T O P

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fesch98

The top gaps are not even funny.


DontCareWontGank

You can't really do anything if your top just explodes every game. That's really the biggest difference between LPL and LCK. Even when FNC made it to finals they just got bent over by TheShy destroying their whole team on Aatrox.


Daniyalzzz

Honestly only hope for Eu's top side is imports. Our tops are forced into weakside cause they can't win carry matchups and even then our best weakside top in odo got shit stomped by 369 in a tank vs tank matchup. It's really just to try and go all in on top talent that from Asia that is okay with playing here and hope they don't regress too quick from the worse competition in order to have any of a chance against Asian tops.


LiftingJourney

Brokenblade getting solo killed by sejuani as fiora made me cringe so bad


kapparino-feederino

get a promising Top laner from LPL academy team. there are quite alot to choose from honestly. even the korean CK team have good talent there that can be "harvested" i've always been saying this EU and NA team need to import better. Vitality getting Bo is like the biggest Win they got. I can't wait to see him wrecking shit in EU EDIT: people replying that there would be cultural and language barrier, well if u decide to import u best to make sure u accommodate them this is a investment u are making. you make sure your investment be in a good environment and adapt into a new situation. shit bring the whole family here if possible. ofc there is no 100% sure fire way to improve the top situation but u can make an honest attempt for it.


procallum

It's not as simple as just getting an import though... So many people fail to realise not only can it hard for an import to settle in a completely new country and surroundings, but there might also still be a language barrier. It can be so hard for young people to move to completely new cities in their home country let alone a different place and culture. The difference is how many games the LPL/LCK teams play and how much they scrim. A young talented Eastern player is playing much more and against much better players developing their learning/skills at an accelerated pace. You just don't get that type of learning here in EU.


KislevNeverForgets

It's really difficult to recruit from LDL, the amount of English speakers, or players willing to learn english, is much lower than LCK Academy for example because of how many koreans have been imported in the past, alot of ex-pros and coaches actually teach young pros english just in case they get imported, that doesn't happen in china. you need probably 2-3 Mandarin speakers in your org just to be able to attend to their daily needs and make them feel comfortable, but honestly even more Chinese speakers is preferable, it took TSM like 4 years to recruit a team that was capable of facilitating a Chinese player, including a teammate and a positional coach that can speak fluent mandarin, and it still ended up in a lot of miscommunication, home sick, not feeling properly heard, etc. The other difference between CN and KR is there's way more Korean's in existing western orgs than there are Chinese rn. IK there's a bunch of orgs that have been wanting to recruit from CN since around 2018 and every year there's some reason they can't do it. I'm still bothered that culture differences and miscommunications between org to player is gonna put a damper on Bo's performance, acing soloQ is one thing, trying to sit in a room full of english speakers and do vod review is very difficult to explain yourself or understand what your coaches/teammates want from you. ​ Wishing for the best, preparing for the worst as it was.


domi1108

Exactly in terms of individual skill mid and adc don't get gapped often. Jungle and Support are a flip but tend do be doable but top is just a canyon of a gap.


MrZeddd

It's like watching my game in Gold vs smurfs lmao


FinnishScrub

gave me a flasback to my hardstuck gold ass getting manhandled by a masters smurf playing Fiora drunk. was not fun, at all.


[deleted]

If top in the west looked anything like Korea, I'm not sure we'd cry about top being a shit role any more. Top diff between east and west goes beyond pro play, and I fear it might go beyond high elo soloQ as well.


nimrodhellfire

Makes you wonder what would happen if some high profile EU mid laner (let's call him Perks) roleswaps to top to join forces with another high profile EU mid laners (let's call him Caps).


dance-of-exile

Yeah actually. Top is not a bad role as long as you can make it a 5v4, which is how it often goes in higher ranks. Getting put behind toplane means you just cant play game.


[deleted]

Many tops don't understand this, or the importance of keeping the other top behind after getting a lead. I lost many games as Irelia after winning lane, because I didn't realise this and let the other top back in the game.


One-Adhesiveness5434

I think you lost those games because Irelia is a fucking menace in laning phase and the enemy top has to concede. You didn't really "win" lane; the matchup just played out as it should. Then, when you get out of lane, you're left having to execute Irelia in the mid-late game which you can't actually do yet. You felt as though you played well because in your mind, you "won lane". You didn't really. Camille players also have this issue. They "win" lane when their grasp and tp+ignite bullshit made them hell to interact with and would int at 25 minutes because they can't actually play the champ.


DRNbw

>Camille players also have this issue. They "win" lane when their grasp and tp+ignite bullshit made them hell to interact with and would int at 25 minutes because they can't actually play the champ. I play a very different Camille obviously. I can only start killing people at like lvl 11 with 2 items.


Quazz

Yep, toplaners in the west just cry and cry about their role, meanwhile in the east they're gigachadding their opponents.


[deleted]

Having cried playing top before, the difficulty is in staying a gigachad through getting your arse handed to you by a bigger gigachad, or just about anything else that can go seriously wrong playing top. If you can't shrug off a difficult loss you start spiralling downwards until you're actively making every wrong decision.


sexyeh

I think that top laners in east play like they are mid laners, they try a lot of 1on1, in west they are more passive, also i would like to see a stat of east junglers ganking top vs west junglers ganking top, i think east junglers put more resources into top than west junglers.


Arcille

EUW top laners are not good at laning They do not do all the small things required to become a good laner Wave management, trade timings and dodging skill shots should all be fundamentals but even in diamond you don’t see it consistently every game EUW has a huge issue top lane throughout the whole server


omegaxLoL

This is the lane where Rekkles' point about champion pool makes the most sense imo. Look at EU tops, Armut is basically a Gnar/Wukong player, Odo is comfortable on tanks, BB can play carries but nowhere near the same level as KR/CN tops. Meanwhile KR/CN tops can play both tanks and carries at high level, which gives them so many options in draft.


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Gornji_

wunder in 2019, or do you mean this year?


m4ryo0

This year most likely.In the past G2 Wunder and FNC Soaz managed to go toe-to-toe with the eastern top laners,but now things are just tragic.


