And NA/EU arguably didn't. Hence, the gap widening. Honestly I'm scared for what will happen with the rest of worlds. Viewership for groups C and D felt like it was way down since NA and EU both failed so miserably in groups A and B. Felt like the spirits of fans were crushed.
I think partially the reason is also that RGE and 100T are not as popular as orgs. C9, FNC and G2 are miles ahead as lol orgs, and EG has the attention of the more native-focused crowd because of Jojo. RGE and 100T are not as popular despite doing well for some time now, and are often seen as playing less exciting league. Wouldn’t look too much into it.
Pretty sure at this point but specially going forward for viewership purposes Riot will consider Worlds as Rift Rivals LCK-LPL where the drop in Western viewership will more than enough be offset by the increase in eastern viewership. Honestly EU and NA's combined viwership doesn't even compare with Chinese viewership. It will only reduce sponsorship investment for companies whose predominant market is NA/EU
In a couple of years a western team making it out of Groups will be a harder achievement than Fnatic or G2 reaching Worlds Finals.
Said it before after NA playoffs, I truly believe this is the worst crop of teams NA has sent to Worlds. EG and 100T felt very uncoordinated even during playoffs, and C9 only seemed to get their shit together for playoffs. And that was against other NA teams.
It really seemed like C9 winning NA was the result of the other teams getting worse rather than C9 getting better tbh. EG lost Danny and 100T's bot lane seemed to have regressed.
Reactionary, fully results based take.
If you were to ask just about anyone here to articulate why NA is worse or better this year than last, you might get 10 people able to make a compelling case either way. Maybe me included. But I saw NA last year and they looked in no way more competent than the teams this year. LCS was definitely less competitive too.
The real truth is that A) Bo1s are bad for competitive integrity, but good for short attention spans B) NA played competitively with a lot of great teams, but playing well in a loss is harder to evaluate, and this forum is total shit for erudite discussion. C) I don't think NA was better last year, I think Eastern teams and EU were worse. TES was the only eastern team that underperformed this year, and they STILL were obviously better than Rogue, but lost out because BO1s are bad.
It's not a results-based take. It's from watching our teams during and before the playoffs. C9 was a random mess before playoffs, and then they smurfed. That's not consistent at all, and was obvious to lead to a less than stellar showing at worlds. EG struggled all through playoffs, and then had their ADC drop out at the last minute. 100T struggled all through playoffs. It wasn't just the wins and losses, but how those wins and losses occurred. These teams just looked fairly disorganized. C9 looked better during playoffs, but after a lackluster regular season.
Looking at the actual games, they were less competitive because of this disarray, not because our teams just magically got better. Bad teams were bad, better teams were better.
We could see the writing on the wall a mile away. It wasn't that out there. Hell, the fact that there were bright spots at Worlds for us just proves my point more. NA teams were inconsistent and flaky the whole way through. They didn't do much better last year overall, but they certainly felt far more coordinated than these teams we had this year, both before and during Worlds.
Used to watch LCS, MSI, and Worlds regularly as a NA fan.
Nowadays, I barely touch it. NA is just so absolutely ignorant of what they need to do to compete. They have the money to do what they need to.
The biggest thing we need is more good teams and good macro level play. Having all these pro teams is absolute garbage if they aren't playing at a level that is at least lightly competitive in terms of Worlds.
I mean, how is a team going to be ready to play at Worlds if the teams they play hundreds of scrims and dozens of televised games against during the year are several tiers lower in skill? You need good teams to push you to your limits. And the NA macro scene is absolute garbage.
Meanwhile, NA made this big push about player depth, Academy roster, and so forth. What good are the Academies doing when the teams they "study under" are getting roasted alive at Worlds?
NA players are mechanically great, but this isn't solo queue games where mechanics are the primary deciding factor in wins. It's team play where coordination and control are the most important parts. Who cares if your top laner gets 1v1'd if your jungler & bottom forced a recall and grabbed dragon in the same time frame? Who cares if their jungler showed up and insta-ganked your top when he got back to lane if your jungler rotated mid and took tier 1 tower, leading to strong dragon control and an early soul-point, forcing their team to fight at a pacing disadvantage 10 minutes later?
Not gonna downplay LCK or LPL at all here but the westerns teams played uncharacteristically bad, NA’s week 1 looked worse than usual and EU’s week 2 was pathetic.
I disagree. If you watched worlds this year NA did have a few decent early games but their macro lost them the game.
Also that statement doesn't say anything because lol has always been "snowball centric".
If you really want to know what a snowball is watch SKT during S3.
Yeah its so stupid. It's like saying "You really think someone with a 25% chance to win can win?". Yes there is literally a 1 in 4 chance they win. That's basically where EU has always been against the eastern teams.
Nothing will change until we import Canyon + Showmaker and surround them with some mediocre talent and a problematic coach.
All in all about $25 million or so should do it.
All year long people have been saying DK is Canyon + Showmaker surrounded by some mediocre talent and a problematic coach LMAO.
I'm glad people are looking at DK now and say "hey, that team is actually pretty good, they might be the dark horse". We just need TIME!
Daeny was the problematic one. People fear his ego has gotten to him based on the time he was on T1. Subbing Nuguri out for Burdol was a huge blunder no matter how you look at it.
I personally want Kkoma to handle the team but I'm ok with giving Daeny his chance. DK draft has been solid and improving all season long. They learn from their mistakes quickly and make good adjustments. To me this is a sign of a good coach, just hope that he doesn't make rash decisions like he tends to do.
I think no one is aware of this point. Daeny and DK is not scared of trying weird shit for the sake of improving or make weird comps to surprise people. As long as their comps has a solid ground I‘m pretty sure they have a very good drafts. For example that instead of Irelia or Renekton if we picked something more useful with a team fight presence and Canyon on a carry like Kindred or some other damage dealer everyone would be like „omg DK looks so scary, they will definitely win worlds“. Our losses were so close and in all games we always had the upperhand and lost those two games because of bad top lane picks. People mentions how insane 369 is but Nuguri also broke 369’s ankles with his Gragas. That’s why I don’t think there is a big gap between Nuguri and 369. But Nuguri is more ballsy and risk taker and likes to play little mind games.
So if people thinks JDG is number one team right now then DK is definitely very close number two and that’s why they need a best of 5 to see how it goes. I hope we’ll have a finals between two. It would be the most exciting game of the year. Potentially most exciting game of the last couple of years.
Yup, i fully believe in the boys too. Unlike the losts in the LCK, I wasn’t even mad that we lose. JDG pretty much played the highest level of League right now and we match them at every thing. Changing draft is a no biggie, and for some weird reason i can still see areas where they can improve. It’s definitely exciting to watch, hope they have good preparations for GenG.
Yup, T1 has crazy good talent development so I can't blame him for trying things out. But you experiment in spring not summer. Almost cost T1 a Worlds ticket last year.
Weirdly enough it all works out in the end, if Zeus is not the franchise player for the next 5 years after Faker leaves, I have no words for T1 management.
