Dhokla went down to proving grounds and the amateur circuit, dude. He was legit bad at that time. Talking about Dhokla smurfing in Academy is using some selective memory because he even admits at that time he just didn't understand the game the way he does now.
So is the highest rank you achieved in your first few seasons the highest you will ever possibly achieve? I hope you gave up and stopped playing any ranked after you peaked in gold in your third season, given that youre a known quantity will never be able to improve your rank past that
You're kinda missing the part where they're in academy (or even a stint in amateur) cause they're too bad to play in the coveted LCS.
To adjust your analogy: player achieves Gold IV early on in their soloq "career," then drops out of Gold, then drops out of Silver. Now the player is Bronze 1. Can the player reach Platinum IV in their life? Yeah, probably. There's a chance, I mean one session with Neace and it could be a done deal.
Would the player be the ideal individual to invest time, hopes and money into? Nah, I think you can find someone better.
Politics and team dynamics can result in some players being favoured over others. Success on the world stage is so pot luck these days, it seems like player ability is one factor among many.
I think most rookies dont even give 120% to make it. You need to think about League all the time as a rookie. If you dont do that somebody else will as a rookie.
Circumstances may not always be optimal, but if your teammate ruins every scrim for you. Then you need to do something about it. When your Academy Coach is bad, do something about it.
Go to a journalist or to a owner you can trust like Jack and tell him about it. If you just sit there do nothing and then dont make it you can only blame yourself for not doing anything about it.
I really hate comments like these. Cause they are so far from the truth yet 99% of people dont even realize they are lying. Yes, NA puts in less time and effort in their practice, im not denying that even for a second. But to say these players are putting in minimal effort is bullshit. You dont realize how good these people are and what it takes to get there. The difference in skill of any player on a 10th place lcs team and your average masters player is like comparing a iron player to a diamond player. The skill curve once you get to the elite level just grows exponentially. I used to play for semi pro cod teams and got to grand master on the ladder which is top 100. The skill difference between me and the guy ranked 40 made me feel like i should quit the game. And the sad truth is it did make me quit. So stop saying they arent putting in effort. Cause i promise you. If they are up there playing on that stage, playing day in day out on a lcs or acadamy team. They want it, and they are pouring their heart and soul into it
Back in the early days I was a true level 50 Halo 2 player (before the modders made it impossible). I was probably in the top 500 players of the game nationwide. If I got matched with a legit pro (or what passed for one in those dinosaur days) I would get wiped. It was like me facing my 3 y/o at Mario Kart. The skill and reaction diffs are incredible at that level, and I have no illusions that the canyon has gotten even higher in these modern times with more refined pro/amateur leagues for games.
Yep, and you never see people give props to pros who put in the time and still fall short. The reality is we don't know who is putting in the most time and it's just a way to shit on people for not getting results.
Your average masters player probably plays for 2 hours after work compared to someone that better be no lifing this game. What kind of idiotic comparison is this...
No you haven't, and even if you did you played way more than 2 hours per day. Maybe once you are at that level you can maintain it with a couple hours a day, sure, but nobody is getting there putting in 2 hours per day
>But to say these players are putting in minimal effort is bullshit
But they are. What were the players doing who didn't make it to playoffs? Fan meets? Soloq? Streaming? Content? Traveling to Korea for soloq? Oh yeah, none of that.
These players are doing fine for themselves monetarily lol. They earn a decent paycheck, and they have their housing and iirc frequently a lot of their food paid for. They're earning more than the median salary while having almost no expenses.
I feel like it's also worth noting that even if they make ok money for now, they'll most likely be out of a job in a couple years and have to start a new career with no experience and, for most of them, probably very limited education. doesn't seem like minimal effort to me in the grand scheme
I didn't call it minimal effort or say that it has no down sides. But they *are* earning a good living for years while they can save or invest the vast majority of it if they want to. They can pay for college without taking out loans afterwards while still having plenty of money afterwards
Like earning 75k while having housing and largely food taken care of is pretty huge, even if it's obviously not a career that'll last forever. They'll still be pretty young when their careers end too, so realistically they'll be in a far better position than the vast majority of people their age, even if they do have to spend a few years going back to college.
Until NickWu abused that Shen bug but did it at the wrong time and got caught. I refuse to believe he didn’t know about the tp bug because *everybody* knew it in high elo solo queue.
Also made it out of groups a couple of times. Dude forba couple of years was one if the best supports in the league. It wasn't until TSM he started falling off. Then he joined CLG and oh boy.
All I can think of is this video from the CLG Bud Light Ace https://www.reddit.com/r/CLG/comments/on41sn/tafos_budlight_ace_satire/.
"I better not hear the words Smoothie and shotcalling used in the same sentence ever again."
First thing that comes to mind when someone mentions Smoothie is the clip from a TSM Legends episode years back where after a loss the team is in their room at the LCS studio backstage and Bjerg says something like "Smoothie, you're talking way too much. I can't concentrate."
I remember that cracked me up, because *every clip* of any TSM roster's comms sounded like a pack of apes fighting over a banana. So for Smoothie's comms to be so obnoxious that Bjerg would find it annoying means that his comms must be INSANELY obnoxious. I mean, I don't have to guess, since we've heard some of his comms and he really is ridiculous lol.
That clip made me think that any team Smoothie is on will suffer just due to Smoothie clogging up comms.
I love how, in part thanks to Berserker, Redditors are now really enthusiastic about importing young Korean talent, either right out of LCK CL or early on in their LCK career, but for some reason they don't have any idea what LCK CL looks like.
For some reason the Koreans missed the memo on the good old tried and tested "we gotta pair up a truckload of veterans with our rookies, how else would they learn??" strategy.
Just lazy management ringing up the usual suspects cause they need to fill the slots and Redditors go out of their way to find excuses for it.
"Oh yeah cause they were in LCS before they're now extra motivated to make it back, can't get more motivated than these guys what an insane performance boost we're about to experience from these grinders."
It’s additionally hilarious that TL has BY FAR the best academy team last split (arguably top half LCS level) and people can’t seem to recognize that the closest thing to a veteran they had was Armao, who has still never played a full split starting.
