Korea vs Japan Solo Queue by Rank: Deaths, KP, DPM and CS/min at the Same Tier (KR vs JP1, Measured)

Everyone says the Korean server is the strongest. But within the same tier name, how different are the numbers in a single game compared with Japan?

This guide aggregates KR (Korea) and JP1 (Japan) solo queue from the official Riot API on the same patch 16.20 under the same conditions, and lines up median deaths, KDA, kill participation, DPM, CS/min and vision score by tier and role. Every number in the tables and the text is script output; nothing is a hand-written estimate.

One caveat up front: this compares how players with the same tier name behave inside a game. It does not measure whether KR Gold is stronger than JP1 Gold. The same tier name does not imply the same absolute skill level, and this data cannot tell you that.

The short version: farming and vision match, the difference is how bloody the games are

• Deaths (all-roles median): +1.0 to +2.0 more in KR from Iron to Platinum. No gap from Emerald up.

• Kill participation: lower in KR from Bronze to Emerald (−7.0 pts to −2.6 pts).

• DPM: higher in KR from Iron to Emerald (+44 to +78), but −22 at Master+.

• KDA: slightly lower in KR from Iron to Diamond (−0.25 to −0.05), and +0.42 higher at Master+.

• CS/min: the gap stays within −0.34 to +0.12 across every tier. Practically the same.

• Vision score/min: the gap is −0.11 to +0.11. Only Master+ is higher in KR.

In other words, once you hold the tier constant, the fundamentals (farming, warding) barely differ by region. What differs is that below Master, KR games have more kills and more deaths at the same time: they are bloodier.

How the data was collected, and how to read it

• Scope: ranked solo (queue 420), patch 16.20, games of 20+ minutes, remakes excluded. KR is KR solo queue (patch 16.20, n = 4,357 games); JP1 is JP1 solo queue (patch 16.20, n = 640 games). Both were fetched on Oct 20, 2026 (UTC).

• Tier attribution uses the current rank at fetch time. For JP1, a ladder lookup table assigns every participant of a game to their own tier (up to 10 rows per game). The KR ladder is far too large for that table to work, so only the sampled seed player of each game is attributed to their tier (normally 1 row per game).

• Reading the sample sizes: KR has more rows (player-games) than JP1, but about 4 rows per player, so it covers 1,008 players against 2,551 for JP1. Treat the effective KR sample as smaller than its n suggests.

• A gap between medians is a gap between typical games. Individual spread (the interquartile range) is far wider. Do not try to explain a single game with these differences.

• The window is one patch (about two weeks). Metas and seasons shift, so read every number as “as of patch 16.20”.

Deaths: more in KR from Iron to Platinum

Median deaths per game, all roles combined.

KR: n = 4,357 games (4,368 player-games, seed players only) / JP1: n = 640 games (3,413 player-games, all participants) · patch 16.20 · fetched Oct 20, 2026 · solo queue · games of 20+ min · medians

The largest gap is Iron (+2.0), and from Emerald up the values match. Median kills are also higher or equal in KR (±0.0 to +1.5), so both kills and deaths go up. The reading is simply that more kills happen per game.

By role, the ADC gap in Iron stands out.

KR: n = 4,357 games (4,368 player-games, seed players only) / JP1: n = 640 games (3,413 player-games, all participants) · patch 16.20 · fetched Oct 20, 2026 · solo queue · games of 20+ min · medians

A JP1 Iron ADC dies 5.0 times per game at the median; a KR Iron ADC dies 9.0 times. The beginner rule of making “stop dying” the first goal holds on both servers.

Kill participation: lower in KR from Bronze to Emerald

Kill participation (KP) is the share of your team's kills you took part in with a kill or an assist.

KR: n = 4,357 games (4,368 player-games, seed players only) / JP1: n = 640 games (3,413 player-games, all participants) · patch 16.20 · fetched Oct 20, 2026 · solo queue · games of 20+ min · medians

More kills but lower participation looks odd at first. One possible explanation is that kills happen scattered across lane 1v1s and small skirmishes rather than bundled into teamfights. That is a hypothesis the data cannot confirm on its own; you would need to watch how the games unfold.

