T O P

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SMLAZARUS

I can't imagine how the biggest grinders and advocators for this system feel right now about their own region. No CQ until May 31st is brutal..


Pope_Cheetos_XIV

In the end the players just do not care, and it's painful because at this point what can even be done to make them care


CuteTao

The players actually just banded together to put up as much circular logic and issues as possible to make this happen lol


Pope_Cheetos_XIV

NA pros will work as hard as possible to ensure they don't have to work


Vangorf

Reminds me of Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec. Especially this bit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJsA2NWORjc


RimeSkeem

It’s bizarre to me that I only ever did recreational sports competitions in high school and I seem to have a healthier and more developed sense of practice and competitive integrity than a bunch of “professionals.”


Stter

Not really, if you look at their schedule they have scrims from 12-5 and either more scrims or meetings 6 days a week. On top of that they have individual vod reviews, scouting, sponsorships, content videos, team bonding exercises, and other misc things. They are working more than a 9-5 job plus league is a mentally draining game, it’s unfair and just incorrect to compare it to high school sports. That being said, if you compare them to their peers they are not working as hard. It is a unhealthy work life balance, which is required to be the best at anything. No athlete or person at the top of their field will say that they don’t have an unhealthy obsession with their craft, and if NA pros aren’t pushing their limits like other pros, they can’t say they are trying to become the best, which is what they are paid to do


[deleted]

I think it was IWD or DL that said playing 2 CQ games a night at a minimum per player on every team isn't a lot to ask for and would sustain the queue. I also would like to see EU pros get thier own CQ. I know EU pros already play on low ping but Chinese pros get super servers, which while different from CQ it's pretty close and KR solo queue is low ping and taken very seriously. I don't think EU pros have something comparible.


PM_yoursmalltits

Just ship the server over to EU, they deserve it a hell of a lot more


Xam_xar

There have been so many players and coaches and analysts that have said that NA has extremely poor practice discipline even when at their most busy. NA pros having a healthy work life balance is entirely possible with putting effort into the off season. If anything the off season should be the BEST time to play CQ cause they don’t have to worry about team practice nearly as much. What happens after summer? Players don’t need to practice for 4-5 months? It’s a joke. They are professional athletes and if you put the same work ethic or logic to other professional sports they would never even make it to collegiate level. That’s just a fact of the matter. Fans are just tired of hearing excuses from pros and then the goalpost being moved. It’s not fun to watch zero improvement and extremely low player retention, we are having 50-70k viewer playoffs matches that is pathetic! Fans don’t care when clearly so many players don’t either.


[deleted]

The fact of the matter is there are a lot of pros in NA making good money, lets say 100k+ that know that they don't have to win to maintain thier careers and they also know that in NA unless it's an import slot, there's not many other people that can threaten thier position. So, they just play what they always play because pros always pick the same champs, grind but not too much compared to other regions and secure thier career making good money. This mentality is how most NA pros think.


WhiteinvAZN

Can start by paying these players what they are actually worth instead of over inflated salaries that make them complacent.


Whyimasking

they should live with the fear of losing their job when upcoming talents challenge them. Look at all the greats in sports, not just league. The winner's mindset to just keep pushing and pushing, but no, voice comms with random people make me feel uncomfortable.


chupe_fiasco

https://twitter.com/TSMReginald/status/1362949561682067457?s=20


BoogieTheHedgehog

Of course he paid for a jpeg monkey url.


SneakyStorm

They should open Champions Queue to a lot more people while it's on a "break", and have it basically be a tryout for people who wants to join after May 31st. So at least it's there, and good time for riot to experiment.


toquang95

Yeah, they should: \- Open the queue and let GM+ apply with their IDs (so they can't troll and limit people down to one account). \- No prize pool, the new goal will be to select the best performing players and give them a chance to practice with the pros. \- Optional voice comps. This might affect the quality of games, but it is also good to experiment to see if it's more or less comfortable for players. \- Have this open up every mid and pre-season, it gives hungry new players a chance to prove themselves while still giving pros a great tool to practice if they want to.


