After a year of coaching TSM in the League of Legends LCS league, Wong “Chawy” Xing Lei switched gears and spent 2024 behind a desk on the Pacific Championship Series Taiwan broadcast.
It was his first time shoutcasting and he initially worried about “saying the wrong things.” Nonetheless, it turned out to be a fun experience because unlike other LoL Esports broadcasts, fans tune in with the expectation of enjoying it as they would a radio station, Chawy tells ONE Esports.
Less than half a year later, he’s now the champion of the new League Championship Series (LCP) as head coach of CTBC Flying Oyster, qualifying for First Stand, the first LoL Esports international tournament of the year.
In this exclusive interview, he details his experience in getting the role of head coach, how he worked with CTBC Flying Oyster to build the roster, and the philosophies he applies to lead the team to success .
The stars are aligning left, right, and center for Chawy
Chawy’s journey back to being a championship-winning coach
While shoutcasting didn’t change the way he coached, it did keep Chawy on his toes during the 2024 LoL Esports season. He continued to keep up with the meta while assuming a different role in the competitive scene.
For the 2025 season, he was keen to get back into coaching — but after five years of coaching and eight years as a pro player, there were conditions that mattered to him and needed to be fulfilled.
“I wanted to look for a team that actually wants to win. I’m not particular about the roster — the thing I want to make sure of is that the team and the roster want to win,” said Chawy.
After leading HK Attitude in 2019 to a successful Worlds-qualifying run, he finished fourth in the BRCC 2020 Split 1 Playoffs with Falkol and led TSM to a 5th-6th finish at the LCS 2022 Championship. During his time with other leagues, he encountered players and staff who didn’t share the same goals.
“I realized that in the long run, it actually hurt my resume and my reputation. I got serious after I came back from TSM. I realized that no matter how much you put in, it’s still a team effort,” Chawy reflected. “I’m now back in a region where they respect me.”
Based in Taiwan, he had only considered joining PSG Talon or CTBC Flying Oyster (CFO) for the 2024 season. However, at that time, the organizations weren’t looking for new coaches, so he decided to sit it out.
LCP overturned lives — and it was especially good for Chawy
Riot Games’ announcement on LCP was a huge turning point for the region, but it was especially life-changing for Chawy. The league combined multiple regions into one franchise model, and as a result, many players and coaches lost their jobs, leading to an oversupply of coaches and players.
For the 2024 season, CFO fielded a veteran-heavy team comprising Hung “Karsa” Hao-Hsuan Hu “SwordArt” Shuo-Chieh, Hsu “Rest” Shih-Chieh, and Kim “Gori” Tae-woo that finished 3rd and 4th respectively in Spring and Summer.
As the organization was rebuilding for LCP, Chawy applied for the head coach role and went through many rounds of interviews. After speaking to staff and managers, they discovered that their approach to building a successful roster aligned.
“The way they want the team to function was the same way that I wanted to work with the team. I was just the coach that they were looking for and had enough experience. We can easily pick the best of the best, but we need to make sure the team works. So they recruited me first and then we started looking for players,” said Chawy.
The process of roster-building started in October 2024 when Worlds was ongoing. CFO tried out many eligible players in the region, putting them in different permutations and combinations, trialing against each other and their academy team.
“During the process we realized we are missing this, we are missing that, then we’ll try to look for players with that trait. That’s how we ended up forming this team,” said Chawy. “It’s very different from the past. A lot of players have no teams so we spent a lot of time trying them out since we have the luxury to do so — whether player A will work well with player B or whether these five players will work well inside and outside of the game.”
Before signing the final roster, Chawy also called up previous coaches and managers of these players as part of a reference check.
Building and nurturing the CTBC Flying Oyster roster for LCP 2025
The first player that was confirmed was rookie mid laner Tsai “HongQ” Ming-Hong from CFO’s academy team. Mechanically gifted and succeeding in the academy scene, it’s almost kismet that he’s being led by a former mid lane pro.
Despite pairing HongQ with 2021 Worlds winner Yu “JunJia” Chun-Chia, he discovered that shotcalling was lacking. Support Ling “Kaiwing” Kai Wing, who previously worked with Chawy at HK Attitude, and bot laner Chiu “Doggo” Tzu-Chuan were brought in to fulfill this role. They were all informed beforehand that they were going to be working with a rookie who needs more coaching and time to grow.