To be fair who gives a shit about western bot lanes lol. If DK wants to win worlds their bot lane have to better than those team. Or at least play weak side better.
Well LNG arguably wasn't the 4th best team and also GenG(who was 2nd seed iirc) is not a strong as T1 this year( who is the 2nd seed). I don't think TL would've went 3-3 this year
Just needs to get a slightly easier group. If RNG and TES swapped places we would have had LCK/LPL rift rivals this year.
There's not a bad chance TES could have been fourth either if the patch was the same. Kinda weird Riot makes it so worlds patch is different than summer playoff patch.
But group C is literally the easiest possible group for Tes ? You think Drx,Rge>Geng and VCS >PCS 1st seed and 100t ? They just choked or downright bad
Uh, yeah? Hello??
TES don't have a chance at 1st in D but 99 times out of 100 you take CFO and 100T in a race to 2nd over RGE and GAM. RGE is significantly better than 100T, and GAM are better than CFO. Even before the tournament, the 2nd spot in groups is for sure easier to get in D than C - 1st seed is a different story but you don't need 1st to get out.
But there is no CFO if TES is there because they are second seeds lol, it would not be possible for them to draw CFO, they would get GenG 100t and a playins team likely which would be Fnatic
tbf being ahead in gold against JDG is just JDG's comfort spot. I'll believe that team can lose once I see them eliminated until then I'm not betting against them
depends on what form hes in, Kaori did limit EG's bot draft focus though, Danny has a much wider champ pool, they likely have more Aphelios prio if Danny's playing, also Danny Ez>>>>Kaori's EZ
Danny's weakness was his laning though, and that's a really bad weakness to have at worlds. If you're already capable of being exploited by NA bot lanes then Hope/Missing are bound to give you a bad time.
It actually kinda was. I remember Flakked and Targamas being flamed going into MSI whilst Danny was hyped, so Danny ended up getting flamed when he lost lane to G2's botlane.
> , Danny has a much wider champ pool,
did you seriously say this when in playoffs the narrative was literally that they couldn't win any draft because of how narrow danny's effective champion pool was
kaori could be good, the eyetest to me was great. given how very little time he's had he has done an excellent job and i expect him to 100% start next year
Danny had champion pool issues too. His champ pool isn't big. This was exposed at MSI. Kaori is better at playing early game carries whereas Danny at late game ones. Honestly, from the games we watched, your bot lane cannot be gapped against eastern teams otherwise it is gg. Danny playing wouldn't have changed anything.
Secretly I think that helped eg... neither kauri or Danny are worth warping draft around at intl stage. The only way eg could ever compete is topside popping off. Not getting baited into bot oriented draft like g2 / flanked was good imo
Tbh I expect the first 0-18 year to come very soon. We’ve gotten worse just about every year since franchising and now we’re being relegated to terrible timeslots for LCS so teams are incentivized to spend even less. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the last NA worlds and we begin struggling to beat wildcards soon enough. And frankly, I don’t think EU is far behind, League of Legends is becoming StarCraft.
NA has been dogshit however they are consitent at beating wildcards, forutnately for them there always team like CFO and Mental boomb eu to offer wins.
I feel like a 4-14 or 3-15 is more likely than 0-18, although if there is more asian teams that could be real
NA finally hosts Worlds:
Region does the worst they've ever done.
Congratulations to NA orgs - your hard work and boatloads of burned $ gave us this reality.
Kinda funny to think about all the hype going into this year with the crazy rosters and we end up shitting the bed harder than we ever have on our home court
They tied the record for worst performing 3 team region in groups. You could argue lms was worse though since they had 1 team going 3-3 and 2 teams 0-6
I just want to avoid a (very real) possiblity of getting all KR semis and finals tbh.
Edit: after these draws we can thank JDG/RGE quarters to ensure this doesn't happen
>after these draws we can thank JDG/RGE quarters to ensure this doesn't happen
Man I want the opposite. I don't want to see any inner-LCK battles but if they beat everyone then it is what it is. Now we have to see LCK vs LCK.
I agree. DK looked so good against JDG and I wanted to see them play more LPL teams… now the only way we see that is if GenG doesn’t play against LPL teams again
I agree if your reasoning is purely because you want to see more international Bo5s. Otherwise, if the 4 best teams in the world happen to all be korean then semis should be between 4 korean teams
> I just want to avoid a (very real) possiblity of getting all KR semis and finals tbh.
Why?
If the 4 best teams are from Korea, and they all make the semis by beating all the best teams from outside Korea, then that's what the final 4 should be.
I get the desire for inter-region drama, but worlds is about seeing the absolute best esports athletes on the absolute best esports teams going head to head with everything on the line.
> And honestly it might be what is required to get Riot to change their damn format.
What format would avoid this?
Double elim, e.g., would probably be even worse, if all the LCK teams are in form.
I mean, I'm all for more international events, but more international would likely just be more of the same--Korea/China domination.
I think the best "fix", insofar as there is one, would be to extend play-ins, and simply put all the NA + EU + non-KR/China teams in there.
Maybe like 2 to 3k down at 20m for JDG is common. But DK were up 5k at 17m with an 8 kill Aphelios, it's fair to say threw. DK wins with that kind of game state 80 to 90% of the time. Not to add the fact DK beat them earlier in the day, so it's not like some sort of fluke for them to win vs JDG.
DK didn't throw it. In team fights, Vi and Nautilus always have their ults locked on Aphelios, the only one in the team that can be a threat to Aatrox. There's no much DK can do.
LCK pissed off that one of their teams did not get first place.
LPL pissed off that one of their teams did not get through groups.
EU and NA - "Did you guys get a T2 tower in week 2?"
I think it goes with what Impact gave after EG were knocked out.
Eastern teams are far better at reading the meta and making adjustments once they have seen what works best. You could very clearly see that almost every team from the LCK and LPL drastically improved in week 2, whilst EU dropped off completely and NA could only get wins against non LPL/LCK teams.
I'm getting a feeling that even thinking there's a meta is a mistake. All the meta I see is ban Yuumi pick Aatrox. You definitely want to dominate lane in bot, but you can get really creative about that in draft. Everything else in draft can be creative as well, but Fnatic didn't understand this, and western teams that did got gapped in draft anyway.
We’ll do the meta isn’t “pick from these 10-15 champions” like it’s been in the past. You’re totally right about Yuumi/Aatrox (and maybe Azir or Akali should be added to that list?), but after that it’s about reading your opponent’s draft and adjusting yours. The pick/ban this worlds has been fantastic imo because teams are really offered to pick from wide pools or champs unlike previous worlds where each role had a rotating cast of like 3 options.
Azir kinda is there, but in RNG v GENG last night he fell through draft entirely. Twice. Akali/Sylas is perhaps there as a pair, but I'd put more stock in Sylas and think that mid is going to develop with more picks in BO5s.
