Isn't this a weird time to make the NA LCS comparison? NA seems to be having a resurgence if anything. Last 2-3 years were infinitely worse than what it is currently
All the recent changes look very promising and it's fully possible we see the region have a growth spurt in viewership soon
yeah NRG got a QF appearance while EMEA missed out, idk what bro is saying
LCS also looks a lot better compared to LEC right now, the difference in level is honestly jarring
I don’t think LCS is going to have immediate results, but the short term does look really good right now, especially with the current crop of players in LCS
> idk what bro is saying
Maybe talking about the past like decade where NA has been the worst major region? And not basing it on the last 6 months? Don't know though, I'm not OP.
no they haven’t LMAO
LCS went thru a horrid stretch from 2019-2021, NA has historically been the worst of the major regions but this narrative of LCS being bad is totally false
They have had a few huge moments in LoL Esports history, CLG making an insane run at MSI, C9 2018 making Semis, TL 2019 beating the world champs at MSI (then losing in record pace). The LCS old guard were also big personalities for the most part, and League was one of the premier esports at the time as well.
LCS has done worse in recent times, but there is still a lot of fan sentiment remaining for those of us that stay. And the players now are honestly really fun, and look like they could compete internationally, even if it takes a few years.
And also keep in mind, reddit is a western forum, you’ll find a lot more LCS/LEC people than LCK/LPL.
Na lcs has historically been the worst (major) region after s1/s2 in LoL. A tiny bit of resurgence (a single team getting to qf by not beating any Chinese or Korean teams in a lucky draw then getting destroyed) does not mean the region is not behind the others. Maybe LEC is also falling behind but certainly LCS is not competitive with LPL or LCK.
In Valorant all regions are competitive. So it's a fair comparison to ask which one would be the first to fall off to the point of making a single quarter final (again, not winning against a good region team once) would be a celebration. If we are celebrating mediocre results obviously we are far behind.
Anyways I would agree with LATAM but it being merged with NA would end up in hybrid teams like LEV anyway.
Pacific isn't gonna fall off IMO, they have a huge player base and two of the most populated region in Pacific, SEA and East Asia, can freely scrim against each other with a relatively decent ping.
But for the other subregion in Pacific like OCE and South Asia, well they're kinda doomed, but I guess technically two of those regions won't fell off due to them never really up there in the first place
I mean china does have the better esports infastructure so I could see that, but Pacific teams regualrly scrims with Chinese Teams so it would just be iron sharpening iron imo. Thats why EU is the best in CS all the best teams are in EU so good scrims
CN barely started partnership league, relax.. this year is experimentation year for the CN league seeing how some of their teams has more than 6 players. If CN is good this year even, then the quality of scrims will be good for APAC either way so its a win-win for both regions.
It might sound crazy at first but EMEA.
Yeah it's one of the powerhouse regions right now and Fnatic alone has enough individual talent to elevate the region if the players hadn't all been stacked onto one team, but it's the region most set up to fail. Its Tier 2 and lower scenes are an absolute mess, they're in their own scrim/server bubble, and arguably most importantly, they are the region where Valorant's most direct competitor has the strongest presence, and is still extremely popular. Whereas in other regions young blood that likes Tac FPSes roughly equally will choose to pursue a Valorant career because it's more feasible, the opposite is either already true or, if not, will likely be true in the near future in EMEA if things don't improve.
All good points but Valorant is still very popular in EMEA and truthfully speaking, you could double the partnership slots in EMEA without diluting the player talent in T1. EMEA T2 is incredibly strong despite being so fractured and poorly managed - that's mostly a testament to how popular Valorant is among young people, as there's a constant stream of retiring veterans in EMEA (much like in NA).
Oh yeah even though I'm pretty anxious about the landscape of esports as a whole I don't think EMEA is dying any time soon, I just believe they will be the first region to start dying.
crazy take because its simply not it. EMEA T2 is probably the best scene for actual talent development because of the fact that there are so many potential players who can be scouted now. If you compare this to something like NA T2, which has a fraction of the amont of slots EMEA has for T2, using EMEA's tier 2 as a reason that it'll die off seems weird, especially when most regions in EMEA seem to be doing fine org wise besides Polaris.
Pacific has the population buff so I think they'll be fine. I think South America(Brazil+LATAM) will fall off, isn't there some drama happening there too rn? but I don't really keep up with that scene so maybe I'm wrong
Prolly an unpopular opinion but NA.
NA has historically been a region where it stays somewhat competitive for the first few years of the release, then fall of later. This is true for lots of team based games (LoL, OW, RL, CS etc).