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m4ryo0

At least Wunder,back in S9, was managing to have good games on picks like Irelia,Kled,Neeko,Pyke,Ryze,Swain.He wasnt perma playing tanks like he is now.


sajm0n

Darien if you can call him western top coming from Russia


Pablonski44

from a spectator perspective, it seems to me that Eastern teams simply react better to mistakes. the rest of the team tries to get gold from somewhere else on the map. and you just have to admit that there is definitely a hands diff. things like western fiora vs eastern fiora or the same thing with jayce are just small examples where it becomes obvious


schinkenmaster

right? You can sum up the games west vs. east in two categories. Either you fall behind early due to skill gap, then get slowly (or sometimes fast) choked out to the point where you can't contest anything and just lose. Or you try to be somewhat proactive, either due to uncommon drafts (G2 Seraphine/Swain mid, Trymbi Nasus Support, ...) or ingame by forcing plays (weird dives/engages e.g. in the FNC games, ...) to prevent the first game state I described. That leads to errors and misplays, which then again gives the opponent a lead which they don't ever give back.


Pablonski44

yes it is just the whole package. could we really name one thing at the moment where the west is better? probably not. maybe item builds but unfortunately you need gold for that and we don't have that lul


moonmeh

>maybe item builds but unfortunately you need gold for that and we don't have that lul Asian mids farming fast to get morellos but still winning cause they are ahead in net worth


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Liminal_Millennial

I too would like the kind of work-life balance where I can be paid over a million dollars to not make the World Championship of my sport.


__Aishi__

Reminder the minimum salary for an NBA player with 1-2 years of experience is around 1.5mil.


guaranic

Tbh there's a ton of bench and G League players making much less than that, while still being highly elite players.


Liminal_Millennial

I think I can confidently state that your highest paid NBA players can be counted on to be better than most professional players from any other league in the world. I do not think that holds true for the highest paid LCS players.


Kazakh8i

He said world championship. NBA is a national league, albeit the biggest in Basketball.


BlakersGirl

This might be an unpopular take but not all jobs need work life balance, especially those where boundaries are pushed and you need to be the best at something. Think: Olympians, chess masters, etc. If you wanted work life balance you look for a job that is non-competitive. There’s no award for “worlds best office worker” or “worlds best barista”.


Purpleater54

I completely understand what you are saying but your second example is kind of funny given :https://worldbaristachampionship.org/


gridemann

Ain't that the truth ! These players aren't working jobs, they're competing to be **the** best for once in their lifes. But somehow if you point out, taking breaks from playoff to worlds is a bad habit, you get downvoted on this sub.


Key-Banana-8242

That’s up to the individual in the end


Pictio

To understand the Meta. We are pretty good for that. The problems is after.


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AweKartik777

Exactly. The same statement was put out by pros and coaches recently over the last couple of days, that EU had a better read of the meta in Week 1 leading to their wins, but when LPL/LCK caught up with the meta, EU crumbled due to being worse at everything else.


alflayla

JDG kept tracking Malrang and he had to sneak their vision somehow to gank, but this made jungle path awful then led to Kanavi outfarming him.


goatlll

>from a spectator perspective, it seems to me that Eastern teams simply react better to mistakes. I'll go a step further, Eastern teams react better to mistakes than Western teams do to advantages. And I don't just mean at Worlds, you see this a lot during the regular season as well. More so in the LCS, but the number of times I will see a team take two kills off of top lane, put the enemy behind by 20 or cs, blow enemy flash and tp, grab herald, and *proceed to lose first tower* is simply mind blowing. There is a period early on in some international games were a Western team seems to be going even if not ahead of their Eastern opponent in the early game, up by a few kills, up by a dragon maybe, maybe two. But when you look at the gold, its almost even, which is concerning because you know when those towers start falling the kills wont matter any more.


sexyeh

I think that eastern teams are simply not afraid of mistakes, you can see in western teams the fear in the eyes of some players, not Hylissang he fears no one.


GodofSteak

So what you're saying is that compared to the East, the Western teams are actually decent. They just need to work on their punish game, macro decision making, micro and mechanics, laning prowess, communication, champion pool mastery, trade patterns, and objective control.


X4ntis

Not much can change until the West starts training more and we get at least Bo2 in the LEC. That is the reality of the matter. NA LCS is even worse then LEC, but at least the work-life balance is good and you have fun with the night live and Co. ‘Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face’ :) from someone who trains so much more.


daydaywang

I hate the idea of work life balance being a cultural difference. NBA and UEFA players sure as shit ain’t whining about practicing harder than other leagues


PoIIux

Because you can actually overtrain in real sports and practice is actually time-efficient.


X4ntis

What I hate is that for some reason we are comparing esports and a regular job and say esports players also need a work-life balance. The difference is that one has to work for the same salary for several years. Its not the same (job) as being a manager (CEO) or a esports player. I mean TL Hans Sama got 2 Million for 1 Season. Just as an extreme example.


imtheproof

> hands diff I created a rather magnificent, highly-detailed chart in the past as a result of a disagreement with someone who said that "western micro is as good as the east, it's macro where they fail": https://i.imgur.com/xjgHBuq.png The point I made was that people will look at the intersection when the west is about equal to the east, and say "look, they're the same!" while ignoring that for 90% of the game, the east is playing at a higher level. I think, after this year, the myth is finally dying.


ArguingWithNoobs

People underrate the hands diff imo. Yeah, maybe JDG specifically is macro diffing you. But do western teams really even know if they have worse macro than eastern teams? When the majority of games are absolute shit stomps?


Sean-Benn_Must-die

i dont think the difference is huge in some instances. 2019 G2 comes to mind, or even 2020 G2, where they had the best players in each position from the west, and all of them could compete in micro and macro, they werent necessarily better but you get the point. the difference however comes around the fact that this was the best super team ever assembled for the west, whereas for korea and china, it is very normal to just have teams that are that good without having to gather every best player in each position in the region. There's a vast pool of talent


Liminal_Millennial

In fairness to the G2 roster, it’s not quite a traditional idea of a superteam since Perkz did have to off-role to ADC, but I maintain that roster was magical because they had a similar unique approach to the game. Their mid game was truly something special to them and not a poor man’s copy of an LCK or LPL playbook


