Hello! Sien here! As most people here are unfamiliar with esports and league of legends, this chapter is meant to make you understand everything better to help you guys with making your apps! I will work hard to explain everything to my best ability but since I have been into esports for almost 7 years now, I can never fully know what info to pick as important. If you have any more questions, please comment or dm and I will add those to this chapter for everyone. Down below I will have multiple sections about the game the team plays, the structure of the world championship and korean league, an overall year schedule and a look on the basic life of an esports player! I hope that this will be helpful, convince you guys to apply and maybe even introduce some into esports? (please come fangirl with me) It will be a long read probably so buckle up, buttercups!

THE GAME 

The game that this team will be playing is League of legends. A 5v5 third person MOBA. Everyone in the game picks a different character to play and then they enter the map to fight. The main goal is to work together as a team to kill the enemies, get neutral objectives like dragons and big purple alien worms and then push into their territory. The end goal is to destroy the enemy nexus, a core right at their base. But first you're meant to push your advantages by destroying their turrets, that will shoot at you. This is what the map looks like:

Every player in the team has a different role, making a full team of five. It is not possible to play with a different amount of players. Most teams have more than 5 players on their roster but the others are substitutes, used for a backup, change of style or just to have two equally good players switch around in different matches. The five roles are:
- Top laner
- Jungler
- Mid laner
- Ad carry or bottom laner
- Support

The top laner goes to the top lane (named on the map picture) and usually plays either tanks: big beefy champions with a lot of health that are very hard to kill and are often found at the frontline of teamfights, or bruisers: cold blooded killers that are very good at pushing into enemy territory while isolated. Champion examples that are popular right now: Tryndamere, Graves, Camille, Renekton.

The jungler is often regarded as the hardest role to play. They do not have a fixed lane to go to but rather enter the jungle that is situated between the lanes. The jungle is filled with narrow, swirly paths and neutral monsters to kill. Junglers have to play a lot of mindgames with their enemies because they can decide a game from the first minutes. Their main goal is to kill the neutral monsters and develop an advantage by sneaking up on enemy laners to create a number's advantage with their teammates. This is called ganking, and is pretty much required to create an advantage early. Ganks are meant to either gain kills, have the enemies waste precious resources to avoid being killed or scare them away from the lane so you can get the turret damaged. Jungle champions are generally either more oriented towards ganking or towards killing monsters to build themselves up. Champion examples that are popular right now: Nidalee, Lee Sin, Diana, Xin Zhao.

Mid laners go to the middle lane of the map and are often the centre of attention because they are... in the middle- Either they take a lot of resources for themselves and pull helping hands towards them, or they take it into their own hands and move to another lane to gank with or without the jungler. Midlaners usually do a lot of damage and often make the flashy plays. There are two main kinds of midlane champions: control mages, usually champions with wizard-like abilities that can throw things like lasers and bombs from a long distance, and the assassins: the name may speak for itself. Their style is to sneak up on people and murder them quickly before escaping just as quickly, because they are usually very fragile. Assassins can also appear in the jungle and even the toplane, while control mages can also appear as supports. Champion examples that are popular right now: Viktor (anyone watching arcane?), Corki, LeBlanc, Orianna.

Ad carries or bottom laners play in the bottom lane, the only lane where people go together. They play together with the support in a 2v2 situation. Ad carries are a big source of damage but are the most fragile and often least mobile of the game. They are mostly shooters, but we occasionally end up with a control mage down here. If the champion has a gun or bow, high chance that they are an ad carry. While mid lane champions rely on their special abilities, ad carries do most of their damage through constantly landing auto attacks from far away. The assassins often try to get onto the ad carry, and they are meant to stay away from those and be protected by the team. Champion examples that are popular right now: Jinx (arcane again), Jhin, Zeri, Aphelios.

