ultimately fell short come the playoffs. This forced management to reconsider the team. It was a complete overhaul and, with Stanley and Toyz lined up to join the new HKES team, they gave them the options for who they wanted around them. This is who they picked:

Top Lane - Wang "Stanley" June Tsan

Stanley is a stalwart player in LoL history. He has been around since the game’s Beta and has a huge champion pool. He was part of the Taipei Assassins team that won the Season 2 World Championship and his experience makes him a tough laner to beat. Before creating this new LoL team he was a coach for Hong Kong eSports Ltd due to his infamy as a game theory crafter.

Jungle - Xue "DinTer" Hong-Wei

DinTer has been around a bit. He started as a support for Taipei Assassins, shifted into AD Carry, demoted to sub, and then found his home in the Jungle and pulled out stellar performances on the likes of Kha’zix, Vi, and Jarvan – relevant meta picks currently.

DinTer left in the summer 2014 to become the strategy analyst for HKES Ltd, before being persuaded to return to action with the likes of Stanley and Toyz.

Mid Lane/Captain - Wai "Toyz" Kin "Kurtis" Lau

Like Stanley, Toyz was a winner with Taipei Assassins for the Season 2 World Championship. His high level of mechanical skill coupled with astute map awareness made him a dominating shotcalling force in mid lane, but Carpal Tunnel Syndrome forced him to retire in 2013. Toyz came back briefly but returned to retirement still struggling with injury. Time has passed and his recovery has sunk in, opening him up to being a powerhouse in the 2015 Spring Split. Like Stanley and DinTer, Toyz has coaching experience, having been the Fnatic coach at the 2014 World Championships.

Video courtesy of JKSad on YouTube

AD Carry - Wang "GoDJJ" Yong Jie

GoDJJ started out as a Warcraft III mod player before moving towards professional StarCraft 2 play. Out of boredom he picked up League of Legends, became a popular streamer, and even held the top spots in Taiwan and North America solo queue briefly with his burst mages and AD Carry performances.

Like the rest of his team he has a history with Taipei Assassins; a promising AD Carry that moved around before settling on HKES. Now he looks to shine and his KDA stats are currently the best in the LMS.

Support - Kim "Olleh" Joo-sung

Olleh is the newest of the team to LoL, having taken up the game in 2013. His talent saw him picked up by KT Rolster Arrows where he performed well, before moving on – oddly – to pAIN Gaming in Brazil; a move dubbed by many a strange change of scene given language barriers and the lesser status in terms of quality and Worlds impact of the Brazilian league.

Despite this doubt and – some might say – cynicism, Olleh performed exceptionally, gaining plaudits of pundits, commentators, and writers. He held top spot in the Brazilian Challenger queue on supports-only, whilst retaining Challenger status in Korean solo queue too. After six months in Brazil, a second place finish in the league, and a tournament win, Olleh decided to return to Asia to HKES.

Video courtesy of Hong Kong eSports YouTube channel
 

Substitute - Ye "Leaf" Zhi Hua

Little is known about Leaf, the female substitute support player for HKES. Female professional players are rare in League of Legends unfortunately, despite a few attempts at creating all-female pro teams. According to the team website and her character Facebook page, Leaf works for HKES involved in eSports promotion aside her sub duties, and also boasts being a very popular cosplayer in Taiwan.

 

The Style: Quite literally dashing

Hong Kong eSports are a strong team of individual talents as you’ve just read, but their style is definitely action-packed; whether winning or losing there’s always drama. The reason is their love for causing trouble: champion selects tend to be very poke based in the mid lane with a lot of big, hard diving engages from the top and the jungle, and a solid meta combination in the bot lane ensures a reliable feeding of GoDJJ.

The proclivity for making things happen, rather than stalling out in a late game comp or rushing things early, makes for a lot of snowball opportunities for both sides and without the team’s shared experience as champions and title winners this ambitious play style based on instinct wouldn’t work out.

Similarities can be drawn with teams in Europe like Elements (formerly Alliance) and Origen (xPeke’s new team) in that they are very much hand-picked. This pre-planned team design has seen Alliance claim the Summer Split 2014 title in Europe and a very high win rate for Origen. HKES are proving they’re top-tier but perhaps with a bit more time under their belts as a new unit they’ll begin to copy Alliance/Elements and step up to even greater heights.

