Korea will head into the 2018 Asian Games as East Asia’s first place team after topping the regional qualifier, the Asian Electronic Sports Federation announced earlier today.
A six team double round-robin offline tournament, the East Asia Qualifers featured teams from Korea, Taipei, China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Japan. Korea, China, and Taipei finished the round robin tournament tied for first place, with identical 8-2 game records.
Korea won the tiebreaker between the three teams, with Taipei winning the following tiebreaker against China to finish in second place. Although Korea finished the qualifier in first, both Taipei and China have also qualified for the 2018 Asian Games’ main event. The East Asia qualifier was held in Hong Kong, and took place from June 6 to 20.
Joining the East Asian teams at the main event are Vietnam, Laos, India, Uzbekistan, and Saudi Arabia’s national teams, who topped different regional qualifiers. Indonesia’s national team will also be a competitor at the main event, but did not need to take part in a qualifier since the country plays host to the 2018 Asian Games.
Korea’s national team featured Afreeca Freecs top laner Kim “Kiin” Gi-in, KT Rolster jungler Go “Score” Dong-bin, KINGZONE DragonX jungler Han “Peanut” Wang-ho, SK Telecom T1 mid laner Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok, and GEN.G bot lane duo Park “Ruler” Jae-hyuk/Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in.
The Asian Games will be held in Jakarta, Indonesia and is set to take place from Aug. 18 to Sept. 1. In order to allow the Korean players to take part in the Asian Games, this year’s LCK Summer Split schedule has been condensed as to not conflict with the tournament.