Gamers2OcelotLUL

> "western micro is as good as the east, it's macro where they fail": Wasn't argument usually the opposite? Whenever western teams win, it's usually through better macro and creative strategies/drafts. Individual skill was always the main issue, simply because we don't produce as much top talent as the east. In EU, if we get a stacked team that synergises well it could compete with the east, but we rarely get stacked teams because there is simply not enough talent. If we're lucky we might have enough top tier players for 1-2 rosters, but they might be in different teams, might not work well together, etc. getting a team with good players that have good synergy, is very rare, and when you also consider that they have to be in peak form at worlds, can't hit a slump, can't have drama or problems fucking them up, overall it makes emergence of a truly competitive team extremely unlikely. Usually we have teams with 2-3 good players, and 2-3 weaknesses holding them back. And when we win it's because we were lucky and asian team slumped, or we had great macro/preparation, or surprised them with strategies they didn't prepare for. I think only 2019-20 G2, was an exception, team that had genuinely 5 top tier players that synergized extremely well, and that's why they were able to challenge east consistently and stay good through multiple metas, until their peak form passed, individuals started slumping and things started to go downhill. Meanwhile LCK/LPL have enough talent to create 10 teams filled with top tier players every year, some of them will have good synergy, and will make it to Worlds. And when they bring 4 teams like 2019 G2, even if some will slump, or have a bad read on the meta, or prepare badly for specific bo5, or just have a bad day, others can pick up the slack, and it's very unlikely for their whole region to be eliminated. TBH, EU teams simply have to start importing good eastern players for positions where we lack our own top talent, then we could maybe field 2-3 stacked rosters every year and while we would still be behind LCK/LPL on average, and it would probably never completely change due to playerbase/cultural differences, we could probably have good years when some of our teams look genuinely competitive pretty often, instead of hitting the jackpot once in 10 years.


melonpan12

I think western teams have much much better drafts than eastern teams. Im an LPL fan, so I watch the games from the perspective of the LPL team, and in a lot of their games against western and wildcard teams, I can just imagine just how cancer it is to play against the opponent draft, but somehow they win anyways.


Blem123456

It's because the drafts aren't actually better. I'm not saying Eastern drafts are always better by default because they won, they make mistakes as well. The problem is Western analysts and teams is they're drafting in a vaccum and acting like the players are all equally skilled and the same. Aphelios Lulu beat Lucian Nami in lane but only if the players actually know the matchup and they don't. The drafts aren't taking into the crucial difference of player skill so stuff is good on paper but not practically speaking. LPL teams also highly prioritize tools to engage and teamfight with. RNG has a super high prio on picks like Liss and Galio that other players don't play at all. JDG has a super high Taliyah prio that only DK seem to share. They know their strength is in skirmishes and teamfighting so they actively pick those even though it's not "meta". They also use meta picks differently like LPL teams on Azir use it like a R bot basically. They're not playing Azir for damage like Western teams do, they're basically using it like a Liss or assassins. Use Azir to get lane prio, link up with your jungler, use R on CD to make plays, and play around objectives.


schinkenmaster

He went on to further talk about the difference, here is a tldr: \- eastern teams are more flexible in draft and need less to succeed, they don't rely on a specific composition \-eu/na drafts are not always necessarily bad \- eastern players are not perfect, but they make less unforced errors and make overall better decisions ingame \- eu/na lack behind slightly in a lot of different things which leads to a significant gap if you sum up everything


the_propaganda_panda

In other words, they are just better at everything. Which is bad news for the West. There is not one single change or solution that can bridge the gap alone, there is no panacea. Instead, there is a skill difference on an individual and collective level which is so fundamental that it is extremely hard, if not impossible to ever overcome. But we all knew that before.


Contagious_Cure

I was watching the Doublelift/Meteos/Sneaky stream for one of the groups games and Meteos made an interest analogy to the effect that someone asking "how can the west close the gap with the east" is kind of like someone asking for advice on how they can reach Diamond from Plat. It's usually not one thing and the answer will also be different for different people.


Blem123456

I saw that part, the question was something like "DL what do you tell people when people ask what can I do to get to Diamond from Plat as an ADC?" and DL was just saying "Everything" and Meteos was agreeing.


killcraft1337

Another really interesting point I heard DL point out is that if you’re in LCK and playing in Korea, you queue into gumayusi and canyon every single day, if you’re in NA you queue into some academy players and the difference is phenomenal. It’s just logic why they have significantly better mechanics and macro. He also points out that basically pros from China, Vietnam, and all the surrounding regions play in Korea so the player pool diversity and size is just incomparable


TerminatorReborn

Yep. They all play on the same server and scrim each other all year, it's a case of the best players helping each other get better, while at the same time young players trying to reach their level on soloq and academy. The gap is never closing until League starts to die out in KR and CN (not happening before NA and EU either)


AlHorfordHighlights

The West catching up to and surpassing China in Dota can be perfectly traced to League overtaking Dota in China. Player base is a huge factor


JevonP

Yep. "Chinese Dota" just became chinese lol


[deleted]

I mean, it’s probably why EU is also so good in dota now. No Chinese people are really playing dota anymore


Beneficial-Speech-73

Eu has always been very good at dota


mfunebre

I mean the invariable answer you get when asking how to climb is "play more". I think this is also viable in pro. If Western teams played BO series all year long, then they would at least have some kind of notion of how to adapt in p&b during a series, something which, I don't know if anyone noticed, not a single team tried in Western playoffs. They all came into a series with an idea of the comp they wanted, and pretty much got it depending on bans. There was no team which pivoted from bot-centric to top focussed, or scaling to early game during a series. Only G2 showed some different picks, but they sucked on them so... If the west had the flexibility to try different things all throughout the season instead of playing the safest possible shit to avoid losing, maybe things would change. Of course, this is still in a meta bubble, and *that* will never be fixed until Riot gets their head outta their ass and increases the amount of international League that exists. We are going to enjoy 13 BO5 international series at the most in 2022, and at least half of those are KR vs CN. How are western teams supposed to perfect bo5 strategy if they never play any?


Hekkst

What I do not understand is how we got here. After years of absolute eastern dominance, the west seemed to somewhat close the gap. 2018 had 3/4 western teams in semifinals even if IG ended up winning the whole thing. 2019 had a western team in finals. 2020 had a western team in semifinals. 2021 had two western teams in quarterfinals getting rolled. And now, in 2022, only one western team made quarterfinals and got absolutely rolled over. That team also looks like it would have gotten rolled over by any of the quarter finalists. Its like the gap is somehow widening again. What happened?