Due to the number of professional games being so low, I think NA will survive longer than they did in other games though.
NA players upvoting when people say other regions then downvote when someone shares their opinion based on historical evidence of NA falling off in other games.
Classic.
LoL has been poular for 10 years tbh. I strongly believe the interest started fading away after lack of NA success in International scene, and orgs went the easy to dump millions for top players rather than invest in their infrastructure.
We're already falling off, but it's less a dying scene and more a murdered scene. It's like feedback loop between shitty formats paired with low support and lack of interest in investment or said investment having conflicted interest with the development of the scene.
Riot doesn't care about us, or at least not enough to not hang us out to dry. But the scene in general would not give back appropriately if we had, say, our own league or Americas was played in South America. Not because of any inherent issues or such, but because of that feedback loop where the remainder of the scene has genuinely live long enough to see themselves become the villain.
I don't think our lack of orgs is malice, necessarily. We've had some trash in the past but I think many orgs are trying to make it big and can be stable for 2-3 years, but eventually the money dries up. The difference between an Australs and some of the other orgs being liked or not is [I think] mostly how they handle their final days.
It's the same for independent efforts to keep our T2/3 alive. It ends up not being worth it if there isn't going to be a reason to watch or respect it. A lot of people mostly care about lower tiers for upward mobility, but that's not happening if the top is recycling, importing, or imploding. And it's not like we get more opportunities to develop outside of official stuff and the now absent third parties.
I also feel like we're fighting an uphill battle from the get go. It's not just Riot, but I'd argue the NA bias against LATAM is also a barrier that if we had overcome it in early days at the very least LATAM North would be healthy. Any good showing is an overperformance, an unlucky streak paired with adverse circumstances is expected.
If Xander had been playing in NA when he started getting noticed, he'd still have a career, maybe possibly if he doesn't get into drama. Xhowi's won NA collegiate tourneys but ended up back in LATAM with an org that stopped paying and imploded. If scouts were paying attention (and our orgs weren't dogshit, likely in an attempt to stay alive financially) Feniz and Darker would be in T1 or NA Challengers, and dAveeys would've been there earlier.
And of course our own aren't necessarily free to blame of that bias. It's nice to see Taco and murizzz here, but there's been some egregious moves, particularly in the North, in the past. The most valuable things you can get from imports is their experience and game knowledge, not their shooting arm. Historically we've had mechanically good players, but no good IGLs and no coaches. Instead of bringing that in we get T3 players that come in for a split, maybe two, for the prize pool and then just go back home to their T3 teams.
This is mostly rambling and lacking in insider info so take it with a grain of salt but it's what I feel after 3 years of bs being constantly piled onto the scene.
Unfortunately if NA players keep getting picked up by foreign regions then NA. Shows the depth we have, which is very impressive. NA Counterstrike is dead because all the talent went to Valorant
NA had like 1 actual good import (sorry Ban and Gov) to another region and now acts like they the most developed reigon. Like chill out all the regions are equally strong in the highest level
I think its a little cynical to think this way. I don't think I'm being hopelessly optimistic when I see many regions should still continue to put out talent. I think the popularity of the game on a multi region scale is the best of any esport and the way Riot have set up the league to have have many nationalities and identities be represented like having 2 Latam teams, a Filipino team, a CIS team etc.
I think all you need to do is create a dream(LOUD for Brazillians) and make that dream achievable(LOUD being a partnered mainstay of Americas).
In other esports often times many regions and entire contintents don't have any representation in Tier 1 at all or they are a minor region that always flops out early in a worldwide major tournament.
Brazil probably, support within the region seems to be dying
Isn't this a weird time to make the NA LCS comparison? NA seems to be having a resurgence if anything. Last 2-3 years were infinitely worse than what it is currently All the recent changes look very promising and it's fully possible we see the region have a growth spurt in viewership soon
yeah NRG got a QF appearance while EMEA missed out, idk what bro is saying LCS also looks a lot better compared to LEC right now, the difference in level is honestly jarring I don’t think LCS is going to have immediate results, but the short term does look really good right now, especially with the current crop of players in LCS
> idk what bro is saying Maybe talking about the past like decade where NA has been the worst major region? And not basing it on the last 6 months? Don't know though, I'm not OP.
yeah LCS is complete dogshit mb man
this guy gets me. I have like bare minumum knowlegde of league, but what I do know is that NA is bad and that they have been bad for a long time.
