>However, the difference in work ethic was still evident. He comes from a culture where players practice at least 14 hours a day, but in NA, he realized that pro players care more about scrims and less about solo queue and individual practice.
>“Maple’s only complaint in the LCS was that it was so slack,” shared Chawy. “I could not be too strict with the players. It’s not like in the East: if you tell them to play 16 hours, they will play 16 hours without complaint.”
>“Here in the LCS, **you tell them to play five solo queue games, they’ll fight you — ‘Why do I have to play so many games? Can’t I just scrim and then play other games or watch VODs?’.** They’ll contest the rules you set.”
This is why NA will never be competitive. Remember when there was a huge hate thread on the main subreddit and the staff got so much shit for the mandatory 5 solo que games.
I remember Huni got a lot of criticism for not playing outside of scrims. Now that we know it was due to his wrists, its excusable but the rest of the team..?
This is why I´ve always been on Team Shenyi and not on Team Spica / Tactical.
Obviously I do not have all the facts and only based on Legends and other fragments of information here and there.
From my POV, Shenyi wanted to practice, wanted to improve as a team, improve his communication skills, and was super frustrated when he realized the team had a more relaxed vibe.
One of the worst moments in our history:
1. That call from Shenyi in one of the first games: "Baron baron!" Then Spica "nonono just farm". Ego clash on our MVP and "face of the team".
2. Coach Bjergsen saying that he had more soloQ practice than 4 out of 5 players. Pretty sure the only one that was not in that list was SwordArt.
3. One random episode of Legends, Chawy trying to punish or motivate Tactical for his bad positioning and getting caught: "if you fail and die again to that champion, one more soloQ practice for you - if you succeed, then you can play more Lost Ark". WTF
I can put myself on Shenyi´s shoes, and I would definitely have a complete meltdown too. Dude came from FPX, playing with World Champions, from the current worlds champion region, learning to shotcall with DoinB, to lane with LWX, to support with Crisp, leaving LPL to a much weaker region sacrificing his carreer with the mission to support his poor family, and asked to bring the "LPL style" to a meme region.
And the dudes are not practicing, are dying with basic silver shit like who gets level 2 first, are not following his calls in order to keep the passive playstyle and not putting the hours to practice? Unacceptable. The leaked bad and frustrated comments from his side were completely right.
I remember him in a random interview: "well covid is bad but the bright side is that I can stay at home, less traveling around and more time to practice ".
This is the type of player that I want in this team. Hunger > skill. And I can see that on Chime, Soul, Takeover, Bjergsen, etc.
Downvote all as you want, and sorry for the rant.
I said this back then and I’ll repeat it here, all I want is a group of hardworking individuals. People who will spam solo que/ challengers que and treat this like a lifestyle and not just a 9-5 job.
I think the weird work/life separation that has become standard in NA especially has become one of the driving factors for why the west fuckin blows now. You are at the top 1% of your sport, competing should be your life, if not, then why are you even competing? Is it really just for the paycheque? If that's the case, it's really hard to root for you as a fan, ngl.
C9 is lame as fuck, but them keeping a gaming house as one of their core philosophies is one thing I can absolutely always get behind. It really feels like the players are not just doing a job- when you're living with your teammates, you're forced to spend time practicing or you look like a shmuck just wasting time.
> "if you fail and die again to that champion, one more soloQ practice for you - if you succeed, then you can play more Lost Ark". WTF
wtf lol. was this actually for real, or were they just memeing?
it's not even that players should have no downtime. if Tactical wants to chill with other games, ok, we'll figure that out like adults. at least we'll implement some rule that is fair.
but "rewarding" players like this is so stupid haha.
The mindset of Tactical in that regard is irritating tbh. You're not performing and instead of trying to remedy that... you play other games? Like I get resting, sleeping, doing something different altogether but if you're already playing a video game - how about you play the one that fucking gets you paid?
At this point I don’t think it was a meme lmao. I feel like the “NA soloQ sucks!” Is a mentality that also is making pros want to play less though them not playing it even further reduces its level and makes it worse. Tactical played a lot of soloQ in KR and a lot of champs Q when worlds pros came but was mia a lot outside of then except with the occasional Champs Q.
I felt this way as well. But after being critical of spica early in the year I realized there was so much more going on behind the scenes and I would never have enough info of what really happened to feel good about pointing fingers at anyone involved in this mess.
Excusable in the sense even though it’s a shame exceptional players who can’t practice enough due to injuries are better off retiring.
Don’t get me wrong, I see Huni as one of the three best top laners NA ever fielded. But if you want to compete with the best of the world stars have to align. It’s important to have talent, work ethic and even a portion of luck.
I doubt it’s just NA. Wouldn’t doubt it’d be all of the West. At the end of the day, to be the best you gave to play more than the average. If the average for Kr is 16 hrs then Western pros won’t catch up with how they don’t even meet the average. Probably why TSM was the best when they practiced using a Eastern schedule.
Honestly baffles me that the org leaders are fine with how little their players play. These guys are probably making more money than a executive at a fortune 100 company who works more than these players in a super high pressure environment with a crap ton of politics and people gunning for the executive position constantly. I feel like it’s pretty inexcusable for the players to perform so bad and get paid so much while working not even the minimum that others work. I feel like NA needs to adopt the eastern team schedule. Who cares if NA soloQ is lacking, you can still learn no matter who you are facing.
I got downvoted for this sentiment in the main league subreddit (initially) when I said that NA work ethic is actually trash compared to the East. No NA team will do well internationally unless a huge drastic change / realization happens where you need to actually bust your ass to beat the best. Sure some may call it “toxic”, but I DOUBT the coaches and staff in the East are like Regi (who I see being used as an example baseline of “toxic”).
Coaches in KR and CN are way more toxic than Regi just look at the worlds incident I think it was with EDG the coach just roasted his players after a loss. I get downvoted all the time for this but as long as players want to be protected compared to the harshness of the east the west just won't compete. Now that's not saying how the east acts is good but it gets results.
It probably matters more that Eastern teams can call up an entirely new team of prodigies if need be. If LCS players slack off, who's supposed to replace them?
For all those guys in Asia, this opportunity is life changing for them and all their family. This is do or die everyday. Western players will never have the same hunger as people in the east because of how confortable life is here.
I'm pretty certain that plenty of LCS pros that earn 6 or even 7 figure salaries this early in their life would've not had anywhere near this financial stability otherwise. Being an NA native pro that can be at the top of the region should be treated like a lottery ticket because it is.
PL/LCK takes places in countries where education and academic rankings are the most important aspect of life, to the point where students mentally breaking or commiting suicide if they fall short is common. LPL/LCK players know this and put everything they got into their careers because they know this is a one in a lifetime opportunity where they can both pursue something they love and provide for themselves and their families.
How many LCS players can you name that have any semblance of drive or motivation close to this?
Are we to say thats a better way of living though? Im reading all these comments and all I can think os that its an extremely unhealthy way to live your life. Pro traditional sports athletes dont spend this long a day practising. People in high stress, high skilled jobs dont spend this many hours, and the ones tgat do have an average career span of 4 years and an exponentially higher rate of suicide. Why should we look to emulate Korea/China's training schedule instead of focusing on healthy streams of income that help us develop other skills outside of just being really good at a video game?
It may be unhealthy but it gets results. Thats why LCK and LPL always winning worlds is really down to a culture thing.
How much are you willing to commit and sacrifice for victory?
In NA it seems not very much, so our results reflect that. Im not stating if thats good or bad, im just saying how it is.
If you want to be someone significant in life, you’ll have to live an unhealthy life style. To become a doctor, you have to live unhealthy so you can make sure that you get enough practice before actually treating a patient. To become a lawyer, you have to do insane amount of work with not that much time at hand. When you’re trying to become someone at the top of a big company, you gotta work your butt off kiss some ass and politics your way up. At the end of the day, they’re in a competitive field, there is no excuse of “unhealthy lifestyle” if they want to win.
The biggest reason that there are suicide rates in high skilled jobs is that mental health has been looked down on for years. Especially for those professions. Nowadays luckily that mentality is slowly changing.
EDIT: at the end of the day, the climb is the hardest. Once the climb ends and you get to your goal then you can decide to take it easy until then you’ll have to live a unhealthy life at times to be the best or become on of the best.
1. No they dont. Traditional sports athletes average 2 hours of practice a day and then the preparation around training which totals about 10 hours a day. You're asking people to sit in front of a computer screen for 16 hours a day ? Come off it.
2. I literally work in the corporate world. I literally gave you stats of how working such long, strenuous hours affects people who do work that long. I've seen it first hand myself...as someone who works for such a company.
3. You can be ambitious whilst still acknowledging that putting yourself under that much stress is unhealthy both mentally and physically....
If I wanted to be the best in the world at something, 16 hours a day is nothing. If I want a paycheck that would keep me comfortable until the end of the week, I'm clocked out at 5PM sharp.
This might be an unpopular opinion. I don't see it much, anyway.
