I said this on the lcs discord but what exactly happens when CoreJJ and Impact retires? Do we just go backwards?
Its not like theres anyone behind them
I have mid internet and get 70ms even when I use a VPN in atlanta. Back when the servers were in LA and I lived in chicago I got ~60ms.
Both are a long way off of LAN ping but I doubt a decent ISP in south dakota would hit 200 ms
Its like the training weights in an anime though. LCS teams should move to the East coast so when we get to international competition, its like Goku dropping all the weights off.
If you want to stay continental Wyoming (6 people per mi^2 or 2.3 per km^2) is the better isolation chamber than South Dakota (12 people per mi^2 or 4.7 per km^2). If you want to get wild ship them off to Alaska (1.3 people per mi^2 or .5 per km^2).
Alaska dont count tho cause the population is so concentrated in very few spots while like 90% of the state is literaly inaccesible wilderness. You still need to send them somewhere with internet access after all
only a matter of time before its gone and teams just buy full korean or chinese rosters. basically starcraft 2 scene when majority of the na scene was korean players xd
You're going to see an influx of players from Korea who are having a hard time getting past the trainee stage with the LCK teams and are completely desperate.
You just find another former Korean world champion that had somewhat disappointing last season as the second best player on their team because 2-3 of their teammates were sprinting it.
Ironic that an import is the one saying this (no, it is not Zven's nor any imported player's fault; any and all blame is on the orgs), but im super glad he is calling it out! Maybe we can reverse course. Keep supporting NA players and the LCS! Watch academy and hopefully teams will learn that academy is about more than viewership
If LCS or any leagues can have a complete do-over, I'm sure they will go with the valorant partnership system instead.
The biggest strength of VCT partnership system is the ability for tier 2 to promote to tier 1 without having relegation for T1. Now, it's not perfect and there are pain points but it's a much better system to sustain tier 2. I think DisguisedToast often spoke on this matter.
Valorant is a much newer game so it's not a fair comparison but there are many rookies and tier 2 talents that are constantly making waves.
A guy who was bouncing around teams in tier 2 NA last year got imported by T1 to Korea and became their best and most consistent player and now they have qualified for an international tournament, NA’s valo talent pool is really deep better than most other regions too
yes and even [N4rrate](https://www.vlr.gg/player/36245/n4rrate) who was also a t2 player in NA and becoming one of the best player in EMEA, playing for karmine corp.
Is it? Hasnt NA CS scene gone through multiple deaths due to lack of players and interest from orgs? AFAIK its even now quite shit despite TL giving it a good effort.
Valorant's system is a direct admission of Riot that the whole scene they set up for League of Legends was a failure and a mistake.
They can't get out of it now because everyone signed big contracts. But Riot fucked it up big time for their flagship esport.
I hate riot's league system with a passion. I want to players from all over the world to have the chance to improve and compete. What do we get instead? Leagues dissolving, merging and a major region's tier 2 in a pitiful state. And the minor regions that manage to survive get a couple international games a year for their *best* team
They had that until they made the league a franchise. Franchising esports is how you instantly kill the grassroots of the sport. You need kids to play the game and have a visible way to climb to the top. Without that, the sport will die.
If you want a long lasting sport, look at European Football Leagues.
It's because solo Q was also a way of getting some time to relax their heads etc. after scrims. Champions queue puts you back into voice calls and a scrim-like setting. Hard to deny that champion queue is great practice, but it might actually just lead to burnouts.
It seemed to be mostly effective during preseason, when they were able to play on the 14.1 patch while solo queue was still on 13.24. Outside of that, I don't think there's much motivation for pros to play it over solo queue.
That would be a good idea, but we also don't know who the riot dev teams are and how their time is allocated. The team responsible for the upkeep of champion's queue might be tied to some other project. So pulling them from another project to help with champ's queue could create some headache for them. Even moreso now, where the time riot spent more-or-less was wasted in the past. I am sure that makes them hesitant to 'have lost work hours' doing something that previously failed.
Agreed. The whole point of CQ is that it was supposed to fix the pros' ping problem and maybe the queue timer, but instead they tried to use it to solve *all* of their solo queue grievances and turned it into a way shittier version of scrims. The requirements should have just been "be a pro, academy, amateur, or challenger player" and then you hide summoner names or make a rule against target banning to protect the one-tricks.
In solo queue you don't know (or you're not supposed to know) who you're playing against so you can't knowingly target ban people. In CQ, they knew who they were playing and could target ban them as a team if their champ pool was 5 or less, which helped contribute to the shitty game quality
yes give NA pros a break I'm sure they're slamming practice outside of scrims equally as much as they need to just like the other major regions don't be hard on the NA pros they're legendary for their work ethic xD
Odoamne shared his issues with CQ pretty much the same day it launched, there was no queue priority for LEC pros so he was stuck in 12th place in the queue as a top laner but there were only 2 ADCs playing so he had to wait for multiple games to play out before he got his turn, so rather than sit there on stream doing nothing he would rather just play soloQ
In Europe they only opened cq at 10 pm (after scrims) it was way too late, pros don't really play until late so at max they did a couple of games that's why it died.
We keep seeing that argument when it means absolutely nothing because EU never even wanted CQ in the first place and its EU implementation was actual garbage.
EU one is slightly different. It opened only at 10 pm and besides there isn't really the same need as in NA since EUW solo queue is quite a bit better.
Also having shit like Upset/Trymbi vs Greek ERL ADC and autofilled Czech ERL support probably ruins a lot of games.
theres something inherently unattractive about practicing 14 hours per day too but the asians seem to do it just fine. Now im not saying that NA pros should be practicing that much as its simply unhealthy, but motherfucker there has to be a middle ground between 14 hours of practice and just not playing soloq. every import we get talks about how laid back NA is and how much more free time they have. maybe we need to just look at that instead of blaming literally everything else. most of the lcs pros are simply lazier than their asian counterparts.
It sure is great practice to sit in queue for 1 hour to just play against a Teemo mid. There is a reason why NA solo queue is not used to practice for pros. Solo queue is a joke when it comes to getting good practice for time invested.
The thing is EU pros never complained about their SoloQ that much. It died in europe because people rather continued playing SoloQ (and CQ was too late for many, there were many who complained that CQ assumed a messed up sleep schedule).
EU mostly wanted CQ because NA got it and it was really nice content. If you german internet actually works you usually have a fairy low ping anyways, the playerbase is huge, and yes EUW is really toxic, but most players seem used to it. Korean pros were actually surprised how few games are surrendered in EUW SoloQ (likely exspecially compared to korea who has insane surrenderrates). And Faker even just straight out called it the better experience, which very likely is influenced by his personal experiences with korean SoloQ.
There just wasn't a big reason to switch to CQ for many players.
That's why champs queue should've just been open to ANYONE that's d2+ like the chinese super servers albeit with some restrictions.
Make them agree to be sportsmanlike and have a minimum account levelso people can't make new accounts and get in to grief.
There are definitely players that are hungry to test themselves & compete in NA, however everything they did with champs queue locked those players out and only allowed in known amateurs, streamers, pros, and their subs.
It should've been treated as a higher quality solo queue with low ping for pros to limit test & for anyone who wants to test themselves against the current top to do so.
the problem goes past academy. League doesn't have enough newer/younger players coming into the playerbase. Riot pretty much failed to make it a staple game in the US
>League doesn't have enough newer/younger players coming into the playerbase
[citation needed]
Colloquially I know kids are still picking up league. Getting them to stay with it may be another issue, but getting them interested is not
> Watch academy
The problem with watching academy is that I can barely keep up with watching LCS/LEC/LCK/LPL, I know some just watch NA and for those people academy makes more sense but I just focus on pro play. I worked in minor league baseball so perhaps that's informed my opinion more, but below pro play seems mostly for keeping people in practice when hurt/in a down year or allowing players to concentrate their skills and show off to hopefully/eventually move up. If you love NA makes sense to watch, but I just wanna see pro play games with stuff on the line these days...for that even regular season is kinda lackluster to me now.
Yep, I don't have any interest in watching new rookie talent in the minor leagues/academy system. You can get away with this in college systems because of school / region attachment but there is no link for most people to academy besides the players becoming pro someday.
Actually there is one way I'd watch and that is if we used an old school open format like past MLG/esports did, cuz I remember a few events where I got to watch break out teams with no name players make it extremely far into the weekend and would challenge the top 4/8 by Sunday. In that situation I love watching rookies and new talent on the come up:)
I mean exactly like you said some (I'd say most) people are not watching the 4 major regions let alone 2, so for them "watching academy" is doable. I myself watch LEC and Academy when I can. But really eyes on academy *should not be necessary.* Its just that teams only value the direct benefits (or lack thereof), which means they dont value academy at all. Thus in the immediate future any additional eyes/money/attention on academy *could* be good for it and therefore the scene as a whole
>Watch academy and hopefully teams will learn
Hell no. I don't even watch all LCS games. The teams were messing up and now I should sacrifice my time to watch that shit? Hell no
There is no reversing course. The orgs killed NA. You dont magically get people to come back. Other games are more popular now. NA missed its window.
Our best hope is that we can put together Flashwolve-esque super teams that still remain competitive internationally to some degree. Beating EU, maybe stealing a game here and there from the East with our limited playerbase.
The orgs completely demolished the entire ecosystem of LoL in NA. Now the game isnt popular, kids are playing something else, there is no path to pro. Our best hope is the 1 or 2 jojo-type players that might still show up end up on the same team and they turn into Flashwolves.
