Open Mid
America's Waning Influence in Great Power Competition
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“Open Mid” is a phrase that originates in League of Legends solo queue. Opening a lane means the player will leave it entirely with no intention of returning, typically because they believe a victorious outcome in the current match is impossible.
The mid lane in League of Legends is a fulcrum, the most important lane and most important position.
Opening mid is an omen of defeat.
May 11, 2023: China’s victorious Bilibili Gaming poses onstage after victory against North America’s Cloud9. Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games.
In yet another unsurprising result, two North American teams have been decisively defeated by their Chinese adversaries. The venture capital backed Cloud9 fell 3-0 to JD Gaming, owned by the Chinese e-commerce website JD.com and Golden Guardians, a esports affiliate of the Golden State Warriors fell 3-0 to Bilibili Gaming, owned by the Shanghai based video sharing website Bilibili.
This is not just a worrying trend, it is a standard occurrence. The last time a North American team won a single game against a Chinese team was 576 days ago (as of time of writing) with Team Liquid’s roster of three Europeans, one Korean, and one American. The last time a North American team won a series against a Chinese team was 1461 days ago with a different Team Liquid roster of two Europeans, two Koreans, and one American. Many American teams have significant financial backing with expansive support structures. They recruit players from across the world; Cloud9’s current active roster consists of one American, one European, one Australian, and two Koreans. Golden Guardians’ active roster consists of one American, one Canadian, and two Koreans.
May 17, 2019: North America’s Team Liquid poses onstage after victory against China’s Invictus Gaming, the last time a North American team has defeated a Chinese team in a Bo5 series. Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games.
You may dismiss this as nerds playing games but there are parallels that can be drawn to the United States on the global stage. In a great power conflict “nerds playing games” will be on the frontline, be it in technological innovation or as the controllers of advanced weapon systems. North American League of Legends teams may be owned and operated by Americans but our trigger pullers are overwhelmingly not American. Even when we were capable of defeating the Chinese, those rosters still only featured a singular American player. We have become far too accustomed to relying on our allies and even then they fail us. Pluralism was supposed to make us stronger but it seems to have stripped us of any ability to compete.
This is in stark contrast to Chinese League of Legends teams who have significant financial backing from everything, ranging from billionaires to major corporations. They have training facilities for their teams, backup teams, and internal recruitment pipelines. Not only this but their rosters are majority Chinese nationals. The American corporation Riot Games invented League of Legends in 2009 yet not a single American team has won the World Championship. We are being beaten at our own game.
November 2018: Hangzhou has opened an “esports town” spanning 3.94M square feet and costing $280M. China’s LGD Gaming and Allied Esports have opened a joint venue in the town. This will be LGD’s home venue in China’s League of Legends Pro League. Hongyu Chen, The Esports Observer.
In January of 2012 a number of prominent American League of Legends players discussed the possibility of Koreans, who had just acquired their own region server, being a threat on the international stage that was at the time dominated by European and American teams. The panel was dismissive, citing that Europeans and Americans had such a massive head start that it would take years for them to catch up to us. That same year the winner of the World Championship was Taiwan’s Taipei Assassins and the runner-up was Korea’s Azubu Frost. In less than a year we were overtaken by Korea who to this day retains a dominance of the League of Legends scene acquiring their first championship title in 2013 and possessing seven world championship titles and nine finals appearances. China has made six finals appearances and won three world championship titles, their first in 2018. They also possess a playerbase that dwarfs the rest of the world combined.
Meanwhile, North America’s greatest achievement is two semifinals appearances in the entire competitive history of the game, one of which was at the inaugural world championship in which no Korean or Chinese teams participated. Our playerbase from which we can pull players is dwindling and North American teams increasingly rely on second rate or “washed up” talent imported from Europe and Korea.
This may seem distant and abstract with few real world consequences but this is a mere harbinger of the obstacle the United States faces on the geopolitical stage.
Yet again, there are real world parallels. America has rested on its laurels for too long. Our triumph in WWII that created the postwar international order and subsequent victory over the USSR in the Cold War has fostered a dangerous hubris. We increasingly rely on our technological edge and are too sure that it will be retained. This complacency has led to stagnation with China eclipsing our shipbuilding capacity and a rapidly maturing 5th generation multirole stealth fighter in the J-20. Unlike the Russians who can barely put a squadron of Su-57s together, the J-20 is well into serial production and poses a serious threat to American airpower with deadly consequences given our doctrinal reliance on airpower. The US military struggles to meet its yearly recruitment goals while the People’s Liberation Army has over 2 million active personnel.
Our belief that pluralism and alliance systems will make us stronger as a collective is deluded. Much like how American rosters staffed by Koreans and Europeans fall short of China’s domestically staffed rosters, American military might cannot rely on the support of allies. American financial backing of European and Asian allies means nothing if there is a possibility they will not heed the call to arms and the economic and geographic proximity of many of our Asian and European partners to China raises that chance ever higher.
Do not be so quick to dismiss the state of American professional League of Legends as simply “kids playing games” as those children will one day have to compete with China in the real world. They will one day have to be the leaders of industry despite our waning advantages in industrial development and capacity. They will one day have to fight off China’s influence despite knowing a world in which they dominate their social media and entertainment. We are wholly unprepared to face this threat and even our children only know a world in which our influence is waning.
