The success of the ecosystem from the VCS (Vietnam Championship Series)
Hello, my name is Nguyen Anh Thang. I am from The Netherlands and have a Vietnamese heritage. My goal is give critical information on this beautiful competitive scene from Vietnam. In this article I will explain in depth of the Vietnamese League of Legends scene, and why it has been so successful.
Before I delve into this article, I wanna say that I’m super excited for the current split and I can’t wait how it will unfold! This article will also be written in a different tone, so please let me know what you think about it and if you like this style of article writing.
When I came onto vacation in Vietnam I always noticed a couple of things when arriving at an local area: Lots of food places and especially a lot of internet cafés. These areas would be filled with youngsters who would fill their school afterhours with playing video games.
Personally, I’ve never entered an internet café as I never saw the need into it. “Why go to an internet café when you can purchase your own device?” — Was my thought when I was younger. Fact is though that most of the Vietnamese people couldn’t afford such device, so it is easier to pay a small amount to play a couple of hours onto your favourite game. It could also serve as a social place for most of the regulars. I’ve also heard some stories about some kids going to “play outside” and then meet up at the internet café with their friends, which was pretty insane to think about given the difference between Vietnam and The Netherlands.
The young upcoming region
This is also where legends of the Vietnamese scene would be born. Back when the VCS scene started, most of the teams were bundled up players from each their own city. One prominent example would be Young Generation — a group consisting out of; yT, Ren, Venus, Naul, Bigkoro and Palette who made it to worlds in 2017, despite having almost zero budget. Not only that, they didn’t had a pay, nor a manager or even a coach. The players were a group of good friends, who after dropped by their former teams (269 Gaming and Saigon Jokers), played with each other in the VCS after qualifying in a small internet café in Saigon.
Other examples would be Sky Gaming from Đak Lak, Cherry Esports from Can Thơ and GAM Esports from Saigon.
You see, most of the YG players have said that they used League of Legends — or video games in general- as an escape mechanism of their real life events. A good example would be Bigkoro, who lived in a poor family where his mother would suffer from depression. One day, after Bigkoro returned from a birthday party, his mother had passed away and he had no one to care for him.
Another example would be Palette who lived with his mother in a really small room, two by 3 meters only. Under poor circumstances, Palette managed to make a living out of gaming. His mother said in the video that she misses her son even now and then, but gets happy whenever she sees Palette on the TV.
Other examples where orgs establish in citites would be Sky Gaming from Đak Lak, Cherry Esports from Can Thơ and GAM Esports from Saigon.
The grassroots of Vietnamese League of Legends lays from the internet cafés in Vietnam. Even now we see it appear, but in different size. The VCSB, second tier competition is filled with organisations from local cafés (and non) that could be succesfull one day when promoted into the main League: The VCS.
Where does a team get their talents from?
Well you might ask: “Thang, how does an organisation spot upcoming talent?”. For that I have asked Nguyen “Hazardous” Thanh Dat, the social executive from Saigon Buffalo on how his team spots and develops their talents. Currently there are four rookie players on the Saigon Buffalo line-up; BeanJ, Rby, Arrietty and Taki.
I received a variety of answers to this question, but it all comes down to extensive scouting through the solo queue ladder in Vietnam. Once a player has gotten onto the radar, they sign them for their academy team (Young Buffalo). This is also to train, take a closer look and polish them into superstars of tomorrow.
While 5/6 got promoted into the main squad, the next players are already in the line at Young Buffalo. Not only SGB, but CERBERUS Esports is another good example of forstering their young talent as they brought in Phuc1 from their academy squad (Puppies Esports) into the main team. This is also the reason why a lot of teams have large squad rosters. Competitiveness drives a player to perform and it is easy to exchange one or another.
The next steps for Vietnam
“Thang, then what about going from 8 to 10 teams in the VCS? We have so many talents, and organisations are waiting to be part of the VCS one day.”
Perhaps one day yes, but the Vietnamese scene is still lacking professionalism and infrastructure to be a good competitor alongside the likes of the LEC, LCK and LPL to allow more teams. We have the playerbase and the raw talents and practice has also gotten better over time as many of the VCS teams can scrim against LPL/LCK/LJL/PCS teams. But for 10 teams you need more stability and long standing organisations, we’ve seen many organisations join and leave in a span of 3 years which can something to be frowned upon.
The competition has definitely gotten better over time, but for the next steps to make it needs to be a very huge step from being a minor competitive region to become a major region one day.
Wanna talk more more about the VCS in general? Then come and hang around in our VCS English Discord! We are an active community with a lot of various content, passionate about the VCS, almost hitting 2.000 members!
As always, thank you for reading my article. Until next time!