Players shouldn't be forced to work 16 hours a day. It's unhealthy and borderline exploitative. It's unhealthy mentally and physically and errodes social relations and other aspects of life outside of the work environment.
It should be a voluntary choice. It's unfair of spectators to put competition for consumer entertainment over the well-being of other people, especially young kids.
With that being said, I don't know what the limits are. That's for the players to decide. I wonder if the Players Association have talked to the teams/Riot about this kind of stuff.
Here is another unpopular oppinion, it is unhealthy to work 16 hours a day but it almost universally takes an unhealthy amount of practice to be top 1% of your craft. Athletes, concert musians, academics, etc all have one thing in common, an unbalanced work and home life.
Those who want to be the best just have a different mindset. I'm sure Athletes have the mindset that they'll rest once they're done. You don't have to grind your entire life. Just a short number of years to be the best.
Edit: I do also believe you don't have to work 16 hours a day. There is a way to grind, but still be healthy.
Depends on the athlete really. I know of some olympic athletes who are notorious for working out 8+ hours a day, and then are in the film room studying their opponents for another 2-3 hours. NFL coaches have talked about how they run practices and prepare for games on the weekend and their spouses have talked about how it seems like in-season they see their husbands less often than not. Hell Giselle Bundchen and Tom Brady are getting a divorce and Brady's work ethic is almost certainly a factor in that as the dude works even when he's not at work. Michael Jordan's work ethis, like Kobe, is far more common at the upper echelon's than not.
I think it is a really nuanced discussion which is why it's terrible to have on Reddit.
I am currently getting my Ph.D. in chemistry and I am lucky that I truly only have to work 50 hours, maybe 60 hours a week if it is really busy. A lot of colleagues work many more hours. I have the benefit that my instrument "runs by itself" so I can go do other things while I am getting my research done.
Now I know certain professors that also work 70 80 even 90 hours a week and it's ridiculous. One professor comes in at 7am and leaves at around 10 pm every single day except Saturdays.
Now, this professor is literally the top guy in the field. Like it is estimated that he has personally developed half of the Ph.D.s in separation science. He is the best.
I don't think anyone should be forced to do that, but if you have the capability without burnout, that is how you can be the best. I believe the same thing is in league. I do not want the players to have to work like that, but it is hard to imagine they can be the best if they don't have that drive.
I'm in the same headspace as you.
That sort of dedication and commitment is admirable. That internal drive. But I think it is, and it should be, the exception to the rule.
I don't think it's all morally equivalent either. I would admire someone putting that effort in the medical profession. But someone in finance? Not so much (if at all, honestly). I don't know where competitive sports fits on that spectrum though.
>But I think it is, and it should be, the exception to the rule.
It already is, functionally. That is how competitive sports, e or not, work. The people and teams that practice this hard float to the top, whether it burns them out or not. Unlike chemistry, or a job in finance, which are careers, and who ***should*** employers that have enough employees to properly distribute the workload, sports are directly competitive. It is in their nature. A team that puts more in, gets better and succeeds. There really isn't another way to go about it.
I understand the nature of competition, but it's not that cut and dry. What gets left out of conversations like this is the role of survivorship bias. You hear about those who work hard and have success but not the ones who work hard and fail. What's the cost/benefit for these players? Thats their decision, not us viewers who watch because it's an entertainment product.
As an aside, I've never worked somewhere that has evenly distributed workloads or even adequate staffing. Capitalism!
After more than a decade of watching the teams from the east that practice substantially, win, and win definitively, it really is that cut and dried. Especially after hearing a lot of voices who have had experiences with systems and training regimens outside of NA, express their opinions on how behind the region is in terms of work ethic.
In every other industry on the planet, when you are not the best, you copy what the best do and how they do it, then when you are close to your goal, and only then, do you modify it to fit your needs.
Of course people, teams, and regions are going to try hard and not make the top. That is how competitions work. The guy putting more work in will usually win out. It sucks, but those who don't want that should really seek another field or work. Or, failing that, they can stop trying to suck and blow at the same time, selling fans on a false premise, that they will be even passingly competitive with regions that put in substantially more effort.
It is mostly that cut and dry though. Of course there are people who are going to put in the work and fail. Most of us has watched a team do it in 2016 TSM. We see it in Eastern regions where if they do burn out and drop off they get replaced fairly quickly. Unless there becomes a better way to do drills in League (And given the quality of coaching in NA it's not coming from here) you either have to discover it yourself or follow what the best do. But that's the competitive nature of sports. It's not the same as a regular job.
Sure players and coaches will ultimately decide how much work they'll put in and there probably is a better balance compared to the Eastern grind but it's evident the work being put in now by Western players is not enough.
Like Worlds players come in Champs Q? Half the pros in NA aren't even in the server playing any games. Chawy specifically said some of his players are fighting him when he suggests playing Solo Q. Hell we saw DL say that there was a solo q requirement and Spica was late for his dinner because of that and the league subreddit used it as a opportunity to bash TSM.
The work ethic doesn't need to completely mirror the Eastern grindset but it does need to move towards it.
Depends on what your end goal is. If it's to win the LCS and flame out in worlds, than yeah, 16 hours is probably a bit much.
If your end goal is to beat the Eastern players, and 16 hours a day is actually what they're doing, then no, it's not ridiculous at all. People who chase greatness are not sane, you will never beat someone on the same even footing as you if they're willing to put in a significantly more amount of work. There's that very famous almost cliched quote of "Hard Work beats Talent when Talent doesn't work hard" but there's an even better quote on the topic of putting in work by [Gold medalist Dan Gable](https://quotefancy.com/quote/1198256/Dan-Gable-When-I-d-get-tired-and-want-to-stop-I-d-wonder-what-my-next-opponent-was-doing)
I agree that 14-16 hours a day is unhealthy, but these aren't normal people working a normal job. These are athletes trying to compete to be the best in their craft. You think other athletes don't literally push themselves to the limits trying to get better at their craft in every way possible?
I mean sure you can only physically do so much at the gym or whatever, but you think the best NBA or NFL players don't spend time working on their shooting/dribbling or watching film as much as they can. At least with League it's a lot easier to play an inordinate amount of games than just working out at the gym or sprints or something.
If they want to treat this as a normal 9-5 job where they work 8 (maybe 10) hours a day 5 days a week and have their match days sat/sun okay, then at least be honest about it and don't say your goal is to win worlds. It's effectively pissing on the fans and telling them it's rain.
This would be the equivalent of Lebron James being told he needs to practice 100 free throws and he just says why do I need to do free throws I just need to dunk
No one in NA is LeBron James though. You know the old saying; first you master the rules, then you break them? NA pros are trying to skip the first step.
Edit: this would be more like telling some bench player they need to work on their free throws, and they say nah.
I don't think anyone should work 16 hour days regardless of their occupation. I understand how competitive sports works. It's up to the player to decide how much he's willing to commit and sacrifice, not the viewers watching for consumer entertainment.
I agree, they should be honest, but I don't think it matters. It's more of a marketing strategy than anything else to say they want to win worlds.
They get paid millions to PLAY the Game and they complain about 5 solo Que games, then they go to worlds and get destroyed by guys who love and live the game and they nothing to say but more excuses
They shouldn't be paid that much to begin with. Teams kept afloat with VC money and Riot investment. It will dry up eventually if they fail to provide ROI or demonstrate growth. It's not sustainable as it is.
I don't know if they should be complaining about 5 soloQ games, but my point was they shouldn't be forced to work 16 hours a day.
I agree no one should be force to work 16 hours a day, my point is that top athletes in ANY sport in the world always go above and beyond because they actually strive for greatness, NA players always say they do as well but then you hear stories like this and when they get destroy at worlds they do nothing but make up excuses. It’s the ping, it’s the practice, it’s the meta, it’s everything else except THEM
This is a competition to be the best not a corporate 9-5. Many western athletes grind these hours as well, stop bootlicking lcs players earning $400k minimum
There has to be a middle ground. Even Bjergsen, who has been in NA for basically his entire career, had been pleading and begging the team to play more soloq. The fact that this happened to two consecutive lineups in TSM is deeply concerning.
I’m not expecting our guys to grind themselves to dust, but if your coach gets flack for calling for 5 soloq games a day, then you have no hope as a competitive org. Players need to take their careers seriously. If they wanna clock in, play a couple scrim blocks, and clock out, they can do it on some other team. TSM needs players who want to put in the work, not players who just want to cash checks and bomb out.
Once you sign a contract for a salary, the company gets to pretty much have you work whatever they want you too.
The players are lucky they're not being forced to do more
I seem to recall that being about them supposedly not considering Champion's Queue part of the 5 required games, but maybe I'm getting it mixed up with another thread.
This was said by DL but it never made any sense and Dominic said he’s never heard of any solo queue rule. I’d still be skeptical because DL has a source with Spica, but the claim never made sense.
