With the League of Legends (LoL) Pacific Championship Series (PCS) Summer Finals taking place at Taipei Heping Basketball Gymnasium on Saturday, the organizer of the pro gaming league said it is time to “find back the fans.”
Jerry Yen, CEO of Carry International Co, which has been organizing the multiplayer online battle arena game’s pacific pro league since 2021, said that the offline PCS finals featuring PSG Talon (PSG) and CTBC Flying Oyster (CFO) marked a significant step in the firm’s bid to boost the e-sports market, which took a hit during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Saturday’s event was the pro league’s first match held at a venue instead of online.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“People were saying that the tickets were priced too high, but we still sold nearly 95 percent of them,” Yen said.
The PCS, which has been allocated two World Championship berths yearly so far, saw both teams advance to the group stage in the Worlds only once in 2020, its inaugural season.
Whereas only one of the PCS teams had to play in the play-in stage for a group stage berth, this year teams from the region had to vie with two League of Legends Circuit Oceania clubs for only two Worlds play-in slots as the PCS teams remained weak internationally.
In Saturday’s best-of-five match, PSG took the last laugh with a 3-2 victory to hoist the trophy and bag US$30,000 in prize money. Runners-up CFO received US$14,000.
The championship was the sixth split title netted by the Hong Kong-based club, whose jungler Yu “JunJia” Chun-chia was named Most Valuable Player at the finals.
However, the loudest cheers could be heard after the match when fans yelled “One more year” to PSG’s veteran mid-laner Huang “Maple” Yi-tang, who said in a pre-game video that this was likely to be his last season due to the damage to his body over his decade-long career.
“Like tendinitis, [and] I can’t stretch my arms fully straight now, and my eyes suffer as well,” the 25-year-old said after the game.
Describing the moment he heard the crowd yelling as “very touching,” Maple thanked fans for all their love and support and said that he would aim for the round of eight in the Worlds.
Also confident was CFO jungler Huang “Gemini” Chu-xuan, who is soon heading to South Korea to attend the Worlds for a second straight year.
Despite Saturday’s loss, Gemini said the bumpy road CFO have taken this summer actually made them much stronger.
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