The rookie JD Gaming team arrives at First Stand as the LPL’s seed 2, led by Wong "Tabe" Pak-kan. Sheep Esports spoke with the organization’s head coach, who discussed his previous experience in Brazil, his expectations for the team, and the challenges China faces against the LCK these days.
You’re back in Brazil after a long time. How does it feel to be back here?
Wong "Tabe" Pak-kan: “I feel very excited and happy. Yesterday, we had a really good meal. We ate the Brazilian meat, the barbecue, we had fun, and I missed the days when I was in CBLOL. At first, when I came here, I thought it was the old studio, and it’s a new one. Everything is better now.
You're building a team from zero, this time with young players. What's it like to develop these talents?
Tabe: This is a brand new team. The only player who was here last year is Xiaoxu (Xu Xingzu). I observed him the whole year, I think he is a really potential player, and he played really well last year. When GALA (Chen Wei) was in Invictus Gaming, they beat JDG. He’s one of the best ADCs in LPL. HongQ (Tsai Ming-hong) and Junjia (Yu Chun-chia) really performed very stunningly in CFO last year, they have very good mechanics, and they have in depth understanding of the game.
Lastly is Vampire (Zhao Zhecan), who is a very adventurous choice in this lineup because he’s a brand new player, and he has never had international tournament experience. But I’ve read his gaming last year, and I think that he will be a very promising star in the support role in LPL. So, I decided to bet on him and to try to develop his individual skills, and now we prove that with our five players, JDG is a very strong team. So we have to keep on moving forward.
You achieved great results in China. Why do you think you weren't able to apply your style in Brazil?
Tabe: I think when I was coaching in KaBuM, in 2018, I was not a really good coach. Maybe my mentality and my temper were not that good, too. I was not mature enough. And the second thing is maybe I didn’t pay enough attention to learning Portuguese, and it’s very hard to communicate with the players. Some players, like Disave (David Chaves), dyNquedo (Matheus Rossini), and Ranger (Filipe Brombilla), have good english but it’s still. I think that to be a good coach you have to talk a lot. You have to talk about [players’] daily life, including how their meal is today, including what they will do in holidays… It’s not only about the game.
I didn’t spend enough time to learn the language. But it is only a hypothesis, like if I could have invested about two years or three years, maybe I could have built a good team in CBLOL too. But maybe it’s experience. In eight years, I have learned a lot to be a good coach. I think if I have a chance, maybe I can get a good team in CBLOL.
What is the main difference between this JDG and last year's Anyone’s Legend? Do you think the cap is higher?
Tabe: I cannot say the cap is higher. These five players are one of the youngest teams in LPL. HongQ is just 18 years old right now, he is very young. They are like a seed. Maybe they can become very good players, maybe [not]. Sometimes, for exemple in the regular season, we had some games where we didn’t perform really well too.
So, as a head coach of JDG, what I would like during the time at First Stand [is that] I hope they can tell the world that these five players have potential to beat any teams and at the same time they can learn from all the teams. Maybe what I expect is not only results but also [if] they learned and [if] did they boecome a good players during this tournament.
Why has it been so hard for the LPL to beat the LCK in tournaments lately?
Tabe: I think there are a lot of different explanations and there are different criteria but I think the most important part is that LCK players have a very good understanding of the game they have good mechanics. And also their mentality its like… if i have to rate the ‘champions’ teams, for example T1, every single player in their team is like S-tier — like they are they have no weaknesses.
But in my opinion, [is] not only the LPL, everyone in the LoL Pro teams have the potential to beat LCK teams, but the most important factor now is that we have to learn from them. We have to learn why they are so successful, and this is a very hard thing we have to deal with but I think everyone in the world should pay more attention and also learn from good teams in LCK, especially the champion team for example like Gen.G and T1.
Have you managed to talk to anyone who trained in Brazil? Would you like to see any of the KaBuM! Esports players?
Tabe: Its very unfortunate that I cannot talk with them because it was like 7 years ago or 6 years ago I forgot my twitter account’s password and I can never log into it because i lost my cellphone number and I cannot get back my cellphone number so Icannot get the SMS. But I knew that like last year dyNquedo (Matheus Rossini Miranda) wishes me to have a good performance in the Worlds and I know he is now streaming and at that time when I was in KaBuM I felt very happy to participate with him, I felt very happy to work with thim.
I write words, some philosophy, and also [some of my] thoughts, and I shared them with DyNquedo and he kept the letter that I wrote to him. Thats why just now I said if I had more time to study the language and to study every players personality maybe I would have performed better that year when I was in KaBuM.’’