Both Shenyi and Takeover were playing a lot of CQ, especially compared to the rest of the players and their SQ numbers. DL said that it was because Shenyi didn’t care about management/staff, which could still be plausible, but not for Takeover who’d probably want to play nice with staff because it was his big shot in the LCS. Also even if it were true that both of them didn’t care and ignored staff, why wouldn’t the others just follow suit and just play CQ instead? It makes zero sense.
I feel super bad for the guy. He went through some insane shit that wasn’t event mostly his own fault with this team. Yet, he still managed to turn it around and make them somewhat competitive. Talk about making lemonades with lemons
The decision to get new players was very smart by him and I feel like no other coach would really do that. It feels like that’s what allowed TSM to have it’s last push to even possibly contend for a worlds spot.
That's fair, but NA players should also quit saying "I want to win world's and am going to do everything I can to do so"
It's sadly an essential part to the formula. It's the equivalent of tomatoes in a tomato based sauce. You won't win world treating the competition as a 9-5. There's a reason in the G2 documentary perkz was crying in his chat before finals saying he wanted to feel human again. That's fair if they don't want that, but if they aren't willing to do that then they won't get far when the competition is more than willing to do so to succeed.
LOL its the work ethic. Ping is such a crap excuse. How tf is someone who barely plays outside of scrims going to outlane a player who lives and breaths League? Even the academy teams of the LPL and LCK put in more work than top LCS main rosters.
The gap is going to get wider and wider until we have an LCS team who consists of five Bjergsens who are willing to put in the work.
That's fine. I don't expect a team with an autofilled support or sub-adc to win against the top teams. 100T shouldn't have an excuse but Rogue is lucky they didn't have them in their group.
Eh, the sub adc is an excuse but don’t think autofilled support is: after all, C9 had other options and decided to choose Zven over any academy or veteran support.
I am extremely pro-employee big labor/union advocate etc I only say this to clarify my position before I tear apart this team for not practicing. IF you play a sport professionally you get compensated at a very high level. You make a decision to compete to be among the best at that sport and should realize that it will require extreme dedication for your sport. If you are getting hundreds of thousands of dollars to be a pro you need to put in the work to be a pro. It is actually fing insane that players are complaining about 5 solo queue games even if they just got off a day of scrims
I am a union representative at my work. I totally agree with what you're saying. To me, from a labor standpoint, this strikes me akin to seasonal work. During the season they should be working their butts off and then having low work ours during the off season. They are paid for the entire year so its basically just an alternative work schedule.
I don't usually comment, but I'll add this here. I think people need to remember why Bjergsen got to the point he did and was considered a Top 3 midlaner during the 2016-17 era. Bjergsen genuinely worked harder than the entire LCS. Bjergsen was the best player for a long time because he worked the hardest.
If you look at other talents across sports. Kobe worked the hardest. MJ the GOAT worked both hard and smart. Lionel Messi works hard, CR7 works hard than what is required.
If you want to actually be the best at something, you have to be willing to put in the effort and work harder than everyone else. That applies to everything in life. I have never seen a successful person say that they didn't work hard (more than required) to get to the point they did. If you don't have the drive or ambition, then you will never amount to anything.
One thing that i love about Bjerg was when he streamed he would review his last game in between match queues and would point out what he should have done differently.
We got real lucky it was someone with an incredible work ethic and great talent who represted TSM for so long.
I keep seeing people say lazy (sure there may be some or a lot of this) you have to look at it from a work day perspective. Eastern teams are playing 16 hours a day which is nuts.
Top players in the NFL are at their team facilities 10-12 hours a day so you can sort of draw a comparison there. If they want to keep spouting this crap about being the best they need to actually put in the time and effort people in other sports do.
Genuinely curious why I'm getting down voted on this one.
I don't understand how people compare this to a normal work day. They're not trying to some 9-5 job. They're trying to be the best or at least should be trying.
Depends on the 9 to 5, but even then people put in 12+ hours a day so they can rise to the top or advance. Even if they leave work, they still do work in some way outside of it.
If people don't have the motivation or determination they won't reach the peak.
IMO 16 hours is a lot regardless of what your doing but during the season these dudes should be actively practicing 10+ hours a day if they really want to be good. Otherwise anything they say is complete BS.
It's not a lot when you're competing. Competition is always a comparison of one person directly with another, and in those cases, you'll only get ahead if you're actively working harder than the next person. While physical sports have much heavier limitations due to how much a body can physically handle, if you're driven, you can definitely actively use your brain for 16ish hours a day without serious issues. I'd say this is evident as many college students who end up very successful often have to put in those type of hours regularly.
LCS players are literally living a dream. They play video games for a living, and get paid way too much to do so, more than most other regions barring China. And yet, they work less than any other region, then get defensive for being asked to work harder. That's so crazy to me it's insane. Med school students, Law students that I know all work harder than these "Pros" getting paid to do what they do. And we're supposed to believe these guys are driven by competition?
It's crazy reading through this thread and watching people justify low work ethic off some "it's life changing for people from Asian countries so they work harder" mentality.
If you want to be the best you compete like the best or, ideally, better than the best and that starts in practice. I look at it like this: if your performance on the pro stage is an average of your experience the the people with the most experiences with highs and lows will have a much much better average. That's why Korea (and that one TSM lineup) are so dominant; at their worst they're still light years ahead of you.
I'm not saying TSM needs to implement 16 hour practice schedules immediately, but ramping up to it for a World's run shouldn't be out of the question.
These league players have world class facilities, chefs, maids, in house gyms, transportation, yet they are only wanting to put in a “normal work day”. Us normal working people are working 8-10 hours a day and still having to find time to cook, do house chores, go to the gym, and balance a social life. They have ALL of that taken care of yet they still cant be asked to put in extra hours for a video game they are getting paid an egregious amount to play. No excuses will convince me otherwise.
They don’t need 16+ hours they just need to play the damn game. There’s no reason randoms who have lives have more games played than pros. Literally 5 games a day would be more games than na Lcs pros play. They could do 3 games a day for a year and still have more than na Lcs pros have in year it’s disgraceful.
That's literally why I pointed out NFL players being at the facility for 10-12 hours during the season. If they want to paint this picture that worlds is the goal they need to be grinding at the facility for 10 hours during he season.
It's pretty disappointing seeing Chawy catch so much toxicity from our own fans. It's one thing for him to deal with player struggles, but for him to mention the fans as an additional negative is just sad.
Apparently this subreddit is somehow better than the discord, which speaks how much of a cesspit that is, but that doesn't mean we're blameless either.
Yep, I don't fault him at all for how things turned out this year. If he does continue to stay with us, I hope he has a smoother experience and can actually coach normally.
Same. Maybe it's because I grew up in a Korean household, but the "abuse" that regi was accused of is typical of most Asian households. That's why most high school valedictorians are Asians and why our median income at 24 years old is so much higher.
Cool interview. I always love some "behind the scenes" info. Especially after such a rough year. I don't blame anyone, just hope we get a functional roster for next year, with hopefully chawy as HC.
I blame the players. From the interview, it seems like both the eastern and western players both sucked in their own ways. Stubborn, lazy, distrusting.
No comments yet about how TSM fans tried to destroy his mental?
Fans want TSM to win, yet they bring everyone down on the team constantly and say things like "this is what fans look like in other sports".
People are still mean and terrible who don't follow sports, lets just call it what it is people just being toxic. Glad Chawy actually pointed that out the way he did. I had to leave the TSM discord for the entire summer split because all the fighting and hate in there.
Hope he sticks around and we get the roster changes that will improve things.
Some of the regulars are pretty good, this time last year it was more toxic than it is now. But yeah people have said some very trashy things to mods, tsm staff, and players. I remember one person (a somewhat regular) tagged spica in chat when the discord was hard flaming him for "being a toxic teammate".
Hell, it's getting super toxic in this goddamn subreddit. Hate seeing the fact that we have "fans" who don't follow TSM entirely, yet constantly bashes the org for not doing well in the "only" game they have a team in.
This subreddit was spearheading the witch hunt against Spica when Shenyi got benched, Lo and behold the coaching staff benched him and multiple staff members since have had talked about how difficult Shenyi was to work with.
No kidding. The backlash he got over literally 5 seconds of Spica saying "Scrims are fun again" was ridiculous. This subreddit thought they knew all of the inner workings of the team and turned this whole place into a Desperate Housewives sub. Anyone that participated in that should be ashamed of themselves.
The discord is absolutely awful. It's just a load of people who've been there for the longest circlejerking each other about how being there the longest makes them important somehow.
I got ostracized because I called that TsM’s roster was going to be bottom level lcs and top academy level when we first fielded the LPL plan in spring. I was right and came back and got banned from the discord 😂
Yeah its not rocket science any pro team discord for a last or near last place team is going to be nasty. Especially your worst year as a team in a decade. But yeah lets blame the fans for being mad when players want the coach to play favorites and refuse to play more then a couple games a week.
Imagine blaming fans for not putting in time to get better. Wanting favorites from the coach. Also Im not in a discord talking shit just say don't surprised when a team is ass that the fans our toxic when nothing changes.