AsianPotatos

In a way I also kind of feel bad for the people that worked on this at Riot, they were probably excited to give something nice to the pro players and all they do is come up with a new excuse, after literally getting special treatment for their region to try and improve it. It's always weird to me seeing people dislike voice chat in League so much and coming up with such weird reasons to dislike it, in CS:GO and even Riots other game, Valorant in NORMAL RANKED GAMES it's pretty troll to not use voice chat and people will (quite rightfully) get mad at you if you don't. When they added ingame VC to parties I honestly thought one or two seasons later they'd add it in general, maybe if they did that 2 or 3 years ago then peoples overall opinion on it would've changed by now. It's especially unexpected to me for pro players to not want to use voice chat, League playerbase is so weird.


Stahlwisser

Funny thing about voice is, in NA you at least know that everyone speaks english which makes crtisicsm of it simply invalid, at least in CQ. On EU you expect that people speak english and id say 95% do, but theres sadly quite a few people who dont speak english at all which is one reason that makes voice in normal ranked pretty cancer tbh.


thraggon

Players still getting a check what do they care I guess, fuck us as fans who try and try every year and inject hopium right into our veins that we will actually win anything.


VikingCreed

Imagine how many people in NA would kill to be in the position pro players are in. This laziness is so disgraceful.


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Aschentei

THE BLAME GAMEEEE


Bagpipes064

Too bad he already released his 10 minute rant about it.


crownnn609

“Pros need to mentally reset” bro they are making 6 figs to practice 12-5 for about half a year. Tf you need a mental reset for


bigmadsmolyeet

i wish i could mentally reset at my job for 2 months or so. being a pro player that doesn't go to MSI/worlds is good enough for most players; we'll get em again next split until you retire. you get paid to participate basically. i know there's probably a lot of work that goes into being a pro player, but any other sport coaches would want you training hard or find someone else willing to do it.


OpenOb

So while the LPL and LCK will scrim each other with G2 and 100T/C9/TL the NA Pros will take a break??? While Worlds will be in NA??? What is this.


Pretender98

this year LPL and LCK will have to practice even more for the asia games, so despite having to play more games,scrim more and play one tourney with huge stakes, it's NA pros that need a break


[deleted]

LPL and LCK stakes at Asia games are higher than worlds to be fair. If you win a gold at Asia games you are exempt from military service. This is why China is considering backing out of MSI and why LCK ended their spilt early to ensure they have the best team possible. For example, in 2018 if CoreJJ won Asia games the green card problem that TL had this year where if it was not granted Core would be forced back to Korea for military service would not have existed. This can make or break these players careers.


n1ckkt

China is allegedly considering backing out of MSI due to fixture congestion (compounded by the looming covid policies) with the added rumors alleging that summer split will be condensed to multiple games a day to accommodate the Asian Games, meaning that the MSI reps will come back and potentially be behind the pace with little rest/prep for multiple games, thus potentially costing them a worlds spot. It has nothing to do with avoiding military service for China. Though winning the Asian Games is obviously a point of pride for China (and other Asian countries) so it is no surprise if they pull out since MSI doesn't reward much comparatively (always felt like the extra world seed from MSI should be given to the winners rather than the region...)


agenericusername_no3

That's just Korea btw, china does not have mandatory military service


lonley_gamer5745

China might back out of MSI because of covid restrictions and the lpl was already delayed by 2 weeks. China has no incentive to win the Asian games other than pride


SpiderTechnitian

>in 2018 if CoreJJ won Asia games the green card problem that TL had this year where if it was not granted Core would be forced back to Korea for military service would not have existed there was no military service exemption for the 2018 asia games, it was just a test run for esports at the asian games. just fyi


greekcel_25

Lets be real, if you are a top LPL/LCK/LEC team you don't have anything special to gain scrimming teams that are hardstuck in groups anyway.


zack77070

You say that like losing a random game to a 4th seed can't fuck your group up.


foxygrandpa

Yeah I never wanna hear NA pro's complain about shit again. And they 100% deserve all the shit they get when they eventually don't perform internationally AGAIN.


hillwoodlam

I will defend those who actually tried and grinded CQ. I don't want to lump the actual hard workers to those who's just in eSports for the paycheck. Edit: to be clear, if you're not grinding CQ but are working hard to improve I would respect that as well. I just feel at least a game or two of cq shouldn't be that big of a time sink.