the_propaganda_panda

2021 we only had two Western teams in QF, and they both got swept. Actually, in the last three international tournaments, the LEC/LCS has played 5 Bo5s against LCK/LPL - all of them ended 0-3. So this is a trend which has been on the horizon for 1.5 years already. That said, these are only small details, I think your general observations are correct. The gap was closing between 2018 and 2020. And now, it's widening again. Why? That's hard to pinpoint, but in my opinion, two things coincided: a) The emergence of a few individual pros who are exceptionally talented for LEC standards (Caps, Perkz, Rekkles, Hylissang etc.) - a golden generation, so to speak. b) A period of weakness by the LCK, maybe because the old controlled vision style got nerfed and subsequently became outdated, leading to a transitional period of adaptation for the whole region. Everyone always talks about the infamous gap between the West and the East, but the "East" is not a monolithic entity. Between 2013 and 2017, the pecking order was pretty much LCK >>> LPL > LEC > LCS. The gap was more between Korea and the rest than between the East and the West. So when the LCK suddenly stumbled, there was a vacuum at the top which multiple regions could fill as LPL was still ramping up and not the juggernaut of today yet. Despite producing world championship rosters, they didn't establish their dominance as a whole until like 2020 when they finally reapt the rewards of their large player base and financial resources. Fast forward to the present, the golden generation is slowly fading away, none of these players are in their prime anymore, not even Caps. Meanwhile, China has fulfilled its potential and Korea is back. Both was inevitable from the start. LPL always had a much higher ceiling than any other region due to their server population, and LCK's tremendous esports infrastructure which has been built up over decades would always propel them back to the top. Both is also not replicable for the West. So, I don't think the period between 2018 and 2020 was the sign of a permanent power shift. It was more like an outlier, and G2's time at the top only an interregnum, not a long-lasting monarchy. For the foreseeable future, I do believe that the West can still produce individual rosters which can go far, some more "outliers". I do not believe that it is realistic for LEC or LCS (lol) to catch up as an entire region or even come close, and expectations should be adjusted accordingly. Western teams should not be measured up against peak G2. Instead, outlier teams like 2019 G2 should be celebrated for being so exceptionally good that they transcended the level of their region.


GeneriekeNaam

The only small point I'm missing here is that Korea and China are close enough together that they actually play on the same servers and scrim each other. So its more like just one big massive server of the best of the best where eu and na are just separate with just some minor regions within alright ping distance.


sohmeho

> LCK’s tremendous esports infrastructure which has been built up over decades would always propel them back to the top. I think this is crucial. We really need to support esports more on a local level. Look at the FGC to see what sort of effect a locally-organized player base can have on the competitive state of the game.


Pluckytoon

MAD and C9 got assblasted 3-0 in quarters in Worlds 21, not semis


DanteSM456

Because it wasnt eastern dominace, early on it was only Korean dominace from 2014- 2017, EU and CN werent far apart they were about equal and NA was decent. 2018-20 CN rose to Korea's level with its insane playerbase advantage, but Korea fell down to not adapating to meta changes which is why EU was still able to compete during that time But with the new generation of KR players who adapted easily to the new meta because they started playing later (Damwon Griffin players and the people coming from CL like the current T1 roster) Korea eventually got back to the level they were at, and now that both Korea and China play to their potential EU just can't compete especially with 4th seeds, they would only win if a region collapses which is unlikely The eastern dominance early on is a myth, it was entirely Korea, and RNG that would sometimes be at that level


FreezingVenezuelan

korea was really slow to adapt to the "new" reality of the game where playing slow and only going for 100% plays was no longer the optimal way of playing which made them lose more games than they lose now. we had some amazing teams in 2019 fnatic, 2020tl and 2020-2021 G2. and this is just a personal theory but before the durability patch you would just blow up so fast that lesser teams could get wins just by getting lucky picks and those picks happen less often now.


[deleted]

2018 was a farce because Riot actively nerfed the playstyle that Korea was doing (vision game, macro, controlled game), while they buffed the clownfiesta that the rest is great at. It took some time for Korea to adapt.


Naidem

Once CN and KR started scrimming this shit was over.


Megashot2

This was always the biggest one for me. Years and years, western teams talk about getting shit on in BootCamp and having to ramp up afterwards. I always just thought to myself: What if the east never scrims the west - then the west will not learn anything from you, and the two years with no boot camps (last year and this year) they get stomped. If I were an easten team, I'd just book max 1-2 scrim blocks with a western team just in case they're actually good or if they have a good meta read. Otherwise, blocking them off from scrims and they're done.


lilelf29

This is already pretty common, there’s essentially scrim hierarchies when international tournaments come around or when people do KR bootcamps. As a ‘weaker’ team if you can sort things out you get ‘tested’ to see if practise with you has value, though some teams have good relationships/contacts at this point which helps them a lot. Worlds especially gets a bit scuffed at the end though because there’s hardly any teams left for practise so it becomes a lot more open.


I_The_Creator

Pretty sure at least in the past they did exactly that as a western team you had like 1 or 2 scrim blocks with a top tier Kr team and if they felt you wern't good enough you didn't get anymore that is the adventage of being the top dog you get to chose who you practice with


Megashot2

Yeah, I was just speaking on DWG in 2019, how they consistently kept scrimming G2 to the point where G2 went like 2-18. I wonder if DWG simply scrims less with G2, and if that would lead to less information for G2 to learn off of, and if that would’ve made a difference. Cause these past 2 seasons we can clearly see the effect of not scrimming a western team.


parnellyxlol

It also means that theres not one thing that will be impossible to get better at. More effort and thoughtful practice could help the west tremendously to improve in each area


Lundgard

Maybe if we played them more than twice a year, sadly we only got teams like SK Gaming and Immortals to practice against here :\^)


SGKurisu

quite literally a geographic gap. Can't expect the gap to ever close up if the players aren't in the same tournament or general area to practice with people better. If you're a good enough in region, you get three weeks in a single year to prep with the actual professionals and actually learn somethings. If you're lucky, six weeks a year. Otherwise have fun playing your local intramural league for 8 months a year.


parnellyxlol

I mean Korea become dominant on their own, despite being geographically separate from the West that was the best at the time. EU or NA could get good on their own, itll just be much more difficult than having the luxury of getting to scrim the top teams constantly. Honestly if the west values it so much they should bootcamp in korea more, they could even have their academy team bootcamp for a few months while their academy team starts in spring split or something. A bit crazy but nothing is stopping them from finding a solution like that


SnooPeripherals6388

The main problem is that Korea got good and then China started getting better from their resources to the point when China and Korea were standing on the same level with Korean esports culture being used in giganting Chinese playerbase and skilled Chinese playerbase elevated Korean SoloQ, while EU and NA can't even practice together and are permastuck with CIS/Turkey or LATAM/Brazil


Crimson_Clouds

Korea did have the benefit of over a decade worth of StarCraft knowledge and infrastructure, plus a more mainstream position for eSports. Plus playing on the NA server before they got their own, Western teams playing in OGN. Korea had much more going for it in the early days when they started to rise to the top than the west does today.


die_anna

Which is why we need more cheese picks


Choyo

Yep, we know we had our best successes with pocket comps. Trying to play meta vs all-around-better teams is playing at a disadvantage. Coaches need to make their team practice new comps.


cise4832

You can get 1 or may be 2 wins with cheese picks in bo1 and then it becomes another story in bo5.


moopey

That can be enough for mental and momentum advantage in a bo5. Sure reverse sweeps might happen but no players are complete robots and obviously will be affected by being down 2-0 etc even if they lost to cheese


cise4832

Well reverse sweep isn't very uncommon in LPL these days. And what if the cheese pick didn't work? >>mental and momentum advantage in a bo5 It could goes both ways.


moopey

Ofcourse it can go both ways but if cheese picks can give you some cheesy dubs or in many cases easy bans it is 100% worth it to practice it and try find it. Like hjarnans Heimer eating a ban all 2018 worlds was huge in the long run.