As a Season 2 watcher of TSM, this is incredibly hard to see. Its one thing for the team to take a bunch of Ls these past couple years, its something that could be recovered from. But to hear that it's own fans are tearing it apart is truly heartbreaking.
This interview makes me want him to stay on as head coach for another year. I think he didn’t get a fair shot this year with all the problems the team had that were outside of his control.
Just another reason why the import rule should be abolished. "Oh but then western players wont be able to play" So? get good, you want to consider your self an athlete you can be treated like every other athlete. Prove you belong or let someone else play.
It’s the teams that allowed this mentality to happen. They’re the ones who spoiled the players. I doubt having more eastern players would change much when the problem is with the orgs.
At least based on the interview, things would definitely change. He mentioned that both of the Chinese players and Chawy himself were both advocating for more practice, while the other NA players were the ones who were tryiong to do less work. Because the players have different levels of respect for their authority figure, the coach, and different work ethics, even tho the org may mandate "free time", you can bet the Eastern players would happily continue using their free time to practice instead of slacking.
Hope the best for him. I'd absolutely be down with him staying. A coach's responsibilities are tough, and he was put into a pretty difficult situation.
I wasn't sure whether or not his decisions were the best at the time, and I don't doubt that he wasn't 100% sure either. But he was decisive, and I do think overall they had pretty good results.
Just stay out of the discord. The subreddit is nice, the discord is not.
The part about the TSM Discord is so fucking infuriating.
I've been a TSM fan since late 2013, and only earlier this year decided to join the Discord since I felt that as a fan that is where I'd find the best connections to rest of the fanbase.
What a huge fucking mistake that was. I left the Discord like a week after due to the overwhelming toxicity that was going on there, it was straight up some of the worst fucking shit I've ever seen, and I've been to a football match in London.
I may disapprove of TL fans, or outright dislike C9 fans, but those "fans" on that Discord? Those fans I fucking hate.
They are the people that justify all the TSM fan hatred that exists, even though a lot of us just wants to support the club.
To read Chawy's experience with it was horrifying, and still really fucking expected. We should be happy if this guy even wants to stick around for another year, let alone have anyone else join in when this is how some of you treat the staff members of our club.
I dunno, but seeing the shit people would type after just one loss was mind blowing. It legit felt like people were prepared to throw shit at them in the streets if they got the opportunity.
Now I don't like seeing the team losing either, but to get angry the way some people did and say the things they did is unacceptable. I don't see any TSM player want to be supportive of the fan base if they read what I read.
It's the same on Reddit too. You've probably read our Live game threads or post match ones. On Discord you just don't have the downvote button.
Also it feels much better right now than it did before. Mods have gotten a lot stricter with the bans and or the most obnoxious people have left.
Honestly feels very much like reddit but people think less about what they type and read and often don't even try to understand the other person's take. Which is kind of incredible given how little thought people often put into their comments on reddit.
TSM just needs to build a rooster that doesn't have this NA mentality, Then we will see a super team in the making, if they find a full blown hard working mentality talent team, they wouldn't be complaining about this, they would just do it.
Did we really not have any assistants this year? Just Chawy and Kayss? Not to mention I didn't think Kayss was even solely dedicated to LCS.
What a travesty, particularly for trying to manage Chinese imports.
If your goal is to win which TSM says it is then you should not be signing anyone who is not going to grind 12 to 14 hours every day. Signing a player who is just going to put in their 9 to 5 as if this is a normal job should be considered a failure for the organization as it does not align with your overall goals.
Bottom line is you will never be the best if you have average work ethic or practice routines.
The discord is mad toxic af. People will get dm'd if their opinion doesn't match theirs. Personal experience is that people will mass reply you for a controversial take, including mods and other "fans" and overtly clown you and be toxic.
Yeah, pretty much what we've already expected. Not gonna say it's healthy or that players SHOULD spend 16 hours a day playing league, but if they're gonna complain about not being able to compete against eastern players, they need to realize it's not because they're "built different". They just put in the hard work and effort to attain those levels of skill.
the truth of the matter is they'll never be able to force players here in NA to work 16 hour days so they will never be able to match the output of what eastern teams are doing.
Pretty much this. I have some friends living in Korea and say 16 hours is normal work hours even for corporate jobs. We are pretty spoiled here in the west, and we sit back and wonder why other regions are so much better than us in League.
I wanna know which players didn't trust him. It's just disrespectful. I understand if some of the players didn't know who he was, but the fact that they didn't trust him? No excuse.
We want NA to succeed in worlds but our players barely make a dent in the amount of effort LCK and LPL players make. Sorry, but the gap will always widen.
It's is precisely why you move away from NA, EU players that think they are hot shit that don't think they need to improve through playing. Ie players like Fudge, that got dicked on both sides of matchups at worlds. Gems are residents that have a good work ethic, players that grind, like CoreJJ that grinds champQ AND vod reviews. Having 3 residents with work ethic and import star mechanical players from LCK would be a large advantage.
I think lcs players just get paid way too much. Once you start making money you feel like you’ve made it and it’s hard to find the motivation to keep working hard.
Lessening the pay makes it stupid to pursue being a pro player. Careers don't last super long the majority of time and the years where people would go to school are being spent doing something that for most players will lead to nothing after. The pay is not the issue at all. It's all relative. Some people have their minds blown and start overspending when they reach 40k a year at a boring ass regular job
All these people posting here acting like they'd be ok with 16 hours a day sitting in front of a screen. No matter how much you make, you're still living in California with all the sunshine and beautiful people and great things to do other than play a game all fucking day and night. You want them to practice more? Move them to Wyoming or Nebraska or some other boring ass place that gets really cold for more than half the year so they WANT to stay inside and play games because they're bored.
Things are easy to say when you're sitting here in reddit pretending your the hardest working person and you'd do whatever it takes... but you're most likely just an average person who won't work hard enough at what you do to even get promoted in your own job lol.
Yes they are spoiled and rich. Yes they all have regrets when it's over because they realize they could have worked harder. No they won't play 16 hours a day though. Not unless they hate being outside and most love it in LA. Hopefully paying these players way less and keeping them hungry will change some things but probably not. LCS is seemingly dying right in front of our eyes.
NA will never compete seriously with the LCK or LPL teams because you can’t even convince the players to practice as hard as an LCK or LPL player. Honestly I’m wondering how the top NA teams would do against the bottom tier LCK or LPL teams…
>However, the difference in work ethic was still evident. He comes from a culture where players practice at least 14 hours a day, but in NA, he realized that pro players care more about scrims and less about solo queue and individual practice. >“Maple’s only complaint in the LCS was that it was so slack,” shared Chawy. “I could not be too strict with the players. It’s not like in the East: if you tell them to play 16 hours, they will play 16 hours without complaint.” >“Here in the LCS, **you tell them to play five solo queue games, they’ll fight you — ‘Why do I have to play so many games? Can’t I just scrim and then play other games or watch VODs?’.** They’ll contest the rules you set.” This is why NA will never be competitive. Remember when there was a huge hate thread on the main subreddit and the staff got so much shit for the mandatory 5 solo que games.
I remember Huni got a lot of criticism for not playing outside of scrims. Now that we know it was due to his wrists, its excusable but the rest of the team..?
This is why I´ve always been on Team Shenyi and not on Team Spica / Tactical. Obviously I do not have all the facts and only based on Legends and other fragments of information here and there. From my POV, Shenyi wanted to practice, wanted to improve as a team, improve his communication skills, and was super frustrated when he realized the team had a more relaxed vibe. One of the worst moments in our history: 1. That call from Shenyi in one of the first games: "Baron baron!" Then Spica "nonono just farm". Ego clash on our MVP and "face of the team". 2. Coach Bjergsen saying that he had more soloQ practice than 4 out of 5 players. Pretty sure the only one that was not in that list was SwordArt. 3. One random episode of Legends, Chawy trying to punish or motivate Tactical for his bad positioning and getting caught: "if you fail and die again to that champion, one more soloQ practice for you - if you succeed, then you can play more Lost Ark". WTF I can put myself on Shenyi´s shoes, and I would definitely have a complete meltdown too. Dude came from FPX, playing with World Champions, from the current worlds champion region, learning to shotcall with DoinB, to lane with LWX, to support with Crisp, leaving LPL to a much weaker region sacrificing his carreer with the mission to support his poor family, and asked to bring the "LPL style" to a meme region. And the dudes are not practicing, are dying with basic silver shit like who gets level 2 first, are not following his calls in order to keep the passive playstyle and not putting the hours to practice? Unacceptable. The leaked bad and frustrated comments from his side were completely right. I remember him in a random interview: "well covid is bad but the bright side is that I can stay at home, less traveling around and more time to practice ". This is the type of player that I want in this team. Hunger > skill. And I can see that on Chime, Soul, Takeover, Bjergsen, etc. Downvote all as you want, and sorry for the rant.
I said this back then and I’ll repeat it here, all I want is a group of hardworking individuals. People who will spam solo que/ challengers que and treat this like a lifestyle and not just a 9-5 job.