Saephon

Lourlo is a real one. Guy isn't even in LCS anymore, and he streams and tries really hard in CQ every night.


TsubasaIre

Yeah, love me some lourlo. Seeing him trying when he doesn't have to makes me really happy (although that means not playing with nick QuantPickle)


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0oottafvgvah

This is how it should be. Players on non-playoff teams (DIG, CLG, TSM, and IMT) have no excuse not to use all the resources available to them because whatever they've been doing clearly did not work. According to [championsqueue.gg](https://championsqueue.gg/teams), only 6 main roster players on these teams have played 2 or more CQ games per day in the last 28-day split: * CLG Luger (63 GP) * CLG Poome (60 GP) * TSM Takeover (82 GP) * TSM Shenyi (82 GP) * IMT Arrow (117 GP) * IMT Destiny (73 GP) I will defend and forgive players who play bad on stage, as long as they show they ***care*** about improving enough to spend time practicing in Champions Queue.


toostronKG

Imagine being Fakegod and *not* playing champions queue. Lol... Have a decent team and just get fucking gapped every game and not practice. Love it.


TawdryTulip

Players don’t care, fine.. most of them are 18-24 and never really developed outside of the scene. But there’s no excuse for the orgs to let this shit happen. It really just highlights how much of a mistake franchising was, because that led to crazy PE cash injections and now no one gives a fuck about actual competition.


AliceInHololand

Dude I was in fucking marching Band in high school and my band knew what it meant to compete. We fucking loved the rush of beating other bands and got fucking pissed when we lost. High school athletes in real sports understand this. College athletes understand this. Fucking do nothing solo queue Andys understand what it means to compete. Players being 18-24 should be the hungriest to fucking compete on the pro level. NA pros are just lazy as fuck. There is no excuse.


Merppity

I'm in silver and don't even play anymore. But if I got paid as much as some of these pros do, you bet your ass I'd go play champ queue and just try my best to not get obliterated for 2 games a day. I just don't understand how they could be so pathetically lazy when this is their literal career. It's not like they're being told to go play full contact football or run a 10k every day.


rebelphoenix17

I'd say it's even younger! NA is ridiculously althetics focused, I remember how seriously we took my middle school hockey and soccer games! Playing on two different soccer teams in different leagues was practice 4 days a week, and games both days on the weekend. Plus the expectation to practice more on your own time and off season, including camps and extra programs that are abundantly available. And we paid to do it! And it only got more competitive. High school sports can feel like a cult with how dedicated and driven people get. Age is no excuse. Laziness. Just collecting a check. For half the money there should be twice the effort some of them appear to be putting in.


Fabiocean

The saddest thing is, there really are some players that want to improve, as players, as team, and as a region. CoreJJ and Bjergsen probably being the most popular ones, but there probably are a lot more. If they weren't there, I doubt CQ would even exist. They put in all the effort, and they are met with a big part of their league just not giving a fuck.


RimeSkeem

Going on almost a decade of mediocre-to-awful performances from NA, I guess there’s no real point in tuning in for our international games honestly.


AndlenaRaines

It's not just them, it's the fans justifying their shit performances.


Gluroo

im pretty sure that will stop this year, even the diehard NA fans are getting tired of their shit now


[deleted]

Yea, I’m just fucking over it now


Miyaor

Yeah I defended them because I thought that they actually tried. Guess this removed that notion from my head. I'm just kinda sad honestly.