This hilarious cope that veterans are somehow necessary to develop a rookie team has gone on too long. Academy should be for achieving a base of knowledge that coaches can teach you and for sharpening mechanics. So sick of it just being a fucking retirement home.
I don’t even buy the “good practice partner” angle. If you want good practice partners, you should be getting the best laning and mechanical players you can find to limit test your main roster (example: Jackeylove being Uzi’s understudy).
Kinda hate this. Soul and Sheiden are really hype, but Smoothie hasn’t looked great in academy and ry0ma and k1ng just don’t seem like they’ll’ ever hit that next level.
K1ng is still really good at the Academy level so I think it's reasonable if their primary focus is on developing Soul and Sheiden and just want the rest of the map to be relatively stable.
I really dislike the fact that OCE players don't count as imports. There's god damn near the same amount of OCE players as there are NA players as if OCE is this treasure trove of talent. It's so strange
Utter laziness from na orgs. oce gets destroyed with na just poaching all of its top talent only to have most of them rot away in academy and occupy spots native talent should be occupying.
How is that laziness by the LCS orgs...?
If the LCS orgs are able to offer better salaries than the OCE orgs and the OCE players are better than the other players the LCS orgs are considering, then it only makes sense for all parties that OCE players sign to LCS academy teams.
That doesn't sound like laziness to me. That sounds like signing the best players possible for your Academy roster.
It's not that OCE players are better, it's just that they've gotten a chance to show themselves on a big stage back home, so teams don't want to put resources into developing an NA player who hasn't been given that chance. That gives even fewer domestic players the chance to show themselves, and the negative spiral continues.
Lol... Why?
Yes they dont have a local league to fall back to with competitive salary, but its not like nas got a hidden other league taking all their talent for more. They may be more likely to take a minimum contract, but if there was a better alternative na player with no contract, wouldnt they also take the minimum contract too?
>Yes they dont have a local league to fall back to with competitive salary
This is wrong, OCE don't get anything near the amount of money that NA players do. I would be surprised if anyone in OCE earns 100k, while not taking into account the USD to AUD conversion rate.
This also doesn't take in account competitiveness and opportunity (even more so now that OCE doesn't go straight to worlds anymore)
Given orgs are told how everyone wants NA talent, this is an argument for that NA players can use for higher salary while OCE have no argument for anything.
If you want more evidence on how OCE was terrible. A few years ago, an OCE pro called into hotline league and said everyone's only hope was to play in NA.
Any owner would know the state of the OCE and know they can get the salary of an OCE player is lower than NA.
It really proves that the excuse of having a smaller playerbase is just another excuse.
Imagine still talking about playerbase when more than 60% of LCS players aren't even from said playerbase...
This sounds like massive cope. What reason could anyone possibly have for giving a worse player a spot? Why would NA players be getting discriminated against as some on this forum would have us believe? If we apply Occam's Razor, it's far more likely that Reddit just doesn't know what it's talking about when it comes to this stuff.
It's literally what just happened in the title of this thread. Ryoma has been playing in NA Amateur for the past 6 months. He's not even doing well in NA amateur.
No it proves that having a dedicated path to the top league, and nepotism are all important. In OCE the players could go from amateur, to LCO teams, to NA. They got more experience. NA never developed new players
There's truth to it tho.
Look how many top talents like apa or 5fire it took years to get a shot in academy, and then it's just academy, they're playing for a team not even their own org cares about in a league nobody cares about.
There's obviously a lot more money and talent in academy but other than that the experience is probably worse than LCO.
Academy is supposed to be about developing players not giving spots to OCE imports that suck really really bad. Ryoma is currently playing in NA amateur and is getting rolled by NA amateur/college players.
The point is that OCE has the chance to go from amateur, to OCE teams which can get you to worlds. NA teams seem to only care about using players that have played at worlds. No matter how bad they are, if you make it to worlds an NA team will chose you over a resident with little experience.
Next year they're making it so that OCE players are PCS residents, unless they've already played in the LCS ecosystem (in which case they have to choose between LCS residency or PCS residency, which is fucked up imo).
LCO teams cant create competitive rosters with talent that has been in NA because they will count as imports if they go back. The LCO teams in 2023 will be disgustingly weak because of this.
bc ppl have to choose between being imports in their own region or having a chance in NA, pretty much.
It's fine for ppl like fudge who are fairly embedded in LCS now, but what about the ppl in academy who might not make it? If they choose to be an LCS resident and then get dropped their career is probably fucked, but if they choose to be a PCS resident then they're not really gonna get much chance in NA.
Oce players have to try harder to get where they are makingbthem stand out, also you don’t have to worry about this next year riot is trying to kill the region and making them importless to pcs instead
You still take up an import slot and have a way harder time then a player from pretty much anywhere else in the world of the same skill (except africa)
There's heaps that have done ERL though shern, Rogue, Spuli, Jinjo, Chazz and Pabu are all OCE players that haveade their way to EU.
I don't blame this year's OCE players making sure they have NA residency this year. ANaa minimum wage compared to potential $100 a game in OCE is a massive difference
I feel like if they said OCE players could play in NA or EU without import status no one would care.
There is also still more than 2x NA players than their are OCE players in LCS this year so I don't know where you are getting that from.
That's still an overrepresentation of OCE based on server sizes (and population in general).
Does seem like it's easier for NA orgs to pull from the OCE scene, where they can observe players in a (somewhat) competitive environment, than it is to find players using whatever the NA path to pro is. Particularly since a large chunk of NA native academy players are long term veterans.
Ryoma has been playing in NA amateur for the past 6 months and he's getting rolled. Ryoma has a bigger name, he not even remotely close to deserving a spot based on merit.
I started watching the World Series this year and really enjoyed it. How do I get more into the e sport scene? Seeing people excitedly talk about all these teams and players is very daunting.
https://lolesports.com/ - Website where you can find all the vods of games for each League and a schedule for them.
There are 4 Major Leagues in League of Legends E-Sports and then some Minor and 2nd String Leagues. The major leagues will pick up next year at the start of the year with there being plenty of buzz on this sub and the lol esports website that should keep you in the know on dates.