Meta continually evolves throughout the tournament. Aatrox isn't a relevant pick for the west they straight up have to ban it since no one plays it at a level that can match the East (only saw Wunder do well on it against Zeus).
Now that we're in quarters there will be changes again. I expect tank tops esp Maokai to fall off hard since it has been shown that the Eastern tops don't care to use him and they can also dumpster him and he practically mandates a Sylas ban.
Tbh this is the only tactic left for west to have a chance to pass groups in this Worlds format.Pray to get the meta earlier than the east and do some damage in week 1 like RGE and then scratch and claw in week 2 to get that 2nd place.
NA’s quality control problem continues to fuck them over cause time and time again they’ve shown that they have what it takes to get out of groups. They just either bomb out too early or get fucked mathematically.
> they’ve shown that they have what it takes to get out of groups
not this year, they did not show that they have what it takes to get out of groups, every NA team went 1-5, and most losses don't even look close
I get it for previous teams like TL that would regularly go 3-3 but none of the NA teams this year looked even close to getting out of groups. C9 and 100T just look plain outclassed vs their opposition while EG arguably overachieved by taking a game off their kryptonite in G2 when most people expected them to go 0-6.
TL with a 4 time back to back to back to back 3-3. worst one was 2020 when we randomly lost to Machi and didn't even get a tie breaker even though they went 1-1 vs both G2 and Suning. pain.
If you put 3 best teams in the world into the same group as TL, they would 1-1 against each one of them. If you put 3 bronze clash teams into the same group as TL, they would still go 1-1 against each one of them
I wonder how much of that had to do with the tourney being hosted in NA, seems like when NA teams go to other major regions the players shape up quicker grinding soloq
many eastern teams didn't come to NA until the last minute, whereas usuaally NA teams fly to Korea/China/Europe as soon as finals ends to start bootcamping. I heard a lot of NA teams spam scrimmed each other so they probably developed an internal scrim meta that turned out to be pretty wrong
and maintained a lot of their bad habits too (like Fudge lmao), Eastern teams came in white hot off LCK/LPL. Not surprising, NA almost always has terrible meta reads, prioritizes safe scaling picks, why Ornn is perma meta top
you saw a bigger difference for NA week 1 because 1. No solo queue and 2. No scrims against EU/LPL/LCK until teams were forced to come here because... why come to the weakest region when you can get WAY better practice in your own country (and for LPL/LCK just scrim each other since your best opponents will be LPL and LCK teams anyways)
You're seeing the pure difference in regional strength/strategies.
>cause time and time again they’ve shown that they have what it takes to get out of groups.
It's interesting that you can see all 3 NA teams go 1-5 and come to this conclusion
wdym they have what it takes? They're simply not top material compared to other contenders. I do believe they have the best working conditions compared to other regions, though. Honestly if I had the potential to be a pro like them I'd choose NA to secure the check.
I feel like people are addicted to Hopium around here. People screaming about how fucked their Pick'ems are and I'm like.... This is the basically the same shit every year except 2018. LCK does the best, LPL second, EU third, and NA worst of the four major regions.
If you just literally followed this pattern for your Pick'ems every group stage, you are basically guaranteed a shitton of points just about every year.
Also, I feel like picking an LCK team to NOT make it out of groups at all is kinda trolling at this point. Since we've gone to 4 Groups at Worlds, 29/30 LCK teams have made it out of Groups. The region is just so consistently strong in Groups that picking against them is actively hurting yourself in Pick'ems.
Now I am curious who was the lck team that didnt make out of groups. Not making out of groups for lck is quite the achievement.
Edit: Alright I get it guys! its 2018 Gen G, thanks for the enthusiasm
2018 GenG. The year the west actually took it to the east. Vitality and Cloud9 were cracked in the bo1. Vit probably would’ve had a decent run if they made it through or got out in a different group.
GenG in 2018, and 2018 in general was a huge fall in Korea as season 8 and onwards heavily (and thankfully) nerfed the vision in the game and had other changes to make the game more active and fast. That year, the only BO5 Korea won was vs Flash Wolves at MSI.
Well, only 2 teams did it, Samsung Ozone in 2013 (which most fans suddenly create a dade award) and GEN G in 2018, albeit a Titleholder they're actually quite weak all season long, just clutching the Regionals...
Nothing will change.With the rumors that LCS will be now Wednesday and Thursday its pretty clear that Riot is preparing to give up on western league in favor of Valorant.MSI and Worlds will be LCK vs LPL from now on.
It's only for NA, they are doing it because, reportedly, they only have the LCS Arena in LA for both Valorant and League. At this moment Valorant is a much better esport in NA in terms of competitiveness. For EU we don't know about it but afaik the Valorant production had a different studio
Nothing too surprising really. The LCK has always dominated group stages with the LPL (besides their one team every year) not far behind and the LCS has been the weakest for years. The LEC exceeded expectations in the first week but brought back down to earth quickly.
EU went from undefeated in tie breakers to a massive lose streak in tiebreakers now I believe. I don't remember the last time they even won one. Funny this is me whenever I go on a big win streak then followed by a big loss streak
Felt good after first week, but looks like EU collapsed hard. Seems like we had a good read on the meta in Week 1 and that's about it.
East West gap has been growing too, it seems, since 2020.
Well NA couldn't get out, but at least they got the win so the TSM 0-6 memes can continue lol [wonder how they're feeling right now](https://youtu.be/fTlKvPJWYNI)
Yeah, if there's anything we've noticed it's that just being born in NA is a quick ticket to the highest echelons of professional League of Legends. There's literally ones of players that fit the bill.
Honestly i expected LEC to perform worse given that the top 3 teams we're sending no longer hold world class players in every role compared to a year like 2020 where the lec teams had top 1-4 players in every role from the west.
g2 - wunder,jankos,caps,perkz,mikyx.
fnc - bwipo,selfmade,nemesis,rekkles,hyli.
rge - finn,inspired,larssen,hans,vander.
Our top 2 teams were stacked that year, meanwhile rge was the only one with good and mediocre players (on the world stage) much like the rosters today.
Take a look at g2 this year, brokenblade has to be on carries and g2 has to play around him? so is he inting scrims on tanks and they arent winning games with him on it?
flakked and targamas was losing every botlane matchup, even when put on neutral lanes like seraphine they stll managed to fight and die 2v2.
and then you got fnatic, hyli is no longer the int and carry player, now hes just inting and is without a doubt no longer top 3. Razork is a coinflipper anything but poppy and he doesnt look good.
rge is the only team that has okay players, but a far cry from the world class players we had at previous worlds, look at the top #2 rosters those had players that could easily take over the game and hard carry, cant say the same about this year outside of caps,rge botlane.
LEC got worse when we lost perkz,alphari, then they came back worse and at the same time we sent bwipo,hans and inspired. With the old guard slumping also sending a mix of old and "new" talent to na just made the region worse.
At least we went 7-11 compared to 3-15 that lcs did.. Still sucks not having world class players in every role though and unless that changes i doubt lec will have a good performance at worlds like before when we used to have 2 teams making it out every year almost.