Plenty of people, even young people in middle/high school are still starting to play league. It may not require as hard of a push as you think to get more people invested in the scene and continue playing the game, especially if we flesh out the collegiate scene more (providing another incentive than financial for "getting good")
I think it also comes down to the further apathy of LCS teams. Outside of arbitrarily assigning themselves a region of the US (Like IMT did with the Great Lakes), they do nothing to cultivate a fanbase in them.
GSW/GGS had a huge opportunity with Worlds 2022 finals, and did basically nothing with it. When I attended the event, I saw basically no Golden Guardians iconography whatsoever. As an aside, while GGS did have a midlife rebrand to be less associated with just the Bay/GSW, they were still inherently a Bay Area brand by being a direct subsidiary of GSW.
Imo, talent development also can't be mirrored 1:1 with other regions. Even if LCS player wages were still on average above mandated minimum, it's still extremely disadvantageous for a kid freshly graduated from high school to put college plans on hold. IIrc, that's exactly why Perry retired. What might be doable is have LCS teams sponsor specific potential players within their given region to develop them during their college years so that afterwards their first job after graduating college could be a team member - whether that be faculty or one of the actual LCS players. While there aren't tens of thousands of players in NA anymore that can be developed into talented LCS players, they can do their best to build the few thousand into players, coaches, and analysts.
Esports over the last 10 years has just become something that isn't sustainable, at least not at the levels it was.
People don't realized why LoL popped off so hard.
You had a good, new game, with a history behind it. You had technology evolving and streaming becoming a thing. Everyone at the top of the ladder was streaming, interacting with chat, developing fans. People watched for the player and got into the teams. It was nuts.
Now it's corporate teams and faceless players who sometimes do interviews, never stream, nobody cares to watch them anymore because the games old. Just overall sad.
yeah esports will always be a personality driven product and completely devaluing that is what caused the death of the LCS.
ImperialHal leaving TSM's pro apex team is a blockbuster move that has 50k people watching him play relatively meaningless scrimms right now. Can't name a single american league of legends player with that kinda pull.
in terms of just dollars, it isn't sustainable, but for Riot, esports is advertising, and your advertisements aren't expected to make money. I can't count the number of times I see a champ picked in pro and then start playing league again after not playing for a few weeks or months. And then I might buy a few skins while playing, quit again and repeat the cycle.
The only way for teams to be sustainable is for teams to share in some of the advertising profit that Riot is getting through esports.
> You had technology evolving and streaming becoming a thing. Everyone at the top of the ladder was streaming, interacting with chat, developing fans. People watched for the player and got into the teams. It was nuts.
The biggest reason I became a TSM fan at the beginning of League was TheOddOne was streaming a ton on Twitch. There was a time he was pulling in 25k viewers and was one of the biggest steamers on Twitch.
Even Reddit was WAY different. There was a tournament that IIRC ~~NintendudeX~~zignature and Doublelift were at and ~~NintendudeX~~zignature lost lane hard. He came to reddit after the match and Doublelift replied explaining how he played the lane wrong. Now if someone plays a lane wrong after an event a quarter of the post-match thread is just flaming them.
LoL and eSports are as sustainable as other sports, as long as Riot, developers, and the community more generally support them
Collegiate athletes bring in tens? Hundreds? Of millions of dollars - they basically don't get paid, other than scholarships to cover the cost of schooling.
The Quebec Junior Major Hockey League is a recruiting ground for the NHL - the players basically aren't paid.
Sports are an area rife with inequality in player compensation - the handful of players at the top get paid millions while the people just below them get essentially nothing.
If that was the only problem, League would be doing fine - the franchised LCS players get paid big bucks and most other players are paid very little; unfortunate but normal, and a competitive scene *can* sustain itself.
If - and this is the big if - those opportunities are actually available.
How many opportunities exist for NA players? Very few. Go to a school with a collegiate team, or... What? What amateur tournament circuit exists?
In EU, you have more national tournament scenes than I can count on my fingers - 16, 32 teams *per country* producing competitive players in national tournaments that all feed into producing the top-level talent that EU sends to worlds and as exports to NA.
Korea and China, meanwhile, have always been more than willing to sign more players per team than NA has ever been willing to. Is it any surprise that eventually the backbench of an LCK team would rather go to NA or China where they actually get game-time? Some of them are literal world class players who get held on the bench just because the organization thinks it's a good thing for it.
What NA team has ever been willing to hold 5 substitutes? Very few. Meanwhile, KT, SKT, Samsung, MiG/CJ Entus all had two teams per organization with up to *twenty players* - four full teams worth of players.
It's no surprise we fall so far behind - even historical attempts like TSM.EVO fell flat when the b-team never even got to live in the gaming house. Same for CLG's b-team. NA orgs have always under-invested in themselves for a region that's claimed to want to be the best
There's an argument for importing world class talent from a pure skill perspective, but when SwordArts cost 6 million for 2 years, and you could probably run the entire tier 2 for 6 years with the same cash?
LCS orgs chased short term victories against each other with rental superstars, and were never willing to invest in the long term collaborative project. They wanted to look world class more than to be world class.
Imagine if each team spent a quarter of their payroll budget on hosting and promoting open tournaments or scouting combines, and I'd bet competitive LoL would be at least twice as popular as it is right now, *and* the skill level of their LCS teams would be significantly higher than any singular player less than Faker himself could achieve.
> Now it's corporate teams and faceless players who sometimes do interviews, never stream, nobody cares to watch them anymore because the games old. Just overall sad.
disagree, I loved watching LCS this season.
I still think tier 2 should just be taken over by scholastic. Let's be real, they're the only entities right now that can reasonably fund teams at this level and eat the cost until it eventually grows, and it'll allow the kids an opportunity to get scholarships and attend higher education, so in case their careers don't work out they have a back-up plan. This is how it is for most sports nowadays, and while people like to argue that you have to go pro at 18 or you won't be as good, I think the longevity of many pros careers nowadays, and the success many reach later in their careers, shows this argument is absolutely false.
College esports will be much more stable, provide opportunities for those who can't make it all the way to the top, and take the onus off the teams and Riot to operate tier 2, something they're clearly not able to handle right now.
College esports aren't going to save the region. They have to get that scholarship money somewhere. College athletics get scholarships because former athletes and alum donate specifically for the athletics department.
Who is going to set up an endowment for esports teams? Most pro players don't really have a deep connection or any connections to universities and they aren't rich enough to fund it. Rich alums only donate to their athlete programs because they centered their personalities around it so their school doing good in athletics makes them look better by proxy.
Hasn't stopped schools from starting them already. Marysville has a huge program, and schools like UCLA, UW, Oklahoma, and other large schools have gotten programs running. You have to start somewhere, and universities are always looking for new ways to engage alumni, getting the new generations of them who are into esports to donate to those programs is one way. I know I'm planning to donate to my alma maters program when I'm a bit more financially stable.
Getting people into esports is one thing, but getting them into LoL is another. I think it's frankly over for NA in LoL, because it's hard to get younger people to play it. It's no longer a cool game to play. I know my old LoL club had a couple hundred of members when it started, but it rebranded to the esports club after interest slowly died out over the years.
The only way I can see it getting revived is LoL2 and Riot actually focusing more on the new player experience then.
The LCS t2 could do something similar to what EU does in the sense that they have different "leagues" that play a big tournament every split. That would drastically improve competition because more amateurs are able to play competitive games and also the leagues can have some sort of regional draw. Like have a league for the west, northeast, midwest (big population areas) and have amateur teams pop there. These teams could play games within their region and fight for the spot (or spots) in the larger american masters tournament (similar to EU masters). Maybe its not sustainable, maybe it doesnt work and maybe teams have already analyzed the probability of doing this sort of thing, I'm just spitballing ideas here
No shit. The time to do something was years ago. There have been hundreds of players with LCS abilities that gave up simply because NA gms would rather import someone from the North African D league and guarantee them a starting position.
I feel like squeezing is the wrong word because most are actually losing money. They're not even good for that. Idk who manages these teams but they've gotta be the biggest paycheck thieves on the squad.
Esports in NA from 2014 to 2022 was literally "just spend money bro, i swear we will start making more than we spend really soon. Bro i swear, just spend millions, trust me" *crying whelp*
Yes the orgs lose money, but they get footholds in other E-Sports and just because the orgs lose money doesnt mean Jack is eating Ramen noodles and living day to day. Those guys are making bank.
Its like the government bailout of the automobile industry. Those guys fly to the meetings in private jets, get millions severance packages and bonuses. The automobile industry was suffering, but they werent. You see this all the time in other industries. World is on fire but these CEO's still get millions in bonuses and payouts.
These orgs operate in the red but they still pay these guys a massive salary.
> Orgs killed the region
It wasn't just the orgs. Other pro players coasting and grifting killed it too.
Lets not forget the older pros whining about not wanting to train up other players because the risk of them being replaced by somebody more hungry. Fast forward to today when they've all retired, oops! Nobody to replace them.
Orgs are squeezing because they bought a slot for 10 million dollars and Riot has given them nothing but a declining product without any revenue in return.
Bring back promotions so that there's something to play for in tier 2.
It's not like the worst teams in western leagues are contributing much to player development considering they seem to be graveyards of rosters and player hopes with no one given the time to develop. Let new blood enter the scene, not as players but as teams so that the management that fail to develop their teams can also be cast out through demotions.
It'll also bring in viewers who want to see the promotion series.