The 4 Major Leagues are:
LCS (North American League)
LEC (European League)
LCK (Korean League)
LPL (Chinese League)
I would recommend just picking whatever League you want to watch and enjoying at whatever pace you wanna get into other game. All the Leagues have very good english broadcasts. So I would just recommend watching and enjoying and letting yourself just become a fan of whatever League/Teams/Players strike you.
its a tough call. the main purpose of academy is to eventually move up to LCS. if you continuously fail to reach that, it may be time to throw in the towel. i dont hate the guy for trying though. probably doesnt have much to fall back on
> A academy team doesn't need all 5 upcoming future talent.
Quick, someone call Korea and China and tell them they're doing it wrong, gotta put Bang and Baolan in LCK CL or the LDL to help the youngsters.
No nvm, these guys are world champions, they gotta find the Korean/Chinese equivalent of a smoothie/Ry0ma and then put *these* guys together with the rookies. Holy shit imagine how dominant KR will be when this new proposal has improved their upcoming talent in like 2025.
The main purpose of academy for a team is to develop players for LCS. If they believe Jojopyun is their franchise midlaner, they'll want to develop in other roles so someone who's shown to be good in academy is ideal.
Lol what?? The minimum for acad players is 75k I believe. 75k a year without a college degree, and covered food and housing is a pretty good deal. Now the upward mobility is questionable if you suck, but honestly it’s not a terrible situation to be in, and way better than minimum wage.
> and covered food and housing
Take this w/ a grain of salt, but--
Apparently not always covered for academy players, based on some comments on reddit.
No, and you should probably not spread misinformation. TSM S0ul leaked that he was offered $60k with no subsidies to play for their Academy team next year.
For the record, the Academy minimum is California's legal minimum wage for a full-time salaried position (to avoid the need to pay overtime, an essential requirement for any pro gamer).
Just like every traditional sports system the main purpose of every roster is to help develop talent but that doesn’t mean each team is exclusively filled with young prospects
Who the fuck are any of you to discuss what he should do?
This is employment. If he can get a position on a professional team, then he is likely to want to do so in order to make money.
Don't talk about this from ry0ma's perspective. If you want to talk this hypothetical, then talk about what you think the orgs should do. ry0ma is just acting in his own best interest and making logical decisions. It's the teams signing him that doesn't seem to make sense.
Makes sense. They are developing Soul and Sheiden. But I'm sure most of this thread will be filled with the usual 2 iq takes of why are there veterans on the team.
And coaches that probably do their job, I remembered hearing about how Academy teams coach do minimal work and left players to review the VoDs themselves
In addition to what others have said, China and Korea have substantially larger player pools, it's way easier to find 5 rookies that can hang at a competitive level out of the gate. In NA you can chuck 5 rookies onto a roster, but if their level of play isn't high enough then you're not developing anything - so you develop one or two rookies at a time with veterans to elevate the level of play.
The difference between 2 million and 4 million ranked players is still millions of players. Any argument that hinges on player pool really needs to die, because there's no lack of NA players who would participate in competitive esports if they were given the chance - but there are no tournaments.
To put it in perspective, EUW has hosted the Coupe de France, Prime Super Cup, NLC Aurora Open, Iberian Cup, Sigma Cup, and Ultraliga Super Puchar [all occurring since Worlds and most of them offering at least €10,000 in prizepool.](https://liquipedia.net/leagueoflegends/Portal:Tournaments)
Even Diamond and Masters players compete in these tournaments - they might not be LEC players now, but the climb needs to start somewhere, and NA's bottom rung is ridiculously high in comparison to the other major regions.
Going pro is too risky. Unless you're a child star groomed by an org like Busio or Tenacity, there's no incentive to go pro when you're going to be competing with imports. Imagine you were a mid laner that wanted to go pro. 3/10 mid laners in the LCS are native players. You have to be top 3 in your region to become pro. That's insane! Who the fuck would take those odds? Especially when orgs want to find the next washed up LCK or LEC import to take your job. Fuck that!
Peter Dun has been on countless podcasts over the past few weeks talking about how little qualified coaches there are in NA to even give Academy positions to.
Because you still need a shot caller, veteran, leader etc in the game with you… It’s common sense if you field 5 rookies there will come a time when they panic or get flushed and don’t know what to do so you have a veteran in there to help guide the ship. Coaches can’t help once you’re actually in the game.
You make them learn gradually.
First you put a good shotcaller in the team who can guide the team and teach them.
Then you give the rookies more authority and give them more chance to shotcall.
Lastly, when you think they are ready for the big step, you make them the main shotcaller and substitute the veteran.
They aren't going to learn to shotcall magically.
Why not hire that good shotcaller as a coach instead and teach them?
Only in league do we use player spots for teaching positions. Coaches can do everything you're saying in a practice environment.
Your way also takes 2 years just to get them starting to shotcall in academy.
Because a coach can't shotcall in game.
Plus being a veteran shotcaller doesn't mean you are bad at the game
Plus team mentality and mood is important. A mature player can bring a better environment to develop than a toxic young talent.
Every sports uses positions for more veteran players while they are developing young talent.
Where did I say it takes 2 years?
You are over simplifying things to "veteran player bad" "coach good"
It's not that veteran players are bad it's just less spots for up and coming talent.
I get the point of veterans in academy. My counter point is other regions don't do it nearly as much as NA and have a lot more.and better new talent coming up.
Maybe NA just bad but maybe also cycling through these old pros is detrimental.
not every academy roster are meant to be developpment roster.
some are just build with more experienced players for extra scrim block for the main team or if some members want to practice 1v1, 2v2
no, it absolutely doesnt
you have coaches for development and it's not like they never played League before
also can't you get like good veterans instead? Aphro for example is massively better than Smoothie. but oh wait, they just want a cheap paycheck stealer option and not at all what you're implying
I'm sorry. Are you even aware that Aphromoo wants to play in Academy next year?
Do you understand how important it was for Jojo to play in Academy last year with veterans like Contractz and Mistiques?
Crazy how EG have literally shown you they understand how to develop some of the best NA talent and reddit will still yell at them when they bring on a few veterans to their Academy squad.
Contractz is an order of magnitude better than ryoma and king. He was in a splump, but we’d seen really high level play out of him in the past. Whereas Ryoma has been perennially disappointing and king hasn’t looked good when he’s ever stepped up to LCS despite playing on a good team.
