File  Photo: IC

 
The semi-finals for the League of Legends (LOL) World Championship 2020 ended on Sunday with Chinese team Suning finally defeating another Chinese team Top Esports to earn a ticket to the final against Damwon Gaming from South Korea. The result has captured the attention of Chinese netizens, showing the huge influence of esports in China.

Several hashtags such as “LOL Worlds semi-finals” and “Suning gets to the final” have earned more than a billion views on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo as of Monday.

Top Esports was one of favorites to win in the semi-finals, while Suning was commonly seen as an underdog, but the latter finally broke through to win 3-1. 

After the game, one member of the defeated team, Karsa, shed tears at the event, which quickly became a hot topic on Sina Weibo.

In a message posted to Sina Weibo after the competition, Top Esports said that they regret not making it to the final and that they felt sorry for their fans, “but our pursuit of victory will never stop. We will carry on with this regret.”

Instead of blaming them for their failure, most netizens encouraged them to try again in 2021.

While many media outlets are calling Suning’s win a surprise, but a commentator for an esports team based in Shanghai surnamed Zhang told the Global Times on Monday that the result is not surprising.

“After Top Esports barely defeated Fnatic with a 3-2 score, I felt that the entire team, except for Karsa, performed worse than before. The middle lane and bottom lane of the team were off line when playing against Suning and did not play to their usual level,” Zhang said.

He praised Suning, saying their skills were improving, “but the team still has a gap with Damwon Gaming. I hope they can lose as gloriously as possible.”

Suning, which was formed by Chinese commercial retail enterprise Suning, also posted on Sina Weibo on Sunday to thank everyone who supported the team, saying that they will try their best to guard the glory of the League of Legends Pro League.

Li, a Suning fan living in Shanghai, was glad to see the team she supports win. 

“The team has constantly grown during the Worlds this year, although all members of the team are freshmen,” she said.

Li was also a little regretful for Top Esports as the team is the only one that has all Chinese members.

“Making the impossible possible through hard work is the charm of esports. I think it is full of passion,” Li said, explaining why she loves esports.