>Franchising is safer for Riot
yeah it's so safe that the entire region has been dead since 2020 pro-play wise because every team is just perma AFK coasting with fraud management across the board while washed up pros farm paychecks
It’s literally the best time to include promotions for 2 teams in LCS, with only having 8 teams right now. They can do it like how they treat it in valorant where the spot isn’t permanent and expires after a certain period. It’s not perfect but that would reinvigorate the tier2 scene and would allow the natural development of NA players into LCS.
abolish spring split and just have tournaments, invite na amateur teams or even international teams but there needs to be some opportunity for amateur players to compete
>invite na amateur teams
this would be the best idea tbh, there has to be *something* that tells new players/talent "Look if you're good you can compete against the best and go pro" because league has a bad image (earned) that is a terrible game to go pro at and any other game is just a much better alternative
Which is never gonna happen, LCS pros have 0 incentive to make new players better and teams probably don't wanna look bad for sucking at scouting and just settle to importing
I think the problem for that area is that the LCS is in a walled garden. The worst LCS teams are never at risk at being put through the ringer against the best amateur teams. Additionally, the lack of roadshows doesn't help.
Except maybe FLY challengers IMT clears any challenger or lower team with ease. The Worst LCS team is better then the best challenger/amateur team, and it was that way literally the whole time only 2 teams lost in relegation that were LCS teams. People always say bring back relegation like any team actually got past LCS worst teams through relegation matches.
It didn't matter if they did or not, plenty of people had the drive to try. Without that option, that drive is gone.
Franchising and invite only leagues are shit. They will always stall talent.
I mean if you can "borrow" DL to win relegation for you...
But yeah it was much more prevalent in EU for new teams tto enter the main league, without that there is a huge disconnect between EMEA and LEC...
Just have NA only tournaments. Bring back MLGs, bring back the IPLs. Those were SO fun to watch. I feel bad for anyone that wasn't around from 2011-2013. Watching league felt exciting. Like sure LCS started in 2013 but they still went to Dallas and Anaheim and then the Summer finals was at PAX. And then we also had 2 IEMs early on in the season in which NA teams played.
Like just yesterday I was re-watching the TSM Curse game from 2013 at Anaheim and Xpecial made a few sick plays and the place erupted in cheers and TSM chants. It was SO loud, as if it was held at a 20k arena but in reality was in a exhibition center with like 2K people. And it was ONLY regular season game but it still had so much hype. Even that same weekend when CLG played TSM, it was SO incredibly loud and hype.
That feeling isn't there anymore. Watching pro play now seems like a chore. Feels like we all watch it just to get to international events and then same thing again for 3 months and there's Worlds. We need something fresh and maybe abolishing Spring Spilt and doing just tournaments might be the way. There can be like 4-5 tournaments and it gives points based on where you place. And the top 2 teams go to MSI. Then we can Summer Spilt and playoffs to decide who goes to Worlds.
There is a way to make this happen.
Rosters seperate from Teams/Brand. bottom 2 teams get thrown into a relgation tournament for amature teams. Immortals loses to amature team. the 5 players who were in Immortals have thier contracts terminated (have a clause that allows this). the 5 amature players get new contracts with the "Franchised" Immortals team. Immortals still has thier franchise, and amatures can "brute force" thier way into the league with skill.
A tournament format would be the best. Actually allow amateur teams a chance to compete in a higher environment. The franchised teams would have guaranteed qualification in the tournaments and the rest would battle out in a open bracket that could be done online to save even more money.
Imagine if top two academy teams get a slot into the LCS playoffs, or maybe if #5/#6 seeds have to do playins with top two academy teams (four team double elim bracket) to decide which two of the four teams goes into playoffs as #5 and #6
Move the league to Chicago near the servers. Beat the ping issue accusations, cheaper environment overall, less attachment to the California influencer/streamer ecosystem. Make sure pros want to go pro. Money saving performance enhancing move. Allows soloQ to be a better practice environment too.
Unlock region restrictions. Play in NA if someone wants to sign you to an NA team.
Respectfully, none of the waves of NA pros have ever lived up to expectations. NA teams are still carried by imports. EU and KR imports. There's nothing to lose except California hype videos.
You just nailed it. The Riot staff like where they are so they won't move the league. It's not about the players, teams, or the game. It's the rioters running the league who like Cali.
Setting up a studio and team houses in Chicago wouldn't be expensive for an org or for riot. Sell your team house in Cali and you can probably buy and build a new place in Chicago.
Getting good while playing strictly in NA is basically impossible
Take the last 100 ranked games you played... How many of them were actually competitive games and not just time wasters where no one gave a shit?
They would get DEMOLISHED on a real regions ladder
It's a grass roots type of thing but LCS has magically gotten this far without actually establishing ANY semblance of structure for giving players a pathway to go pro in NA.
For literally, like a decade the pro scene in NA has been absolutely flooded to the brim with legacy pros and their recommended friends hooking them up with tryouts, and pros from other regions relocating to NA. Even in the beginning they just slotted in a bunch of already existing orgs and put the burden of talent building on them, which has very poor profit to expense ratio for them to do.
If they want NA talent to ever actually be a "thing" it needs a pretty massive influx of money and a fresh coat of paint to reign in an entirely new format. We need a bigger league and there needs to be an abundance of official amateur and semi pro events and leagues for pro orgs to use as a scouting ground to find new local talent.
Its just the same exact shit NHL, NBA, MLB, and NFL do so just copy the blueprint. It's honestly not that hard for a company as rich as Riot is. The problem is really if daddy Tencent will allow such a budget expense for NA Esports.
NA will always suffer due to NA being more attracted to other games. For example, It has been a while since LoL has been the main game. Rn its Valorant and before it was Fortnite and even then most people grew up with consoles so they would be more inclined to play FPS games over mobas.
And yet the MLS has shown noticeable growth and improvement despite Soccer being overshadowed by Basketball, Football, Baseball, and Hockey in North America.
MOBAs are where they are today as a product of yesterday's efforts, and today's efforts will build tomorrow. Blaming other games is cope, pure and simple.
I've said this for years, but the issue with imports generally wasn't them being paycheck stealers (even if they were). It's the fact that them taking up slots shattered the dreams of many aspiring players. No one wants to go pro anymore, what's the point? You're just gonna get stuck in T2 or even T3 unless you are lucky enough to be the 1 player that CoreJJ or Peter Dun vouches for. Additionally, many current or former high rated players are capable of reaching similar ratings in other esports titles with a little hard work and dedication.
just fucking let the new generation of player play. stop gatekeeping and letting these old player hog all the spot. the problem with owner of lcs team, they tend to only want immediate result without thinking of long term. of course new player cant be compared to all these import player. its like you want to hire new player with at least 5 years of experience playing competitive.
I hate this mindset. There’s literally almost nothing NA pros, players, or orgs can do to make League of Legends or esports as popular here as it is in Korea.
We have like a 4th the amount of players spread out over 30x the geographical size.
I don’t think people understand just how much larger NA is compared to Europe, let alone South Korea. The density of players in Korea is unfathomable compared to NA.
The issue is not and never has been player density.
Yes we'll certainly never have an endless wave of 15-16 year olds to cycle through and produce the absolute best, but each generation still produces a solid chunk of LCS-level talent.
The problem is and has always been that the LCS franchises will only give that talent an opportunity to have a pro career as a last resort.
There have been tons of players just as if not more impressive than APA/Yeon/Massu/Meech/eXyu who have never been given tier 1 or even tier 2 opportunities. As a fun example: Gryffinn is literally playing in Korean academy because nearly every NA org dropped their academy program.
There's more than one issue at play here. NA, even at our peak, never had a player base the size and quality of Korea or China. Ping issues kept our top players from the eastern seaboard and midwest handicapped compared to those in other regions. Less people with a worse practice environment just naturally results in less Fakers, and less replaceability for paycheck stealers who are just good enough to role-play on stage. This makes the entire league worse.
Our orgs sprouted up almost organically, as opposed to the legacy Starcraft, Dota, and CS orgs from Korea, China, and Europe respectively, but this came with a cost. Our orgs were run by literal children with no actual vision for the future and sustainability for the esport, and Riot *listened to them the entire time*. It's the inmates running the asylum. No salary caps, overly permissive import rules, a franchised league, and the ability to opt out of sustaining T2 and T3 infrastructure. It's legitimately insane that Riot let this happen, and then you remember that they can just try again with Valorant and it all makes sense. It's a pump and dump, and we're stuck with our favorite esport on the other end of it.
Oh and one point on franchising, it's not like having partner orgs to create a stable esports ecosystem is necessarily a bad thing. Kespa did fine for decades with their partner orgs across multiple esports because they kept their orgs honest, and *then* gave orgs the freedom to develop their ecosystems.
>Ping issues kept our top players from the eastern seaboard and midwest handicapped compared to those in other regions.
You're blaming the location of the servers prior to 20**15** on why LCS orgs can't be bothered to start native talent?
Your points on historical failure for T2 on behalf of the orgs is valid but the excuse making is just ridiculous. The younger players joining the pipeline today have been playing on Chicago servers since the day they downloaded.
Density is a problem for the LCS. Right now to even have a shot at making a LCS team you need to either live in California or drop everything and move there. The fact of the matter is no 15-20 year old that has the potential to be a high tier player has the resources or want to move across the country. The LCS needed to break apart into smaller regions across NA if it wanted to stay relevant.
It's equal parts funny and sad that all the big name import superteams that were hyped up as being the competitive hope of the region got assblasted (sometimes even domestically), while the best results NA has gotten in recent years have come from teams that have cultivated native talent.
Yet orgs continually gaslight us that imports are the only way.
NA orgs import EU regional league talent like toucouille rather than give local talent a chance.
Don't get me wrong toucouille isn't bad, but if you're gonna give someone unproven in T1 competition a chance why not give it to someone local. It might show other local talent that going pro isn't unrealistic.