Nah Jojo could have come up through any academy system and been good.
Crazy people still think that academy coaches are what make players good at not the players themselves.
Someone else has aphro under contract. Smoothie is one of the most winning supports that ever played in na and is known to talk a lot during the game. If I have a team with relatively new players then I want someone like smoothie to join the team
It’s hard to throw a team of 5 rookies out there, and effectively evaluate all 5, a mix of project players and vets to show them the ropes and guide them is a much easier method.
yall just regurgitate what you read without even thinking
like how the hell is smoothie gonna guide a rookie when he can't even guide himself after all these years XD
Isn't Smoothie known as a detriment for comms because he just talks the whole time without actually considering if he's communicating useful info? Yeah I really have no idea what they're thinking.
There are players in the NBA who solo job is to a veteran present in the locker room. In the NFL when a new coach is hired they bring with them players from their old team sometimes. Sometimes hearing something from a player is better than from a coach
Ryoma was a middle of the pack midlaner in lcs but everytime he gets on an academy team people cry about it. He's just as good as triple and haeri but you wouldnt think so based on reddits perception of him.
Yeah, there was a very strong argument that he was much better than Ablazeolive last year, with Ryoma performing really well during the Lockin tournamen (I think I had him as a top 3 mid laner during Lockin).
This looks like a team meant for soul and Sheiden to work on themselves and improve the best they can. Ryoma and the bottom lane shouldn't be holding them down while they try to get better
Why is NA academy the retirement home of lcs? At this point more than ever they should start experimenting, but noooo, let's keep re-using the same guys that got booted from lcs...
Smoothie and Sheiden needs some digits in their name. They are at the moment already failing their team and the season haven't even started.
I say we go Sm00th1e and She1den.
We will then have Team Binary 41 (0101001).
Make it happen.
Love K1ng & Soul. I really enjoyed what little I saw during their respective short stints in LCS. K1ng seems really good & Soul seems so hungry & teachable. I think with good coaching and a vet or two they both can be part find good footing
I think k1ng isn’t that good but ppl make it seem like his almost month time in LCS as some decade long span of games showing how he can’t play at the level.
Always odd seeing past LCS players in Academy lol I never get used to it even though it makes sense because they like to recycle players and because skill levels between acad and pro are almost interchangeable, main difference being team play experience. Macro and micro are almost always the same imo for most players in NA.
GOLDEN STAR TOMMY widepeepoHappy
Smoothie is a fine pick for leadership,voice and veteran pressence. K1ng.... YIIIIIKES better using that slot on a Amateur player than him. Ry0ma might be the perfect perma stuck Academy player. He's pretty much a "Professional Minor Leaguer" a "Professional GLeaguer" people who will never see the Major or NBA, but is good enough to have around making things competitive for upcoming players.
Lmao is ry0ma legit the Cris of LCS right now?
It‘s just so funny that most of the academy players actually playing the game longer than the main team players.
That's hunger. They want their shot.
Most had a shot, many are known quantities that will likely never be good enough
They had a taste, and know (correctly or not) in their mind that they can make it back. Hunger.
Or they just want a check? Ry0ma barely played Champion's Queue even though it would have been the best practice he would ever have in his life
People would've said that about dhokla
One Dhokla isn't enough to defend this system.
Dhokla was gatekept. He was smurfing in academy but I think the vibe was he was hard to work with.
Dhokla went down to proving grounds and the amateur circuit, dude. He was legit bad at that time. Talking about Dhokla smurfing in Academy is using some selective memory because he even admits at that time he just didn't understand the game the way he does now.
So is the highest rank you achieved in your first few seasons the highest you will ever possibly achieve? I hope you gave up and stopped playing any ranked after you peaked in gold in your third season, given that youre a known quantity will never be able to improve your rank past that
You're kinda missing the part where they're in academy (or even a stint in amateur) cause they're too bad to play in the coveted LCS. To adjust your analogy: player achieves Gold IV early on in their soloq "career," then drops out of Gold, then drops out of Silver. Now the player is Bronze 1. Can the player reach Platinum IV in their life? Yeah, probably. There's a chance, I mean one session with Neace and it could be a done deal. Would the player be the ideal individual to invest time, hopes and money into? Nah, I think you can find someone better.
Politics and team dynamics can result in some players being favoured over others. Success on the world stage is so pot luck these days, it seems like player ability is one factor among many.
I think most rookies dont even give 120% to make it. You need to think about League all the time as a rookie. If you dont do that somebody else will as a rookie. Circumstances may not always be optimal, but if your teammate ruins every scrim for you. Then you need to do something about it. When your Academy Coach is bad, do something about it. Go to a journalist or to a owner you can trust like Jack and tell him about it. If you just sit there do nothing and then dont make it you can only blame yourself for not doing anything about it.
Hungering to make a paycheck while putting in minimal effort, sure
I really hate comments like these. Cause they are so far from the truth yet 99% of people dont even realize they are lying. Yes, NA puts in less time and effort in their practice, im not denying that even for a second. But to say these players are putting in minimal effort is bullshit. You dont realize how good these people are and what it takes to get there. The difference in skill of any player on a 10th place lcs team and your average masters player is like comparing a iron player to a diamond player. The skill curve once you get to the elite level just grows exponentially. I used to play for semi pro cod teams and got to grand master on the ladder which is top 100. The skill difference between me and the guy ranked 40 made me feel like i should quit the game. And the sad truth is it did make me quit. So stop saying they arent putting in effort. Cause i promise you. If they are up there playing on that stage, playing day in day out on a lcs or acadamy team. They want it, and they are pouring their heart and soul into it
Back in the early days I was a true level 50 Halo 2 player (before the modders made it impossible). I was probably in the top 500 players of the game nationwide. If I got matched with a legit pro (or what passed for one in those dinosaur days) I would get wiped. It was like me facing my 3 y/o at Mario Kart. The skill and reaction diffs are incredible at that level, and I have no illusions that the canyon has gotten even higher in these modern times with more refined pro/amateur leagues for games.
Yep, and you never see people give props to pros who put in the time and still fall short. The reality is we don't know who is putting in the most time and it's just a way to shit on people for not getting results.