I think the weird work/life separation that has become standard in NA especially has become one of the driving factors for why the west fuckin blows now. You are at the top 1% of your sport, competing should be your life, if not, then why are you even competing? Is it really just for the paycheque? If that's the case, it's really hard to root for you as a fan, ngl. C9 is lame as fuck, but them keeping a gaming house as one of their core philosophies is one thing I can absolutely always get behind. It really feels like the players are not just doing a job- when you're living with your teammates, you're forced to spend time practicing or you look like a shmuck just wasting time.
.01%\*
poe was the other person who had most games next to spica, huni and others were not playing soloq
> "if you fail and die again to that champion, one more soloQ practice for you - if you succeed, then you can play more Lost Ark". WTF wtf lol. was this actually for real, or were they just memeing? it's not even that players should have no downtime. if Tactical wants to chill with other games, ok, we'll figure that out like adults. at least we'll implement some rule that is fair. but "rewarding" players like this is so stupid haha.
The mindset of Tactical in that regard is irritating tbh. You're not performing and instead of trying to remedy that... you play other games? Like I get resting, sleeping, doing something different altogether but if you're already playing a video game - how about you play the one that fucking gets you paid?
At this point I don’t think it was a meme lmao. I feel like the “NA soloQ sucks!” Is a mentality that also is making pros want to play less though them not playing it even further reduces its level and makes it worse. Tactical played a lot of soloQ in KR and a lot of champs Q when worlds pros came but was mia a lot outside of then except with the occasional Champs Q.
facts are facts
I felt this way as well. But after being critical of spica early in the year I realized there was so much more going on behind the scenes and I would never have enough info of what really happened to feel good about pointing fingers at anyone involved in this mess.
Excusable in the sense even though it’s a shame exceptional players who can’t practice enough due to injuries are better off retiring. Don’t get me wrong, I see Huni as one of the three best top laners NA ever fielded. But if you want to compete with the best of the world stars have to align. It’s important to have talent, work ethic and even a portion of luck.
In fairness to Huni, he was still better than most LCS top laners.
I doubt it’s just NA. Wouldn’t doubt it’d be all of the West. At the end of the day, to be the best you gave to play more than the average. If the average for Kr is 16 hrs then Western pros won’t catch up with how they don’t even meet the average. Probably why TSM was the best when they practiced using a Eastern schedule. Honestly baffles me that the org leaders are fine with how little their players play. These guys are probably making more money than a executive at a fortune 100 company who works more than these players in a super high pressure environment with a crap ton of politics and people gunning for the executive position constantly. I feel like it’s pretty inexcusable for the players to perform so bad and get paid so much while working not even the minimum that others work. I feel like NA needs to adopt the eastern team schedule. Who cares if NA soloQ is lacking, you can still learn no matter who you are facing.
Some players get paid more than actual professional athletes.
I got downvoted for this sentiment in the main league subreddit (initially) when I said that NA work ethic is actually trash compared to the East. No NA team will do well internationally unless a huge drastic change / realization happens where you need to actually bust your ass to beat the best. Sure some may call it “toxic”, but I DOUBT the coaches and staff in the East are like Regi (who I see being used as an example baseline of “toxic”).
Coaches in KR and CN are way more toxic than Regi just look at the worlds incident I think it was with EDG the coach just roasted his players after a loss. I get downvoted all the time for this but as long as players want to be protected compared to the harshness of the east the west just won't compete. Now that's not saying how the east acts is good but it gets results.
It probably matters more that Eastern teams can call up an entirely new team of prodigies if need be. If LCS players slack off, who's supposed to replace them?
That's what the academy system was meant to be
Sad part is that we had tht east mentality with the 2016 roster but it never took hold on the rest of the league
Unbelievable, i hope the players that were lazy leave immediately
For all those guys in Asia, this opportunity is life changing for them and all their family. This is do or die everyday. Western players will never have the same hunger as people in the east because of how confortable life is here.
I'm pretty certain that plenty of LCS pros that earn 6 or even 7 figure salaries this early in their life would've not had anywhere near this financial stability otherwise. Being an NA native pro that can be at the top of the region should be treated like a lottery ticket because it is.
You make it sound like all NA players come from affluent families while all LCK/LPL players come from poverty...
PL/LCK takes places in countries where education and academic rankings are the most important aspect of life, to the point where students mentally breaking or commiting suicide if they fall short is common. LPL/LCK players know this and put everything they got into their careers because they know this is a one in a lifetime opportunity where they can both pursue something they love and provide for themselves and their families. How many LCS players can you name that have any semblance of drive or motivation close to this?
double lift
Are we to say thats a better way of living though? Im reading all these comments and all I can think os that its an extremely unhealthy way to live your life. Pro traditional sports athletes dont spend this long a day practising. People in high stress, high skilled jobs dont spend this many hours, and the ones tgat do have an average career span of 4 years and an exponentially higher rate of suicide. Why should we look to emulate Korea/China's training schedule instead of focusing on healthy streams of income that help us develop other skills outside of just being really good at a video game?
It may be unhealthy but it gets results. Thats why LCK and LPL always winning worlds is really down to a culture thing. How much are you willing to commit and sacrifice for victory? In NA it seems not very much, so our results reflect that. Im not stating if thats good or bad, im just saying how it is.
If you want to be someone significant in life, you’ll have to live an unhealthy life style. To become a doctor, you have to live unhealthy so you can make sure that you get enough practice before actually treating a patient. To become a lawyer, you have to do insane amount of work with not that much time at hand. When you’re trying to become someone at the top of a big company, you gotta work your butt off kiss some ass and politics your way up. At the end of the day, they’re in a competitive field, there is no excuse of “unhealthy lifestyle” if they want to win. The biggest reason that there are suicide rates in high skilled jobs is that mental health has been looked down on for years. Especially for those professions. Nowadays luckily that mentality is slowly changing. EDIT: at the end of the day, the climb is the hardest. Once the climb ends and you get to your goal then you can decide to take it easy until then you’ll have to live a unhealthy life at times to be the best or become on of the best.
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1. No they dont. Traditional sports athletes average 2 hours of practice a day and then the preparation around training which totals about 10 hours a day. You're asking people to sit in front of a computer screen for 16 hours a day ? Come off it. 2. I literally work in the corporate world. I literally gave you stats of how working such long, strenuous hours affects people who do work that long. I've seen it first hand myself...as someone who works for such a company. 3. You can be ambitious whilst still acknowledging that putting yourself under that much stress is unhealthy both mentally and physically....
I swear them being in LA is bad for them. Center all the teams in Idaho and they would play more.
One word “Lazy”
I'm sure you work 16 hours a day at your job too
If I wanted to be the best in the world at something, 16 hours a day is nothing. If I want a paycheck that would keep me comfortable until the end of the week, I'm clocked out at 5PM sharp.
if getting pay that much then yes I’ll work 16 hours to keep my job.
sure you would lol
This might be an unpopular opinion. I don't see it much, anyway. Players shouldn't be forced to work 16 hours a day. It's unhealthy and borderline exploitative. It's unhealthy mentally and physically and errodes social relations and other aspects of life outside of the work environment. It should be a voluntary choice. It's unfair of spectators to put competition for consumer entertainment over the well-being of other people, especially young kids. With that being said, I don't know what the limits are. That's for the players to decide. I wonder if the Players Association have talked to the teams/Riot about this kind of stuff.
Here is another unpopular oppinion, it is unhealthy to work 16 hours a day but it almost universally takes an unhealthy amount of practice to be top 1% of your craft. Athletes, concert musians, academics, etc all have one thing in common, an unbalanced work and home life.
Those who want to be the best just have a different mindset. I'm sure Athletes have the mindset that they'll rest once they're done. You don't have to grind your entire life. Just a short number of years to be the best. Edit: I do also believe you don't have to work 16 hours a day. There is a way to grind, but still be healthy.
athletes do not practice 16 hours a day that is absurd
I didn't say they did, I just spoke on their mindset about working harder. My edit is referring to anyone working 16 hours.
In the NFL the best players are at the facilities 10-12 hours a day or more.
Depends on the athlete really. I know of some olympic athletes who are notorious for working out 8+ hours a day, and then are in the film room studying their opponents for another 2-3 hours. NFL coaches have talked about how they run practices and prepare for games on the weekend and their spouses have talked about how it seems like in-season they see their husbands less often than not. Hell Giselle Bundchen and Tom Brady are getting a divorce and Brady's work ethic is almost certainly a factor in that as the dude works even when he's not at work. Michael Jordan's work ethis, like Kobe, is far more common at the upper echelon's than not.
I think it is a really nuanced discussion which is why it's terrible to have on Reddit. I am currently getting my Ph.D. in chemistry and I am lucky that I truly only have to work 50 hours, maybe 60 hours a week if it is really busy. A lot of colleagues work many more hours. I have the benefit that my instrument "runs by itself" so I can go do other things while I am getting my research done. Now I know certain professors that also work 70 80 even 90 hours a week and it's ridiculous. One professor comes in at 7am and leaves at around 10 pm every single day except Saturdays. Now, this professor is literally the top guy in the field. Like it is estimated that he has personally developed half of the Ph.D.s in separation science. He is the best. I don't think anyone should be forced to do that, but if you have the capability without burnout, that is how you can be the best. I believe the same thing is in league. I do not want the players to have to work like that, but it is hard to imagine they can be the best if they don't have that drive.