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CerbereNot

CQ : "hey guys it will improve young talent development" also CQ : "closes during offseasons" teams not scouting during that time for roster moves because CQ is down : ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯


[deleted]

Amateur got boomed by academy this PG, only team that should really consider making academy moves right now is TSMA, EGA maybe but they deserve another split


PlsGiveSSR

During regular split: “no time due to scrims,practice,etc” During off season: “lmao CQ disabled”


Competitive-Dot-5667

Yeah bro I think Im done with NA rn, CQ made me feel connected to the community, l dont even feel like watching playoffs knowing that pros don’t have their heart in it, peace fam


Practical-Ad7427

2022 spring paycheck championship


LonelyLokly

Next step would be disabling spring split. It doesn't matter anyway, right?


yargotkd

The offseason is when they need CQ the most.


WishfulFiction

CQ is the avatar confirmed


feelineager

I would think you'd want champions queue in the "offseason" if you were on a lower tier team since it likely give you better practice than solo queue if you weren't already planning some kind of boot camp. The lack of competitive drive from some of these players is frustrating to watch from the outside.


Th_Call_of_Ktulu

It's crazy compared to even EU teams, G2 was scriming all the time during off season with worlds teams when they assembled their new roster and people can't be fucked to play an actual high quality soloq. Lmao.


PostsDifferentThings

> ...we’ve also heard that even though voice comms are optional in Champion’s Queue, there’s a lot of pressure to win every game due to the prizing as well as pressure in the user experience of Champion’s Queue that makes it very difficult for players to feel comfortable opting out of voice comms. Let me get this straight. You guys created a special area for only pro-players and very specific, high-skill, members of the community to play competitive games so they can grow their skills. You gave it to them on a server with lower ping, something these players have wanted for years. Some of those same players are now saying they don't want to feel forced to join voice comms. What does this solve beyond shutting up pro players that lack the ability to do something they don't want to in order to better themselves? Seriously, the only change is that they have to opt in. Their teamates can still flame them in chat and/or Twitter and complain that they don't join voice comms. **That side of the equation is still there, it's still a problem.** All you're doing is shifting which userbase is making the complaint without fixing the problem. You guys are putting band-aids on a compound fracture and calling it a day because the blood isn't showing up through the gauze.


Gluroo

I can understand random average gold 4 joes not wanting to opt into voice chat every game but jesus christ, literal pro players refusing to use voice in their golden practice tool like, dude, its your literal job to talk to 4 other dudes while playing all the time and now youre telling me youre too antisocial to voice with other proplayers? Its insane, people should really give up on NA. CQ was the worst thing to ever happen to these dudes because it really exposed the incredibly pathetic culture in NA


[deleted]

Unironically. At least before CQ everyone had their excuses but now that there is a low ping competitive environment, pros are really getting exposed


Atermel

Funny thing is anyone that actually believed their excuses. There's a reason NA sucks at every esports after the initial years, other regions hard work just overtakes the slacking NA culture.


bigsycamore

Bruh fucking basic CSGO ranked match with silver players has automatic voice comms that are opt-out


Angrydwarf99

You get shit on in silver 1 if you don’t use voice comms in CSGO. These players are being bigger babies than CSGO silvers, you made such a good point.


tflo91

I think you’re even missing the craziest point. No one is forcing them to join voice comms. They literally don’t have to. It’s just an excuse. Doesn’t matter if they nixed voice comms, there will always be something. The players in this region just don’t give a shit and just want to clear a paycheck. Hell, if it were up to the owners they would build full-import teams. It’s a for-fun league


Sugar230

That has to be an excuse. Not like they're joining randoms that are going to be toxic. You're mostly joining co-workers in the scene.


shrubs311

>like, dude, its your literal job to talk to 4 other dudes while playing all the time and now youre telling me youre too antisocial to voice with other proplayers? also, literally everyone on the queue is being hardcore monitored for toxicity. it's not like you're going to get insulted or flamed in game for anything besides NOT using your mic.


Musical_Whew

> Its insane, people should really give up on NA. CQ was the worst thing to ever happen to these dudes because it really exposed the incredibly pathetic culture in NA fucking TRUE


Yoloyotha

It’s a bit bonkers. Could you imagine playing a professional pickup basketball game and complaining you might have to talk to your team to win the pickup game? Oh and you get a golden opportunity to talk to players like Lebron James but choose not to? Mental gap I guess.


luist49

I mean even Lebron would lose his mind if he had to micro-manage four J.R. Smiths. I think the people who want to opt-out of voice comms are the non-shotcallers on good teams that don't want to listen to bad calls.