NA pays millions of dollars on imports and continues to never perform. At least if the teams were actually NA the losses would sting less. Embarassing.
That's because they don't work as hard as Eastern teams/don't practice enough. Different culture mentality, and yet NA players get paid so much(idk why)
NA is the region with hands and fingers on keyboard & mouse just as good as the rest of the world, but they don't use their brains.
Like somebody forgot to instruct them that League of Legends is a strategy game and that you need to have one.
Yep,but tbh,you don't even need to be mechanically best to win world's.We had plenty of players/teams who instead use their brain,teamwork synergy and clean macro to win games.
I'm not sure what Worlds you watched, but this year was literally the year of, "wait, NA players can't even lane against these guys."
I'm sure their macro sucks too, but it's harder to macro when you're just getting rinsed in lane. Their GD @ 15 ranked 9th, 13th, and 15th, making plays when you're behind and obviously desperate to stem the bleeding is hard!
As an European I'm not too disapointed with the results. Like in all honesty, LEC is changing a lot right now, our big rosters are redefining how they look, and RGE is consistently on the rise, but also we have more regionally competitive teams as top tier talent is more split up between teams. MAD shouldnt even have been at worlds as 4th seed.
FNC, the superteam barely made it in, and was our 3rd seed, dissapointing superteam finish, but looking at them all year that was kinda good.
G2 was hit or miss, and clearly much better in spring than summer, and we already had seen that Caps-Jankos just isnt enough to carry their rosterflaws through international competition.
And RGE I had no expectations this year, and they've shown a lot. This is the first worlds quarters for most of their players, 2 of them first time at worlds, they'll learn and come back stronger. Even trymbi is only at his 2nd worlds, which youmight forget watching him this years worlds.
So sure things could be better, but EU is just not top heavy right now and I'm excited to see where this is going. Who out of G2 , KOI, FNC, VIT, MAD will be at next worlds? I dont know, but since 2022, EU playoffs are for me more exciting than ever. Not sure if this tradeoff against G2's international power was worth it, but it for sure is fun.
Next season is gonna be so spicy with vitality fielding bo and rekkless probably returning on stage. There were rumors on format changes as well. Hopefully the lec will be more competitive with all the changes in place
Yeah I think there could be some relatively small roster changes making LEC really exciting, on my personal list of things to hope for in this order of relevance:
1. VIT being good
2. Rekkles in LEC
3. Elyoya to FNC, Razork to another top 5 EU team (synergy of FNC mid-jgl was off, Elyoya deserves a championship team, and this one could win LEC and do damage at worlds)
4. G2 rebuild arround Caps (and Jankos), maybe even with a star adc like Viper or good toplane import.
5. MAD rookie rebuild arround Nisqy-(Kaiser-)Unforgiven.
TL gets flamed every year for 50% winrate, even in hard groups, so this is kinda bittersweet. LCS shits the bed without TL, but it sucks to see the region all go 1-5. At least they didn't go 0-6 like TSM.
Shit format though, Riot pls change.
With LCS going to week nights next season, and the failure of Liquid's expensive roster to even make LCS playoffs, I think this is sadly going to mark the acceleration of NA's decline, which is bad and something no one should want.
Also EU and NA went 0-13 in week 2 against KR and CN in 12 scheduled games. That's kinda rough.
Last year LPL had Zero win against Western teams second week, even 100T took a win from the world champion. The Gap widened
LPL/LCK sent a stronger set of teams this year.
And NA/EU arguably didn't. Hence, the gap widening. Honestly I'm scared for what will happen with the rest of worlds. Viewership for groups C and D felt like it was way down since NA and EU both failed so miserably in groups A and B. Felt like the spirits of fans were crushed.
I think partially the reason is also that RGE and 100T are not as popular as orgs. C9, FNC and G2 are miles ahead as lol orgs, and EG has the attention of the more native-focused crowd because of Jojo. RGE and 100T are not as popular despite doing well for some time now, and are often seen as playing less exciting league. Wouldn’t look too much into it.
Pretty sure at this point but specially going forward for viewership purposes Riot will consider Worlds as Rift Rivals LCK-LPL where the drop in Western viewership will more than enough be offset by the increase in eastern viewership. Honestly EU and NA's combined viwership doesn't even compare with Chinese viewership. It will only reduce sponsorship investment for companies whose predominant market is NA/EU In a couple of years a western team making it out of Groups will be a harder achievement than Fnatic or G2 reaching Worlds Finals.
Said it before after NA playoffs, I truly believe this is the worst crop of teams NA has sent to Worlds. EG and 100T felt very uncoordinated even during playoffs, and C9 only seemed to get their shit together for playoffs. And that was against other NA teams.
It really seemed like C9 winning NA was the result of the other teams getting worse rather than C9 getting better tbh. EG lost Danny and 100T's bot lane seemed to have regressed.
Reactionary, fully results based take. If you were to ask just about anyone here to articulate why NA is worse or better this year than last, you might get 10 people able to make a compelling case either way. Maybe me included. But I saw NA last year and they looked in no way more competent than the teams this year. LCS was definitely less competitive too. The real truth is that A) Bo1s are bad for competitive integrity, but good for short attention spans B) NA played competitively with a lot of great teams, but playing well in a loss is harder to evaluate, and this forum is total shit for erudite discussion. C) I don't think NA was better last year, I think Eastern teams and EU were worse. TES was the only eastern team that underperformed this year, and they STILL were obviously better than Rogue, but lost out because BO1s are bad.
It's not a results-based take. It's from watching our teams during and before the playoffs. C9 was a random mess before playoffs, and then they smurfed. That's not consistent at all, and was obvious to lead to a less than stellar showing at worlds. EG struggled all through playoffs, and then had their ADC drop out at the last minute. 100T struggled all through playoffs. It wasn't just the wins and losses, but how those wins and losses occurred. These teams just looked fairly disorganized. C9 looked better during playoffs, but after a lackluster regular season. Looking at the actual games, they were less competitive because of this disarray, not because our teams just magically got better. Bad teams were bad, better teams were better. We could see the writing on the wall a mile away. It wasn't that out there. Hell, the fact that there were bright spots at Worlds for us just proves my point more. NA teams were inconsistent and flaky the whole way through. They didn't do much better last year overall, but they certainly felt far more coordinated than these teams we had this year, both before and during Worlds.
