5 characters possessing impressive game thinking and tactical sense throughout the history of Vietnamese League of Legends, and with achievements that are hard to match.
Last Sunday, the VCS Spring 2023 tournament took place an extremely tense and exciting match between the defending champion GAM and SBTC Esports. The battle not only took place between the players on the VCS Spring rankings, but the media team with the “snout combat” of the two teams also created heat before the match officially started. We also have a watch party event for both teams so fans can cheer for their favorite team together.
Not to disappoint the fans, both teams played all 3 games and had enough positions, the inherent drama of an attractive match. SE took the lead 1-0 but was overturned by GAM and won the final 2-1. Along with the attractiveness of the games, there were many opinions around the match about the professionalism of the game and of the players. Especially the 3rd game when Slayder’s Draven was very green, had a superior amount of gold compared to the rest but SE still lost and there were many reasons for this failure.
On every forum, every community group, especially after SofM reacted to the match, everyone discussed a starting topic for mistakes, error handling situations, that is thinking, Tactical perception of Vietnamese players about League of Legends. If the SE players did not do this well, do you wonder if in the history of Vietnamese League of Legends, which characters have tactical thinking or we often say know how LoL plays? Let’s find out with me.
Coach Tinikun
The first person on the list and possibly also the person with the biggest contribution to the country’s LoL industry, we must definitely mention Coach Tinikun – Duong Nguyen Duy Thanh. As a person who has a passion for games and Esports, Coach Tinikun has been with Vietnamese E-Sports since the early days with famous games like Dota 2. With a mindset built from the popular MOBA game. Before that, Tinikun quickly fell in love with League of Legends, not as a player but as a training manager.
The first achievement that coach Tinikun achieved was leading the strongest team of Vietnam League of Legends in the beginning stage, Saigon Joker, to Worlds 2012. Coach Tinikun was then recruited by Bangkok Titans and laid the first bricks. for Thailand’s greatest League of Legends team. Then coach Tinikun returned to Vietnam in 2014 to lead Full Louis of SofM, the Southeast Asian superstar team and Hanoi Fate in 2016.
At the end of July of the same year, coach Tinikun joined Boba Marines, laying the foundation for the greatest team in VCS history. After an unsuccessful season, GIGABYTE Marines quickly dominated the VCS tournament and created earthquakes at two major international tournaments in 2017 MSI and Worlds. A slight step back in 2018 when key members left the team, GAM continued to show high performance in 2019 before coach Tinikun announced his complete retirement after VCS Spring 2020.
Talking about the understanding of League of Legends, it is difficult for anyone in Vietnam to surpass Coach Tinikun when he was still leading GAM. However, coach Tinikun’s coaching style is considered by “students” to be relatively negative. Although there are no specific images and content, but through sharing from Levi and GAM members, the “drying” happens so often that the players consider it a “meal meal”. But that’s also the key to having great players and having this list. I would like to reveal the remaining 4 names with outstanding tactical thinking and sense, all of whom were students of Coach Tinikun. Let’s continue with Levi, the best jungler in the VCS tournament.
Levi
Levi’s real name is Do Duy Khanh, born in 1997. Known and started playing League of Legends in 2013, 2014, Levi quickly revealed his talent, level and ability to go jungle in 2015 after joining joined SkyRed, one of the strongest League of Legends teams in the North at that time.
Levi then joined GIGABYTE Marines in 2017 and quickly won 2 domestic tournaments that year. Of course, we can’t forget how Levi and GAM left an indelible mark on the hearts of Vietnamese and international fans at that year’s MSI and Worlds with the choices of Kha’zix or Nocturne in the jungle. terrible.
A very successful season with Levi and our satyr choosing to go abroad to LCS at 100T and then JDG but with little success. With the knowledge after studying abroad, Levi then returned to GAM in the summer of 2019 and easily got a ticket to Worlds that year. Levi continued to compete and lead GAM Esports in the following years of success with never being outside the top 2 of VCS once/
Up to now, Levi has won 6 VCS championships, 5 major international tournaments, Sea Games gold medals and many other regional representations. As the captain who led GAM to success, Levi has always been the best rated jungler at VCS for many consecutive seasons. As for thinking and tactics, the team leader with the best expertise in Vietnam is definitely at the top in Vietnam and we have nothing to argue about this.
Optimus
If someone does not possess a top-notch mindset, good call team and leadership qualities, the above all converge in one person and that is Optimus, the captain of GAM 2017. Optimus is one of them. The best mid laners the Vietnam region has ever produced with tactical thinking and the ability to lead the whole team well.
Starting to play professionally in 2013, Optimus has competed in many different colors but the most prominent ones are Saigon Joker, SF5, BM and peaked at GAM in 2017 with Levi and Coach Tinikun. Optimus then left GAM and founded SGD that reached the top 3 of VCS Spring 2019 before disbanding and ending his playing career at Team Flash.
Before retiring and changing his stage name to Cuong 7 Nui, player Optimus left many of his legacies such as the talented ADCs Slayder, Artemis or the immortal call team that went down in the history of the VCS tournament as ” beat the house for you.”
Zeros
Despite being globaned for his outrageous statements, Zeros is still highly appreciated by the majority of League of Legends fans from his excellent personal skills to his thinking about the game, matchmaking, laning and other factors in the game. game.
Reaching the Diamond rank from an early age, Zeros quickly caught the eye of many professional League of Legends teams. Officially competing in GAM’s shirt in 2018, Zeros had a pretty good debut when ending the Spring period with the runner-up position. Then there was the process of dominating the top lane and the VCS tournament in the color of Phong Vu Buffalo with 3 VCS championships, 1 in GAM shirt and 3 consecutive participation in international League of Legends tournaments. Before the Covid 19 epidemic hit, it took away Zeros’ professional playing career at EVOS, SE and now, the opportunity to play professionally.
The level of Zeros is something that all fans must recognize and along with Kiaya these are probably the two best top lanes in the history of Vietnamese League of Legends. Unfortunately, currently Zeros can only continue to play in the colors of a few teams like Chaos Knight or team GLB.
SofM
The last person on the list is none other than Le “SofM” Quang Duy. A prodigy of League of Legends and games in general, SofM started playing professionally at the age of 15 and gave his seniors a good deal in the next few seasons. With a good performance and climbing to the top 10 to challenge Korea, SofM was invited by Snake Esports from LPL to try it out and successfully went abroad after that.
During more than 6 years of playing in the LPL, 10 years of playing professionally, SofM has repeatedly reached the top 5 and the highest is the top 2 to challenge Korea, 1 time participating in Worlds only in 2020 but also a national team. The first and possibly only Vietnamese player to reach the finals of Worlds with a runner-up position.
After a long time playing in top teams and fiercely competitive regions like the LPL, SofM’s knowledge and mindset about League of Legends has reached a level that we probably don’t even know. Issues such as ban/pick champions, win conditions, mutations, what to do in the game and in each match, even outside the jungle are well understood by SofM. From the smallest things that most Vietnamese players ignore and consider as minor details such as losing Crab, exchanging skills, opportunity cost of each situation… are also explained by SofM on how to best handle it. Watching SofM analyze the LPL and the match between SE and GAM recently, we can understand how good SofM’s thinking about League of Legends is.