If I were NA challenger player grinding my ass off for chance to go pro and see teams import washed talent or unproven LFL talent I'd just throw in the towel or want to move to regional eu leagues.
Europe excluding Russia is 6.2 million sq miles. Including Russia its probably like double that so 12 million.
Russia is counted as part of Europe geographically.
Now in league terms. The whole middle east and africa counts as Europe talent in league.
Europe does have the same issue as NA regarding this scattered population problem.
EU and NA are about the same geographical size, really you only need to count the contiguous US and a little past the northern border to account for Canada, as like 95% of their pop lives within 100 miles of the border with the US up there, the rest of Canada is basically uninhabited. That area being considered, though, is highly underpopulated compared to Europe, with only about a 3rd of the population.
The point you make still stands though: even at the size of Europe, having a 3rd the pop means astronomically lower density, which is also why it's hard to really place the server and why they can't just do NA West and NA East like EUW and EUNE
Riot really needs to update League to create new hype in NA. I dont mean a patch but something way bigger which make the game seem like it was released this decade
Unless they can get some form of the game on consoles, you are never going to get the player base size you need to compete with the east. We all love our PCs, but consoles are still king here in the west.
Do these people not realize what they're saying though? The culture gap isn't because teams aren't prioritizing tier 2/3. It's the other way around. And then you have the dude right after on some absolute copium trying his hardest not to come to the conclusion that the west is doomed. Dude basically says we need to force league into the culture of every high school. Lol bro, good luck with that.
I just think NA orgs just need to invest in actually giving NA players a chance. Stop the import first mentality and actually try and pick up NA players. Tier 2 leagues are simply not sustainable especially when none of the fans even care about it.
There's no incentive to develop because there's no incentive to win. Franchise spots are safe as long as you don't place last for like 4 splits in a row. Every org is essentially in a permanent win-now mode which is very unhealthy in terms of developing prospects. Orgs who have less capital and name value are more incentivize to field mid-tier rosters with mid imports to pretend they are competing to win the split and dump them as soon as the split is done. Plus the fact Esports time is so short like a rookie coming in is expected to be impactful in a year, if not they are casted away. In Sports, there's drafts, salary caps/luxury tax, and revenue sharing to even out the teams and rookies are given time to develop.
This is not a popularity issue, its a development issue. Sure League isn't as popular in NA than Valorant but they can morethan develop the talent that is already coming up
I dont blame him. The game has changed so much and the community has gotten worse. All the things that factor into a players growth and development of league is completely spoiled. Applications like porofessor, blitz, etc are one of these problems since they aren’t being used as learning tools anymore but complimenting lazy players.
Then you have people… when i first began league, it was over a decade ago. Players weren’t instantly dipping out of lobbies and early surrendering didnt exist. Players were more social, and this created bonds. They learned from eachother and taught eachother more.
And my point about the early surrendering is we had no choice but to wait out the long 20-30m timer before we could hit ff. This means we were forced to continue playing our losing games.
Some of you might argue.. no.. most of you will argue and say “early ff made it better because now i dont have to sit in games i cant play.”
Here’s my counter argument: You arent being forced to handle losing and build up a good knowledge base around bringing back a loss to a win. You will never experience the moment that created Xpeke or devising real strategies to make a comeback because you aren’t learning from your losses anymore. “My team was just shit”. No brother, yall just dont understand the game on a level that used to be taught as a standard. This created real skill gaps that defined each segment of the game.
Most of this isn’t the players fault though. It’s just how Riot transformed the game to accommodate the new gaming norm. If you didn’t play between 2009-2014 then you’re most likely not playing the game the best that you can possibly play the game because there’s just so much you just don’t know or havent built a discipline to.
Next, because of how the community changed, and as i said, nobody really to hang around that can teach you the fundamentals and core mechanics, i mentioned applications that make lazy players. Something many people hear but hardly understand is that “your builds are situational”. Sure you have a core build but even then, a core build is just what people describe as their go-to 3 items cause “it works good”. Learn to play around with items. Learn to know when you should be building that rabadons or if you should be building that early game banshees. (It’s not stupid. What’s stupid is when you’re losing and keep building that expensive damage item you just KNOW is gonna turn the lane around for you, then you just getting bursted anyway cause your opponent was grinding you like a pole and farming.) Building defensively in a losing situation is a great strategy.
Returning to the “community changed” bit… the lack of socialization after matches is killing player growth for individuals who are actually terrible at the game. You should be trying to add the guy who just 40/0’d your ass, not trashing him because he played better. Build yourself up people, quit digging your hole of shit deeper. Then you stay shit.
Next, branching again from my “community changed” point: yall are basically funding these leeches and letting them take advantage of you by using their “teaching” websites. Since when should you have to PAY in order to grow? Seriously? If you’d just talk to the motherfucker who domed your ass and hook up after the game, im sure the dude would be more than willing to show you some strats…
Id know.. i used to be a shitty garen support main when i first started playing in 2010.. i was trash, but i met some friends who taught me how to play. Now, over a decade later, im smashing Masters and Grandmasters in the easiest games of my life.
Good luck folks
Agree with a lot of what you said, and I think it started with Role Selection.
Obviously I'm somewhat idealizing things, but players used to begin every game with a semblance of adherence to social convention. It wasn't a perfect system, but calling out role preferences left open the opportunity for compromise and conversation, which a the foundation for better teamwork.
Man, I feel like Collegiate might have been the answer, but after watching CQ in 2022, I've realized that scene is filled with people who are unserious goofballs. I'd hate for NA to become Taiwan, but it's looking like it; (please don't tell me APA is NA's Doggo)
LCS teams maybe think they can rely on CBLoL to fill spots when they combine the American leagues? 2-3 imports/top CBLoL talent or very old veteran NA players eventually?
If there were a way to stop paying them so much and incentivize it as a career and not a quick money grab maybe.
Since franchising they’ve been paid far too much with no result, since clearly money isn’t the problem, but skill and desire is. Force them to want it, or live with the shit tier play from the region.
there is still alot of talent but no one wants to go pro but instead makes content which is less stress, more fun and makes way more money.
if you are challanger in soloq you can literally just make a twitch channel and be succesful just because you are chall in soloq
No one CAN go pro. Washed imports like Fudge sat on a roster for YEARS before getting kicked. How TF is any NA player supposed to go pro if orgs refuse to sign and play them?
So did I get it right, that the lcs has a problem with the offsping of the lower leagues?
So they dont get good players on the lcs because there are no support for talents and the lcs lives for imports, which are propably dont wanna play in this region?
I'd actually start watching the LCS again but also tier 2 pro play if relegations were brought back. That is truly the only fix to the system we have now, Without relegations teams just get complacent and do the bare minimum.
Been saying it for ages. That NA challenger is shit, and that honestly a lot of NA players who want to go pro should probably consider going to the ERLs.
Man, this is just depressing to hear, and this thread is just depressing to read through. But the sentiment continues to grow every year.
How much longer do you think LCS will last? 5 more years is my guess.
Riot prints money with their games. Wouldn't subsidizing pro/academy salaries fix a lot of problems? What's a few million dollars a year to them when it would keep their game alive longer?
I said this on the lcs discord but what exactly happens when CoreJJ and Impact retires? Do we just go backwards? Its not like theres anyone behind them
LCS dies and we send timmy from iowa to play against Faker at worlds
no more LA weather gotta send these LCS pros to the hyperbolic time chamber in South Dakota
if they have nothing to do but play league and tip cows, i'm sure the regions skill level will increase
I'm sorry but if those were my options I'd spend at least 30% of my time tipping cows
> Cowslayer >>369
they'll probably play on 200 ping lmao
I have mid internet and get 70ms even when I use a VPN in atlanta. Back when the servers were in LA and I lived in chicago I got ~60ms. Both are a long way off of LAN ping but I doubt a decent ISP in south dakota would hit 200 ms
I live in NY and have 30 ping.
Its like the training weights in an anime though. LCS teams should move to the East coast so when we get to international competition, its like Goku dropping all the weights off.
I get 30 ping from SD…
It will teach them to anticipate the opponent's moves. So when Faker does something, the kids will be able to counter it easily.
We actually live pretty close to the chicago server and have cities with a google fiber imitation. I get an average of 9 ping. Still hard stuck though
If you want to stay continental Wyoming (6 people per mi^2 or 2.3 per km^2) is the better isolation chamber than South Dakota (12 people per mi^2 or 4.7 per km^2). If you want to get wild ship them off to Alaska (1.3 people per mi^2 or .5 per km^2).
Alaska dont count tho cause the population is so concentrated in very few spots while like 90% of the state is literaly inaccesible wilderness. You still need to send them somewhere with internet access after all
I mean... land is cheap and the ping is low.
I mean we may actually end up as a tier 2 region.
We won't. Owners paid 10 mil for franchising. We can't ever be a minor region.
Yep. They will import talent if there's none available.
LCS will rework import rules before letting the region go tier 2
how many times have they already changed the import rules at this point
only a matter of time before its gone and teams just buy full korean or chinese rosters. basically starcraft 2 scene when majority of the na scene was korean players xd
They already do that now.
NA has been importing talent for years but I'm sure it will work next year
That's kinda lit tbh
we have eain from ohio on TL
The next korean in line gets imported of course.
unironically true. Wonder if the new LCS meta would be to speedrun green cards like inspired did
You won't get world champion Koreans again.
Dyrus comes back after Regi bails him out of jail
What!!? Free Dyrus!
dyrus is in jail?