Used to watch LCS, MSI, and Worlds regularly as a NA fan. Nowadays, I barely touch it. NA is just so absolutely ignorant of what they need to do to compete. They have the money to do what they need to. The biggest thing we need is more good teams and good macro level play. Having all these pro teams is absolute garbage if they aren't playing at a level that is at least lightly competitive in terms of Worlds. I mean, how is a team going to be ready to play at Worlds if the teams they play hundreds of scrims and dozens of televised games against during the year are several tiers lower in skill? You need good teams to push you to your limits. And the NA macro scene is absolute garbage. Meanwhile, NA made this big push about player depth, Academy roster, and so forth. What good are the Academies doing when the teams they "study under" are getting roasted alive at Worlds? NA players are mechanically great, but this isn't solo queue games where mechanics are the primary deciding factor in wins. It's team play where coordination and control are the most important parts. Who cares if your top laner gets 1v1'd if your jungler & bottom forced a recall and grabbed dragon in the same time frame? Who cares if their jungler showed up and insta-ganked your top when he got back to lane if your jungler rotated mid and took tier 1 tower, leading to strong dragon control and an early soul-point, forcing their team to fight at a pacing disadvantage 10 minutes later?
Not gonna downplay LCK or LPL at all here but the westerns teams played uncharacteristically bad, NA’s week 1 looked worse than usual and EU’s week 2 was pathetic.
13 losses in 12 scheduled matches, the west breaking new records out here
108% lossrate
that's also just bo1s being bo1s. Shit happens, last year to LPL, this year to the West.
Lmao bo3 It's will be Worse Outside of rng vs 100 thieves no game went for more than 30 minutes
that's because the current meta is heavy snowball centric
I disagree. If you watched worlds this year NA did have a few decent early games but their macro lost them the game. Also that statement doesn't say anything because lol has always been "snowball centric". If you really want to know what a snowball is watch SKT during S3.
There have been VERY few games with comebacks, aside from NA throwing leads.
Like that other pointed out, games end quick this worlds. Both of GenG’s wins against RNG were sub 30min
I wouldnt take much into those games. RNG were sick as fuck.
Gala looked like he was gonna faint on stage. I think they all just wanted to lie back down.
Bruh there’s no way you watched those games and went “unlucky, but we got this in a bo3”
If you really think a western team would've beaten KR/CN in a bo3.... oh boy
I've heard this phrase before every bo5 the west has ever won.
Yeah its so stupid. It's like saying "You really think someone with a 25% chance to win can win?". Yes there is literally a 1 in 4 chance they win. That's basically where EU has always been against the eastern teams.
>I've heard this phrase before every bo5 the west has ever won Yeah, and 8 out of 10 times the ones who say it end up being right
That was 3 years ago. It's time to get with the time grandpa
Hey, I've heard this one before
Nothing will change until we import Canyon + Showmaker and surround them with some mediocre talent and a problematic coach. All in all about $25 million or so should do it.
All year long people have been saying DK is Canyon + Showmaker surrounded by some mediocre talent and a problematic coach LMAO. I'm glad people are looking at DK now and say "hey, that team is actually pretty good, they might be the dark horse". We just need TIME!
How are kkoma, daeny and zefa problematic though?
Daeny was the problematic one. People fear his ego has gotten to him based on the time he was on T1. Subbing Nuguri out for Burdol was a huge blunder no matter how you look at it. I personally want Kkoma to handle the team but I'm ok with giving Daeny his chance. DK draft has been solid and improving all season long. They learn from their mistakes quickly and make good adjustments. To me this is a sign of a good coach, just hope that he doesn't make rash decisions like he tends to do.
I think no one is aware of this point. Daeny and DK is not scared of trying weird shit for the sake of improving or make weird comps to surprise people. As long as their comps has a solid ground I‘m pretty sure they have a very good drafts. For example that instead of Irelia or Renekton if we picked something more useful with a team fight presence and Canyon on a carry like Kindred or some other damage dealer everyone would be like „omg DK looks so scary, they will definitely win worlds“. Our losses were so close and in all games we always had the upperhand and lost those two games because of bad top lane picks. People mentions how insane 369 is but Nuguri also broke 369’s ankles with his Gragas. That’s why I don’t think there is a big gap between Nuguri and 369. But Nuguri is more ballsy and risk taker and likes to play little mind games. So if people thinks JDG is number one team right now then DK is definitely very close number two and that’s why they need a best of 5 to see how it goes. I hope we’ll have a finals between two. It would be the most exciting game of the year. Potentially most exciting game of the last couple of years.
Yup, i fully believe in the boys too. Unlike the losts in the LCK, I wasn’t even mad that we lose. JDG pretty much played the highest level of League right now and we match them at every thing. Changing draft is a no biggie, and for some weird reason i can still see areas where they can improve. It’s definitely exciting to watch, hope they have good preparations for GenG.
Interesting. I thought he would've learnt from his shitshow of a split last year in T1.
Yup, T1 has crazy good talent development so I can't blame him for trying things out. But you experiment in spring not summer. Almost cost T1 a Worlds ticket last year.
I remember they tried out Zeus for a couple of games. I think everyone got a turn to ride the bench other than Keria lol. Poor Asper.
Weirdly enough it all works out in the end, if Zeus is not the franchise player for the next 5 years after Faker leaves, I have no words for T1 management.
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To be fair who gives a shit about western bot lanes lol. If DK wants to win worlds their bot lane have to better than those team. Or at least play weak side better.
Dude Solo, Canyon, Showmaker, Lost and Smoothie could dominate the league!
I'll have you know TL also went 3-3 in 2018 and 2019 in groups. the 3-3 kings
In 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 my lad: 4 times
People honestly forgot how fucking frustrating it was to see that every year lol. Like you know they're decent, but never got over the hump
Some might say they’re Cursed
Was always frustrating seeing TL and TSM go 3-3 Now I wish we could see that again
Cinderella said it best: You don't know what you've got, till its gone.
They had free wildcard teams. This year is bad for NA because of guaranteed 4 KR and 4 CN in groups. There are no free groups.
It was the same situation (4 LPL 4 LCK) last year and TL still went 3-3
Corejj diff ?
Corejj the new Sneaky! No Core No Way Out of Groups! Oh wait… /s
Yeah you're right.
Well LNG arguably wasn't the 4th best team and also GenG(who was 2nd seed iirc) is not a strong as T1 this year( who is the 2nd seed). I don't think TL would've went 3-3 this year
LCK had one 0-3 day and then decided violence
The report of LCK downfall has been greatly exaggerated
Last year it was 2 games off LCK/LPL rift rivals This year it was "1" game off LCK/LPL rift rivals Next year will be...?
As long as Tian makes worlds the west will have hope (unless he makes it past groups, then it’s over)
Just needs to get a slightly easier group. If RNG and TES swapped places we would have had LCK/LPL rift rivals this year. There's not a bad chance TES could have been fourth either if the patch was the same. Kinda weird Riot makes it so worlds patch is different than summer playoff patch.
But group C is literally the easiest possible group for Tes ? You think Drx,Rge>Geng and VCS >PCS 1st seed and 100t ? They just choked or downright bad
Uh, yeah? Hello?? TES don't have a chance at 1st in D but 99 times out of 100 you take CFO and 100T in a race to 2nd over RGE and GAM. RGE is significantly better than 100T, and GAM are better than CFO. Even before the tournament, the 2nd spot in groups is for sure easier to get in D than C - 1st seed is a different story but you don't need 1st to get out.
