The LJL has faced year-long struggles of legitimacy in Japan. Last year they finally were able to launch the first official year of the LJL whereas before the LJL they had purely online tournaments hosted by the JCG, the Japan Competitive Gaming association but those years were hastily and poorly put together.

Last year and this year they finally have decent ping on their competitive matches as they play on Korea’s servers and later this year they’ll have access to Japan’s very own League of Legends server.

This year there are more Korean players and coaches coming in to build up the infrastructure, and with the ping ceiling lowered for all players, it should bring out the best of Japan this coming season. The first week of the LJL all took place on a live stage, but the rest of the LJL games will take place online since most players still have school to attend and jobs, and therefore cannot afford to travel. The last week of the regular season will take place on stage again.

Set 1: Unsold Stuff Gaming vs 7th Heaven 1-2

If there was a theme to the opening match of the LJL this week, it was to hurry up and ban Tahm Kench. In all three games of the set, the team with Tahm Kench won the game and was a huge factor for their team’s victories. In fact, in both games one and two, Tahm Kench made it to red side and in game three, blue side made it out with the Kench if only because USG’s Enty took off his headset during the draft phase of game two.

But more on the actual game itself, USG certainly had something to prove heading into their first ever split of the LJL. apaMEN, CLOCKDAY and Enty, their top laner, mid laner and support respectively, left 7th Heaven at the end of the last split and joined two soloq talents in their jungle and AD Carry: Isurugi and Haretti.

7th Heaven on the other hand also had something to prove. After they lost three of their players to USG, they fused their roster with RabbitFive’s to create the current 7th Heaven roster. Missing their franchise-face mascot in CLOCKDAY and taking members from the middle of the pack RabbitFive, they walked into this match ready to blow the doors, showing that even without CLOCKDAY they were a force to reckon with.

In game one, 7th Heaven drafted three ranged carries in Varus, Ezreal and Kindred so they were able to take control of the map for most of the early game, shoving USG into the corner. But like true sea terrors, apaMEN’s Tahm Kench rose from beneath and completely devoured 7h where they stood and took the first win.

USG looked poised to sweep the series as Enty’s Thresh assisted in a clean skirmish in the bot lane giving four kills for none and a triple kill to Haretti’s Lucian. In a decisive decision to push into 7h’s side of the map with the Rift Herald buff. But one misstep allowed Awaker’s Lee Sin and Evi to flank and dismantle USG from all sides. Coming back from a 5k gold deficit, 7h channels their inner brawler and constantly fights and constantly pushed USG into their base and brought it to game three.

Game three was the textbook definition reverse sweep for 7h and the textbook definition of tilted for USG. They lost a ban as described earlier, so instead of banning Shinmori’s Syndra like they did all series, they gave up Tahm Kench so that they could pick her. However, Syndra in the wrong hands can be devastating to their own team, as CLOCKDAY didn’t pick up cleanse to fight against Shinmori’s Lissandra. Game three was the most one-sided game of the series and a rivalry will most definitely have been born from this set given their histories.

Set 2: Rascal Jesters vs Blackeye 2-0

The most anyone can get out of this series is that Blackeye is the true Challenger team fresh blood coming into the LJL. Just about every aspect of their teamplay and map play were inferior to the Rascal Jesters. The way they play just screams that they lack discipline and experience. In the first game they actually were able to almost match kill for kill but in no way were they ever in a position to actually win against RJ. They’re like wild stallions who’ll just charge in for a kill or two even if it would be wiser to do just about anything else.

Especially in game one, it felt incredibly reckless watching plays from BE with alps’ Zed charge in 1v4 to try and kill RJ HW4NG’s Viktor despite having just lost a skirmish in the top lane. Game two mirrored game one in the number of skirmishes there were but a lot less kills to show for it. Even so, BE showed the same amount of weaknesses in their map play. Despite never being that behind in kills, they were constantly losing map pressure and being out-rotated on the map.

As time goes on, BE could become a powerful team if they learned how to play the map -- but as of right now, they’re that challenger team that qualified for the big league but have no idea how to play with the big boys.

Set 3: DetonatioN Gaming vs Rampage Gaming 2-0

DFM and RPG have the most storied history in the LJL as two of the oldest teams since the days of the JCG. While DFM was dominant last year, RPG (at the time they were Ozone Rampage) almost swept them in the finals to represent Japan at the International Wildcard Tournament. Instead, they were reverse-swept a la Cloud 9 fashion.

Moving into the new season, both teams are determined to mark their dominance in their first match. Game one plays the closest you’ll see to a main power region in the world in the sense that it was a little slower but more calculated from both teams. The other games from Japan in week one were snowbally, messy, and bloodthirsty. In the end, these games just looked like incredibly sloppy versions of the main regions but DFM and RPG had better map movements and teamfighting than the rest. There’s still a lot to work on for both teams but it was definitely more polished than the other four teams.

DFM’s Catch, fromerly from Korea’s SBENU, had better jungle pathing than RPG’s Tussle which allowed DFM to take small leads from the lanes but also a successful dragon fight propelling DFM way ahead of their rivals. In spite of a very greedy movement from DFM moving into RPG’s top jungle where they lost four members for none, DFM slowly but steadily crushed RPG and ended the game at 40 minutes.

In game two, Yutapon and Ceros demonstrated just how terrifying they really are as solo laners in Japan. They dominated their lane and swarmed the sidelanes through splitpushing as no one could duel Yutapon’s Gnar. There was a huge score mid-game where DFM almost threw the game at Baron and they might have lost had Zerost not stepped up huge for his team on the blue wings of Ezreal. From then on DFM just took their lead and repeatedly rammed into RPG’s base. It wasn’t clean and sometimes they stayed too long but they gave RPG no breathing room and no venue for a comeback.

Final Words:

Japanese teams have a lot of work to do, but their narratives are only just beginning and with outside help and a proper home server brings a lot of potential for growth and new talent coming in, assuming they weren't already playing on other servers.

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Images courtesy of the LJL official stream.