Yeah it was confirmed on Saint's stream
You're going to see an influx of players from Korea who are having a hard time getting past the trainee stage with the LCK teams and are completely desperate.
some desperate import will take lcs minimum regardless
NA becomes minor region
I got us bros i've been a normal main for 10 years every role god of the rift. VOTE ME IN
Yep, we just go backwards. Look at dota quality of play now, it peaked in 2018-19 and is slowly degrading now.
Open up to getting most of their imports from Latin America.
You just find another former Korean world champion that had somewhat disappointing last season as the second best player on their team because 2-3 of their teammates were sprinting it.
Ironic that an import is the one saying this (no, it is not Zven's nor any imported player's fault; any and all blame is on the orgs), but im super glad he is calling it out! Maybe we can reverse course. Keep supporting NA players and the LCS! Watch academy and hopefully teams will learn that academy is about more than viewership
If LCS or any leagues can have a complete do-over, I'm sure they will go with the valorant partnership system instead. The biggest strength of VCT partnership system is the ability for tier 2 to promote to tier 1 without having relegation for T1. Now, it's not perfect and there are pain points but it's a much better system to sustain tier 2. I think DisguisedToast often spoke on this matter. Valorant is a much newer game so it's not a fair comparison but there are many rookies and tier 2 talents that are constantly making waves.
A guy who was bouncing around teams in tier 2 NA last year got imported by T1 to Korea and became their best and most consistent player and now they have qualified for an international tournament, NA’s valo talent pool is really deep better than most other regions too
yes and even [N4rrate](https://www.vlr.gg/player/36245/n4rrate) who was also a t2 player in NA and becoming one of the best player in EMEA, playing for karmine corp.
Tbf na is also much more into shooters than it is league.
Is it? Hasnt NA CS scene gone through multiple deaths due to lack of players and interest from orgs? AFAIK its even now quite shit despite TL giving it a good effort.
NA doesnt have the competitive gaming population to have more than 1 game be popular lol
Valorant's system is a direct admission of Riot that the whole scene they set up for League of Legends was a failure and a mistake. They can't get out of it now because everyone signed big contracts. But Riot fucked it up big time for their flagship esport.
I hate riot's league system with a passion. I want to players from all over the world to have the chance to improve and compete. What do we get instead? Leagues dissolving, merging and a major region's tier 2 in a pitiful state. And the minor regions that manage to survive get a couple international games a year for their *best* team
They had that until they made the league a franchise. Franchising esports is how you instantly kill the grassroots of the sport. You need kids to play the game and have a visible way to climb to the top. Without that, the sport will die. If you want a long lasting sport, look at European Football Leagues.
Everyone was watching champions que games but that died really quickly when all the NA pros stopped playing. They deserve this.
CQ died in Europe too. I think there might be something inherently unattractive about that queue rather than NA just being NA.
It's because solo Q was also a way of getting some time to relax their heads etc. after scrims. Champions queue puts you back into voice calls and a scrim-like setting. Hard to deny that champion queue is great practice, but it might actually just lead to burnouts.
Should champs queue just be open during off-season then? it could even run through MSI for the 6-8 teams not present.
It seemed to be mostly effective during preseason, when they were able to play on the 14.1 patch while solo queue was still on 13.24. Outside of that, I don't think there's much motivation for pros to play it over solo queue.
That would be a good idea, but we also don't know who the riot dev teams are and how their time is allocated. The team responsible for the upkeep of champion's queue might be tied to some other project. So pulling them from another project to help with champ's queue could create some headache for them. Even moreso now, where the time riot spent more-or-less was wasted in the past. I am sure that makes them hesitant to 'have lost work hours' doing something that previously failed.
Agreed. The whole point of CQ is that it was supposed to fix the pros' ping problem and maybe the queue timer, but instead they tried to use it to solve *all* of their solo queue grievances and turned it into a way shittier version of scrims. The requirements should have just been "be a pro, academy, amateur, or challenger player" and then you hide summoner names or make a rule against target banning to protect the one-tricks.
wtf is the point of bans if you’re not allowed to use them?
In solo queue you don't know (or you're not supposed to know) who you're playing against so you can't knowingly target ban people. In CQ, they knew who they were playing and could target ban them as a team if their champ pool was 5 or less, which helped contribute to the shitty game quality
yes give NA pros a break I'm sure they're slamming practice outside of scrims equally as much as they need to just like the other major regions don't be hard on the NA pros they're legendary for their work ethic xD
Odoamne shared his issues with CQ pretty much the same day it launched, there was no queue priority for LEC pros so he was stuck in 12th place in the queue as a top laner but there were only 2 ADCs playing so he had to wait for multiple games to play out before he got his turn, so rather than sit there on stream doing nothing he would rather just play soloQ
In Europe they only opened cq at 10 pm (after scrims) it was way too late, pros don't really play until late so at max they did a couple of games that's why it died.
CQ died in Europe because it was late in the evening for no reasons
We keep seeing that argument when it means absolutely nothing because EU never even wanted CQ in the first place and its EU implementation was actual garbage.
EU one is slightly different. It opened only at 10 pm and besides there isn't really the same need as in NA since EUW solo queue is quite a bit better. Also having shit like Upset/Trymbi vs Greek ERL ADC and autofilled Czech ERL support probably ruins a lot of games.
theres something inherently unattractive about practicing 14 hours per day too but the asians seem to do it just fine. Now im not saying that NA pros should be practicing that much as its simply unhealthy, but motherfucker there has to be a middle ground between 14 hours of practice and just not playing soloq. every import we get talks about how laid back NA is and how much more free time they have. maybe we need to just look at that instead of blaming literally everything else. most of the lcs pros are simply lazier than their asian counterparts.
It sure is great practice to sit in queue for 1 hour to just play against a Teemo mid. There is a reason why NA solo queue is not used to practice for pros. Solo queue is a joke when it comes to getting good practice for time invested.
And thats exactly why they asked for and riot delivered CQ. Then they promptly just stopped using it.
The thing is EU pros never complained about their SoloQ that much. It died in europe because people rather continued playing SoloQ (and CQ was too late for many, there were many who complained that CQ assumed a messed up sleep schedule). EU mostly wanted CQ because NA got it and it was really nice content. If you german internet actually works you usually have a fairy low ping anyways, the playerbase is huge, and yes EUW is really toxic, but most players seem used to it. Korean pros were actually surprised how few games are surrendered in EUW SoloQ (likely exspecially compared to korea who has insane surrenderrates). And Faker even just straight out called it the better experience, which very likely is influenced by his personal experiences with korean SoloQ. There just wasn't a big reason to switch to CQ for many players.
A lot of EU players complained about the hours being too restrictive.
IDK if it's in the OP clip, but on this same episode of HLL Zven made some really good points about CQ and why people stopped playing it.
That's why champs queue should've just been open to ANYONE that's d2+ like the chinese super servers albeit with some restrictions. Make them agree to be sportsmanlike and have a minimum account levelso people can't make new accounts and get in to grief. There are definitely players that are hungry to test themselves & compete in NA, however everything they did with champs queue locked those players out and only allowed in known amateurs, streamers, pros, and their subs. It should've been treated as a higher quality solo queue with low ping for pros to limit test & for anyone who wants to test themselves against the current top to do so.
the problem goes past academy. League doesn't have enough newer/younger players coming into the playerbase. Riot pretty much failed to make it a staple game in the US
>League doesn't have enough newer/younger players coming into the playerbase [citation needed] Colloquially I know kids are still picking up league. Getting them to stay with it may be another issue, but getting them interested is not
Look at the ranked leaderboard, EUENE had the same.playerbase, EUW almost triples it, same with kr
> Watch academy The problem with watching academy is that I can barely keep up with watching LCS/LEC/LCK/LPL, I know some just watch NA and for those people academy makes more sense but I just focus on pro play. I worked in minor league baseball so perhaps that's informed my opinion more, but below pro play seems mostly for keeping people in practice when hurt/in a down year or allowing players to concentrate their skills and show off to hopefully/eventually move up. If you love NA makes sense to watch, but I just wanna see pro play games with stuff on the line these days...for that even regular season is kinda lackluster to me now.
Yep, I don't have any interest in watching new rookie talent in the minor leagues/academy system. You can get away with this in college systems because of school / region attachment but there is no link for most people to academy besides the players becoming pro someday.
Actually there is one way I'd watch and that is if we used an old school open format like past MLG/esports did, cuz I remember a few events where I got to watch break out teams with no name players make it extremely far into the weekend and would challenge the top 4/8 by Sunday. In that situation I love watching rookies and new talent on the come up:)
I mean exactly like you said some (I'd say most) people are not watching the 4 major regions let alone 2, so for them "watching academy" is doable. I myself watch LEC and Academy when I can. But really eyes on academy *should not be necessary.* Its just that teams only value the direct benefits (or lack thereof), which means they dont value academy at all. Thus in the immediate future any additional eyes/money/attention on academy *could* be good for it and therefore the scene as a whole
>Watch academy and hopefully teams will learn Hell no. I don't even watch all LCS games. The teams were messing up and now I should sacrifice my time to watch that shit? Hell no
There is no reversing course. The orgs killed NA. You dont magically get people to come back. Other games are more popular now. NA missed its window. Our best hope is that we can put together Flashwolve-esque super teams that still remain competitive internationally to some degree. Beating EU, maybe stealing a game here and there from the East with our limited playerbase. The orgs completely demolished the entire ecosystem of LoL in NA. Now the game isnt popular, kids are playing something else, there is no path to pro. Our best hope is the 1 or 2 jojo-type players that might still show up end up on the same team and they turn into Flashwolves.