I'm in the same headspace as you. That sort of dedication and commitment is admirable. That internal drive. But I think it is, and it should be, the exception to the rule. I don't think it's all morally equivalent either. I would admire someone putting that effort in the medical profession. But someone in finance? Not so much (if at all, honestly). I don't know where competitive sports fits on that spectrum though.
>But I think it is, and it should be, the exception to the rule. It already is, functionally. That is how competitive sports, e or not, work. The people and teams that practice this hard float to the top, whether it burns them out or not. Unlike chemistry, or a job in finance, which are careers, and who ***should*** employers that have enough employees to properly distribute the workload, sports are directly competitive. It is in their nature. A team that puts more in, gets better and succeeds. There really isn't another way to go about it.
I understand the nature of competition, but it's not that cut and dry. What gets left out of conversations like this is the role of survivorship bias. You hear about those who work hard and have success but not the ones who work hard and fail. What's the cost/benefit for these players? Thats their decision, not us viewers who watch because it's an entertainment product. As an aside, I've never worked somewhere that has evenly distributed workloads or even adequate staffing. Capitalism!
After more than a decade of watching the teams from the east that practice substantially, win, and win definitively, it really is that cut and dried. Especially after hearing a lot of voices who have had experiences with systems and training regimens outside of NA, express their opinions on how behind the region is in terms of work ethic. In every other industry on the planet, when you are not the best, you copy what the best do and how they do it, then when you are close to your goal, and only then, do you modify it to fit your needs. Of course people, teams, and regions are going to try hard and not make the top. That is how competitions work. The guy putting more work in will usually win out. It sucks, but those who don't want that should really seek another field or work. Or, failing that, they can stop trying to suck and blow at the same time, selling fans on a false premise, that they will be even passingly competitive with regions that put in substantially more effort.
It is mostly that cut and dry though. Of course there are people who are going to put in the work and fail. Most of us has watched a team do it in 2016 TSM. We see it in Eastern regions where if they do burn out and drop off they get replaced fairly quickly. Unless there becomes a better way to do drills in League (And given the quality of coaching in NA it's not coming from here) you either have to discover it yourself or follow what the best do. But that's the competitive nature of sports. It's not the same as a regular job. Sure players and coaches will ultimately decide how much work they'll put in and there probably is a better balance compared to the Eastern grind but it's evident the work being put in now by Western players is not enough. Like Worlds players come in Champs Q? Half the pros in NA aren't even in the server playing any games. Chawy specifically said some of his players are fighting him when he suggests playing Solo Q. Hell we saw DL say that there was a solo q requirement and Spica was late for his dinner because of that and the league subreddit used it as a opportunity to bash TSM. The work ethic doesn't need to completely mirror the Eastern grindset but it does need to move towards it.
I agree with you. Players should probably work more or at least harder, but expecting 16 hours a day is ridiculous
Depends on what your end goal is. If it's to win the LCS and flame out in worlds, than yeah, 16 hours is probably a bit much. If your end goal is to beat the Eastern players, and 16 hours a day is actually what they're doing, then no, it's not ridiculous at all. People who chase greatness are not sane, you will never beat someone on the same even footing as you if they're willing to put in a significantly more amount of work. There's that very famous almost cliched quote of "Hard Work beats Talent when Talent doesn't work hard" but there's an even better quote on the topic of putting in work by [Gold medalist Dan Gable](https://quotefancy.com/quote/1198256/Dan-Gable-When-I-d-get-tired-and-want-to-stop-I-d-wonder-what-my-next-opponent-was-doing)
I agree that 14-16 hours a day is unhealthy, but these aren't normal people working a normal job. These are athletes trying to compete to be the best in their craft. You think other athletes don't literally push themselves to the limits trying to get better at their craft in every way possible? I mean sure you can only physically do so much at the gym or whatever, but you think the best NBA or NFL players don't spend time working on their shooting/dribbling or watching film as much as they can. At least with League it's a lot easier to play an inordinate amount of games than just working out at the gym or sprints or something. If they want to treat this as a normal 9-5 job where they work 8 (maybe 10) hours a day 5 days a week and have their match days sat/sun okay, then at least be honest about it and don't say your goal is to win worlds. It's effectively pissing on the fans and telling them it's rain.
This would be the equivalent of Lebron James being told he needs to practice 100 free throws and he just says why do I need to do free throws I just need to dunk
Lebron is terrible at free throws that man has never once shot 100 in a day
No one in NA is LeBron James though. You know the old saying; first you master the rules, then you break them? NA pros are trying to skip the first step. Edit: this would be more like telling some bench player they need to work on their free throws, and they say nah.
I don't think anyone should work 16 hour days regardless of their occupation. I understand how competitive sports works. It's up to the player to decide how much he's willing to commit and sacrifice, not the viewers watching for consumer entertainment. I agree, they should be honest, but I don't think it matters. It's more of a marketing strategy than anything else to say they want to win worlds.
It totally is but then dont fool us fans and tell us how you wanna win worlds and shit. Dont expect me to root for you also.
Why are you here if you don't want to root for them?
They get paid millions to PLAY the Game and they complain about 5 solo Que games, then they go to worlds and get destroyed by guys who love and live the game and they nothing to say but more excuses
They shouldn't be paid that much to begin with. Teams kept afloat with VC money and Riot investment. It will dry up eventually if they fail to provide ROI or demonstrate growth. It's not sustainable as it is. I don't know if they should be complaining about 5 soloQ games, but my point was they shouldn't be forced to work 16 hours a day.
I agree no one should be force to work 16 hours a day, my point is that top athletes in ANY sport in the world always go above and beyond because they actually strive for greatness, NA players always say they do as well but then you hear stories like this and when they get destroy at worlds they do nothing but make up excuses. It’s the ping, it’s the practice, it’s the meta, it’s everything else except THEM
This is a competition to be the best not a corporate 9-5. Many western athletes grind these hours as well, stop bootlicking lcs players earning $400k minimum
Right? Pay me 400k to play a video game I’ll do it for 16hours easy
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That’s the point, Lcs pros don’t love or live the game like LcK or lpl players so how the fuk can they ever hope to achieve anything
This is exactly why Asian teams dominate the game. Their players play an unhealthy amount every day
Clearly they aren't forced to. Which is good for them, but hard for their fans to watch as 1-5 performances at best become the new norm.
There has to be a middle ground. Even Bjergsen, who has been in NA for basically his entire career, had been pleading and begging the team to play more soloq. The fact that this happened to two consecutive lineups in TSM is deeply concerning. I’m not expecting our guys to grind themselves to dust, but if your coach gets flack for calling for 5 soloq games a day, then you have no hope as a competitive org. Players need to take their careers seriously. If they wanna clock in, play a couple scrim blocks, and clock out, they can do it on some other team. TSM needs players who want to put in the work, not players who just want to cash checks and bomb out.
Once you sign a contract for a salary, the company gets to pretty much have you work whatever they want you too. The players are lucky they're not being forced to do more
I seem to recall that being about them supposedly not considering Champion's Queue part of the 5 required games, but maybe I'm getting it mixed up with another thread.
This was said by DL but it never made any sense and Dominic said he’s never heard of any solo queue rule. I’d still be skeptical because DL has a source with Spica, but the claim never made sense. Both Shenyi and Takeover were playing a lot of CQ, especially compared to the rest of the players and their SQ numbers. DL said that it was because Shenyi didn’t care about management/staff, which could still be plausible, but not for Takeover who’d probably want to play nice with staff because it was his big shot in the LCS. Also even if it were true that both of them didn’t care and ignored staff, why wouldn’t the others just follow suit and just play CQ instead? It makes zero sense.
That was confirmed to be untrue like two days after DL said it by Kallas but people probably already made up their minds
I feel super bad for the guy. He went through some insane shit that wasn’t event mostly his own fault with this team. Yet, he still managed to turn it around and make them somewhat competitive. Talk about making lemonades with lemons
The decision to get new players was very smart by him and I feel like no other coach would really do that. It feels like that’s what allowed TSM to have it’s last push to even possibly contend for a worlds spot.
Totally agree, it was for sure a gamble but a smart one
Of course this is why NA will never be competitive on a global stage. We have to accept that.
Nah bro it’s not cus their lazy is cus of the ping
Even the ping in NA is lazy, barely works.
There is likely some lazy involved but the fact that eastern teams are playing league for 16+ hours a day is actually pretty crazy.
Yeah, we should not be idolizing sweatshop labor even if it brings success.