Supports are a role that is often disregarded, but often the most important as well. They don't do much damage, but are meant to protect their team, heal them up or start fights. They start the game together with the ad carry, but they often leave the lane to team up with the jungler to find kills elsewhere. It depends on the support's champion and playstyle, and also on how much the ad carry can survive on its own. They often have abilities that heal their team and restrict the movement of the enemies so the rest of the team can get kills. There are two main types of supports: enchanters, who focus on empowering their own team, healing them up and sometimes overlap with control mages, and engage supports, usually big beefy characters with a lot of health that are meant to engage into battle and start fights. Support is a very weird role because a lot of champions can be a support (like top lane tanks or mid lane control mages) while not many supports can go to other lanes. Champion examples that are popular right now: Lulu, Leona, Nautilus, Renata Glasc.

I hope this wasn't already too long for you but there is still a lot to go. In high thier pro play, there is a meta. The league of legends team constantly changes up small things about the champions and items to balance the game, resulting in some champions becoming very strong at one time and others being very weak. Pros usually follow this meta and pick strong champions, but most players also have one or a few favourite champions that they are very good at no matter what, these are called comfort picks and pocket picks. It is mostly the job of the coach to study the meta and figure out what team composition is strong. Sometimes, the meta suddenly becomes very unconventional without any intentions, resulting in things like the meta where healing enchanters were played in the top lane as tanks. It can really get crazy sometimes. 

I can go into the games more if you'd like but this is already getting way too long so I'll be moving on here. The fic will not be as focused on specific gameplay anyway

THE WORLD 

LoL Esports around the world is divided into different regions, according to their servers on the game itself, mostly. They compete each in their own region,  and send their best performing teams to international events, which happen twice a year. Players can move to different regions, and then they will be counted as 'imports'. There are specific rules around imports but I will explain the regions first. Possible Wildcard wanters, keep your eyes on this section cause you can decide the wildcard's nationality here. To make it easier, I will only be mentioning the regions that can send teams to international events.

There are 4 major regions and 8 minor regions that attend international events.

4 major regions get 3 or 4 teams at the world championship and they are:

- LCK (South Korea), this is where Hynix will be playing
- LPL (China), Taiwan and Hong Kong are not included
- LEC (Europe), this counts all countries of Europe except Russia and Turkey
- LCS (North america), USA and canada, often memed cause they are at worlds

2 minor region teams that float in between major and minor, and get 2 teams to qualify:

- PCS (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and Southeast Asia)
- VCS (Vietnam)

6 minor regions that each send 1 team to the pre-stage of worlds, called play-ins:

- LJL (Japan)
- LCL (Russia)
- CBLOL (Brazil)
- LLA (Latin america)
- TCS (Turkey)
- LCO (Australia)

The wildcard comes from a southeast asian minor region, meaning he can come from either the PCS, VCS or LJL. I will also allow LCO as long as the player is from non-korean asian descent (there are quite a lot of australian resident players with asian ethnicity). This means the allowed countries of origin are Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Vietnam, Japan or other less common southeast asian countries. PCS currently also has players from Thailand, Indonesia and The Philippines but I'd allow others too since they would be PCS residents as well. And of course Australia with the exception.

Okay, the general rules about import players is that there are a maximum of two allowed on the main roster at the same time. It is possible to have three, but only two can play simultaneously so the third would be a substitute. If players have played in single region for 2 full years, they gain a green card, and are from then on not counted as imports in that specific region anymore.

At worlds, teams are allowed to bring a roster of 7 players maximum. Some teams only bring 6, while others have to leave players at home because during the regular season, you can have 10 people on one roster. Every team in Korea has an academy team that play in the second division, and can switch players between those teams at any moment if an academy player is performing well. It sometimes happens to experiment or to see if an academy rookie is main stage ready.