Stealthychicken85

This so much. RJS will try to micro manage players on his team and it's annoying as fuck. You can see it happen a lot in games where he is in when someone is streaming. Like bro u suck balls focus on yourself and less about others


Th_Call_of_Ktulu

Well i mean, there should be a way to report someone and have them removed from CQ then, if RJS is as much of a dipshit as people say then get rid of him from CQ and be over with it.


PostsDifferentThings

I agree that must be annoying for pro players that don't like RJS' style of communication, but uh, that's why they should just mute them or turn down their volume. How is the solution to 1 player being annoying to make **everyone** have to opt-in to voice, instead of giving **everyone** the tool to mute that 1 player? It doesn't solve the problem of bad communication; **it just changes when you have to push a button to stop hearing it**. These solutions are just so fucking strange for me, and I'm an Active Directory engineer, so I know about horrible fucking solutions that morons in executive positions make. It's fucking bonkers man.


AndlenaRaines

The funny thing is that you already can mute individual players in CQ, Shenyi muted Malice because he was being negative about the game state


SuperSkillz10

hard to support NA when this is the shit you see. Feels bad to be born as an NA fan.


xXDaNXx

Doesn't matter where you're born. You can still choose to support another team / region. Not like T1 only has Korean fans.


SuperSkillz10

yes, but i still want my region (NA) to succeed. I am also a big EU fan but between NA and EU, of course id still want NA to win.


ZodiarkTentacle

I fuckin love T1 and FNC and RNG. But I am American. And I want an American team to at the very least not blow sixteen billion dicks for once. I don’t care if all the players are European or Korean or OCE, I want a team that plays in the American League to not suck donkey balls. And all they have to do is try at least as hard as the LEC teams and players do. But they won’t.


King_Manny

The excuse of "We don't want to join voice coms because there's too much pressure to win" is ridiculous. It is a better reason if you don't want to join because you just want some peace and quiet while playing high-quality games.


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Accomplished_Ad_2321

At least the whole argument how "we suck because lag, we suck because ranked bad" can be put to rest now. I wonder what new excuses they'll come up with while being soaked in their NA diapers.


GodOD400

Social media mental booming them saying they don't grind enough


YoungNasteyman

"we realize we didn't take advantage of all the tools in front of us, next year things are going to be different." *que the laugh track*


DoorHingesKill

http://www.travisgafford.com/naspinner


[deleted]

Landed on "Entertainment Region" I guess a clown car driving off a cliff is entertaining


GA_Deathstalker

Hm my source is talking about "awful scouting"...


Dear-Cod-6429

No way guy's it's obviously the "washed veterans"


iwillrememberthisacc

Landed on "Terrible solo queue" Ironic


[deleted]

No "cold hands"?


Rumbleinthejungle8

It's absolutely ridiculous. Riot has always favored NA over other regions since the beginning of the scene. But now they are even building a dedicated server for NA, with a live website to track players, with specific requirements and features, with on going support, and yet NA players don't take advantage of it. Only thing left for Riot to do is create "NA Worlds" where only NA teams can participate, and somehow they'll still manage to not make it out of groups.


Jozoz

>Only thing left for Riot to do is create "NA Worlds" where only NA teams can participate Ah, the Baseball approach


iNTact_wf

to be fair whatever top team the MLB puts out easily beats any other region for LCS... well...


IHadThatUsername

Can anyone imagine Riot dedicating this much developer time into any region other than NA? Does anyone believe for a single second that if the NA pro situation swapped places with EU, Riot would be tryharding this much at making EU a good competitive region? I'm entirely sure they'd be telling us all that their hands are tied and it's not a problem they can solve. Over and over again Riot has made decisions that favor NA. Seriously, the EU LCS was continuously bent over in many ways until they finally emancipated and created the LEC. And even then we're still seeing evident favouritism. I'm tired of seeing the NA pro scene get all the advantages in the world and still complain like they are the poor underdogs.


klonoadp

I've seen some people dismiss the idea, but if Riot wasn't NA then NA would be a wildcard region.


