League of Legends pro reveals “gigabrain” emote strat

Emotes are often considered a harmless and fun way to interact with your allies and opponents on the rift. However, OMG jungler Aki revealed that he’s been using emotes to get the leg up on his opponent.

OMG were just shy of making it to international play with what was the best Playoffs run the organization has had in League of Legends for the better part of a decade. With China’s MSI representatives locked in, they’re surely hungry to make it to worlds next split.

Despite missing international play, their current roster has gained an international fandom due to the fun and explosive playstyle of every member on the team. If nothing else, OMG is a fun team to watch.

The way this team thinks about the game is a bit different from everyone else, something that OMG jungler Mao ‘Aki’ An showed off by using his emotes to gain intel on his opponents.

OMG Aki reveals emote strat that won him a pro match

In pro play, information is everything. Guessing where the opponent is and what they’re doing is half hte battle when it comes to winning matches, and the best players tend to have unique methods of pathing through the map and gaining an advantage.

OMG jungler Aki is known for making aggressive plays and having unpredictable pathing, and his inventive jungling playstyle was a large part of what got OMG so far into the playoffs.

He revealed that, in OMG’s crucial playoffs set against Top Esports, he used emotes to determine whether or not opposing top laner Huang ‘Wayward’ Ren-Xing knew whether or not he was in the bush.

Wayward has a reputation for emoting at his opponent and having fun in the game, and Aki used that to his advantage. It’s a so-called gigabrain strat that gave Aki a small yet impactful advantage in their set. Though it’s doubtful that Aki will be able to make this work in many other pro games now that he’s revealed his secret.

And, unfortunately, that doesn’t mean it won’t work in your solo queue games.