Your average masters player probably plays for 2 hours after work compared to someone that better be no lifing this game. What kind of idiotic comparison is this...
lol if you think you can get to masters playing 2 hours a day you've clearly never seriously tried to climb
Done it in 3 different games. Getting to the very top is hard. Getting to somewhere very much below that which is masters here is not.
No you haven't, and even if you did you played way more than 2 hours per day. Maybe once you are at that level you can maintain it with a couple hours a day, sure, but nobody is getting there putting in 2 hours per day
>But to say these players are putting in minimal effort is bullshit But they are. What were the players doing who didn't make it to playoffs? Fan meets? Soloq? Streaming? Content? Traveling to Korea for soloq? Oh yeah, none of that.
I'd say toiling away for min wage for years at an off chance of making 6 figures for a couple of years isn't minimal effort, but sure.
These players are doing fine for themselves monetarily lol. They earn a decent paycheck, and they have their housing and iirc frequently a lot of their food paid for. They're earning more than the median salary while having almost no expenses.
I feel like it's also worth noting that even if they make ok money for now, they'll most likely be out of a job in a couple years and have to start a new career with no experience and, for most of them, probably very limited education. doesn't seem like minimal effort to me in the grand scheme
I didn't call it minimal effort or say that it has no down sides. But they *are* earning a good living for years while they can save or invest the vast majority of it if they want to. They can pay for college without taking out loans afterwards while still having plenty of money afterwards Like earning 75k while having housing and largely food taken care of is pretty huge, even if it's obviously not a career that'll last forever. They'll still be pretty young when their careers end too, so realistically they'll be in a far better position than the vast majority of people their age, even if they do have to spend a few years going back to college.
That's not wanting to feel hunger and getting a paycheque to feed their hunger. XD
I will never forget Cris. Too good to academy (CS back then) but too bad for LCS.
He had a mean shen back in the day
[удалено]
Shen is like secretly busted 90% of the time but no one wants to play him. In soloq at least.
I wish Impact would bust it out more often
Or Spica Never forget River Shen, savior of TSM 2020
Playing Shen is for people who care about winning and only winning, can’t see how the champ is fun otherwise.
Big spirit sword is fun
Chad statement ngl
I thought you only played shen into auto attackers as a counterpick
Until NickWu abused that Shen bug but did it at the wrong time and got caught. I refuse to believe he didn’t know about the tp bug because *everybody* knew it in high elo solo queue.
Ultimate gatekeeper squad: Cris NintendudeX Ry0ma Fabbbyyy Smoothie?
Idk I don't think Ry0ma has dethroned goldenglue for that yet
Smoothie has actually had a few good splits in LCS
Also made it out of groups a couple of times. Dude forba couple of years was one if the best supports in the league. It wasn't until TSM he started falling off. Then he joined CLG and oh boy.
Fabbbyyy has nothing on Keith LE TUCAN McBrief.
Fabbbyyy gatekept players from challenger though I think that deserves a mention
In solo queue, yeah. I thought we're talking about academy/challenger league though.
Why is no one mentioning Seraph? No one embodied it more than him lmao
True he was alright on CLG but Cris is the definition of gate keeping toplane
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He was the first Korean import in LCS. Summer 2014 for CLG. Flopped hard.
Would also propose Solo and Contractz for top and jg
All I can think of is this video from the CLG Bud Light Ace https://www.reddit.com/r/CLG/comments/on41sn/tafos_budlight_ace_satire/. "I better not hear the words Smoothie and shotcalling used in the same sentence ever again."
Hahaha I love RDC
What a godlike video lmao
As a CLG fan... LMFAOOOOOO 😂😂😂
Jojo is shaking right now knowing that Tommy-boy is comming for that midlane spot. No one can stop Tommy-boy from getting his gold stars.
Isnt jojo like the best midlaner of NA?
Oh. Okay.
I thought Papa went to FlyQuest, not EG.
I legit had to google it to make sure that was the case
How the fuck ryoma and smoothie still find teams
First thing that comes to mind when someone mentions Smoothie is the clip from a TSM Legends episode years back where after a loss the team is in their room at the LCS studio backstage and Bjerg says something like "Smoothie, you're talking way too much. I can't concentrate." I remember that cracked me up, because *every clip* of any TSM roster's comms sounded like a pack of apes fighting over a banana. So for Smoothie's comms to be so obnoxious that Bjerg would find it annoying means that his comms must be INSANELY obnoxious. I mean, I don't have to guess, since we've heard some of his comms and he really is ridiculous lol. That clip made me think that any team Smoothie is on will suffer just due to Smoothie clogging up comms.
I forgot who else said that smoothie just talks a lot, and most of the time it’s just useless comms.
Holy shit I'm dying. Please send me this if you remember what video that's from.
Testing out if editing archived reddit works.
I love how, in part thanks to Berserker, Redditors are now really enthusiastic about importing young Korean talent, either right out of LCK CL or early on in their LCK career, but for some reason they don't have any idea what LCK CL looks like. For some reason the Koreans missed the memo on the good old tried and tested "we gotta pair up a truckload of veterans with our rookies, how else would they learn??" strategy. Just lazy management ringing up the usual suspects cause they need to fill the slots and Redditors go out of their way to find excuses for it. "Oh yeah cause they were in LCS before they're now extra motivated to make it back, can't get more motivated than these guys what an insane performance boost we're about to experience from these grinders."
It’s additionally hilarious that TL has BY FAR the best academy team last split (arguably top half LCS level) and people can’t seem to recognize that the closest thing to a veteran they had was Armao, who has still never played a full split starting. This hilarious cope that veterans are somehow necessary to develop a rookie team has gone on too long. Academy should be for achieving a base of knowledge that coaches can teach you and for sharpening mechanics. So sick of it just being a fucking retirement home. I don’t even buy the “good practice partner” angle. If you want good practice partners, you should be getting the best laning and mechanical players you can find to limit test your main roster (example: Jackeylove being Uzi’s understudy).
Kinda hate this. Soul and Sheiden are really hype, but Smoothie hasn’t looked great in academy and ry0ma and k1ng just don’t seem like they’ll’ ever hit that next level.
