Tabe gives insight on East vs West divide in LoL on stream with Caedrel

After the series against CFO, AL head coach Tabe sat down with Caedrel to share some rare insights on his team and his impressions about the West compared to the Eastern regions. For those who haven’t followed League extensively, this is probably one of the most valuable masterclasses about pro play you can get.

Tabe talks about his team, Fearless Draft, and the importance of scrims

It was quite a smooth series for AL, but the Chinese team dropped Game 3 after a decisive dragon fight. “Our communication was wrong,” Tabe admitted when talking to Caedrel. “We forced a dragon fight we didn’t need to take. Annie had no flash and had to go top. We should’ve farmed instead.”

For the head coach, decision-making in the current era of League of Legends is much more important than the drafts, even now with the Fearless Draft mode. “The most important part between my team and an LCK team is decision-making,” Tabe said. “LCK teams don’t make many mistakes, and they snowball yours instantly.”

This is also why Tabe doesn’t spend too much time on making draft scenarios. He sticks to what the team has prepared in training: “I never sit with my players and talk about draft for hours,” he revealed. “We play what we scrim.”

For him, anticipating every draft scenario in Fearless is almost impossible: “You’ll overthink everything.” If something goes wrong, they try to evaluate and review what could’ve gone better, and maintain constant communication between teams and staff. AL currently has a very structured coaching staff (three coaches and an analyst), each with specific duties.

Tabe shares the team’s training routine

For Tabe, two scrims of blocks aren’t enough: “Three scrim blocks per day — 2 pm, 7 pm, and 10 pm, and players rank until 3 or 4 am. A scrim day looks more or less like as following:

• Wake up at 1:30 pm for lunch
• Scrim block 1: 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm
• Dinner: 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
• Scrim block 2: 7:00 pm
• Scrim block 3: 10:00 pm
• Rest: 12:00 am – 1:00 am
• SoloQ until 3:00 am – 4:00 am and then sleep

Tabe’s message to Europe – Improve laning and decision making

Even though AL didn’t play a European team on stage, Caedrel asked Tabe how Europe could improve, considering their early exit at MSI. Tabe emphasized the decision making once again, something he thinks EU is not as quick as Asian teams.”

“Maybe they’re not losing because of the draft. It’s decision-making,” he said. “And sometimes, maybe their lanes are not tough enough. You need to be quicker by three, five seconds. That’s the difference at this level.

Nothing is lost for Tabe, though. He thinks teams need to put in the work and improve. “If you’re lazy, you just lose. Then you have no hope at all,” he added. Striving for constant improvement and learning from mistakes is Tabe’s coaching philosophy: “We are always humble. We are always learning. Even after a win, we have problems to tackle.”

Will Tabe lead AL to yet another great international result following his stints on BLG? We’ll find out if he can take the team to the top three when AL faces the winner of the series between BLG and FLY on Friday at 03:00 CET.