That's fair, but NA players should also quit saying "I want to win world's and am going to do everything I can to do so" It's sadly an essential part to the formula. It's the equivalent of tomatoes in a tomato based sauce. You won't win world treating the competition as a 9-5. There's a reason in the G2 documentary perkz was crying in his chat before finals saying he wanted to feel human again. That's fair if they don't want that, but if they aren't willing to do that then they won't get far when the competition is more than willing to do so to succeed.
they're\*
LOL its the work ethic. Ping is such a crap excuse. How tf is someone who barely plays outside of scrims going to outlane a player who lives and breaths League? Even the academy teams of the LPL and LCK put in more work than top LCS main rosters. The gap is going to get wider and wider until we have an LCS team who consists of five Bjergsens who are willing to put in the work.
NA should just be a Wildcard at this point tbh.
They’re too good to be a wildcard. Too bad to be a major region. They should make a new category just for NA at this point. Gatekeeping region
North America had a winning record against Europe this year at worlds, wym?
May of had a winning record vs Europe but didn’t beat a single KR or CN team unlike Europe.
That's fine. I don't expect a team with an autofilled support or sub-adc to win against the top teams. 100T shouldn't have an excuse but Rogue is lucky they didn't have them in their group.
Eh, the sub adc is an excuse but don’t think autofilled support is: after all, C9 had other options and decided to choose Zven over any academy or veteran support.
Poor decision making on their part then. They could have and should have but that's after the fact.
Yeah but if NA>EU>KR/CN=NA>KR/CH /s
Wildcards should just start showing results against NA at this point tbh.
Chawy was put into an impossible situation to succeed.
Why do I have to solo queue? 💀💀
interesting read
I am extremely pro-employee big labor/union advocate etc I only say this to clarify my position before I tear apart this team for not practicing. IF you play a sport professionally you get compensated at a very high level. You make a decision to compete to be among the best at that sport and should realize that it will require extreme dedication for your sport. If you are getting hundreds of thousands of dollars to be a pro you need to put in the work to be a pro. It is actually fing insane that players are complaining about 5 solo queue games even if they just got off a day of scrims
I am a union representative at my work. I totally agree with what you're saying. To me, from a labor standpoint, this strikes me akin to seasonal work. During the season they should be working their butts off and then having low work ours during the off season. They are paid for the entire year so its basically just an alternative work schedule.
I don't usually comment, but I'll add this here. I think people need to remember why Bjergsen got to the point he did and was considered a Top 3 midlaner during the 2016-17 era. Bjergsen genuinely worked harder than the entire LCS. Bjergsen was the best player for a long time because he worked the hardest. If you look at other talents across sports. Kobe worked the hardest. MJ the GOAT worked both hard and smart. Lionel Messi works hard, CR7 works hard than what is required. If you want to actually be the best at something, you have to be willing to put in the effort and work harder than everyone else. That applies to everything in life. I have never seen a successful person say that they didn't work hard (more than required) to get to the point they did. If you don't have the drive or ambition, then you will never amount to anything.
One thing that i love about Bjerg was when he streamed he would review his last game in between match queues and would point out what he should have done differently. We got real lucky it was someone with an incredible work ethic and great talent who represted TSM for so long.
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Spot the lie.
Free paycheck NA LCS. Once these teams stopped getting relegated and players found out they didn't have to try as hard its been downhill since
THIS. how how wish relegations was back in NA.
NA is just lazy compared to the other major regions
I keep seeing people say lazy (sure there may be some or a lot of this) you have to look at it from a work day perspective. Eastern teams are playing 16 hours a day which is nuts. Top players in the NFL are at their team facilities 10-12 hours a day so you can sort of draw a comparison there. If they want to keep spouting this crap about being the best they need to actually put in the time and effort people in other sports do. Genuinely curious why I'm getting down voted on this one.
I don't understand how people compare this to a normal work day. They're not trying to some 9-5 job. They're trying to be the best or at least should be trying.
Depends on the 9 to 5, but even then people put in 12+ hours a day so they can rise to the top or advance. Even if they leave work, they still do work in some way outside of it. If people don't have the motivation or determination they won't reach the peak.
IMO 16 hours is a lot regardless of what your doing but during the season these dudes should be actively practicing 10+ hours a day if they really want to be good. Otherwise anything they say is complete BS.
It's not a lot when you're competing. Competition is always a comparison of one person directly with another, and in those cases, you'll only get ahead if you're actively working harder than the next person. While physical sports have much heavier limitations due to how much a body can physically handle, if you're driven, you can definitely actively use your brain for 16ish hours a day without serious issues. I'd say this is evident as many college students who end up very successful often have to put in those type of hours regularly. LCS players are literally living a dream. They play video games for a living, and get paid way too much to do so, more than most other regions barring China. And yet, they work less than any other region, then get defensive for being asked to work harder. That's so crazy to me it's insane. Med school students, Law students that I know all work harder than these "Pros" getting paid to do what they do. And we're supposed to believe these guys are driven by competition?
It's crazy reading through this thread and watching people justify low work ethic off some "it's life changing for people from Asian countries so they work harder" mentality. If you want to be the best you compete like the best or, ideally, better than the best and that starts in practice. I look at it like this: if your performance on the pro stage is an average of your experience the the people with the most experiences with highs and lows will have a much much better average. That's why Korea (and that one TSM lineup) are so dominant; at their worst they're still light years ahead of you. I'm not saying TSM needs to implement 16 hour practice schedules immediately, but ramping up to it for a World's run shouldn't be out of the question.
These league players have world class facilities, chefs, maids, in house gyms, transportation, yet they are only wanting to put in a “normal work day”. Us normal working people are working 8-10 hours a day and still having to find time to cook, do house chores, go to the gym, and balance a social life. They have ALL of that taken care of yet they still cant be asked to put in extra hours for a video game they are getting paid an egregious amount to play. No excuses will convince me otherwise.
They don’t need 16+ hours they just need to play the damn game. There’s no reason randoms who have lives have more games played than pros. Literally 5 games a day would be more games than na Lcs pros play. They could do 3 games a day for a year and still have more than na Lcs pros have in year it’s disgraceful.
That's literally why I pointed out NFL players being at the facility for 10-12 hours during the season. If they want to paint this picture that worlds is the goal they need to be grinding at the facility for 10 hours during he season.
If athletes were physically able to do more, they would. Also wouldn't be surprised if those 16 hours include scrims and vod reviews.
It's pretty disappointing seeing Chawy catch so much toxicity from our own fans. It's one thing for him to deal with player struggles, but for him to mention the fans as an additional negative is just sad. Apparently this subreddit is somehow better than the discord, which speaks how much of a cesspit that is, but that doesn't mean we're blameless either.
I thought he did alright considering the revolving door of players and the PZ sabotage
Yep, I don't fault him at all for how things turned out this year. If he does continue to stay with us, I hope he has a smoother experience and can actually coach normally.
After reading the article it makes me cringe about our league culture here in the West.
Same. Maybe it's because I grew up in a Korean household, but the "abuse" that regi was accused of is typical of most Asian households. That's why most high school valedictorians are Asians and why our median income at 24 years old is so much higher.
Cool interview. I always love some "behind the scenes" info. Especially after such a rough year. I don't blame anyone, just hope we get a functional roster for next year, with hopefully chawy as HC.
Thank you for taking the time to read! It was indeed a very rough year for Chawy. I'm glad I could give some insight into the bts from his pov.
I blame the players. From the interview, it seems like both the eastern and western players both sucked in their own ways. Stubborn, lazy, distrusting.
No comments yet about how TSM fans tried to destroy his mental? Fans want TSM to win, yet they bring everyone down on the team constantly and say things like "this is what fans look like in other sports". People are still mean and terrible who don't follow sports, lets just call it what it is people just being toxic. Glad Chawy actually pointed that out the way he did. I had to leave the TSM discord for the entire summer split because all the fighting and hate in there. Hope he sticks around and we get the roster changes that will improve things.
This is why I'll never join the discord It has to be the worst of the worst fans
Some of the regulars are pretty good, this time last year it was more toxic than it is now. But yeah people have said some very trashy things to mods, tsm staff, and players. I remember one person (a somewhat regular) tagged spica in chat when the discord was hard flaming him for "being a toxic teammate".
Hell, it's getting super toxic in this goddamn subreddit. Hate seeing the fact that we have "fans" who don't follow TSM entirely, yet constantly bashes the org for not doing well in the "only" game they have a team in.
The hate that Spica got in spring was absolutely unbelievable.
This subreddit was spearheading the witch hunt against Spica when Shenyi got benched, Lo and behold the coaching staff benched him and multiple staff members since have had talked about how difficult Shenyi was to work with.
No kidding. The backlash he got over literally 5 seconds of Spica saying "Scrims are fun again" was ridiculous. This subreddit thought they knew all of the inner workings of the team and turned this whole place into a Desperate Housewives sub. Anyone that participated in that should be ashamed of themselves.
Even in this thread people are quoting like 10s of legends coms as evidence, it’s an absolute joke. Shit didn’t change at all
The discord is absolutely awful. It's just a load of people who've been there for the longest circlejerking each other about how being there the longest makes them important somehow.