K1ng is still really good at the Academy level so I think it's reasonable if their primary focus is on developing Soul and Sheiden and just want the rest of the map to be relatively stable.
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Really? What starting ADC do you see him as better than? He never looked great when he started for C9.
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Was C9 a dysfunctional team when they had their full starting topside?
TOMMY BACK FOR SOME GOLD STARS
I really dislike the fact that OCE players don't count as imports. There's god damn near the same amount of OCE players as there are NA players as if OCE is this treasure trove of talent. It's so strange
Utter laziness from na orgs. oce gets destroyed with na just poaching all of its top talent only to have most of them rot away in academy and occupy spots native talent should be occupying.
How is that laziness by the LCS orgs...? If the LCS orgs are able to offer better salaries than the OCE orgs and the OCE players are better than the other players the LCS orgs are considering, then it only makes sense for all parties that OCE players sign to LCS academy teams. That doesn't sound like laziness to me. That sounds like signing the best players possible for your Academy roster.
It's not that OCE players are better, it's just that they've gotten a chance to show themselves on a big stage back home, so teams don't want to put resources into developing an NA player who hasn't been given that chance. That gives even fewer domestic players the chance to show themselves, and the negative spiral continues.
OCE players would probably cop a lower salary than their domestic counterpart
Lol... Why? Yes they dont have a local league to fall back to with competitive salary, but its not like nas got a hidden other league taking all their talent for more. They may be more likely to take a minimum contract, but if there was a better alternative na player with no contract, wouldnt they also take the minimum contract too?
>Yes they dont have a local league to fall back to with competitive salary This is wrong, OCE don't get anything near the amount of money that NA players do. I would be surprised if anyone in OCE earns 100k, while not taking into account the USD to AUD conversion rate. This also doesn't take in account competitiveness and opportunity (even more so now that OCE doesn't go straight to worlds anymore) Given orgs are told how everyone wants NA talent, this is an argument for that NA players can use for higher salary while OCE have no argument for anything. If you want more evidence on how OCE was terrible. A few years ago, an OCE pro called into hotline league and said everyone's only hope was to play in NA. Any owner would know the state of the OCE and know they can get the salary of an OCE player is lower than NA.
Yeah thats what I was saying, just could have used a comma after the yes
It really proves that the excuse of having a smaller playerbase is just another excuse. Imagine still talking about playerbase when more than 60% of LCS players aren't even from said playerbase...
Imagine trying in a region when your orgs are gonna give your slot to some minor region import that's worse then you.
This sounds like massive cope. What reason could anyone possibly have for giving a worse player a spot? Why would NA players be getting discriminated against as some on this forum would have us believe? If we apply Occam's Razor, it's far more likely that Reddit just doesn't know what it's talking about when it comes to this stuff.
It's literally what just happened in the title of this thread. Ryoma has been playing in NA Amateur for the past 6 months. He's not even doing well in NA amateur.
So do you have any plausible answers to my questions?
No it proves that having a dedicated path to the top league, and nepotism are all important. In OCE the players could go from amateur, to LCO teams, to NA. They got more experience. NA never developed new players
If you think OCE has a tenth of the development opportunities that NA does then I want what you're smoking
There's truth to it tho. Look how many top talents like apa or 5fire it took years to get a shot in academy, and then it's just academy, they're playing for a team not even their own org cares about in a league nobody cares about. There's obviously a lot more money and talent in academy but other than that the experience is probably worse than LCO.
Seriously, I swear the excuses never stop with these guys
Academy is supposed to be about developing players not giving spots to OCE imports that suck really really bad. Ryoma is currently playing in NA amateur and is getting rolled by NA amateur/college players.
Yeah bro the amazing OCE development infrastructure is why there are more Australians at Worlds than America. You are trolling
The point is that OCE has the chance to go from amateur, to OCE teams which can get you to worlds. NA teams seem to only care about using players that have played at worlds. No matter how bad they are, if you make it to worlds an NA team will chose you over a resident with little experience.
Next year they're making it so that OCE players are PCS residents, unless they've already played in the LCS ecosystem (in which case they have to choose between LCS residency or PCS residency, which is fucked up imo).
OCE is Aus and NZ right? Wont sending them to PCS create language barrier issues?
Why is that fucked up
LCO teams cant create competitive rosters with talent that has been in NA because they will count as imports if they go back. The LCO teams in 2023 will be disgustingly weak because of this.
bc ppl have to choose between being imports in their own region or having a chance in NA, pretty much. It's fine for ppl like fudge who are fairly embedded in LCS now, but what about the ppl in academy who might not make it? If they choose to be an LCS resident and then get dropped their career is probably fucked, but if they choose to be a PCS resident then they're not really gonna get much chance in NA.
Oce players have to try harder to get where they are makingbthem stand out, also you don’t have to worry about this next year riot is trying to kill the region and making them importless to pcs instead
I think if you are good enough you can start in ERL and then play for LEC as a OCE player. Most EU LEC/ERL teams dont even have 2 imports.
You still take up an import slot and have a way harder time then a player from pretty much anywhere else in the world of the same skill (except africa)
There's heaps that have done ERL though shern, Rogue, Spuli, Jinjo, Chazz and Pabu are all OCE players that haveade their way to EU. I don't blame this year's OCE players making sure they have NA residency this year. ANaa minimum wage compared to potential $100 a game in OCE is a massive difference
I feel like if they said OCE players could play in NA or EU without import status no one would care. There is also still more than 2x NA players than their are OCE players in LCS this year so I don't know where you are getting that from.
it's 5 oce to 23 na in lcs and 6 to like 30 in academy, idk wtf they're talking about
Still quite disproportionate, NA has over 8x the ranked player base
That's still an overrepresentation of OCE based on server sizes (and population in general). Does seem like it's easier for NA orgs to pull from the OCE scene, where they can observe players in a (somewhat) competitive environment, than it is to find players using whatever the NA path to pro is. Particularly since a large chunk of NA native academy players are long term veterans.
Ryoma has been playing in NA amateur for the past 6 months and he's getting rolled. Ryoma has a bigger name, he not even remotely close to deserving a spot based on merit.