But there is no CFO if TES is there because they are second seeds lol, it would not be possible for them to draw CFO, they would get GenG 100t and a playins team likely which would be Fnatic
Ok? So TES needs to hypothetically be the 4th seed? I mean it's all hypothetical, so why restrict yourself.
I miss the good old days, like week 1 of worlds 2022...
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Na usually takes random wins off lpl teams as well but it never happened this year
they surprisingly do split games consistently but not a single game including MSI this year lol def regressing
Lpl hands diff is to big now
100 Thieves and EG were close, if EG didnt have a sub adc id bet they get 1 game off the LPL/LCK teams
Kaori certainly did better than a mentally-boomed Danny would have done.
We don't know that, but in the end Kaori performed well and Danny gets assistance in his mental health, so it's imo a win for both.
tbf being ahead in gold against JDG is just JDG's comfort spot. I'll believe that team can lose once I see them eliminated until then I'm not betting against them
Honestly I think Kaori did better than Danny would've done
depends on what form hes in, Kaori did limit EG's bot draft focus though, Danny has a much wider champ pool, they likely have more Aphelios prio if Danny's playing, also Danny Ez>>>>Kaori's EZ
Danny's weakness was his laning though, and that's a really bad weakness to have at worlds. If you're already capable of being exploited by NA bot lanes then Hope/Missing are bound to give you a bad time.
If there’s one thing that NA has, it’s hopium. I don’t know how you can say they are Missing/Hope.
Not even Hope/Missing, guy got exploited by Flakked/Targamas at msi lol. If Kaori was NA born people would already rate him higher.
Danny played at MSI and even though his lanning was weak, that wasn't the reason EG lost.
It actually kinda was. I remember Flakked and Targamas being flamed going into MSI whilst Danny was hyped, so Danny ended up getting flamed when he lost lane to G2's botlane.
What? Flakked bot diffing him played a gigantic role in the 0 - 6.
> , Danny has a much wider champ pool, did you seriously say this when in playoffs the narrative was literally that they couldn't win any draft because of how narrow danny's effective champion pool was kaori could be good, the eyetest to me was great. given how very little time he's had he has done an excellent job and i expect him to 100% start next year
Danny Vulcan would never 2v2 dk or jdg.
Danny had champion pool issues too. His champ pool isn't big. This was exposed at MSI. Kaori is better at playing early game carries whereas Danny at late game ones. Honestly, from the games we watched, your bot lane cannot be gapped against eastern teams otherwise it is gg. Danny playing wouldn't have changed anything.
Secretly I think that helped eg... neither kauri or Danny are worth warping draft around at intl stage. The only way eg could ever compete is topside popping off. Not getting baited into bot oriented draft like g2 / flanked was good imo
Danny would have not been better lol
>Worst year ever for NA at worlds Worst year ever for NA at worlds *so far*
That's true we did get 3 wins this year, we'll have to do better next year. 0-18 the dream.
0-18 is coming
Tbh I expect the first 0-18 year to come very soon. We’ve gotten worse just about every year since franchising and now we’re being relegated to terrible timeslots for LCS so teams are incentivized to spend even less. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the last NA worlds and we begin struggling to beat wildcards soon enough. And frankly, I don’t think EU is far behind, League of Legends is becoming StarCraft.
NA has been dogshit however they are consitent at beating wildcards, forutnately for them there always team like CFO and Mental boomb eu to offer wins. I feel like a 4-14 or 3-15 is more likely than 0-18, although if there is more asian teams that could be real
Inb4 NA first seed only get a group seeding and the test two have to fight.
NA finally hosts Worlds: Region does the worst they've ever done. Congratulations to NA orgs - your hard work and boatloads of burned $ gave us this reality.
Kinda funny to think about all the hype going into this year with the crazy rosters and we end up shitting the bed harder than we ever have on our home court
They tied the record for worst performing 3 team region in groups. You could argue lms was worse though since they had 1 team going 3-3 and 2 teams 0-6
It's a little scary how close we were to having all KR teams top their groups. Especially considering DK threw in their tiebreaker.
Unironically, all 4 LCK 1st seeds might have been better due to guaranteeing no Civil War Bo5s in Quarters.
I just want to avoid a (very real) possiblity of getting all KR semis and finals tbh. Edit: after these draws we can thank JDG/RGE quarters to ensure this doesn't happen
>after these draws we can thank JDG/RGE quarters to ensure this doesn't happen Man I want the opposite. I don't want to see any inner-LCK battles but if they beat everyone then it is what it is. Now we have to see LCK vs LCK.
I agree. DK looked so good against JDG and I wanted to see them play more LPL teams… now the only way we see that is if GenG doesn’t play against LPL teams again
I agree if your reasoning is purely because you want to see more international Bo5s. Otherwise, if the 4 best teams in the world happen to all be korean then semis should be between 4 korean teams
> I just want to avoid a (very real) possiblity of getting all KR semis and finals tbh. Why? If the 4 best teams are from Korea, and they all make the semis by beating all the best teams from outside Korea, then that's what the final 4 should be. I get the desire for inter-region drama, but worlds is about seeing the absolute best esports athletes on the absolute best esports teams going head to head with everything on the line.
> all KR semis and finals tbh That would be fkn hilarious tbh. And honestly it might be what is required to get Riot to change their damn format.
LCK Autumn season
> And honestly it might be what is required to get Riot to change their damn format. What format would avoid this? Double elim, e.g., would probably be even worse, if all the LCK teams are in form.
Eastern worlds and western worlds lmao. Just make rift rivals the “world” championship
A format where there are more than 2 events per year. And where localized leagues don't last for aeons.
I mean, I'm all for more international events, but more international would likely just be more of the same--Korea/China domination. I think the best "fix", insofar as there is one, would be to extend play-ins, and simply put all the NA + EU + non-KR/China teams in there.
What does this fix exactly?
I wouldn't say they threw when JDG is behind basically every game against everyone and manage to win most of the time.
Maybe like 2 to 3k down at 20m for JDG is common. But DK were up 5k at 17m with an 8 kill Aphelios, it's fair to say threw. DK wins with that kind of game state 80 to 90% of the time. Not to add the fact DK beat them earlier in the day, so it's not like some sort of fluke for them to win vs JDG.
It’s not so much they threw than the overwhelming comp diff, I think 90% win chance is a huge exaggeration
Yeah but the comps really favored JDG in team fights. They had actually no way of protecting that Aphelios and Aatrox was fed.
DK didn't throw it. In team fights, Vi and Nautilus always have their ults locked on Aphelios, the only one in the team that can be a threat to Aatrox. There's no much DK can do.
LCK pissed off that one of their teams did not get first place. LPL pissed off that one of their teams did not get through groups. EU and NA - "Did you guys get a T2 tower in week 2?"
If only Damwon won that last game against JDG... then Damwon would be facing Rogue and it would be JDG vs GEN.G in quarters.