Video courtesy of ThePlays LoL

 

Quality, Preparation, Results: The Good

Currently HKES are third place in the LMS, behind Taipei Assassins and Yoe Flash Wolves, who both beat the Hong Kong team. One throw and one outplay in Pick and Bans meant that the team dropped valuable points to rivals they are keen to beat and now it’s a case of finding the resolve and tactics to swing the balance back in their favor.

The difficulty is that HKES have clear favorite champions, on top of the fact that the meta is prevalent in a lot of their picks. For the first three games of the LMS series, against Midnight Sun, Logitech Sniper, and Dream or Reality (formerly the Machi Crew), they used the same mid lane and bot lane champions. These were Azir, Sivir, and Morgana. The strengths here were the intense fighting ability of Azir coupled with solid survivability and engage/disengage from Sivir and protective shielding and traps from Morgana. Three times HKES were allowed to get their champs and three times they won. It’s partly attributable to the fact these picks have excellent team strengths at the moment but a lot of this also comes down to very high quality performances from the players behind them, be it mechanical skill or teamwork.

Galactic Azir is a huge pick in Asia right now. Splash art courtesy of League of Legends official website.

In the fourth game, versus AHQ, Toyz still got his Azir, albeit backed by other champions. A second appearance of Jarvan IV for DinTer wasn’t going to do any harm to HKES’ chances, and Janna, Tristana, and Maokai rounded off a solid “protect the Trist” composition that bullied down towers. In fairness to AHQ they had a strong team comp and retained a kill lead until the final few minutes but a quick baron buff take for HKES sealed the win and meant they could romp down the mid lane and siege.

After losing to TPA the team played Never Give Up; ironically in a game where NGU should have given up because Toyz was punishing hard as Jayce mid. Backed by Jarvan IV and Kassadin – incredibly powerful picks for Stanley and DinTer – the three carried without any need for GoDJJ’s Corki and proved that it’s not all about the LMS’ top KDA player for HKES to win.

 

Quality, Preparation, Results: The Bad

Ambitious and bold plays don’t always pay off for HKES, though. Game five was a throw from Hong Kong, with HKES leading the league favorites Taipei Assassins until the very end. One misplaced dive from Toyz’ Lissandra and a panicking Leona following it up resulted in a colossal beat down from TPA, a free baron, a free dragon, and then one last square off bot lane before finishing in a Taipei win. Criticism falls onto Toyz for the dive initially, but also for poor focus in the second big fight between Stanley and Olleh vs Morning and Jay. Stanley’s Lulu focused the fed Gnar of Morning rather than Jay’s Janna, missing out on a simple kill and being shredded to the point that left Olleh to defend base versus a tank and his protector.

Video courtesy of GarenaTaiwan

A suggestion for the game would have been perhaps to have utilized the Jayce pick that Toyz then picked up in the next match. The poke is strong and Toyz on poke has been the best choice for HKES in all their games but it seems Chawy’s pick of Syndra warned him off making such a pick. Instead then it would have been more beneficial to put DinTer onto a stronger tank than Wukong like Sejuani or even Amumu, or perhaps Vi to single out the likes of Syndra.

Their most recent result – a defeat to Yoe Flash Wolves – was a tactical outclass in the Pick and Ban phase. Maple got Azir, Steak got Irelia, and YFW were perfectly comfortable to sit back. The counter action was for DinTer and Toyz to pick up Pantheon and Twisted Fate (TF is Toyz’s favorite) in an attempt to joint gank across the map but the lack of foresight meant they picked mobile gankers into lanes with solid survivability and strong farming under tower. This resulted in only one successful group gank, which hit the bottom lane for a double kill.

Again, Jayce was open mid, Vi was open jungle, maybe even a Kha’zix pick up for something different… it’s hard to say what would work given they could sit back. Ultimately Yoe FW outpicked and outplayed and they showed why they’re one of the three big contenders aside HKES and TPA for the Spring Split title.

There you have it. A rundown of Hong Kong eSports and why they’re a great team to watch and a shining light in the LMS. It's early on but 5-2 is a good start to the split. Interested fans can check out their website or, to watch the games, subscribe to the LMS broadcast company Garena (who run the GPL alongside) by visiting their YouTube page or by following their live streams of the LMS on Twitch.