Crisp and FBI give insights on East vs West divide at LoL Worlds

North America’s NRG crashed out of the Worlds 2023 knockout stage after China’s Weibo Gaming beat them convincingly in a 3-0 series. NRG’s defeat means that there are now zero remaining western teams at the event, adding more fuel to the East vs West debates.

Weibo support Liu “Crisp” Qing-Song and NRG bot laner Ian Victor “FBI” Huang were each quizzed on the gap by the media after the series had concluded.

Crisp was concise with his thoughts, highlighting the “read and understanding of waves” as the “main difference” between regions.

“I think it’s the most basic thing in this game, but also the most difficult, is the read and understanding of waves.”

FBI highlighted the practice conditions as a key reason for the gulf in fortunes:

“I think the training quality that Eastern teams are able to receive by playing against each other along with the solo queue makes a world of difference”

He added that the East’s “much larger player base” was also a factor in performance at Worlds 2023, though he insisted that “that’s not to say that we aren’t able to compete for our region.”

“As long as teams stay together, build an identity together and trust in one another then I think we can do something at international tournaments too.”

“I hope our performance at this Worlds can be a positive sign for our region because I think we do have the players and we do have the talent and we do have coaching staff that can bring NA further into the tournament.”

The Australian bot laner was still proud of his side despite elimination, finding NRG’s run — which he hopes “inspires other teams in our region to worker harder and put more effort in” — to have been “honestly pretty incredible.”

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