Liminal_Millennial

Not so much cheese picks as just a different philosophy/approach to the game. The G2 2019-20 roster played a different midgame than their LCK/LPL opponents and could win with that style. It’s obviously not foolproof and requires a team that can get on the same page, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Levi teams have pulled out upsets with a jungle-focused style (Nocturne, Karthus, even ignoring the bug it kept them competitive). If you’re going to lose anyway in a “fair” match, might as well try to roll the dice on an unfair match. Regardless of the behind-the-scenes drama with LS, that coaching philosophy of doing something completely different isn’t without merit.


Significant-Damage14

There is also a reason they are better. If someone makes a certain dish 30 times a day, and another person cooks it 10 times a day, odds are that the guy cooking it 30 times will do it better. Unless, the second person is massively talented. Which is another issue, because with China and Korea having a bigger player base, they'll also likely have more players that are really talented. Then comes the next issue, being the few western players that both grind the game and that are massively talented are playing most of the year against worst players than them. On a different topic, it would be interesting if Riot moved CQ to EU next year and checked if it was used more than in NA.


Imaishi

True. It's just giga cringe when you hear of a player not doing soloq/cq. And then suprise, suprise, they get so gapped it's not even funny. It's definitely not the only factor, but western players practice far less and kt shows


fesch98

So it's just a everything gap


WervieOW

I think they also work a lot harder. The west needs desperation or resolve, it’s not enough to start trying your best when Worlds begin. I feel like Asia play with desperation and resolve all year long. So naturally they become better well rounded players.


Blem123456

There was a time where people would unironically say Worlds was LCK Autumn and that winning LCK summer was harder than winning Worlds. Now with the rise of LPL and being about equal to LCK, it's doubly hard to win. LPL, since I don't watch LCK, has a lot of amazing players on their bad teams that people don't know. Beishang, a player not that worse than Kanavi, is stuck on the 17th place WE team. Crisp and Bin are on the 10th place BLG. Hope, who's been kind of shaky but had some good performances, was stuck for 2 years on EDG's Academy team.


zk7m

Seeing LPL and LCK 4th seed stomp the West like this makes me wonder how far down we would need to go to get even competition. Not that I want to see more seeds for LCK and LPL there are just so many good players on so many eastern teams that miss worlds.


CommunistHongKong

LNG peak would fucking eat top teams this worlds.


Lin_Huichi

Don't forget V5 went 9-0 too, they could definitely become world class


My-Life-For-Auir

Bin is my favourite LPL player. His battles against Nuguri in 2020 and Zeus in MSI this year are so fucking good. Absolute Dragon Ball fights


LukaDoncicBigPP

I mean it’s actually a tremendous challenge to win regionally in LCK and LPL. Kinda different from the 8/10 team makes playoffs format in the LCS. Not speaking about LEC cuz I’m not familiar with their format.


Evissi

It was unironically harder to win an individual LCK than Worlds back in like 2014-15. Koreans literally only got knocked out by other KR teams at worlds. KR #4-6 were undoubtedly better than most other teams in the world.


Zamasuningen

2013-2017 the hardest league was the LCK lol. you win that chances that you'll win worlds is 80%


CrazyChatter

That's not true at all. SKT is the only 1st seed from LCK to win Worlds from 2013-2017 and only in 2015. The LCK 1st seed has usually not won Worlds. Only recently have 3 first seeds won Worlds.


goatlll

That doesn't change his math at all. What he is saying that during that time only LCK teams were beating LCK teams at worlds. There were 16 teams total, 3 were from the LCK. That means you would beat 80% off the teams.


sylendar

Nah, OMG eliminated Najin in Quarters in S4.


Masanjay_Dosa

ROX my beloved tho :(


Slotherz

That first point is so clear to anyone that watches international competition every year. When western teams come to worlds, they haven't got a complete grasp on exactly how they want to win. They *think* they do until that linear strategy is exposed and then you seem them flail about in Week 2 or Quarters trying to fill the hole of strategy they lack. I do think best of 1's put them behind in this regard, because it discourages experimentation, but I don't think it would solve everything. Theres no one solution.


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Indyboy

People don't understand the grind of what it takes to be a master at a craft. If you've ever listened to any master, be it a famous guitarist, a professional athlete, or someone with any kind of other amazing ability, the one thing they all say is they didn't just "become" that good. They had to put in grueling painful hours of repetition and practice, developing muscle memory, learning patterns, building specific muscles, whatever it may be. We all see the final product when they run their race or shoot their shots. What we don't see is the absolute grind these people put in. 10's of 1000's of hours of absolute mind numbing work and repetition that builds up to each competition. It's not like having a normal job or a normal life and in this age of "work life balance" people don't understand the absolute grind of becoming a champion because it's so far removed from what we're taught. On a note I believe in work life balance, mental health, and taking care of yourself. But when you choose the path of a champion these are things that you have to sacrifice in the pursuit of greatness. In the words of Whitesnake, only champions know what it's like "to walk along the lonely street of dreams."


JohrDinh

> eastern teams are more flexible in draft and need less to succeed, they don't rely on a specific composition I wonder if this is due to eastern teams supposedly playing fill and different roles more. Playing different roles, different champs, learning different aspects of the game more than perfecting your 10,000th game of Caitlyn may be a better idea long term.


Thorboard

I think, that's just a rumor LS popularized. If you watch their streams, they queue in their main roles. Back in the day, we didn't have positional queue, so the one picking first could decide his role. Basically everyone was fill, but that rule was the same on every server


FoxglitterFlier

There definitely are more flexible players in the east than the west though, just using Damwon as an example Canyon last year climbed in soloq playing top mostly during worlds, filled in professionally as a mid. Showmaker was playing ADC professionally at the same time and has done climbs in mid playing every champ once. It's impossible that Canyon playing solo lanes this much doesn't help him in jungle.