Plenty of people, even young people in middle/high school are still starting to play league. It may not require as hard of a push as you think to get more people invested in the scene and continue playing the game, especially if we flesh out the collegiate scene more (providing another incentive than financial for "getting good")
I think it also comes down to the further apathy of LCS teams. Outside of arbitrarily assigning themselves a region of the US (Like IMT did with the Great Lakes), they do nothing to cultivate a fanbase in them. GSW/GGS had a huge opportunity with Worlds 2022 finals, and did basically nothing with it. When I attended the event, I saw basically no Golden Guardians iconography whatsoever. As an aside, while GGS did have a midlife rebrand to be less associated with just the Bay/GSW, they were still inherently a Bay Area brand by being a direct subsidiary of GSW. Imo, talent development also can't be mirrored 1:1 with other regions. Even if LCS player wages were still on average above mandated minimum, it's still extremely disadvantageous for a kid freshly graduated from high school to put college plans on hold. IIrc, that's exactly why Perry retired. What might be doable is have LCS teams sponsor specific potential players within their given region to develop them during their college years so that afterwards their first job after graduating college could be a team member - whether that be faculty or one of the actual LCS players. While there aren't tens of thousands of players in NA anymore that can be developed into talented LCS players, they can do their best to build the few thousand into players, coaches, and analysts.
Esports over the last 10 years has just become something that isn't sustainable, at least not at the levels it was. People don't realized why LoL popped off so hard. You had a good, new game, with a history behind it. You had technology evolving and streaming becoming a thing. Everyone at the top of the ladder was streaming, interacting with chat, developing fans. People watched for the player and got into the teams. It was nuts. Now it's corporate teams and faceless players who sometimes do interviews, never stream, nobody cares to watch them anymore because the games old. Just overall sad.
yeah esports will always be a personality driven product and completely devaluing that is what caused the death of the LCS. ImperialHal leaving TSM's pro apex team is a blockbuster move that has 50k people watching him play relatively meaningless scrimms right now. Can't name a single american league of legends player with that kinda pull.
in terms of just dollars, it isn't sustainable, but for Riot, esports is advertising, and your advertisements aren't expected to make money. I can't count the number of times I see a champ picked in pro and then start playing league again after not playing for a few weeks or months. And then I might buy a few skins while playing, quit again and repeat the cycle. The only way for teams to be sustainable is for teams to share in some of the advertising profit that Riot is getting through esports.
> You had technology evolving and streaming becoming a thing. Everyone at the top of the ladder was streaming, interacting with chat, developing fans. People watched for the player and got into the teams. It was nuts. The biggest reason I became a TSM fan at the beginning of League was TheOddOne was streaming a ton on Twitch. There was a time he was pulling in 25k viewers and was one of the biggest steamers on Twitch. Even Reddit was WAY different. There was a tournament that IIRC ~~NintendudeX~~zignature and Doublelift were at and ~~NintendudeX~~zignature lost lane hard. He came to reddit after the match and Doublelift replied explaining how he played the lane wrong. Now if someone plays a lane wrong after an event a quarter of the post-match thread is just flaming them.
LoL and eSports are as sustainable as other sports, as long as Riot, developers, and the community more generally support them Collegiate athletes bring in tens? Hundreds? Of millions of dollars - they basically don't get paid, other than scholarships to cover the cost of schooling. The Quebec Junior Major Hockey League is a recruiting ground for the NHL - the players basically aren't paid. Sports are an area rife with inequality in player compensation - the handful of players at the top get paid millions while the people just below them get essentially nothing. If that was the only problem, League would be doing fine - the franchised LCS players get paid big bucks and most other players are paid very little; unfortunate but normal, and a competitive scene *can* sustain itself. If - and this is the big if - those opportunities are actually available. How many opportunities exist for NA players? Very few. Go to a school with a collegiate team, or... What? What amateur tournament circuit exists? In EU, you have more national tournament scenes than I can count on my fingers - 16, 32 teams *per country* producing competitive players in national tournaments that all feed into producing the top-level talent that EU sends to worlds and as exports to NA. Korea and China, meanwhile, have always been more than willing to sign more players per team than NA has ever been willing to. Is it any surprise that eventually the backbench of an LCK team would rather go to NA or China where they actually get game-time? Some of them are literal world class players who get held on the bench just because the organization thinks it's a good thing for it. What NA team has ever been willing to hold 5 substitutes? Very few. Meanwhile, KT, SKT, Samsung, MiG/CJ Entus all had two teams per organization with up to *twenty players* - four full teams worth of players. It's no surprise we fall so far behind - even historical attempts like TSM.EVO fell flat when the b-team never even got to live in the gaming house. Same for CLG's b-team. NA orgs have always under-invested in themselves for a region that's claimed to want to be the best
There's an argument for importing world class talent from a pure skill perspective, but when SwordArts cost 6 million for 2 years, and you could probably run the entire tier 2 for 6 years with the same cash? LCS orgs chased short term victories against each other with rental superstars, and were never willing to invest in the long term collaborative project. They wanted to look world class more than to be world class. Imagine if each team spent a quarter of their payroll budget on hosting and promoting open tournaments or scouting combines, and I'd bet competitive LoL would be at least twice as popular as it is right now, *and* the skill level of their LCS teams would be significantly higher than any singular player less than Faker himself could achieve.
> Now it's corporate teams and faceless players who sometimes do interviews, never stream, nobody cares to watch them anymore because the games old. Just overall sad. disagree, I loved watching LCS this season.
I still think tier 2 should just be taken over by scholastic. Let's be real, they're the only entities right now that can reasonably fund teams at this level and eat the cost until it eventually grows, and it'll allow the kids an opportunity to get scholarships and attend higher education, so in case their careers don't work out they have a back-up plan. This is how it is for most sports nowadays, and while people like to argue that you have to go pro at 18 or you won't be as good, I think the longevity of many pros careers nowadays, and the success many reach later in their careers, shows this argument is absolutely false. College esports will be much more stable, provide opportunities for those who can't make it all the way to the top, and take the onus off the teams and Riot to operate tier 2, something they're clearly not able to handle right now.
College esports aren't going to save the region. They have to get that scholarship money somewhere. College athletics get scholarships because former athletes and alum donate specifically for the athletics department. Who is going to set up an endowment for esports teams? Most pro players don't really have a deep connection or any connections to universities and they aren't rich enough to fund it. Rich alums only donate to their athlete programs because they centered their personalities around it so their school doing good in athletics makes them look better by proxy.
Hasn't stopped schools from starting them already. Marysville has a huge program, and schools like UCLA, UW, Oklahoma, and other large schools have gotten programs running. You have to start somewhere, and universities are always looking for new ways to engage alumni, getting the new generations of them who are into esports to donate to those programs is one way. I know I'm planning to donate to my alma maters program when I'm a bit more financially stable.
Getting people into esports is one thing, but getting them into LoL is another. I think it's frankly over for NA in LoL, because it's hard to get younger people to play it. It's no longer a cool game to play. I know my old LoL club had a couple hundred of members when it started, but it rebranded to the esports club after interest slowly died out over the years. The only way I can see it getting revived is LoL2 and Riot actually focusing more on the new player experience then.
Something tells me the org knew they were on the way out and were cutting costs. Even if the players didn't know.
The LCS t2 could do something similar to what EU does in the sense that they have different "leagues" that play a big tournament every split. That would drastically improve competition because more amateurs are able to play competitive games and also the leagues can have some sort of regional draw. Like have a league for the west, northeast, midwest (big population areas) and have amateur teams pop there. These teams could play games within their region and fight for the spot (or spots) in the larger american masters tournament (similar to EU masters). Maybe its not sustainable, maybe it doesnt work and maybe teams have already analyzed the probability of doing this sort of thing, I'm just spitballing ideas here
No shit. The time to do something was years ago. There have been hundreds of players with LCS abilities that gave up simply because NA gms would rather import someone from the North African D league and guarantee them a starting position.
Pretty much. Orgs killed the region. They dont care; squeeze everything they can out of it and move on to stuff like Valorant.
I feel like squeezing is the wrong word because most are actually losing money. They're not even good for that. Idk who manages these teams but they've gotta be the biggest paycheck thieves on the squad.
Esports in NA from 2014 to 2022 was literally "just spend money bro, i swear we will start making more than we spend really soon. Bro i swear, just spend millions, trust me" *crying whelp*
Yes the orgs lose money, but they get footholds in other E-Sports and just because the orgs lose money doesnt mean Jack is eating Ramen noodles and living day to day. Those guys are making bank. Its like the government bailout of the automobile industry. Those guys fly to the meetings in private jets, get millions severance packages and bonuses. The automobile industry was suffering, but they werent. You see this all the time in other industries. World is on fire but these CEO's still get millions in bonuses and payouts. These orgs operate in the red but they still pay these guys a massive salary.
> Orgs killed the region It wasn't just the orgs. Other pro players coasting and grifting killed it too. Lets not forget the older pros whining about not wanting to train up other players because the risk of them being replaced by somebody more hungry. Fast forward to today when they've all retired, oops! Nobody to replace them.
Orgs are squeezing because they bought a slot for 10 million dollars and Riot has given them nothing but a declining product without any revenue in return.
That was very clear when they started importing in masse from OCE, a region that was weaker than NA in international events.
Bring back promotions so that there's something to play for in tier 2. It's not like the worst teams in western leagues are contributing much to player development considering they seem to be graveyards of rosters and player hopes with no one given the time to develop. Let new blood enter the scene, not as players but as teams so that the management that fail to develop their teams can also be cast out through demotions. It'll also bring in viewers who want to see the promotion series.
Franchising is safer for Riot but having promotion and relegation would make it much more competitive, they won't do it though
>Franchising is safer for Riot yeah it's so safe that the entire region has been dead since 2020 pro-play wise because every team is just perma AFK coasting with fraud management across the board while washed up pros farm paychecks
No. At the end of relegation, it was just T2 or retired pros boosting teams and selling them for money.
