CTBC Flying Oyster Preview shows us that the PCS is truly just a step behind of the 4 biggest regions of professional League of Legends.
Worlds 2023 is going forward at a rapid pace, as on Friday, the first two teams left the competition: Movistar R7 and DetonatioN FocusMe couldn’t live up to the challenge of the biggest Warhammer 40k tournament of the year. But there’s still 6 teams left in the Play-Ins with only two spots open in the Swiss Stage – which two squads will follow DFM and R7 on their way home?
CTBC Flying Oyster Preview
CTBC Flying Oyster Team History
CTBC Flying Oyster is a very new team compared to the rest of Worlds. The Taiwanese squad was founded last January by CTBC Bank. It’s unique name comes from the Bank’s slogan “We are Family” and the Chinese word Flying Oyster – or “Fei Mu Li”, which sounds a lot like family.
The squad joined the PCS last spring, when the league reformed, as 6 out of 10 teams decided to give their spots up. They managed to finish 3rd in the Regular Season and 2nd in the Playoffs of their first Split, which was a great introduction for them. Afterwards, they managed to win it all last Summer, when they defeated Beyond Gaming 3-0 in the Playoff Finals, becoming the first seed of the region. They finished Worlds 2022 in the top 12 after they couldn’t get out of Group D – which you can’t hold against them, as they were in a group with Gen.G and Royal Never Give Up.
They failed to qualify for this year’s MSI as they only finished 3rd in the Spring PCS split, but Summer gave them a new chance. It looked grim for Gemini and co. after the Regular Season, as their 9-9 record only got them a 5th place, but they made a miracle run of 3-2 series up until the Finals, where they almost defeated PSG Talon – but ultimately finished 2nd.
CTBC Flying Oyster Roster
- Hsuh “Rest” Shih-Chieh
- Huang “Gemini” Chu-Xuan
- Tseng “JimieN” Hao-Chun
- Chao “Shunn” Ying-Shun
- Liu “ShiauC” Chia-Hao
CTBC Flying Oyster Playstyle
The 2nd seed of the PCS is a proper team of their region: slow, methodical but very clean, who can shut down messier teams in the long run. They have the second longest average game time out of all Worlds participants, and they don’t really care about kills either. This should mean that they win by macro, but that’s not exactly true, at least for their early games, where they don’t fight for plates and objectives as much as they would need to close out games faster.
Rest, Gemini and Shunn has played for the team in last year’s Worlds as well, while ShiauC and JimieN are relatively new. The midlaner, JimieN played for 100 Thieves Academy, and his overseas experience could even out his international inexperience.
Even though they don’t get loads of kills or platings, but they don’t give up much either: they have the best K/D@14 out of every competing team paired with the least Deaths @ 14, with a high Gold Difference as well (which could be even higher). Their botlane, Shunn and ShiauC are one of the best in terms of getting leads, with Shunn having the highest Gold Difference @ 14 number out of every ADC – even getting ahead of legends such as Gumayusi, Hans Sama, Deft or Ruler. Along with Shunn, JimieN is the main carry of the team. Even though they don’t pack huge damage numbers, they step up when it counts, winning the deciding clashes for their teams.
CTBC Flying Oyster’s weakest part is their midgame, specifically the 5 minutes from 20-25 mins of a match. They get leads early, but often fail to transform them into game winning situations or even late game leverage. This means that their Gold Difference and item leads just dissolve as their opponents can stabilize. They don’t threaten Baron and even if they do, they don’t have strong Baron Power Plays – in fact, only Movistar R7 and Team Liquid make worse use of the Nashor Buffs.
But if they can get to the lategame, Shunn or JimieN can get to a point where they become unstoppable. Against DFM, Rest was also a force to be reckoned with, so if he can play carries, he can become a powerhouse as well.
CTBC Flying Oyster started the 2023 World Championship in the Play-In’s Bracket B. Flying Oyster made short work of DetonatioN FocusMe, who couldn’t find gaps in their defense. After a sub-30-minute match, they choked them out, knocking them to the Loser’s Bracket. They started out even more dominant against VCS 2nd seed Team Whales, beating them in 30 minutes with an almost 10k lead. However, the unusual Vietnamese team didn’t falter, and managed to turn the game around 2-1 after two hard fought matches.
This puts CTBC Flying Oyster down at the Loser’s Bracket where they have to face Team BDS if they want to fight against PSG Talon in the Qualification match. Flying Oyster has a chance to beat BDS, but the Swiss team might prove to be their kryptonite if they can snowball from the early game like they did against Golden Guardians.