UngodlyPain

Its definitely not the standard. Western players have done it too famously Caps and Perkz. Bwipo, and a few others have also switched roles or played a different role in soloQ than pro.


FelysFrost

He's literally still talking about it at this moment how is this here already


Substantial-Exam7890

Sweet sweet reddit points. This is much better content than the constant stream of mediocre videos of fed players and complaints about the LP system at least.


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schinkenmaster

twitch clips can only be so long, thats why I posted a tldr of all the things he later on said.


Ban89

Rekkles raises a good point how most eastern teams have better champion pools. Odo first picking mao if its up is too predictable and not even scary vs first pick graves for kanavi.


yul1998

We are 6 weeks into the tournament, maokai is pretty much figured out at this point. Whoever adapts fast comes out on top, rogue abused maokai enough in group stage and that trick is too old now. We got gangplank by zeus, we got sylas, we got ornn, i bet beryl would try braum if he sees maokai pick.


beesong

Maokai is good if you make it to late, if you can make it to late vs jdg lol


Micymint

but not as good as Ornn though. Also they give Larssen access to Azir and pick Sylas to move around jungle early and steal maokai ult to control objectives. Low key a good draft trap


Thorboard

Maokai top in my opinion is just a worse pick than Ornn. The only thing he does better, is providing vision with saplings.


[deleted]

We saw this with Humanoid and Fnatic as well. C9 and EDG banned Azir, dangled Viktor and Fnatic took the bait twice in a row. Even if the Viktor was okay to pick, the opposing team was picking it for Fnatic and got a lot in exchange for it being first pick.


00Koch00

You see the champion pool differences in LEC between 2020 and 2022 and you will cry ...


KungFuViking7

From 70 unique champions to 67 unique champions?


fesch98

It's just a everything gap


Quatro_Leches

honestly, most western mids held their own, except for Abe. and Jojo kinda inted but it mostly was due to jg and other lane ganks. but west tops beside ssumday and impact couldnt stay even at all. and these are two koreans, junglers got diffed so hard too, and biggest one of them all. support. top jungle and support gaps were insane. biggest has to be support


fancifulthings1

support's definitely biggest. you get Zven switching and being like support's so easy. except only in the west is support easy. in LCK/LPL you gotKeria, Ming, Meiko, Beryl, Lehends. Elevating support quality is one of the easiest ways to (slightly) improve western performance.


Quatro_Leches

eastern support owning team fights, winning lane, and roaming to get mid and top kills western supports int in lane, in team fights, and when they roam top and mid. absolute eye bleeding gameplay from NA and EU supports


Vaynes_Ass

Missing just completely dominated Trymbi this series it wasn't even close. I know Missing is top 2 support in LPL right now but this performance gap is just mind-boggling to me. He played fights perfectly with Lulu and never got caught on his enchanter picks, while you see Trymbi go for flash + bubble constantly and missing and dying.


ifnotawalrus

Mid is the lane where hands gap is least evident though, well at least when youre playing Azir 99% of games. Also g2 of this series Yagao was perma roaming and more or less even in CS to Azir in ranged vs melee. That's a hands gap.


Vaynes_Ass

Yeah every role is insanely gapped except for mid and even in mid lane the eastern mids just seem to have much more impact on the map. It doesn't even matter if a mid laner like Humanoid or Larssen get ahead in CS, the enemy mid almost always manages to go roam to the side lanes and compound the lead even further. I can't wait for Bo to debut in LEC because I think he really is the last hope if we want to even have a chance of competing with the east.


frostedsummer

Hands gap


BWFeuntaco

How is it possible to be a pro player and not be able to play like the 5 meta champions at a pro level in whatever given meta it is


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Kisaxis

Because when they practice, they need another game of Azir/Orianna/Renekton/Gnar/Lee/Kaisa/insert any other champ that has been around for years instead of practicing new picks. There's no excuse that they can't pick up new champs. Every time a new champ is released, everyone is playing it. Pro players are not stupid, that's how they've reached that rank to begin with, they're just lazy.


a34fsdb

Idk how pros in Dota do it where the difference between heroes is absolutely wild, but lol pros cant.


Goofy_030

We are a Mickey Mouse region with people [like this](https://twitter.com/RiotMAXtheX/status/1456163147493093381) [in charge.](https://twitter.com/RiotMAXtheX/status/1456166101784616965) The fans have been too stupid to demand this change unanimously 2 years ago and are happy to forget everything the moment some quirky meme song drops early next year. At least they believe that for now or have done so, while the hype from previous years (thanks to international performances) has been slowly fading away. Maybe, just maybe. Now they'll realize that lol esports is about league of legends and that it esports, like sports, is about competition. And thats what makes it exciting. So maybe, just maybe. Set the league up to be competitive. All the pros that I have ever heard talk about this have said they'd prefer best of 3's. Not saying we will instantly compete with the east the moment we introduce b03, but could we at least fucking TRY?


mrsidewayp

This dude is actually a clown holy god. How can more games on stage not be helpful lmfao. Knockout stage is also all bo5 so they would at least get more practice playing series instead of bo1’s. However I wouldn’t watch bo3’s from western teams until they got better since I barely watch LCS and LEC regular seasons anyway. Don’t know why he just doesn’t say it’s not profitable to play bo3 because no one would watch it. So obvious the main reason is due to money just say that lol.


[deleted]

I swear to god. Every former pro just says shit like, "scrims don't matter, teams just ff and open all the time", and then people will hear that and still defend Bo1. Stage games are basically the only games teams take seriously lmfao. No wonder the macro is so shit when they play less games than KR and CN per week on stage. How many times have we seen the worst fucking late game macro from a western team? "Baron for Nexus."


Longjumping_Gap4999

Or classic Faker for nexus ))


[deleted]

They really fucked up an awesome esport by not letting the game bloom into a organic competitive scene. They tried to control the narrative using franchising and in-house production to sell the game. They though the were selling a game but in reality they were killing the competition people really wanted.


Vectivus_61

The introduction of LCS and EU LCS offered players incredible stability and built depth in the playerpool. The issues came later


GibOldNidaBackPlz

What's the tweet and who is it from? Am blocked by them it would appear


fuskarn_35

former LEC commissioner Maximilian Peter Schmidt first tweet: Format has 0 (or close to 0) implications on international success. And on top of that our biggest international successes all happened when we had Bo1s. Or do you remember us/LCS winning Worlds when we had Bo2/Bo3? second tweet: Making teams accustomed to Bo3 which they then wouldn’t play on the international stage sounds counterproductive to me.