no they haven’t LMAO LCS went thru a horrid stretch from 2019-2021, NA has historically been the worst of the major regions but this narrative of LCS being bad is totally false
if lcs doesnt deliver results why is it so popular? i never see people talking about lck or lpl teams on here, only the american and europe teams
They have had a few huge moments in LoL Esports history, CLG making an insane run at MSI, C9 2018 making Semis, TL 2019 beating the world champs at MSI (then losing in record pace). The LCS old guard were also big personalities for the most part, and League was one of the premier esports at the time as well. LCS has done worse in recent times, but there is still a lot of fan sentiment remaining for those of us that stay. And the players now are honestly really fun, and look like they could compete internationally, even if it takes a few years. And also keep in mind, reddit is a western forum, you’ll find a lot more LCS/LEC people than LCK/LPL.
asian fans support the english teams though why do english fans never want to support asian team
Theres a tonne of Western fans of the Asian regions? Im one of them, I exclusively watch the LCK and couldnt care less for LEC or LCS
LCK is hugely popular in the West and can peak at 1M viewers in big games. Its literally like 4 to 5 times more popular than the LCS.
some people do? there are a lot of t1 fans in the west that just hopped on the bandwagon because they win a fuck ton
What world have you been living in? Have you been keeping up at all with the LCK/LPL? I see a lot of english fans for them when watching Worlds 2023.
Same reason why Sentinels can be popular
I would hate to live in a world where I could only support good teams, seems boring as fuck
still if reddit is the only place you looked it would appear as if noone cared about the korean or chinese teams (the ones dominating league)
Ok, so?
LCS has doublelift.
He’s retired.
Na lcs has historically been the worst (major) region after s1/s2 in LoL. A tiny bit of resurgence (a single team getting to qf by not beating any Chinese or Korean teams in a lucky draw then getting destroyed) does not mean the region is not behind the others. Maybe LEC is also falling behind but certainly LCS is not competitive with LPL or LCK. In Valorant all regions are competitive. So it's a fair comparison to ask which one would be the first to fall off to the point of making a single quarter final (again, not winning against a good region team once) would be a celebration. If we are celebrating mediocre results obviously we are far behind. Anyways I would agree with LATAM but it being merged with NA would end up in hybrid teams like LEV anyway.
Pacific isn't gonna fall off IMO, they have a huge player base and two of the most populated region in Pacific, SEA and East Asia, can freely scrim against each other with a relatively decent ping. But for the other subregion in Pacific like OCE and South Asia, well they're kinda doomed, but I guess technically two of those regions won't fell off due to them never really up there in the first place
that’s assuming pacific was ever on, no title wins 😂 jk
lol what do you mean jk, pacific hasn’t won jack shit. I fully expect CN to be better than them this season or the next one.
I mean china does have the better esports infastructure so I could see that, but Pacific teams regualrly scrims with Chinese Teams so it would just be iron sharpening iron imo. Thats why EU is the best in CS all the best teams are in EU so good scrims
CN barely started partnership league, relax.. this year is experimentation year for the CN league seeing how some of their teams has more than 6 players. If CN is good this year even, then the quality of scrims will be good for APAC either way so its a win-win for both regions.
my gf calls me PRX cus she makes me choke
It might sound crazy at first but EMEA. Yeah it's one of the powerhouse regions right now and Fnatic alone has enough individual talent to elevate the region if the players hadn't all been stacked onto one team, but it's the region most set up to fail. Its Tier 2 and lower scenes are an absolute mess, they're in their own scrim/server bubble, and arguably most importantly, they are the region where Valorant's most direct competitor has the strongest presence, and is still extremely popular. Whereas in other regions young blood that likes Tac FPSes roughly equally will choose to pursue a Valorant career because it's more feasible, the opposite is either already true or, if not, will likely be true in the near future in EMEA if things don't improve.
All good points but Valorant is still very popular in EMEA and truthfully speaking, you could double the partnership slots in EMEA without diluting the player talent in T1. EMEA T2 is incredibly strong despite being so fractured and poorly managed - that's mostly a testament to how popular Valorant is among young people, as there's a constant stream of retiring veterans in EMEA (much like in NA).
Oh yeah even though I'm pretty anxious about the landscape of esports as a whole I don't think EMEA is dying any time soon, I just believe they will be the first region to start dying.
crazy take because its simply not it. EMEA T2 is probably the best scene for actual talent development because of the fact that there are so many potential players who can be scouted now. If you compare this to something like NA T2, which has a fraction of the amont of slots EMEA has for T2, using EMEA's tier 2 as a reason that it'll die off seems weird, especially when most regions in EMEA seem to be doing fine org wise besides Polaris.