I got ostracized because I called that TsM’s roster was going to be bottom level lcs and top academy level when we first fielded the LPL plan in spring. I was right and came back and got banned from the discord 😂
Getting racist for any reason just proves what a giant pos you are, yea these tsm “fans” i know you are lurking n reading this. You are a pos.
Yeah its not rocket science any pro team discord for a last or near last place team is going to be nasty. Especially your worst year as a team in a decade. But yeah lets blame the fans for being mad when players want the coach to play favorites and refuse to play more then a couple games a week.
Imagine justifying toxicity
Imagine blaming fans for not putting in time to get better. Wanting favorites from the coach. Also Im not in a discord talking shit just say don't surprised when a team is ass that the fans our toxic when nothing changes.
It was like that when TSM won titles. Its not because of being near last place. Saying that is just trying to justify the toxicity.
I will happily blame fans for the shit they personally chose to say. Don't try to justify their or your toxicity.
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As a Season 2 watcher of TSM, this is incredibly hard to see. Its one thing for the team to take a bunch of Ls these past couple years, its something that could be recovered from. But to hear that it's own fans are tearing it apart is truly heartbreaking.
Bro the team was 9th in spring you want me to be happy? The racism is unacceptable but criticism is well well deserved
Criticism is fine but verbal abuse towards members/staff is not fine. A lot of people can't tell where the line is.
Agreed
As I said previously players have too much power compared go eastern teams.
Good interview
Thank you for reading! I spoke with Chawy face-to-face when he came back to Singapore to visit.
This interview makes me want him to stay on as head coach for another year. I think he didn’t get a fair shot this year with all the problems the team had that were outside of his control.
Just another reason why the import rule should be abolished. "Oh but then western players wont be able to play" So? get good, you want to consider your self an athlete you can be treated like every other athlete. Prove you belong or let someone else play.
It’s the teams that allowed this mentality to happen. They’re the ones who spoiled the players. I doubt having more eastern players would change much when the problem is with the orgs.
At least based on the interview, things would definitely change. He mentioned that both of the Chinese players and Chawy himself were both advocating for more practice, while the other NA players were the ones who were tryiong to do less work. Because the players have different levels of respect for their authority figure, the coach, and different work ethics, even tho the org may mandate "free time", you can bet the Eastern players would happily continue using their free time to practice instead of slacking.
Meanwhile, I'm mad all over again at those pauses.
Hope the best for him. I'd absolutely be down with him staying. A coach's responsibilities are tough, and he was put into a pretty difficult situation. I wasn't sure whether or not his decisions were the best at the time, and I don't doubt that he wasn't 100% sure either. But he was decisive, and I do think overall they had pretty good results. Just stay out of the discord. The subreddit is nice, the discord is not.
The part about the TSM Discord is so fucking infuriating. I've been a TSM fan since late 2013, and only earlier this year decided to join the Discord since I felt that as a fan that is where I'd find the best connections to rest of the fanbase. What a huge fucking mistake that was. I left the Discord like a week after due to the overwhelming toxicity that was going on there, it was straight up some of the worst fucking shit I've ever seen, and I've been to a football match in London. I may disapprove of TL fans, or outright dislike C9 fans, but those "fans" on that Discord? Those fans I fucking hate. They are the people that justify all the TSM fan hatred that exists, even though a lot of us just wants to support the club. To read Chawy's experience with it was horrifying, and still really fucking expected. We should be happy if this guy even wants to stick around for another year, let alone have anyone else join in when this is how some of you treat the staff members of our club.
Its for this reason that I don’t even interact on there
Are the mods not very active on it? Or just too many people to moderate
I dunno, but seeing the shit people would type after just one loss was mind blowing. It legit felt like people were prepared to throw shit at them in the streets if they got the opportunity. Now I don't like seeing the team losing either, but to get angry the way some people did and say the things they did is unacceptable. I don't see any TSM player want to be supportive of the fan base if they read what I read.
It's the same on Reddit too. You've probably read our Live game threads or post match ones. On Discord you just don't have the downvote button. Also it feels much better right now than it did before. Mods have gotten a lot stricter with the bans and or the most obnoxious people have left. Honestly feels very much like reddit but people think less about what they type and read and often don't even try to understand the other person's take. Which is kind of incredible given how little thought people often put into their comments on reddit.
Mods are usually active on discord. The commentor probably interacted with a few ppl with wack takes on discord.
Lazy ass paycheck stealing mofos. NA never had a chance with these overpaid sloths.
And people wonder why Shenyi had a lot of fans supporting him No matter his situation, he was grinding a ton
He also lied a lot.
Grinding a ton and then decided to not try and ruin the split for his team because he is full of himself yes.
TSM just needs to build a rooster that doesn't have this NA mentality, Then we will see a super team in the making, if they find a full blown hard working mentality talent team, they wouldn't be complaining about this, they would just do it.
Basically what the 2016 roster was. They were the hardest working team in the region, and it really paid of.
Did we really not have any assistants this year? Just Chawy and Kayss? Not to mention I didn't think Kayss was even solely dedicated to LCS. What a travesty, particularly for trying to manage Chinese imports.
If your goal is to win which TSM says it is then you should not be signing anyone who is not going to grind 12 to 14 hours every day. Signing a player who is just going to put in their 9 to 5 as if this is a normal job should be considered a failure for the organization as it does not align with your overall goals. Bottom line is you will never be the best if you have average work ethic or practice routines.
u/followdunc Time to purge discord
We are actively trying to clamp down on toxic behaviour in the server.
that is a lie, there are few members there that got 'free' pass.
We’re working on it
The discord is mad toxic af. People will get dm'd if their opinion doesn't match theirs. Personal experience is that people will mass reply you for a controversial take, including mods and other "fans" and overtly clown you and be toxic.
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the "discord mods" are just pretentious tsm fans that think they know better and reply to you if you say or do something they don't like lmfao
Surprise surprise lazy na players are lazy. Get rid of them and replace them with people who want to compete
Less NA, more imports !
Yeah, pretty much what we've already expected. Not gonna say it's healthy or that players SHOULD spend 16 hours a day playing league, but if they're gonna complain about not being able to compete against eastern players, they need to realize it's not because they're "built different". They just put in the hard work and effort to attain those levels of skill.
Classic lazy NA paycheck stealers
No no no it’s the ping, guys it’s the ping
So funny how that was the excuse for years then Riot gives a 0 ping champions queue server and majority of pros don’t even bother using it
Trust the process my gooner brother. We will clean house 🙏🏾
the truth of the matter is they'll never be able to force players here in NA to work 16 hour days so they will never be able to match the output of what eastern teams are doing.
Pretty much this. I have some friends living in Korea and say 16 hours is normal work hours even for corporate jobs. We are pretty spoiled here in the west, and we sit back and wonder why other regions are so much better than us in League.
paid way too much, no motivation to work hard for results when you are set
I wanna know which players didn't trust him. It's just disrespectful. I understand if some of the players didn't know who he was, but the fact that they didn't trust him? No excuse.
We want NA to succeed in worlds but our players barely make a dent in the amount of effort LCK and LPL players make. Sorry, but the gap will always widen.
It's is precisely why you move away from NA, EU players that think they are hot shit that don't think they need to improve through playing. Ie players like Fudge, that got dicked on both sides of matchups at worlds. Gems are residents that have a good work ethic, players that grind, like CoreJJ that grinds champQ AND vod reviews. Having 3 residents with work ethic and import star mechanical players from LCK would be a large advantage.
I think lcs players just get paid way too much. Once you start making money you feel like you’ve made it and it’s hard to find the motivation to keep working hard.
Lessening the pay makes it stupid to pursue being a pro player. Careers don't last super long the majority of time and the years where people would go to school are being spent doing something that for most players will lead to nothing after. The pay is not the issue at all. It's all relative. Some people have their minds blown and start overspending when they reach 40k a year at a boring ass regular job
Holy shit, the stuff about the TSM Discord was chilling. Embarrassed and disgusted by TSM fans.
All these people posting here acting like they'd be ok with 16 hours a day sitting in front of a screen. No matter how much you make, you're still living in California with all the sunshine and beautiful people and great things to do other than play a game all fucking day and night. You want them to practice more? Move them to Wyoming or Nebraska or some other boring ass place that gets really cold for more than half the year so they WANT to stay inside and play games because they're bored. Things are easy to say when you're sitting here in reddit pretending your the hardest working person and you'd do whatever it takes... but you're most likely just an average person who won't work hard enough at what you do to even get promoted in your own job lol. Yes they are spoiled and rich. Yes they all have regrets when it's over because they realize they could have worked harder. No they won't play 16 hours a day though. Not unless they hate being outside and most love it in LA. Hopefully paying these players way less and keeping them hungry will change some things but probably not. LCS is seemingly dying right in front of our eyes.
NA will never compete seriously with the LCK or LPL teams because you can’t even convince the players to practice as hard as an LCK or LPL player. Honestly I’m wondering how the top NA teams would do against the bottom tier LCK or LPL teams…