The LCK has a total of 10 teams. Hynix will be replacing Hanwha Life, so the lineup will be:

- Damwon Kia, DK (every team has a short version of their name in game)
- Gen.G, GEN
- T1
- KT rolster, KT
- Kwangdong Freecs, KDF
- Nongshim, NS (yes, the ramen brand)
- DragonX, DRX
- Fredit brion, BRO (yes, their short name is BRO)
- Liiv sandbox, LSB
- Hynix, HNX

Hynix has dropped the SK in their esports team, because the SK stands for SK telecom that have over 20% shares in Hynix, but they actually own the team T1, so in this case, the companies have agreed to drop the SK to not cause confusion. Also, organisations are not allowed to own multiple teams at this time.

Every player picks some sort of 'stage name' to perform under. Not many people actually keep their own name but occasionally there will be people that pick their own first or last name, or a different version of it (ex: Sangyoon). Some players pick words that just sounded cool to them (ex: Dread). Others pick a childhood nickname (ex: Chovy) or some weebs even name themselves after an anime character they love (ex: Canna). You can pick anything as long as it is not offensive, even numbers. But if you pick a complicated gamertag, be prepared to hear it being mispronounced at international events (rip to all the chinese players that are casted by white commentators).

THE YEAR 

The leagues all start at different dates, but all at around the start of the year. In fact, China started up last week already, while Europe, Korea and America have all started this week! This is called the spring split, where the league plays a double round robin, and then the top 6 play an elimination race called play-offs to determine the spring champion. This runs from January to April. Teams get points according to their placements and the champion can attend MSI. Matches are played in a best of 3 format, but from top 4 on in the play-offs it becomes best of 5.

The LCK trophy

MSI, the mid-season invitational, is an international event taking place in April, usually on locations that are not eligible to host a world championship. Last time, it took place in Iceland because of covid, and two years before that it took place in Vietnam. All the champions of the regions mentioned before fight to become the MSI champion. But this time, only the champions are eligible to go. Because there is a smaller amount of players, especially during covid times, they often make a lot of international friends at MSI.

The MSI trophy

After MSI ended, teams hurry home to prepare for the summer split, with the same structure as spring split, but running from July to August. The champion of this split also qualifies for the world championship. Once again, teams gain points according to placements, and those get added to their spring points. The team that has the highest accumulated points (except for the summer champions) also qualifies for worlds. Then, the 4 remaining teams with highest championship points will get to compete in the regional qualifiers. This small tournament decides the third and fourth qualifying teams. There is not always a fourth seed, because that is given to the two best performing regions because Vietnam hasn't been able to be at international events for two years now. But usually, the two extra teams are from china and korea.

Then in october and november, the magic happens. The world championship. Even more prestigious than MSI, and the best time of the year for both fans and teams that have qualified. For a lot of teams and players, worlds is the goal. Worlds is always hosted in a major region and if covid does not stop them, they go on a sort of 'tour', changing cities throughout the championship. This way, players can travel across the country, absorb the culture and do tourist stuff in their free time. On stage, they compete in front of a huge public for the worlds trophy and a big pot of prize money. And of course, the glory. World champions also get skins for their favourite champions in the game, designed specifically for them.

The worlds trophy

An example of world champion skins, this set was designed for Damwon Kia when they won in 2020. Skins are buyable cosmetics in the game to give your champion a fancier look.

Playing in a team works with contracts that run with a set amount of time. Usually, contracts run no longer than 3 years but could be extended. Usually the shortest time is for one split (around 6 months) but sometimes it is possible to sign an emergency contract. For example, last year an australian player could not make it into Iceland for the world championship, so they signed a free european player for just those two months to fill up the spot.

When your contract runs out, you become a free agent, and you are free to either sign a contract extension or to join a new team. Teams can offer buyout prices to buy a player from another team that is still under contract. These prices can go into the millions. Teams can also nullify contracts and release players before their contracts end. This usually happens when the team disbands, or the player was outed for something severe like matchfixing. The off-season starts after worlds in november, and that is the time when teams often switch their lineups and sign new players. It is quite rare for a team to keep the same lineup unless they are really good. Some teams replace their roster completely. Between spring and summer, changes can also be made, but those are usually at a lower number. it is also possible to trade players, but that doesn't happen that often.