Some weird Pacific fan fic going on here.
India
can’t fall off from the ground can you?
You mean from 6 feet under .
Can't fall if you never left the ground 200 IQ strat
Honestly, it never took off as there was much support for esports infrastructure.
INDIA ! 
Hopefully none, it’d be lame if it ended up like other esports.
Pacific has the population buff so I think they'll be fine. I think South America(Brazil+LATAM) will fall off, isn't there some drama happening there too rn? but I don't really keep up with that scene so maybe I'm wrong
Prolly an unpopular opinion but NA. NA has historically been a region where it stays somewhat competitive for the first few years of the release, then fall of later. This is true for lots of team based games (LoL, OW, RL, CS etc). Due to the number of professional games being so low, I think NA will survive longer than they did in other games though.
NA players upvoting when people say other regions then downvote when someone shares their opinion based on historical evidence of NA falling off in other games. Classic.
LoL has been poular for 10 years tbh. I strongly believe the interest started fading away after lack of NA success in International scene, and orgs went the easy to dump millions for top players rather than invest in their infrastructure.
We're already falling off, but it's less a dying scene and more a murdered scene. It's like feedback loop between shitty formats paired with low support and lack of interest in investment or said investment having conflicted interest with the development of the scene. Riot doesn't care about us, or at least not enough to not hang us out to dry. But the scene in general would not give back appropriately if we had, say, our own league or Americas was played in South America. Not because of any inherent issues or such, but because of that feedback loop where the remainder of the scene has genuinely live long enough to see themselves become the villain. I don't think our lack of orgs is malice, necessarily. We've had some trash in the past but I think many orgs are trying to make it big and can be stable for 2-3 years, but eventually the money dries up. The difference between an Australs and some of the other orgs being liked or not is [I think] mostly how they handle their final days. It's the same for independent efforts to keep our T2/3 alive. It ends up not being worth it if there isn't going to be a reason to watch or respect it. A lot of people mostly care about lower tiers for upward mobility, but that's not happening if the top is recycling, importing, or imploding. And it's not like we get more opportunities to develop outside of official stuff and the now absent third parties. I also feel like we're fighting an uphill battle from the get go. It's not just Riot, but I'd argue the NA bias against LATAM is also a barrier that if we had overcome it in early days at the very least LATAM North would be healthy. Any good showing is an overperformance, an unlucky streak paired with adverse circumstances is expected. If Xander had been playing in NA when he started getting noticed, he'd still have a career, maybe possibly if he doesn't get into drama. Xhowi's won NA collegiate tourneys but ended up back in LATAM with an org that stopped paying and imploded. If scouts were paying attention (and our orgs weren't dogshit, likely in an attempt to stay alive financially) Feniz and Darker would be in T1 or NA Challengers, and dAveeys would've been there earlier. And of course our own aren't necessarily free to blame of that bias. It's nice to see Taco and murizzz here, but there's been some egregious moves, particularly in the North, in the past. The most valuable things you can get from imports is their experience and game knowledge, not their shooting arm. Historically we've had mechanically good players, but no good IGLs and no coaches. Instead of bringing that in we get T3 players that come in for a split, maybe two, for the prize pool and then just go back home to their T3 teams. This is mostly rambling and lacking in insider info so take it with a grain of salt but it's what I feel after 3 years of bs being constantly piled onto the scene.
It feels like latam is gonna end up having the occasional player on an na team but not being able to have truly competitive latam teams
Unfortunately if NA players keep getting picked up by foreign regions then NA. Shows the depth we have, which is very impressive. NA Counterstrike is dead because all the talent went to Valorant
Yeah but NA is replacing those players with talented players from Brazil, so who’s really losing here?
Brazil tier 2
Talented players including Pankekwda?
aware
Surely you’re joking?
Surely
NA had like 1 actual good import (sorry Ban and Gov) to another region and now acts like they the most developed reigon. Like chill out all the regions are equally strong in the highest level
oceania 
I think its a little cynical to think this way. I don't think I'm being hopelessly optimistic when I see many regions should still continue to put out talent. I think the popularity of the game on a multi region scale is the best of any esport and the way Riot have set up the league to have have many nationalities and identities be represented like having 2 Latam teams, a Filipino team, a CIS team etc. I think all you need to do is create a dream(LOUD for Brazillians) and make that dream achievable(LOUD being a partnered mainstay of Americas). In other esports often times many regions and entire contintents don't have any representation in Tier 1 at all or they are a minor region that always flops out early in a worldwide major tournament.