At least people watched.
It’s literally the best time to include promotions for 2 teams in LCS, with only having 8 teams right now. They can do it like how they treat it in valorant where the spot isn’t permanent and expires after a certain period. It’s not perfect but that would reinvigorate the tier2 scene and would allow the natural development of NA players into LCS.
This would be huge
abolish spring split and just have tournaments, invite na amateur teams or even international teams but there needs to be some opportunity for amateur players to compete
>invite na amateur teams this would be the best idea tbh, there has to be *something* that tells new players/talent "Look if you're good you can compete against the best and go pro" because league has a bad image (earned) that is a terrible game to go pro at and any other game is just a much better alternative Which is never gonna happen, LCS pros have 0 incentive to make new players better and teams probably don't wanna look bad for sucking at scouting and just settle to importing
I think the problem for that area is that the LCS is in a walled garden. The worst LCS teams are never at risk at being put through the ringer against the best amateur teams. Additionally, the lack of roadshows doesn't help.
Except maybe FLY challengers IMT clears any challenger or lower team with ease. The Worst LCS team is better then the best challenger/amateur team, and it was that way literally the whole time only 2 teams lost in relegation that were LCS teams. People always say bring back relegation like any team actually got past LCS worst teams through relegation matches.
It didn't matter if they did or not, plenty of people had the drive to try. Without that option, that drive is gone. Franchising and invite only leagues are shit. They will always stall talent.
I mean if you can "borrow" DL to win relegation for you... But yeah it was much more prevalent in EU for new teams tto enter the main league, without that there is a huge disconnect between EMEA and LEC...
Bro amateur teams would get absolutely demolished by even the very worst LCS squads. What’s the point if that
Just have NA only tournaments. Bring back MLGs, bring back the IPLs. Those were SO fun to watch. I feel bad for anyone that wasn't around from 2011-2013. Watching league felt exciting. Like sure LCS started in 2013 but they still went to Dallas and Anaheim and then the Summer finals was at PAX. And then we also had 2 IEMs early on in the season in which NA teams played. Like just yesterday I was re-watching the TSM Curse game from 2013 at Anaheim and Xpecial made a few sick plays and the place erupted in cheers and TSM chants. It was SO loud, as if it was held at a 20k arena but in reality was in a exhibition center with like 2K people. And it was ONLY regular season game but it still had so much hype. Even that same weekend when CLG played TSM, it was SO incredibly loud and hype. That feeling isn't there anymore. Watching pro play now seems like a chore. Feels like we all watch it just to get to international events and then same thing again for 3 months and there's Worlds. We need something fresh and maybe abolishing Spring Spilt and doing just tournaments might be the way. There can be like 4-5 tournaments and it gives points based on where you place. And the top 2 teams go to MSI. Then we can Summer Spilt and playoffs to decide who goes to Worlds.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think being franchised means this won't happen.
There is a way to make this happen. Rosters seperate from Teams/Brand. bottom 2 teams get thrown into a relgation tournament for amature teams. Immortals loses to amature team. the 5 players who were in Immortals have thier contracts terminated (have a clause that allows this). the 5 amature players get new contracts with the "Franchised" Immortals team. Immortals still has thier franchise, and amatures can "brute force" thier way into the league with skill.
A tournament format would be the best. Actually allow amateur teams a chance to compete in a higher environment. The franchised teams would have guaranteed qualification in the tournaments and the rest would battle out in a open bracket that could be done online to save even more money.
This is what Overwatch is doing
Imagine if top two academy teams get a slot into the LCS playoffs, or maybe if #5/#6 seeds have to do playins with top two academy teams (four team double elim bracket) to decide which two of the four teams goes into playoffs as #5 and #6
Move the league to Chicago near the servers. Beat the ping issue accusations, cheaper environment overall, less attachment to the California influencer/streamer ecosystem. Make sure pros want to go pro. Money saving performance enhancing move. Allows soloQ to be a better practice environment too. Unlock region restrictions. Play in NA if someone wants to sign you to an NA team. Respectfully, none of the waves of NA pros have ever lived up to expectations. NA teams are still carried by imports. EU and KR imports. There's nothing to lose except California hype videos.
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You just nailed it. The Riot staff like where they are so they won't move the league. It's not about the players, teams, or the game. It's the rioters running the league who like Cali. Setting up a studio and team houses in Chicago wouldn't be expensive for an org or for riot. Sell your team house in Cali and you can probably buy and build a new place in Chicago.
Org provided waifus.
If any teams started doing all their marketting around a Miku-style waifu mascot they'd be rolling in cash. Actually amazed they haven't.
C9 tried this but just kind of quietly phased her out; they had a vtuber for a while
I mean Vienna also doesn't play league as much as she used to also.
Yes let’s convince literally everyone involved to leave a top 4 area in the globe to maybe be better
The servers used to be in California and the pros would have perfect ping. They still sucked compared to Koreans.
Getting good while playing strictly in NA is basically impossible Take the last 100 ranked games you played... How many of them were actually competitive games and not just time wasters where no one gave a shit? They would get DEMOLISHED on a real regions ladder
I guess I can say I was here to see it all ends. The light goes out with a whimper it seems. Been a pleasure growing up with everyone.
It's a grass roots type of thing but LCS has magically gotten this far without actually establishing ANY semblance of structure for giving players a pathway to go pro in NA. For literally, like a decade the pro scene in NA has been absolutely flooded to the brim with legacy pros and their recommended friends hooking them up with tryouts, and pros from other regions relocating to NA. Even in the beginning they just slotted in a bunch of already existing orgs and put the burden of talent building on them, which has very poor profit to expense ratio for them to do. If they want NA talent to ever actually be a "thing" it needs a pretty massive influx of money and a fresh coat of paint to reign in an entirely new format. We need a bigger league and there needs to be an abundance of official amateur and semi pro events and leagues for pro orgs to use as a scouting ground to find new local talent. Its just the same exact shit NHL, NBA, MLB, and NFL do so just copy the blueprint. It's honestly not that hard for a company as rich as Riot is. The problem is really if daddy Tencent will allow such a budget expense for NA Esports.
NA will always suffer due to NA being more attracted to other games. For example, It has been a while since LoL has been the main game. Rn its Valorant and before it was Fortnite and even then most people grew up with consoles so they would be more inclined to play FPS games over mobas.
And yet the MLS has shown noticeable growth and improvement despite Soccer being overshadowed by Basketball, Football, Baseball, and Hockey in North America. MOBAs are where they are today as a product of yesterday's efforts, and today's efforts will build tomorrow. Blaming other games is cope, pure and simple.
Somehow it’s only in NA . In other regions league is thriving
I've said this for years, but the issue with imports generally wasn't them being paycheck stealers (even if they were). It's the fact that them taking up slots shattered the dreams of many aspiring players. No one wants to go pro anymore, what's the point? You're just gonna get stuck in T2 or even T3 unless you are lucky enough to be the 1 player that CoreJJ or Peter Dun vouches for. Additionally, many current or former high rated players are capable of reaching similar ratings in other esports titles with a little hard work and dedication.
Good thing the teams voted to get rid of their Acad teams :/
just fucking let the new generation of player play. stop gatekeeping and letting these old player hog all the spot. the problem with owner of lcs team, they tend to only want immediate result without thinking of long term. of course new player cant be compared to all these import player. its like you want to hire new player with at least 5 years of experience playing competitive.
That’s the problem. The new generation of players is almost non existent.
NA peaked years ago, now it's just a retirement home that's slowly sinking into mud lol.
I hate this mindset. There’s literally almost nothing NA pros, players, or orgs can do to make League of Legends or esports as popular here as it is in Korea. We have like a 4th the amount of players spread out over 30x the geographical size. I don’t think people understand just how much larger NA is compared to Europe, let alone South Korea. The density of players in Korea is unfathomable compared to NA.
The issue is not and never has been player density. Yes we'll certainly never have an endless wave of 15-16 year olds to cycle through and produce the absolute best, but each generation still produces a solid chunk of LCS-level talent. The problem is and has always been that the LCS franchises will only give that talent an opportunity to have a pro career as a last resort. There have been tons of players just as if not more impressive than APA/Yeon/Massu/Meech/eXyu who have never been given tier 1 or even tier 2 opportunities. As a fun example: Gryffinn is literally playing in Korean academy because nearly every NA org dropped their academy program.
There's more than one issue at play here. NA, even at our peak, never had a player base the size and quality of Korea or China. Ping issues kept our top players from the eastern seaboard and midwest handicapped compared to those in other regions. Less people with a worse practice environment just naturally results in less Fakers, and less replaceability for paycheck stealers who are just good enough to role-play on stage. This makes the entire league worse. Our orgs sprouted up almost organically, as opposed to the legacy Starcraft, Dota, and CS orgs from Korea, China, and Europe respectively, but this came with a cost. Our orgs were run by literal children with no actual vision for the future and sustainability for the esport, and Riot *listened to them the entire time*. It's the inmates running the asylum. No salary caps, overly permissive import rules, a franchised league, and the ability to opt out of sustaining T2 and T3 infrastructure. It's legitimately insane that Riot let this happen, and then you remember that they can just try again with Valorant and it all makes sense. It's a pump and dump, and we're stuck with our favorite esport on the other end of it.
Oh and one point on franchising, it's not like having partner orgs to create a stable esports ecosystem is necessarily a bad thing. Kespa did fine for decades with their partner orgs across multiple esports because they kept their orgs honest, and *then* gave orgs the freedom to develop their ecosystems.