Players are usually picked up by a team by scouting, try-outs or a mix of both. Scouting works exactly like in the idol world, by contacting the player in person or on social media, asking for negotiations. New players are often scouted if they perform really well in the game and are high up in the ranks (like the wildcard), or when they are known to be very good streamers (like girl on top). Try-outs are when teams bring in several players to compete for a spot, and they pick out the best choice after watching them play with and against other try-outers and already signed players. That way, they can see how they would mesh with their new teammates. The best one gets picked, to the others, better luck next time.

Many big teams also have some kind of training agency. I call it the place where they grow their little sprouts. Usually a system where young prodigies are picked up and trained to become professionals once they become eligible to play in the big league. 17 is the minimum age for players in the league. With this trainee system, they can experience team and professional environments without properly comitting to it yet. Sadly, a lot of the young rookies drop out of high school to pursue the professional career, and only finish it after they retire or have completed their military service. Oh and speaking about military service, it cuts a LOT of careers short. I don't think anyone has ever returned as player after military service, but many of them do return as a coach.

THE LIFE 

Yeah, I know this is long and I am very sorry for that, but I want to explain the basics to be able to understand the esports scene as well as possible. Again, don't hestitate to ask me extra things you are wondering about!

Esports teams live together. Usually the players and coach live together in a dorm, similar to kpop groups (and yes, some are just as bad). They also usually have a gaming house near the dorm, which is mostly a fancy little building, like a company building. There are the training facilities and practice rooms, usually having facilities like gyms, cafetarias, activity rooms, meeting rooms and physiotherapy rooms. Esports teams have a lot of staff behind them, like team managers, analysts, extra coaches, physiotherapists, mental health coaches, dietary coaches, content creators, cooks and so on. Strangely, in Korea the cooks are often loving, cheerful sweet grandmothers trying to make a living after retirement. The players usually are very fond of the cooking aunties and it's mutual. These staff members can be created by you, if you want an extra relative or friend or something in the staff team!

Practice days can be very long and tiring. At worst, esports players run on an 18 hour schedule. This usually ends badly, so most teams turn away from it. Usually, the daily things in a pro's life are teambuilding activities, practice games against other teams and a certain time of playing the game by themselves. Sometimes, this time is used to stream those games, either by the team's or the player's choice. Sometimes, they also leave some room for filming videos where they talk about games or do fun activities like playing paintball. On matchdays, they usually arrive at LoL park (the stadium) one hour beforehand and play for a few hours. Winning teams do fanmeets, if covid doesn't happen. Pros usually get only one day off a week.

The life of an esports pro is very burdening. A lot of pros suffer from health issues, both physically and mentally and live a very unhealthy life filled with fastfood and energy drinks. Lately, there has been a movement to improve on this, and that's why teams are now hiring dietary coaches, mental health coaches, physiotherapists and cooks. They are aiming towards a better life for these young kids. They might be celebrities, in the end they are just young adults or teens who often hide away in their rooms and don't really know how to socialize or take care of themselves.

While the life is very hard, they are more free in some aspects than idols. Pros are allowed to freely date, but it is only frowned upon if it noticeably worsens their performance. Pros also don't create a scandal if they smoke or drink (at least not underage). There are even some pros that are married and have kids! A lot of times, the married or long-time relationship players are allowed to move out of the dorm and live in a nearby apartment with their family. Especially the ones with kids are usually given an apartment by the team. If Hynix signs a married player, they will also be allowed to live separately, but that would result in the player maybe appearing less frequently in the story, so decide on what you want here. Of course, I won't allow the younglings to be married or having kids lol...

Anyway, that's all I have for now! I hope that I could teach you something useful that will help with creating your character. If you have more questions, please don't hestitate to ask them and I will put them in an FAQ section right here!