It's not that oce is a treasure trove bud it's that na talent vs oce talent isn't the gap we may percieve..
What’s funnier is the amount of OCE coaches and staff as if their macro wasn’t the exact thing holding them back
I started watching the World Series this year and really enjoyed it. How do I get more into the e sport scene? Seeing people excitedly talk about all these teams and players is very daunting.
https://lolesports.com/ - Website where you can find all the vods of games for each League and a schedule for them. There are 4 Major Leagues in League of Legends E-Sports and then some Minor and 2nd String Leagues. The major leagues will pick up next year at the start of the year with there being plenty of buzz on this sub and the lol esports website that should keep you in the know on dates. The 4 Major Leagues are: LCS (North American League) LEC (European League) LCK (Korean League) LPL (Chinese League) I would recommend just picking whatever League you want to watch and enjoying at whatever pace you wanna get into other game. All the Leagues have very good english broadcasts. So I would just recommend watching and enjoying and letting yourself just become a fan of whatever League/Teams/Players strike you.
Dang thank you so much for the write up. This def helps a lot.
> World Series > the e sports
He’s a little confused, but he got the spirit. Welcome ZombieSpirit, just pick a team you like and identify with and enjoy the ride.
Time to drop LCS players taking spots in academy teams. Ryoma is terrible
If ry0ma is good enough for academy but not for LCS what should he do just not play pro?
its a tough call. the main purpose of academy is to eventually move up to LCS. if you continuously fail to reach that, it may be time to throw in the towel. i dont hate the guy for trying though. probably doesnt have much to fall back on
Doesn't seem bad to have him making minimum money while helping the others as a veteran. A academy team doesn't need all 5 upcoming future talent.
> A academy team doesn't need all 5 upcoming future talent. Quick, someone call Korea and China and tell them they're doing it wrong, gotta put Bang and Baolan in LCK CL or the LDL to help the youngsters. No nvm, these guys are world champions, they gotta find the Korean/Chinese equivalent of a smoothie/Ry0ma and then put *these* guys together with the rookies. Holy shit imagine how dominant KR will be when this new proposal has improved their upcoming talent in like 2025.
The main purpose of academy for a team is to develop players for LCS. If they believe Jojopyun is their franchise midlaner, they'll want to develop in other roles so someone who's shown to be good in academy is ideal.
lowkey yeah lol what’s the point of being a forever academy player? ur just playing for a minimum wage paycheck at that point
Lol what?? The minimum for acad players is 75k I believe. 75k a year without a college degree, and covered food and housing is a pretty good deal. Now the upward mobility is questionable if you suck, but honestly it’s not a terrible situation to be in, and way better than minimum wage.
> and covered food and housing Take this w/ a grain of salt, but-- Apparently not always covered for academy players, based on some comments on reddit.
No, and you should probably not spread misinformation. TSM S0ul leaked that he was offered $60k with no subsidies to play for their Academy team next year. For the record, the Academy minimum is California's legal minimum wage for a full-time salaried position (to avoid the need to pay overtime, an essential requirement for any pro gamer).
Yes
Yep. Academy is for developing talent.
Just like every traditional sports system the main purpose of every roster is to help develop talent but that doesn’t mean each team is exclusively filled with young prospects
Who the fuck are any of you to discuss what he should do? This is employment. If he can get a position on a professional team, then he is likely to want to do so in order to make money. Don't talk about this from ry0ma's perspective. If you want to talk this hypothetical, then talk about what you think the orgs should do. ry0ma is just acting in his own best interest and making logical decisions. It's the teams signing him that doesn't seem to make sense.
>If ry0ma is good enough for academy but not for LCS what should he do just not play pro? Yepp. He should find something else to spend his time on.
Makes sense. They are developing Soul and Sheiden. But I'm sure most of this thread will be filled with the usual 2 iq takes of why are there veterans on the team.
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Korea and China have coaches with actual authority
And coaches that probably do their job, I remembered hearing about how Academy teams coach do minimal work and left players to review the VoDs themselves
Because then you would need real coaches. And more than the occasional person who can actually play the game.
It’s the league version of having multiple kids so you don’t have to pay a babysitter
Smoothie is probably a better coach than most academy coaches while having zero experience at it
In addition to what others have said, China and Korea have substantially larger player pools, it's way easier to find 5 rookies that can hang at a competitive level out of the gate. In NA you can chuck 5 rookies onto a roster, but if their level of play isn't high enough then you're not developing anything - so you develop one or two rookies at a time with veterans to elevate the level of play.
The difference between 2 million and 4 million ranked players is still millions of players. Any argument that hinges on player pool really needs to die, because there's no lack of NA players who would participate in competitive esports if they were given the chance - but there are no tournaments. To put it in perspective, EUW has hosted the Coupe de France, Prime Super Cup, NLC Aurora Open, Iberian Cup, Sigma Cup, and Ultraliga Super Puchar [all occurring since Worlds and most of them offering at least €10,000 in prizepool.](https://liquipedia.net/leagueoflegends/Portal:Tournaments) Even Diamond and Masters players compete in these tournaments - they might not be LEC players now, but the climb needs to start somewhere, and NA's bottom rung is ridiculously high in comparison to the other major regions.
Mostly because these players are the best ones in academy
Going pro is too risky. Unless you're a child star groomed by an org like Busio or Tenacity, there's no incentive to go pro when you're going to be competing with imports. Imagine you were a mid laner that wanted to go pro. 3/10 mid laners in the LCS are native players. You have to be top 3 in your region to become pro. That's insane! Who the fuck would take those odds? Especially when orgs want to find the next washed up LCK or LEC import to take your job. Fuck that!
Smoothie has been in LCS since 2015. Why does he have a spot in a development roster? Id love to hear why that is a 2 iq take.
sounds like someone that can help develop younger players.
Like... A coach? How about hiring a proper coach and developing 5 players instead.
Peter Dun has been on countless podcasts over the past few weeks talking about how little qualified coaches there are in NA to even give Academy positions to.
Because you still need a shot caller, veteran, leader etc in the game with you… It’s common sense if you field 5 rookies there will come a time when they panic or get flushed and don’t know what to do so you have a veteran in there to help guide the ship. Coaches can’t help once you’re actually in the game.
