Last year seemed to be the year of Bilibili Gaming. But the LPL team eventually couldn’t lift either of
League of Legends Esports international trophies and headed home with two silver medals for global tournaments. This year BLG head into Worlds 2025 determined to finally lift the trophy.
Despite early ups and downs in the LPL season, the team has grown and refined their gameplay, with Zhao “Elk” Jia-Hao highlighting how they’ve adapted to the evolving meta and worked to reduce mistakes in pursuit of their strongest performance yet on the international stage.
You’ve mentioned that BLG has left regrets in past finals and “runner-up” endings. After getting so close before, how do you shift your mindset so that World 2025 is the one tournament where you will lift the trophy?
Zhao “Elk” Jia-Hao: "I really feel that as a human, as a player, you really need to grow through all the tournaments. And if you have some difficulties, it could also be the motivation to help you grow even faster. So last year we definitely left regret on the stage, but also this year, I don't think we have a very smooth start. We got some ups and downs, we faced some obstacles, but fortunately, in the third Split of the LPL, especially in the playoffs, we were able to really ramp up to show our ability and potential in the game. And around there in the LPL, we just played better and better, and hopefully the same thing will happen here, so we can have a better performance on the stage at this year's Worlds.
For Worlds Riot has had a few ADCs buffed. Without revealing your strategy, how do you think the meta favors your team this time?
Elk: For all the pro players, when you're coming into the new meta, you really need to explore more, like find out your answers to the meta. So together with all my teammates, we really need to have a very good adaptation to the champions and to try to figure out which champions can be a good pick and which champions can be easier to win the game. And after that, it’s all the practice and also in the Solo Q ranks, we really need to put more effort into that and to help us get into the meta.
And then this year we also have Fearless Draft. From your perspective, which team would you say are most likely to benefit from Fearless Draft?
Elk: It's very hard to tell which specific team will benefit or feel the struggle for the Fearless Draft, because I believe all the teams can appear on the international stage — especially at the World Championship — as the strongest teams are the top teams from each region. And all of us have played Fearless Draft before. So we have our key for what kind of combination or draft. Because of that, I believe the team that can really benefit from Fearless at the World Championship could be the team with a very deep champion pool. But it's very hard to tell.
In your recent interview, you said there are details in learning that you can improve heading into Worlds. How did you work on what things you believe you need to improve, and how do you expect you will show up on stage?
Elk: First of all, I believe for the whole team and also for myself, we really need to be more careful in-game. And also in the practice, we really need to reduce the mistakes we have made after receiving very detailed feedback. We really need to have a very good attitude in terms of daily practice. And for me and for the whole team, we feel like, from the last World championship, MSI, and EWC, we kind of had a bad run. We didn't reach our expectations. So hopefully with all the effort, we could show this version of BLG that we should show on the stage.
Header Photo Credit: Riot Games