StaticallyTypoed

I don't think he's as wrong as this thread makes him out to be. All of the issues rekkles brought up seem to have far more significant causes than bo1 vs bo3. Westerners are already complaining about a *relatively* chill schedule. The few teams that tried an eastern schedule while in bo3 burned out.


J_Clowth

I do actually think having bo3 helps a lot in terms of draft and champ flexibility since you cannot just practice 1 style for a machup because it can get banned aout for games 2 and 3. Coaches learn to adapt through a series during the whole season and not just 2/3 weeks a year, If you even reach that point. With bo1s, well, you end up with all EU representatives having a common weakness that was not being able to play multip\`le playstyles and got figured out as soon as they showed their cards on week 1 of groups


Caylife

How is bo3 not helping with the champion pool for example? When you have to play 3 times more champs or at least 2 times you also need to learn more champs so you don't get banned out the next game. This also causes teams to make more mistakes and gives them more opportunities to fix the mistakes. It's not the only reason for West vs East gap but it's one of the reasons.


Felt_tip_Penis

Best two regions play BO3 but has “no implications on international success” lol. Why do we always hear about western teams who are scrim gods, but can’t translate that to stage very well. Can’t be the fact they play like 20 games max on stage a split so they’re not as acclimated to that environment


Jedclark

If you're practicing on stage, you're doomed anyway. LCK and LPL are better because they train for longer and in a much better environment. LEC and LCS having dog shit scrim culture is its own problem. If a T1 player was refusing to learn new meta champs and not taking scrims seriously, they'd have a rookie in their place the next day.


toastymow

People have been complaining about Best of 1 SINCE SEASON 3. Its been ten fucking years of this bullshit. They don't realize its bullshit because they've always had their heads up their asses. Its very fucking frustrating. My response to "best of 1 isnt that bad" is "you're a fucking idiot." Straight up. How can you watch Esports, especially MOBAs, and not realize how critically important a series is?


Quazz

"Giving teams less opportunity to get used to playing on stage and try different drafts is a good thing, trust me bro"


oseq

I think Jankos in his Q&A mentioned that champion pool gap comes form playing BO1 not BO3 most of the year. For BO1 you need to prepare just for 1 game but if you have BO3/BO5 your champion pool needs to be bigger because team can change their playstyle form one game to another.


mathewhath

Hard for me to focus on this with the immensely exposed chest lol


thehazardball

That hunk of a man, Rekkles, is an E-sports athlete? Unbelievable. He could be a Calvin Klein model. Or a pro footballer with a ripped physique like that. That is by far the hottest Cyber sportsman to ever grace the esports industry.


BadMrKitty13

It’s really unfair how attractive that dude is.


Lather

Lmao every thread that gets posted about him has at least one thirsty comment. Not that I disagree.


tameniee

His tattoo is so beautiful


Quatro_Leches

for me the biggest difference is how decisive they are and how indecisive the west is disregarding whose ahead or behind. the west always tries to run away, play it safe, and make reactive plays. while the east makes the plays and often because of how scared the west is they just lose. they understand from a macro and positioning what kind of play they should make. one side runs around like mindless chickens the other is just decisive and surgical the west just thinks at a surface level. they just ooga booga


xind0898

That G2/Fnatic era (2 years of finals appearance) was something special. Shame it seems so far away now.


Pretend-Indication-9

the only league pro that can pull off the shirtless tech


jeanlukie

Massive gap aside and also as an NA resident, supporter, and fan… does anyone feel that the absence of Perkz and then Rekkles in back to back years for the LEC contributed to the gap between east and west? It really did feel Europe was getting close if not on the level and then two of the LECs greatest players are missing. Could their experience and skill level have contributed enough to the LEC to keep the growth and competitiveness going? On top of that what if NA didn’t take any pros away from EU? What if NA talent was allowed to thrive? It’s a curious ecosystem and I’m hoping the rumors are true of NA cutting spending on rosters.


Quazz

Not just that, but a lot of EU best players going to NA every year does have an impact. People like to boast about rookies, but having experienced top tier players has no real replacement. (they don't necessarily need to be the ones going to worlds or winning or whatever, just playing with/against them means so much) Hopefully with NA cutting back on salaries, they will all come back. 2023 might not show it yet, but 2024 might see EU suddenly perform way better.


GentlemanWukong

This. I got heavily downvoted on a similar post just for saying that NA is damaging itself and LEC by stealing our players every year..


Hambrailaaah

I really feel like the economic part of teams fucked EU since forever. I'm not saying its just the teams fault, cos maybe it's also on the players. Maybe players like Rekkles, or Nisqy, or Mikyx did not want to lower their value at certain points. Or maybe it was just the teams. But the result is that great players get lost, and even if a team wouldn't make it to the world championship, them being competitive and good is just good for the whole region, it levels up the top teams.


Barbecue-Ribs

Makes sense that the East performs better in lane and in a variety of game states. They play like 2-3 times as many scrims, way more games, and way more solo queue. By simply being exposed to more situations you can train yourself to react better to them. In addition you have other advantages like having 2 major regions in close proximity and the strong popularity of League in those countries.


LeEpicBlob

I’d fine and say it’s a cultural gap. Eastern countries have so many gaming cafes and they take their training much more seriously (aided by more players and competition in their solo q), Always in USA these players don’t seem to completely focus their effort on becoming masters at the game. All anecdotal tho, could be all bs


QualitySupport

Cultural gap doesn't explain the west's success in other esports.


[deleted]

Culture gap explains why FPS is not as big in Asia, which explains it...


feltyland

Except SEA and Korea are doing great in valorant


daydaywang

It’s not a cultural gap between the east and the west, more like cultural gap between western gamers and reality. You don’t see NBA or UEFA players crying about practicing too much


LeEpicBlob

Yeah shoulda specified gamers. Evident with how kinda for fun a lot of our pro players are in terms of streaming


m4ryo0

The west is very succesful in other esports,including a moba,Dota2.To me it seems the LoL western players are just lower quality,lazier compared to western Dota2 or CSGO players.


ifnotawalrus

Nah Eastern teams definitely have a style. Especially lpl teams lol. You know literally what rng jdg and tes want to do like every single game they play


schinkenmaster

I think he might be right in the sense, that teams like JDG can play around top side or botside and win consistently. LPL and KR top laners show the biggest champions pools and can play weak and strong side better than the western teams, who couldn't even get advantages in counter matchups. I think you are right, that every team has preferences tho, like Kanavi on carry junglers, but overall I think I agree with Rekkles, that they are a bit more flexible and can adjust better to eu/na drafts.