Bronze, where the gap is widest, is lower in KR for every role.

KR: n = 4,357 games (4,368 player-games, seed players only) / JP1: n = 640 games (3,413 player-games, all participants) · patch 16.20 · fetched Oct 20, 2026 · solo queue · games of 20+ min · medians

Bronze supports sit at 53.8% KP on JP1 and 46.2% on KR. How KP is calculated and read is covered in What Is Kill Participation (KP)?.

DPM: higher in KR below Master, reversed at Master+

DPM is damage to champions per minute. All-roles medians.

KR: n = 4,357 games (4,368 player-games, seed players only) / JP1: n = 640 games (3,413 player-games, all participants) · patch 16.20 · fetched Oct 20, 2026 · solo queue · games of 20+ min · medians

Gold per minute points the same way: +12 to +23 more in KR from Iron to Diamond, and +1 at Master+, i.e. about equal. Kill-heavy games produce more gold and more damage, so deaths, DPM and gold are best read as three faces of the same phenomenon.

For how to read DPM (total vs champion damage, DPM vs damage share), see LoL Damage Explained: DPM and Damage Share.

KDA: lower in KR at low and mid tiers, higher at Master+

KR: n = 4,357 games (4,368 player-games, seed players only) / JP1: n = 640 games (3,413 player-games, all participants) · patch 16.20 · fetched Oct 20, 2026 · solo queue · games of 20+ min · medians

KDA is (kills + assists) ÷ deaths, so more deaths pull it down. At Master+ the KR KDA is higher because deaths are equal (6.0 vs 6.0) while assists are higher (8.0 vs 7.0). The calculation and benchmarks are in What Is KDA? How to Calculate It and What Counts as a Good KDA.

CS/min and vision score: nearly identical once the tier is fixed

KR: n = 4,357 games (4,368 player-games, seed players only) / JP1: n = 640 games (3,413 player-games, all participants) · patch 16.20 · fetched Oct 20, 2026 · solo queue · games of 20+ min · medians

Only Iron is lower in KR (−0.34); from Bronze up the gap is small. The impression that “Koreans farm better” does not show up in the data when you compare like for like by tier name.

KR: n = 4,357 games (4,368 player-games, seed players only) / JP1: n = 640 games (3,413 player-games, all participants) · patch 16.20 · fetched Oct 20, 2026 · solo queue · games of 20+ min · medians

Vision is the same story, with KR higher only at Master+ (+0.11). For supports alone, the Master+ median is 3.35 in KR vs 3.00 in JP1. Role benchmarks are in What Is a Good Vision Score?.

Why the trend flips at Master+ (a hypothesis)

At Master+, KR has the same deaths but more assists and higher KP, lower DPM, and more vision and control wards bought (3.0 vs 2.0). The natural reading is that games are more teamfight-oriented and better set up through vision, but that remains a hypothesis.

There is also a population difference. In the ladder snapshot, JP1 had 3,039 Master players, while KR exceeded the API cap of 10,000. The same “Master+” label covers a much deeper pool in KR. It is the clearest example of a tier name meaning different things.

Which baseline to use for your own games

By default, compare with the medians of your own server. If you play on the Japanese server, the tier-by-role benchmarks are in Stat Targets by Rank.

The KR numbers are useful when your games feel chaotic. High deaths together with high DPM is the norm in low-to-mid KR tiers, and the thing to check in those games is whether your KP dropped.

You can also export a game as JSON with LoL2LLM and ask an AI to judge it against both baselines.

Compare this match data with Gold-tier medians using two baselines: KR (deaths 6.0, kill participation 44.4%, DPM 690) and JP1 (deaths 5.0, kill participation 47.4%, DPM 621). Name the one stat that is weak against both baselines, and suggest one thing to fix next game.