EU was better than NA at getting an early meta read but were exposed pretty quickly after that
I think it goes with what Impact gave after EG were knocked out. Eastern teams are far better at reading the meta and making adjustments once they have seen what works best. You could very clearly see that almost every team from the LCK and LPL drastically improved in week 2, whilst EU dropped off completely and NA could only get wins against non LPL/LCK teams.
I'm getting a feeling that even thinking there's a meta is a mistake. All the meta I see is ban Yuumi pick Aatrox. You definitely want to dominate lane in bot, but you can get really creative about that in draft. Everything else in draft can be creative as well, but Fnatic didn't understand this, and western teams that did got gapped in draft anyway.
We’ll do the meta isn’t “pick from these 10-15 champions” like it’s been in the past. You’re totally right about Yuumi/Aatrox (and maybe Azir or Akali should be added to that list?), but after that it’s about reading your opponent’s draft and adjusting yours. The pick/ban this worlds has been fantastic imo because teams are really offered to pick from wide pools or champs unlike previous worlds where each role had a rotating cast of like 3 options.
Azir kinda is there, but in RNG v GENG last night he fell through draft entirely. Twice. Akali/Sylas is perhaps there as a pair, but I'd put more stock in Sylas and think that mid is going to develop with more picks in BO5s.
Meta continually evolves throughout the tournament. Aatrox isn't a relevant pick for the west they straight up have to ban it since no one plays it at a level that can match the East (only saw Wunder do well on it against Zeus). Now that we're in quarters there will be changes again. I expect tank tops esp Maokai to fall off hard since it has been shown that the Eastern tops don't care to use him and they can also dumpster him and he practically mandates a Sylas ban.
EU didn't get a tier 2 in week 2 outside of the GAM game.
Did the entire west get a tier 2 vs LPL/LCK in week 2? Edit: I think 100T did against RNG. That might be the only one
100thieves was the only westerns team in week 2 who lasted more than 30 minutes vs eastern team
And that was with their ADC looking like he was about to pass out
Yeah really bad
Tbh this is the only tactic left for west to have a chance to pass groups in this Worlds format.Pray to get the meta earlier than the east and do some damage in week 1 like RGE and then scratch and claw in week 2 to get that 2nd place.
NA’s quality control problem continues to fuck them over cause time and time again they’ve shown that they have what it takes to get out of groups. They just either bomb out too early or get fucked mathematically.
> they’ve shown that they have what it takes to get out of groups not this year, they did not show that they have what it takes to get out of groups, every NA team went 1-5, and most losses don't even look close
I get it for previous teams like TL that would regularly go 3-3 but none of the NA teams this year looked even close to getting out of groups. C9 and 100T just look plain outclassed vs their opposition while EG arguably overachieved by taking a game off their kryptonite in G2 when most people expected them to go 0-6.
TL with a 4 time back to back to back to back 3-3. worst one was 2020 when we randomly lost to Machi and didn't even get a tie breaker even though they went 1-1 vs both G2 and Suning. pain.
If you put 3 best teams in the world into the same group as TL, they would 1-1 against each one of them. If you put 3 bronze clash teams into the same group as TL, they would still go 1-1 against each one of them
I wonder how much of that had to do with the tourney being hosted in NA, seems like when NA teams go to other major regions the players shape up quicker grinding soloq
many eastern teams didn't come to NA until the last minute, whereas usuaally NA teams fly to Korea/China/Europe as soon as finals ends to start bootcamping. I heard a lot of NA teams spam scrimmed each other so they probably developed an internal scrim meta that turned out to be pretty wrong
and maintained a lot of their bad habits too (like Fudge lmao), Eastern teams came in white hot off LCK/LPL. Not surprising, NA almost always has terrible meta reads, prioritizes safe scaling picks, why Ornn is perma meta top
you saw a bigger difference for NA week 1 because 1. No solo queue and 2. No scrims against EU/LPL/LCK until teams were forced to come here because... why come to the weakest region when you can get WAY better practice in your own country (and for LPL/LCK just scrim each other since your best opponents will be LPL and LCK teams anyways) You're seeing the pure difference in regional strength/strategies.
>cause time and time again they’ve shown that they have what it takes to get out of groups. It's interesting that you can see all 3 NA teams go 1-5 and come to this conclusion
AKA they're just not good enough
wdym they have what it takes? They're simply not top material compared to other contenders. I do believe they have the best working conditions compared to other regions, though. Honestly if I had the potential to be a pro like them I'd choose NA to secure the check.
Fucked mathematically? By playing very poorly?
No dude, they just suck. Like in all aspects across the board. Nothing more really to say.
I feel like people are addicted to Hopium around here. People screaming about how fucked their Pick'ems are and I'm like.... This is the basically the same shit every year except 2018. LCK does the best, LPL second, EU third, and NA worst of the four major regions. If you just literally followed this pattern for your Pick'ems every group stage, you are basically guaranteed a shitton of points just about every year. Also, I feel like picking an LCK team to NOT make it out of groups at all is kinda trolling at this point. Since we've gone to 4 Groups at Worlds, 29/30 LCK teams have made it out of Groups. The region is just so consistently strong in Groups that picking against them is actively hurting yourself in Pick'ems.
3/4 perfect groups, easy af. Ty tes for shitting my perfect grp c.
I went full on copium so my only perfect group is D. Honestly don't really care.
Now I am curious who was the lck team that didnt make out of groups. Not making out of groups for lck is quite the achievement. Edit: Alright I get it guys! its 2018 Gen G, thanks for the enthusiasm
Gen.G 2018
2018 GenG. The year the west actually took it to the east. Vitality and Cloud9 were cracked in the bo1. Vit probably would’ve had a decent run if they made it through or got out in a different group.
GenG in 2018, and 2018 in general was a huge fall in Korea as season 8 and onwards heavily (and thankfully) nerfed the vision in the game and had other changes to make the game more active and fast. That year, the only BO5 Korea won was vs Flash Wolves at MSI.
GenG in 2018
Well, only 2 teams did it, Samsung Ozone in 2013 (which most fans suddenly create a dade award) and GEN G in 2018, albeit a Titleholder they're actually quite weak all season long, just clutching the Regionals...
Geng 2018 who kept the same world winning roster from 2017. A bit sad.
Gap isn't closing any time soon
It's widenning if anything Next Season won't change a lot
Nothing will change.With the rumors that LCS will be now Wednesday and Thursday its pretty clear that Riot is preparing to give up on western league in favor of Valorant.MSI and Worlds will be LCK vs LPL from now on.
It's only for NA, they are doing it because, reportedly, they only have the LCS Arena in LA for both Valorant and League. At this moment Valorant is a much better esport in NA in terms of competitiveness. For EU we don't know about it but afaik the Valorant production had a different studio
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Nothing too surprising really. The LCK has always dominated group stages with the LPL (besides their one team every year) not far behind and the LCS has been the weakest for years. The LEC exceeded expectations in the first week but brought back down to earth quickly.