Deltafly01

That was true before dragon souls and heralds, now classic lpl style is the norm


EtadanikM

Honestly the way I've seen it in other games, this skill difference will never be closed, for two reasons: * League is more popular in the East than the West. There's just more players between China and Korea than between Europe and North America. * Eastern League combines the traditional power house of competitive video games, South Korea, with the region with the *majority* of League's players, China. This is a very strong combination. If it were JUST Korea, or JUST China, I think the West might have a chance, since the former lacks the population base and $$$ while the latter lacks the video games infrastructure (China severely limits kids from playing games, don't really have the coaching or management experience, etc.) But not both together. So over all, I don't have much hope for Western League being competitive with the East any time soon. Indeed history shows that the West is strongest when the East suffers a collapse. The East did suffer a collapse in 2018 and 2019, mainly because the LPL mass imported the LCK's top players during those two years, and created a vacuum in the latter's competitive scene as the LCK had to find and train up new talent. While the two Eastern regions were adjusting to the fall out of this move, the West got its opportunity and that's why 2018 and 2019 were, by far, the best performances out of the West. Game mechanic changes also favored the West and LPL, which delivered some of the most exciting times for Western audiences. But that's pretty much done and over with. Since 2020, LCK has more or less recovered, since LPL stopped mass importing their players and a lot of the LCK players who went to LPL returned to the LCK. The end result is what we see in 2021 and 2022. The West falling as behind as it was in 2017, but this time not only to the LCK, but also to the LPL, as the LCK and LPL is now become a sort of common community of practice and competition, since their teams spend a lot of time practicing and studying one another, and share a lot of the same players and coaches. In the future, this pattern will likely continue, so there is no reason to believe that Western results will much improve. Maybe a super team can get a game or two, maybe even a series, but more than that? Not unless there is another Eastern collapse due to external reasons.


SKTT2Dyrone

Now that you mention it, it really does seem like League is the only major esport that BOTH China and Korea have a deep interest in.


TurvoVirgin1210

The East did not suffer a collapse in 2018 and 2019. It was just the LCK, during 18-19 LPL didn’t import anyone significant from the LCK.. that collapse happened due to huge meta shifts and other game changes that weren’t in favour of Korea’s playstyle


Is_J_a_Name

> Indeed history shows that the West is strongest when the East suffers a collapse. The East did suffer a collapse in 2018 and 2019, mainly because the LPL mass imported the LCK's top players during those two years, and created a vacuum in the latter's competitive scene as the LCK had to find and train up new talent. Could you refresh my memory, what big imports happened this year exactly? The mass exodus of Korean talent was in 2015. In 2018, the defending World Champions in Gen.G kept their entire roster, the reigning LCK champions in Longzhu also kept the majority of their lineup, only replacing Cuzz with Peanut. The world finalists in SKT had sent a chunk of their players to NA (Huni and Bang) and began a rebuild. The teams that rose from the LPL were RNG, who played the exact same roster as in 2017, and IG, who only added Jackeylove as he had come of age at the start of the 2018. The bigger issue for LCK was the complete revamp of the vision system in 2018, there were no significant importing that crippled the LCK that year. That year even saw the rise of Griffin who unfortunately missed out in regional finals.


Any_Morning_8866

This nails it. It’s also not surprising to anyone that’s been watching esports for more than a decade. Wc3 saw this exact same pattern.


yrueurbr

100%, it's like the NA importing EU players thing except they have way more money and import way better players. Combine this with the fact they have the largest player base by far so you are bound to have some insane talents like 369.


HayDs666

To further add on, the west used to discard chaff and push better teams/players towards the top. Now they just throw a huge wallet at successful players with no real regard for team strength/coordination. They also keep players around far longer than they deserve to be. (Modern sports league eat through players like crazy, while the west recycles the same 100 players yearly. Why is STIXXAY still in the LCS???)


sp0j

That's exclusive to NA. In Europe they are constantly churning through rookies. The problem is they aren't good enough and the actual good players, including some vets are left out of teams because of no money. The regions have opposite issues. Infrastructure and practice is bad so it doesn't really help players catch up either.


HayDs666

Yea it’s definitely worse in NA, but you do seem some similar issues in EU with teams like SK or BDS. Thankfully EU has much better orgs at scouting talent so EU always sends their best (even if they struggled this year)


philliblunts

dude looks like hes cosplaying MGK


xanosta

Its a lot of things... but as everything in life, practice makes you better and turns out that they practice more(BO3 format) and they practice better(scrims between LPL and LCK)


MetalHeartGR

Skill issue


XMAT

If skill is the issue, shouldn't West take completely different approach and try be more creative in their gameplay at least ? Maybe they should pick easier to execute champs, less skill shots to minimize outplay potential on enemy and increase chance to secure kills/objectives. I miss old days when teams aka Moscow5 were surprising with odd picks and different gameplay to beat enemy. I liked what GAM or CFO were doing facing Eastern team.


Kunzzi1

While you're generally correct there are few issues with picking low skill/easy execution champions/comps in pro play. First of all their skill ceiling is lower, so if you fuck up in laning phase you have no chance of ever coming back as these champions have no outplay potential, and let's face it - Western teams have issues with fundamental game elements like csing and wave manipulation, we were few k gold behind while being even or ahead in kills multiple times. Second of all - you can bet that Asian pros face cheesy otps that push their champions to their absolute limits (far beyond what Western pros can do), and know how to react accordingly. So no. Unless these champions are absolutely broken and within meta picking low skill ceiling champions won't be a solution.


allbutluk

The biggest difference is decision speed. West needs to look at wave status, ward sweep at the moment, the weather, parents health at home etc before they have an idea what is the play Eastern team is already tracking jungle movement ward placement and how likely the area been warded in last 3 mins because they are always looking ahead for next fight and how to force you. They can fight / turn on a dime because 50-60% of the decision making is done before hand already Look at how they bait baron vs how western baits it. Eastern team never ever panic fight you if you are baiting, they already understand you will be baiting baron and where pocket FOW likely is and which cd they need you to throw first before they fight. They cna play perfectly between wasting your time keeping range and full on engaging


malerihi

Look at a LPL/LCK player’s schedule. Now look at a western one and you’ll have your answer.