A group of 40 potential League of Legends pros gathered to play in front of staff members of League Champions Korea teams. The Korean e-Sports Association (KeSPA) hosted its second annual League of Legends Tryout on April 29 after an open application process. Applicants had to be at least Master Tier and 70 total applicants was whittled to 40 after a screening process. KeSPA even offered hotel services for those applicants coming from the countryside, allowing them to stay in hotels the night before, in an effort to prevent some players from having to travel in the early morning to make it on time. After a two-hour seminar with a representative of Riot Games and MVP head coach Kwon Jae-han, the players moved to a separate location where they were able to play games in front of staff members of nine professional gaming organizations that have played in the LCK. The only team not present, Kongdoo Monster, was absent because of its match in the Promotional Tournament that day. MVP’ Ahn “Ian” Jun-hyeong, Kim “Beyond” Kyu-seok, and Jeong “Max” Jong-bin attended, observing the games as well as bringing the attention of their coaching staff to potential new recruits. The players weren’t allowed to play with their real summoner names, instead using an ID of “kespa” and numbers, in order to prevent the attention only going to players with the highest solo queue rankings. The games were all individually recorded with OBS. KeSPA will provide recordings to the organizations interested, and 19 requests were made from teams while two players were able to talk to some organizations before the day was over. A representative for the event told Daily eSports: “Based on the feedback from coaching staff that the quality of play was better than last time, it seems that raising the tier requirement was effective,” and that the event is overall receiving “positive receptions as both gaming teams and parents have had an increased interest in the Tryout.” The concept of giving amateur players somewhere to get noticed is still relatively new. The North American League of Legends Championship Series hosted an event called “Scouting Grounds” in November designed to let amateur players receive coaching and input by LCS pros.