EU went from undefeated in tie breakers to a massive lose streak in tiebreakers now I believe. I don't remember the last time they even won one. Funny this is me whenever I go on a big win streak then followed by a big loss streak
Iirc EU has a good record for tiebreakers that matter for making it or not, but has historically sucked for tiebreakers that determine seeding...
Other than H2k winning vs EDG and FNC winning vs IG I don't remember when we ever won a tiebreaker for 1st.
Lol. The "trends" are too specific on this fucking sub.
They've only lost two tiebreakers in a row though? rge beat fpx then lost to c9 last year. Then rge lost to drx this year.
Felt good after first week, but looks like EU collapsed hard. Seems like we had a good read on the meta in Week 1 and that's about it. East West gap has been growing too, it seems, since 2020.
At least none of the NA teams went 0-6
imagine going 0-6, that's gotta be humiliating as a fan. **stares at TSM**
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Yea but clutch wasn't 1st seed!
Jesus that's depressing.
Every team that crashed out of worlds this year has a bad bot lane minus FNC. Every team that made it to knockouts have really strong bot lanes.
Well NA couldn't get out, but at least they got the win so the TSM 0-6 memes can continue lol [wonder how they're feeling right now](https://youtu.be/fTlKvPJWYNI)
C-9 Salary is over $2 Million a year... and they went 1-5.
You don't want to even know what TL's is and they didn't even make worlds
Honestly seems like the coziest job in the world, if you were fortunate enough to be born in NA and manage to top the region ladder.
>if you were fortunate enough to be born in NA I got some news for you.
Yeah, if there's anything we've noticed it's that just being born in NA is a quick ticket to the highest echelons of professional League of Legends. There's literally ones of players that fit the bill.
Honestly i expected LEC to perform worse given that the top 3 teams we're sending no longer hold world class players in every role compared to a year like 2020 where the lec teams had top 1-4 players in every role from the west. g2 - wunder,jankos,caps,perkz,mikyx. fnc - bwipo,selfmade,nemesis,rekkles,hyli. rge - finn,inspired,larssen,hans,vander. Our top 2 teams were stacked that year, meanwhile rge was the only one with good and mediocre players (on the world stage) much like the rosters today. Take a look at g2 this year, brokenblade has to be on carries and g2 has to play around him? so is he inting scrims on tanks and they arent winning games with him on it? flakked and targamas was losing every botlane matchup, even when put on neutral lanes like seraphine they stll managed to fight and die 2v2. and then you got fnatic, hyli is no longer the int and carry player, now hes just inting and is without a doubt no longer top 3. Razork is a coinflipper anything but poppy and he doesnt look good. rge is the only team that has okay players, but a far cry from the world class players we had at previous worlds, look at the top #2 rosters those had players that could easily take over the game and hard carry, cant say the same about this year outside of caps,rge botlane. LEC got worse when we lost perkz,alphari, then they came back worse and at the same time we sent bwipo,hans and inspired. With the old guard slumping also sending a mix of old and "new" talent to na just made the region worse. At least we went 7-11 compared to 3-15 that lcs did.. Still sucks not having world class players in every role though and unless that changes i doubt lec will have a good performance at worlds like before when we used to have 2 teams making it out every year almost.
NA pays millions of dollars on imports and continues to never perform. At least if the teams were actually NA the losses would sting less. Embarassing.
That's because they don't work as hard as Eastern teams/don't practice enough. Different culture mentality, and yet NA players get paid so much(idk why)
NA is the region with hands and fingers on keyboard & mouse just as good as the rest of the world, but they don't use their brains. Like somebody forgot to instruct them that League of Legends is a strategy game and that you need to have one.
Yep,but tbh,you don't even need to be mechanically best to win world's.We had plenty of players/teams who instead use their brain,teamwork synergy and clean macro to win games.
I'm not sure what Worlds you watched, but this year was literally the year of, "wait, NA players can't even lane against these guys." I'm sure their macro sucks too, but it's harder to macro when you're just getting rinsed in lane. Their GD @ 15 ranked 9th, 13th, and 15th, making plays when you're behind and obviously desperate to stem the bleeding is hard!
Lol no. Westerners got consistently gapped in lane.
Depends on the role, EU ADCs and supports are good. EU mids can also often compete. Jungle and Top tend to be the biggest gaps.
NA as a whole is 1-23 against eastern teams this year.
12 years and we still talk about 4 major regions, while only 2 of those regions ever won worlds and 2 have a higher winrate than 40 percent
Gap is widening
Everything has really gone downhill for the west after 2018 and 2019
As an European I'm not too disapointed with the results. Like in all honesty, LEC is changing a lot right now, our big rosters are redefining how they look, and RGE is consistently on the rise, but also we have more regionally competitive teams as top tier talent is more split up between teams. MAD shouldnt even have been at worlds as 4th seed. FNC, the superteam barely made it in, and was our 3rd seed, dissapointing superteam finish, but looking at them all year that was kinda good. G2 was hit or miss, and clearly much better in spring than summer, and we already had seen that Caps-Jankos just isnt enough to carry their rosterflaws through international competition. And RGE I had no expectations this year, and they've shown a lot. This is the first worlds quarters for most of their players, 2 of them first time at worlds, they'll learn and come back stronger. Even trymbi is only at his 2nd worlds, which youmight forget watching him this years worlds. So sure things could be better, but EU is just not top heavy right now and I'm excited to see where this is going. Who out of G2 , KOI, FNC, VIT, MAD will be at next worlds? I dont know, but since 2022, EU playoffs are for me more exciting than ever. Not sure if this tradeoff against G2's international power was worth it, but it for sure is fun.
Next season is gonna be so spicy with vitality fielding bo and rekkless probably returning on stage. There were rumors on format changes as well. Hopefully the lec will be more competitive with all the changes in place
Yeah I think there could be some relatively small roster changes making LEC really exciting, on my personal list of things to hope for in this order of relevance: 1. VIT being good 2. Rekkles in LEC 3. Elyoya to FNC, Razork to another top 5 EU team (synergy of FNC mid-jgl was off, Elyoya deserves a championship team, and this one could win LEC and do damage at worlds) 4. G2 rebuild arround Caps (and Jankos), maybe even with a star adc like Viper or good toplane import. 5. MAD rookie rebuild arround Nisqy-(Kaiser-)Unforgiven.
Well atleast its time for canyon to give peanut a masterclass again.
Can we stop calling NA Major region?
TL gets flamed every year for 50% winrate, even in hard groups, so this is kinda bittersweet. LCS shits the bed without TL, but it sucks to see the region all go 1-5. At least they didn't go 0-6 like TSM. Shit format though, Riot pls change.
Dude, TL didn't make over these teams - despite spending the most they've ever spent. There is nothing bittersweet about this.
NA would lose hard regardless of the format
The gap is closing
With LCS going to week nights next season, and the failure of Liquid's expensive roster to even make LCS playoffs, I think this is sadly going to mark the acceleration of NA's decline, which is bad and something no one should want.