Is Tabe a Long-Termist?

Tabe, whose real name is Wang Boqin, is a coach in the League of Legends Pro League (LPL).

He started out as a pro player. He played support for Uzi, and lost in the pro league to Faker (Lee Sang-hyeok), who is still playing at the top level.

Tabe once posted on Weibo: "If I don't get revenge for this, I'm not Tabe."

Later, after some controversy, Tabe retired from playing, moved behind the scenes as an analyst, and then became a coach.

The reason I want to write about this today is that I've followed Tabe's career moves over the past few years and found his choices really interesting.

My friends and I often say Tabe might be the only coach in the LPL who does more than order takeout. He's got real skill.

Setting aside specific tactics and draft thinking, if you look at Tabe's career over the past few years, how the teams he's been on have played and what they've achieved is proof of his ability as a coach.

In 2021, Tabe coached RNG and won MSI over DK.

In 2023, Tabe coached BLG. At MSI they beat GEN and T1, crushing two of the LCK's strongest teams, and that's when people started saying BLG was strong internationally.

Under Tabe, BLG seemed to take up the banner of the LPL's face and hope that RNG once carried.

But at the end of that year, Tabe didn't stay with BLG. He turned around and went to AL.

And in Tabe's hands, AL finished first in LPL points in 2025 and had the LPL's best international results that year.

Tabe seems to have a natural gift for leadership. Whatever team he takes over, however bad the results at first and however scattered the players, they always get better the more they play, produce results, and come into public view.

But just as AL was carrying high hopes, with fans looking forward to another year of Tabe leading them in 2026, Tabe chose to leave again, and joined JDG.

In online discussions, most people say Tabe is just a coach who follows the money. Whoever pays more gets him.

As I see it, there's nothing wrong with following the money. Tabe is from Hong Kong, where spending habits and costs are different from the mainland. Maybe he really needs the money? There's nothing wrong with wanting to earn more. And besides, wherever he goes, the team gets results.

Look at JDG now. The players are relatively young, but they already showed some competitiveness in the first split.

On individual ability, none of the five might be the best at their position, but this is a team game, and under Tabe's guidance they've exploded with the power of 1+1+1+1+1 > 5.

Whether Tabe is a long-termist depends on guessing what Tabe's long-term goal is. What's his ultimate aim?

A lot of people say that if Tabe had stayed with BLG in 2023, BLG would very likely have won Worlds in 2024.

And in League of Legends, winning the Worlds title is arguably the highest achievement for a pro coach.

If Tabe's ultimate goal is to win Worlds, then he probably should have stayed and put down roots with a team that always has money and a stable roster, building its cohesion.

Like BLG in 2023, or AL last year.

But he chose to leave both.

That's baffling. Isn't Tabe's ultimate goal winning Worlds? Is it really just about the money?

Ha, let me use my imagination. Suppose Tabe is a long-termist. What could his ultimate goal be?

1. Develop new talent for the LPL

In this reading, Tabe is a man of high principle. Making money is just a side effect, and his real aim is to keep bringing up fresh, competitive blood for the LPL, the way the BLG and AL he coached are still the LPL's backbone today.

2. Just the money

From this angle, Tabe might be called a firm long-termist of another kind: I'll get results at my job, but the moment another team offers me a higher salary, I'm gone.

3. Revenge on Faker

Revenge on Faker is an interesting one, because Tabe was beaten by Faker in a Worlds final back in the day.

If it's revenge, he'd need to beat Faker in a Worlds final to count it. He hasn't done that yet. He's only beaten Faker at MSI.

So what Tabe is really thinking, we can't know.

As viewers, most of us probably just think about when the region will win a title. But for the coaches and players in the thick of it, it's probably not as simple as that.

This post looks at Tabe's career from the angle of long-termism.

Tabe himself may not believe in long-termism at all.

It's just a passing joke.