“They are very patient with him. 17-year-old HongQ is just a teenager. He’ll joke with all the experienced players and talk smack. He’ll laugh at JunJia’s mistakes. Rookie players usually don’t behave this way because it may be disrespectful and teammates may not like it, but JunJia is very chill. They somehow managed to be best friends,” Chawy laughed. “Somehow, everything just clicked.”
Once a solo queue king himself, Chawy is aware of how HongQ thinks when he plays the game and spends extra time working with him. After covering team issues during game reviews, he’ll tell HongQ how he should play out his lane, how he can be more of a team player instead of just caring about himself and solo kills.
“At first, it was pretty hard to convince him. He would think that if a person gives me a chance to kill him, why should I not kill him?” Chawy shared. “I’ll tell him that this is how you should play a game — but you can continue doing what you want. You will die and you will lose the game. After it happens a few times in scrims, he realizes that I’m right.”
Best team practices that contribute to CTBC Flying Oyster’s success
Learning by failing is something that he found extremely valuable during this time on TSM where he discovered just how differently teams operate outside of Asia. “They prefer this kind of training, which is to let players fail, because if they don’t experience it, they will not believe it,” said Chawy. “I would rather let them fail earlier in the split than to force them.”
This approach starts all the way from drafts. If a player feels good about a champion, Chawy will trust them with it first. If it doesn’t work, he’ll then ask them to try his draft instead.
In equal measure, he expects the same from his players. For example, if player A and player B have differing playstyles, he would like to see both sides try each other’s approach first before coming to conclusions. This is something he acknowledges isn’t easy for pro players to do.
“I had a talk with the players before we started. I told them I want them to try both ways and see what works because it’s going to be a win-win if people are willing,” said Chawy. “But I think this is something coaches have to say before the team even starts practicing, that this is how I’m going to resolve conflict and make sure everyone agrees.”
He emphasized a second key point during that meeting: winning or losing doesn’t concern him. His goal is to make sure each player improves.
When CFO won the LCP 2025 Season Kickoff Qualifying Series to First Stand, beating PSG 3-1, Chawy was very happy and even cried afterward, but he continued to be honest with his team.
“We won because the other team was worse than us on that day. It doesn’t change the fact that we are still bad,” he told his players. “We won because the stars aligned for us. We have a very talented player in JunJia. We were better at Fearless Draft. But that’s just for this split. Other teams will improve and things only get harder.”
The third point he gave his players is to enjoy playing the game. “If players put so much pressure on themselves, if they don’t love the game, they will not be able to perform. Even after a loss, we go next,” said Chawy. “Not just in esports, but in whatever you do: if you love something, you enjoy it, you will do much better.”
Enjoyment is exactly how Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok reinvented himself at the start of 2023, he told press during a recent visit to Razer HQ in Singapore, which resulted in two consecutive world championships for T1 after a six-year drought.
These changes Riot Games made is absolutely advantageous to the CFO roster
Besides these effective internal strategies, Chawy gives credit to external factors. Besides introducing the LCP, Riot Games also updated the LoL Esports tournament format across regions. The biggest change to teams is the debut of Fearless Draft in the tier-one scene.
Preparing for Fearless Draft is something Chawy really enjoys doing. “To be honest, I think I’m pretty good at it. I love drafting. I love the process,” he said. “I think other teams are not accustomed to it yet. So the first thing I did was tell my players they have to train new champions.”
For the more experienced players, he informed them that whatever they’ve been doing for the past few years is irrelevant. Everyone’s job is to expand their champion pool and the first step is to watch VODs of other players who excel on these champions, then try them out during practice.
Going hand-in-hand with Fearless Draft is the ways in which Riot Games has evolved the League of Legends pro meta over the years. Just this season, Atakhan, a new objective, was introduced, while last season, Void Grubs were added.
“League of Legends is a lot easier now. Previously, Chovy could wreck mid, and you won’t be able to play for the rest of the game. But now, there’s team fighting every minute, which means your team will come to help,” said Chawy.
The ever-increasing average player age reflects the changing nature of the game. The oldest member on CFO is Kaiwing who turns 29 this year. Already, he’s having a longer career than Chawy who retired at 27. Kaiwing is also 11 years older than their youngest member, HongQ. At First Stand, he’s going up against fellow Team Liquid veteran support and Worlds 2017 winner Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in who turns 31 in June.
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