Aphromoo thinks bootcamping in Korea will become less popular

According to Aphromoo, we could see a decrease in teams wanting to bootcamp in Korea.

Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black and CLG weren’t able to make it out of the group stage of the 2016 World Championship, but the support has still found a way to stay in the headlines.

In a recent interview with Travis Gafford of Yahoo Esports, Aphromoo had some interesting things to say regarding teams bootcamping in Korea. When asked about the success wildcard Albus NoX Luna has had, the NA LCS superstar said: “They didn’t bootcamp at all. So I think it’s just different types of practice that you can do to prep for an international competition. You don’t need to go to Korea and bootcamp to be good. If you can prep by yourself, no one is going to know what you’re going to do. Then you bring it out and focus on your team play. That’s usually what it all comes down to. It’s good enough to come and still whoop some ass.”

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Gafford then asked Aphromoo if he regrets bootcamping in Korea, and he said: “I think less teams will go to Korea based on what happens at Worlds. Let’s say ANX go super far into the tournament, most teams are going to be like ‘Huh, you don’t need to go to the top teams in Korea and scrim them because you can develop your own meta.’ If you have the confidence to do that and just bring it to the tournament, I think that’s a lot more exciting and consistent than bootcamping in Korea. Usually, you go to Korea for better players, but if you’re going to the tournament, doesn’t that mean that you’re good too?”

The last thing he said was, “I think bootcamping will become less of a thing in the upcoming League of Legends international competitions.”

This is actually a very interesting topic Aphromoo has brought to attention. Bootcamping in Korea has been a no-brainer decision for Western teams for many years now, but is it really the best thing to do? You have to at least question it whenever you see things like Albus NoX Luna having success and TSM coming up short.

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When you think about what Western teams have to deal with when bootcamping in Korea, it almost seems weird that they even want to do it. Sure, you get to practice against the best teams in the world, but it’s not that simple.

For starters, Korean teams won’t just scrim anyone — you have to be “worthy” of their time. We heard that Cloud9 couldn’t get many scrims last year heading into Worlds just because they were the third-seed from North America. There have to be other cases than that one, but that alone is enough to make you question things.

Alright, so you need to show that you are worth the scrim time, but even that gets a bit weird. Multiple people have come out and explained that Korean teams do not give it their all in scrims against Western teams. They save their best for other Korean teams because they want Korea to be the best. This puts Western teams in such a weird position. They often get called out for giving it their all in scrims, but haven’t they been forced into that by the inferiority complex that they have towards Korean teams?

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It just seems like a lose-lose situation for Western teams. You either don’t get scrims or show most of your cards whenever you do get them.

If anything, it seems like the biggest reason for bootcamping in Korea should be because of the solo queue. Not only is the competition and overall quality of online play better in Korea, but the ping is nearly as good as it is on LAN. Meanwhile, North American pros are stuck with playing on a ping that hovers around 90. It seems like every Korean and Chinese player has mentioned how horrible the ping is whenever they have been asked about their experience in North America.

Lastly, and this isn’t essentially connected with bootcamping, but it would be nice to see regions stay true to a meta of their own. Western teams are always trying to emulate what the Koreans are doing, but maybe that isn’t always the right thing to do. There are probably some things you should follow from them, but you don’t have to play exactly like a Korean team.

For example, take a look at ranged supports. Other regions laughed at North America during the spring for their love of ranged supports, but look at what followed. CLG had great success with it at MSI, and the other regions started doing it too. Those same supports are still thriving now at Worlds. Shouldn’t that happen more often in the future?

It will be interesting to see what happens with bootcamping in the future. Seeing teams put less of an importance on it would be fascinating.

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