The LPL playoffs are underway, with the final taking place on April 15, 2023. But in one of the earlier matches, OMG jungler Mao "Aki" An used one of the smartest tricks to outsmart the enemy.
Emotes are a fun feature in League of Legends and sometimes even help with communication between teammates, but there is one League of Legends player who has figured out how to use them to outsmart the competition... and he did in front of thousands of viewers.
Recently, in the second round of the LPL playoffs, when OMG faced off against Top Esports, jungler Mao "Aki" An used a smart little trick to outplay the competition and it worked wonders.
League of Legends Player Uses Emotes To Outsmart Competition
Sure, the LPL playoffs are almost over and whatever happened in Round 2 has long since forgotten, but recently information surfaced that OMG jungler Aki did not just aimlessly emote during his match against TES, something he was seen doing repeatedly throughout the match.
Instead, he was throwing up emotes left, right and center, to scope out the competition and to gather important information on the other team's vision. Basically, he would move top, throw out an emote and wait to see whether Top Esports top laner Huang "Wayward" Ren-Xing would also emote back.
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Wayward is known to be a bit silly in the top lane and play around, emoting back when his enemy does so, even on the biggest stage. This relaxed attitude would lead to him, unknowingly, giving away crucial information to OMG.
During todays stream, Aki confirmed that the reason why he kept emoting before gank during the game against TES is to see if Wayward emotes back at him. If Wayward emotes back, then there is vision in the bush... pic.twitter.com/qmqPpKbj3P
— LoL Context-Chan (@LoLContextChan) April 11, 2023
Aki knew that if he was to emote, Wayward would, without thinking, "reply" and also emote back. This would let Aki know that he'd been spotted by a ward and he could give this information over to his team without wasting a time on a gank that wouldn't work anyway. He could also warn the bot lane that the enemy jungler might make his way down to them as well.
Who knew that emotes could be used in such a creative way and actually be useful, right? It's about time we all adopt the 'smart emote' strategy in our solo queue games, eh?