TheShy Backs Chovy for Worlds Title and Questions Regional Rivalries

At the League of Legends World Championship, where China’s LPL and Korea’s LCK have spent a decade trading titles, one of China’s most famous players has made a quietly unusual wish. Kang Seung-lok, known to fans worldwide as TheShy, told a post-match interview that he hopes Chovy, the Korean mid laner long considered one of the best players never to win a world title, finally gets one.

The remark landed because TheShy is himself Korean-born and spent his career in China’s LPL, first winning the world title with Invictus Gaming in 2018. He now plays for Invictus Gaming’s current roster, which has already featured in this year’s Swiss stage. His support for Chovy, a rival from the LCK, reads less like a prediction and more like a player acknowledging a peer whose career has been defined by near misses.

The interview also touched on the tournament’s structure. Asked whether T1 or Bilibili Gaming, known as BLG, was more likely to reach the final from their semifinal, TheShy declined to pick. He said a regional civil war does little for the health of the League of Legends ecosystem, even if Korean fans would relish an all-LCK final, and that cross-region matches do more to grow interest in the game. He added that T1’s enormous fan base would make a T1 final good for the sport, then conceded the result was genuinely hard to call: BLG have been widely praised for their form, while T1 have a habit of peaking at Worlds.

That framing is notable from a player whose own career has straddled both regions. The LPL and LCK have long been the sport’s two poles, and Chinese fans have grown used to treating Korean teams as the final boss. This year’s tournament has already delivered upsets in both directions, with Chinese sides stumbling early and Korean and European teams trading blows in the Swiss stage.

TheShy’s comments also reflect a broader tension in esports scheduling. Regional dominance sells tickets at home, but international audiences tune in for cross-region stakes. A final between the LPL and LCK, or between Europe and Asia, tends to draw more neutral viewers than a rematch of domestic rivals, and players are increasingly willing to say so.

For Chovy, the endorsement is a small but meaningful note in a career defined by regular-season brilliance and world-stage frustration. The mid laner has won domestic titles and been named among the best in the world, yet the Summoner’s Cup has stayed out of reach. Whether this is the year that changes depends on matches still to be played, not on a rival’s good wishes.

The immediate question is whether the semifinal delivers the cross-region spectacle TheShy argued for. T1 and BLG meet with a final place at stake, and the result will shape how fans remember this tournament. For now, the takeaway is simpler: one of the LPL’s biggest names would rather see the game grow than see his own region’s rivals kept apart.