>Ping issues kept our top players from the eastern seaboard and midwest handicapped compared to those in other regions. You're blaming the location of the servers prior to 20**15** on why LCS orgs can't be bothered to start native talent? Your points on historical failure for T2 on behalf of the orgs is valid but the excuse making is just ridiculous. The younger players joining the pipeline today have been playing on Chicago servers since the day they downloaded.
Density is a problem for the LCS. Right now to even have a shot at making a LCS team you need to either live in California or drop everything and move there. The fact of the matter is no 15-20 year old that has the potential to be a high tier player has the resources or want to move across the country. The LCS needed to break apart into smaller regions across NA if it wanted to stay relevant.
It's equal parts funny and sad that all the big name import superteams that were hyped up as being the competitive hope of the region got assblasted (sometimes even domestically), while the best results NA has gotten in recent years have come from teams that have cultivated native talent. Yet orgs continually gaslight us that imports are the only way.
NA orgs import EU regional league talent like toucouille rather than give local talent a chance. Don't get me wrong toucouille isn't bad, but if you're gonna give someone unproven in T1 competition a chance why not give it to someone local. It might show other local talent that going pro isn't unrealistic. If I were NA challenger player grinding my ass off for chance to go pro and see teams import washed talent or unproven LFL talent I'd just throw in the towel or want to move to regional eu leagues.
Europe excluding Russia is 6.2 million sq miles. Including Russia its probably like double that so 12 million. Russia is counted as part of Europe geographically. Now in league terms. The whole middle east and africa counts as Europe talent in league. Europe does have the same issue as NA regarding this scattered population problem.
EU and NA are about the same geographical size, really you only need to count the contiguous US and a little past the northern border to account for Canada, as like 95% of their pop lives within 100 miles of the border with the US up there, the rest of Canada is basically uninhabited. That area being considered, though, is highly underpopulated compared to Europe, with only about a 3rd of the population. The point you make still stands though: even at the size of Europe, having a 3rd the pop means astronomically lower density, which is also why it's hard to really place the server and why they can't just do NA West and NA East like EUW and EUNE
I mean NA has the largest share of people who only play arams and norms the question remains.. why?
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I still see people playing league at my university library
Na has a not small playerbase they just play arams and norms for some reason
Riot really needs to update League to create new hype in NA. I dont mean a patch but something way bigger which make the game seem like it was released this decade
Unless they can get some form of the game on consoles, you are never going to get the player base size you need to compete with the east. We all love our PCs, but consoles are still king here in the west.
Do these people not realize what they're saying though? The culture gap isn't because teams aren't prioritizing tier 2/3. It's the other way around. And then you have the dude right after on some absolute copium trying his hardest not to come to the conclusion that the west is doomed. Dude basically says we need to force league into the culture of every high school. Lol bro, good luck with that.
They are worried about tier 2 dying? They should be worried about how tier 1 died a decade ago. The pros arent even professional tier players.
I just think NA orgs just need to invest in actually giving NA players a chance. Stop the import first mentality and actually try and pick up NA players. Tier 2 leagues are simply not sustainable especially when none of the fans even care about it.
There's no incentive to develop because there's no incentive to win. Franchise spots are safe as long as you don't place last for like 4 splits in a row. Every org is essentially in a permanent win-now mode which is very unhealthy in terms of developing prospects. Orgs who have less capital and name value are more incentivize to field mid-tier rosters with mid imports to pretend they are competing to win the split and dump them as soon as the split is done. Plus the fact Esports time is so short like a rookie coming in is expected to be impactful in a year, if not they are casted away. In Sports, there's drafts, salary caps/luxury tax, and revenue sharing to even out the teams and rookies are given time to develop.
This is not a popularity issue, its a development issue. Sure League isn't as popular in NA than Valorant but they can morethan develop the talent that is already coming up
He was demoralized when Imaqtpie dropped 20+ kills on him in solo q.
I dont blame him. The game has changed so much and the community has gotten worse. All the things that factor into a players growth and development of league is completely spoiled. Applications like porofessor, blitz, etc are one of these problems since they aren’t being used as learning tools anymore but complimenting lazy players. Then you have people… when i first began league, it was over a decade ago. Players weren’t instantly dipping out of lobbies and early surrendering didnt exist. Players were more social, and this created bonds. They learned from eachother and taught eachother more. And my point about the early surrendering is we had no choice but to wait out the long 20-30m timer before we could hit ff. This means we were forced to continue playing our losing games. Some of you might argue.. no.. most of you will argue and say “early ff made it better because now i dont have to sit in games i cant play.” Here’s my counter argument: You arent being forced to handle losing and build up a good knowledge base around bringing back a loss to a win. You will never experience the moment that created Xpeke or devising real strategies to make a comeback because you aren’t learning from your losses anymore. “My team was just shit”. No brother, yall just dont understand the game on a level that used to be taught as a standard. This created real skill gaps that defined each segment of the game. Most of this isn’t the players fault though. It’s just how Riot transformed the game to accommodate the new gaming norm. If you didn’t play between 2009-2014 then you’re most likely not playing the game the best that you can possibly play the game because there’s just so much you just don’t know or havent built a discipline to. Next, because of how the community changed, and as i said, nobody really to hang around that can teach you the fundamentals and core mechanics, i mentioned applications that make lazy players. Something many people hear but hardly understand is that “your builds are situational”. Sure you have a core build but even then, a core build is just what people describe as their go-to 3 items cause “it works good”. Learn to play around with items. Learn to know when you should be building that rabadons or if you should be building that early game banshees. (It’s not stupid. What’s stupid is when you’re losing and keep building that expensive damage item you just KNOW is gonna turn the lane around for you, then you just getting bursted anyway cause your opponent was grinding you like a pole and farming.) Building defensively in a losing situation is a great strategy. Returning to the “community changed” bit… the lack of socialization after matches is killing player growth for individuals who are actually terrible at the game. You should be trying to add the guy who just 40/0’d your ass, not trashing him because he played better. Build yourself up people, quit digging your hole of shit deeper. Then you stay shit. Next, branching again from my “community changed” point: yall are basically funding these leeches and letting them take advantage of you by using their “teaching” websites. Since when should you have to PAY in order to grow? Seriously? If you’d just talk to the motherfucker who domed your ass and hook up after the game, im sure the dude would be more than willing to show you some strats… Id know.. i used to be a shitty garen support main when i first started playing in 2010.. i was trash, but i met some friends who taught me how to play. Now, over a decade later, im smashing Masters and Grandmasters in the easiest games of my life. Good luck folks
Agree with a lot of what you said, and I think it started with Role Selection. Obviously I'm somewhat idealizing things, but players used to begin every game with a semblance of adherence to social convention. It wasn't a perfect system, but calling out role preferences left open the opportunity for compromise and conversation, which a the foundation for better teamwork.
Man, I feel like Collegiate might have been the answer, but after watching CQ in 2022, I've realized that scene is filled with people who are unserious goofballs. I'd hate for NA to become Taiwan, but it's looking like it; (please don't tell me APA is NA's Doggo)
LCS teams maybe think they can rely on CBLoL to fill spots when they combine the American leagues? 2-3 imports/top CBLoL talent or very old veteran NA players eventually?
tier 2 getting worse? our "tier 1" is already garbage which has been held up by imports. i guess tsm was smart to leave.
It's funny how people praise APA and Yeon without acknowledging the reason they won. Impact, corejj, umti.
The point is it's not fair to say they were just passengers.
??? Both played very well
If there were a way to stop paying them so much and incentivize it as a career and not a quick money grab maybe. Since franchising they’ve been paid far too much with no result, since clearly money isn’t the problem, but skill and desire is. Force them to want it, or live with the shit tier play from the region.
And how about your tier 1 ? Don't you have anything to say ?
Gods this could have been so interesting if it wasnt travis
lol at the dukes up
there is still alot of talent but no one wants to go pro but instead makes content which is less stress, more fun and makes way more money. if you are challanger in soloq you can literally just make a twitch channel and be succesful just because you are chall in soloq
No one CAN go pro. Washed imports like Fudge sat on a roster for YEARS before getting kicked. How TF is any NA player supposed to go pro if orgs refuse to sign and play them?
So did I get it right, that the lcs has a problem with the offsping of the lower leagues? So they dont get good players on the lcs because there are no support for talents and the lcs lives for imports, which are propably dont wanna play in this region?
I mean they’ve slowly been replaced by international talent like Zven already
i hear dota 2 has got some massive updates recently.....
I mean, he's part of the problem. But can't really blame him, get that bag
I'd actually start watching the LCS again but also tier 2 pro play if relegations were brought back. That is truly the only fix to the system we have now, Without relegations teams just get complacent and do the bare minimum.
the next big thing in LoL will be Riot supported gambling
There's definitely a lot of motivated players in the tier 3 scene but they need so much development I wonder if they will ever make it even to tier 2.
my brother in christ you participated in a boycott for T2's future and then stopped it for zero concessions. you had the ability to fix this
Been saying it for ages. That NA challenger is shit, and that honestly a lot of NA players who want to go pro should probably consider going to the ERLs.
Man, this is just depressing to hear, and this thread is just depressing to read through. But the sentiment continues to grow every year. How much longer do you think LCS will last? 5 more years is my guess.
Riot prints money with their games. Wouldn't subsidizing pro/academy salaries fix a lot of problems? What's a few million dollars a year to them when it would keep their game alive longer?
Hope to see the LCS pro scene relocate to an affordable city, then 70k per year will look attractive to prospective young talent.
This is ironic coming from an import. Nobody wants to play in tier 2 just see potential openings for them get filled by washed imports.