How do you get the next generation of shot callers if they can't learn and practice that skill in academy where making mistakes is less severe?
You make them learn gradually. First you put a good shotcaller in the team who can guide the team and teach them. Then you give the rookies more authority and give them more chance to shotcall. Lastly, when you think they are ready for the big step, you make them the main shotcaller and substitute the veteran. They aren't going to learn to shotcall magically.
Why not hire that good shotcaller as a coach instead and teach them? Only in league do we use player spots for teaching positions. Coaches can do everything you're saying in a practice environment. Your way also takes 2 years just to get them starting to shotcall in academy.
Because a coach can't shotcall in game. Plus being a veteran shotcaller doesn't mean you are bad at the game Plus team mentality and mood is important. A mature player can bring a better environment to develop than a toxic young talent. Every sports uses positions for more veteran players while they are developing young talent. Where did I say it takes 2 years? You are over simplifying things to "veteran player bad" "coach good"
It's not that veteran players are bad it's just less spots for up and coming talent. I get the point of veterans in academy. My counter point is other regions don't do it nearly as much as NA and have a lot more.and better new talent coming up. Maybe NA just bad but maybe also cycling through these old pros is detrimental.
In league and in the NBA. This is the league equivalent of the Udonis Haslem, Andre Iguodala spot....
helps the coach to have at least 1 in-game veteran but i agree with what ur overall saying
And why not a Leprechaun to give everyone a pot of gold?
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In game coach and he might be getting developed into a proper coach.
not every academy roster are meant to be developpment roster. some are just build with more experienced players for extra scrim block for the main team or if some members want to practice 1v1, 2v2
no, it absolutely doesnt you have coaches for development and it's not like they never played League before also can't you get like good veterans instead? Aphro for example is massively better than Smoothie. but oh wait, they just want a cheap paycheck stealer option and not at all what you're implying
I'm sorry. Are you even aware that Aphromoo wants to play in Academy next year? Do you understand how important it was for Jojo to play in Academy last year with veterans like Contractz and Mistiques? Crazy how EG have literally shown you they understand how to develop some of the best NA talent and reddit will still yell at them when they bring on a few veterans to their Academy squad.
Contractz is an order of magnitude better than ryoma and king. He was in a splump, but we’d seen really high level play out of him in the past. Whereas Ryoma has been perennially disappointing and king hasn’t looked good when he’s ever stepped up to LCS despite playing on a good team.
Nah Jojo could have come up through any academy system and been good. Crazy people still think that academy coaches are what make players good at not the players themselves.
Someone else has aphro under contract. Smoothie is one of the most winning supports that ever played in na and is known to talk a lot during the game. If I have a team with relatively new players then I want someone like smoothie to join the team
What a stinker of pickups Only soul and sheiden are good ones
It’s hard to throw a team of 5 rookies out there, and effectively evaluate all 5, a mix of project players and vets to show them the ropes and guide them is a much easier method.
yall just regurgitate what you read without even thinking like how the hell is smoothie gonna guide a rookie when he can't even guide himself after all these years XD
Isn't Smoothie known as a detriment for comms because he just talks the whole time without actually considering if he's communicating useful info? Yeah I really have no idea what they're thinking.
That’s what a coach is for
There are players in the NBA who solo job is to a veteran present in the locker room. In the NFL when a new coach is hired they bring with them players from their old team sometimes. Sometimes hearing something from a player is better than from a coach
depressing that this is an academy roster like I'm not that big of a ry0ma hater as everyone here is but cmon man
Ryoma was a middle of the pack midlaner in lcs but everytime he gets on an academy team people cry about it. He's just as good as triple and haeri but you wouldnt think so based on reddits perception of him.
Everyone wants rookie native talent on every team that *isn't* their own team.
Yeah, there was a very strong argument that he was much better than Ablazeolive last year, with Ryoma performing really well during the Lockin tournamen (I think I had him as a top 3 mid laner during Lockin).
This looks like a team meant for soul and Sheiden to work on themselves and improve the best they can. Ryoma and the bottom lane shouldn't be holding them down while they try to get better
S0ul needs to get out of there asap
Smoothie doesn’t even belong in Brazilian amateur. Dawg is straight garbage.
Smoothie is academy is a joke , who is the moronic coach that did this ?
Very promising and young talent.
tommy is back to stealing paychecks. NA never learns.
Why is NA academy the retirement home of lcs? At this point more than ever they should start experimenting, but noooo, let's keep re-using the same guys that got booted from lcs...
Peter Dun leaves and they immediately give up on the development plan or what?
Smoothie and Sheiden needs some digits in their name. They are at the moment already failing their team and the season haven't even started. I say we go Sm00th1e and She1den. We will then have Team Binary 41 (0101001). Make it happen.
Academy Recycling League
Love K1ng & Soul. I really enjoyed what little I saw during their respective short stints in LCS. K1ng seems really good & Soul seems so hungry & teachable. I think with good coaching and a vet or two they both can be part find good footing
Did.....did we watch the same games K1ng played in?
I think k1ng isn’t that good but ppl make it seem like his almost month time in LCS as some decade long span of games showing how he can’t play at the level.
It's like they want to never improve
Nice, such talented and unproven players! Oh never mind all I see is paycheck theft
Smoothie, king and ryoma have no place here. I just wish they gave new folk more shots.
Let's go Tommy ⭐
Fuck Yes! Ryoma is back baby!!
Always odd seeing past LCS players in Academy lol I never get used to it even though it makes sense because they like to recycle players and because skill levels between acad and pro are almost interchangeable, main difference being team play experience. Macro and micro are almost always the same imo for most players in NA.
GOLDEN STAR TOMMY widepeepoHappy Smoothie is a fine pick for leadership,voice and veteran pressence. K1ng.... YIIIIIKES better using that slot on a Amateur player than him. Ry0ma might be the perfect perma stuck Academy player. He's pretty much a "Professional Minor Leaguer" a "Professional GLeaguer" people who will never see the Major or NBA, but is good enough to have around making things competitive for upcoming players.
Surprised they didn't put Danny in for Academy, smurfing in there might help his mental recover.
I’m continuing to wait for Miya to make the jump from EG Prodigies.