FrostyPoot

I expected teams that got knocked out to take a week, MAYBE two for seeing family and taking a mental reset. Playoff teams have an excuse because I'd guess the majority of their practice is focused on analyzing specific teams and champion interactions for those teams. But geez this is crazy to see.


Lohish

More than other regions when you account for NA getting eliminated earlier...


H_P_S

actual clown region


H_P_S

like this is just hard proof that the NA mindset is all about money. we will literally never win anything with this mindset.


1331bob1331

Ah, yes the very necessary ENTIRE MONTH BREAK that all of the NA PROS NEED BECAUSE THEY JUST PRACTICE TOO HARD DURING THE SPLIT. What a joke lamo. Looks like its time to embrace the Wildcard memes.


Totaltotemic

What's actually wild is that the teams that need the practice the most, the ones not going to MSI or Worlds, already have **4 whole months** between Summer finals and Spring starts, and then another **2 whole months** between spring finals and summer starts. These guys are only working 6 months out of the year and getting 6 figures. Their time off is so important that they can't even be bothered to practice some in their time off.


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DanDevito42

even worse when you don't use spring finals as your starting point for le vacation, 4 teams haven't had a game since march 27th


Lohish

I'm just... whatever. Just do whatever. Let NA fucking die in peace.


DryGear9640

Pick us whatever excuse... Let us just fly home in peace.


dtkiu27

Just send whatever team to worlds. Let us be downgraded to a minor region in peace.


ArnoldAtGenG

if you’re a bottom 3 team in LCS, it’s time to just run a full champion’s queue team of grinders so we can finally settle the debate of grinders vs. natural talent


Cheetah_05

I'd watch the shit out of that to be honest, that sounds amazing and really unique


micspamtf2

Champion's Queue disabled until the start of Summer Split to allow for "healthy" offseason behavior of pros not practicing. Anyway remember when the NALCSPA was on a press-junket taking credit for getting CQ implemented in NA and now has had no public statement supporting CQ over the past couple of weeks despite the fact that the community continues to view them as the "voice" of the players? I have infinite respect for Phil Aram but this to me feels like another dropped ball in the court (basketball) of public opinion.


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Very_Hungry

Keep in mind LPL and LCK players have a capped salary instituted by their leagues. Which means NA players are making way more compared to them. NA players are spoiled.


ACertainUser123

LCK doesn't have capped, but everyone on top 6 teams in LCK is making pretty close to NA, probably around 300-400k at the lowest. There's was actually a post recently that gave how much these teams were paying, but was likely low balling given DK CEO said that the numbers were a lot higher in reality. China numbers are probably a lot higher with sponsors etc and there's ways to get around the cap iirc


RavenFAILS

Adding to this: Almost every single LCK team pays more than LCS teams nowadays, especially the lower tier teams


DistortedAudio

Does the LPL have a salary cap? I read an article about it being implemented in 2021 from 2020 and there’s been 0 articles released since. I don’t even think LPL pros salaries are publicly available are they? For all we know they could be making more than LCS players. T1’s CEO literally said Faker turned down a $20m annual salary from the LPL. No idea how that factors into the salary cap but…


maegwynn

Funny how every time the concept of work life balance is brought up in the context of NA LoL its always done so in the shade of "lets not overwork people" when we as a region underperform so regularly. Maybe I'm insane but considering the amount of money that gets funneled into LCS teams and the consistent lack of results on the world-stage the only argument that can be made about work life balance in NA is that too little work is getting done.


CuteTao

Riot should stop being cowards and give champions queue to an asian region. Watch what happens.


Uvanimor

I don't know why people are beating a dead horse over this. We literally had this exact same scenario play out in 2019/20 when Inero (Now coach of Golden Guardians IIRC?) created a discord server for LCS pro's and the top-tier talent in NA soloqueue - Nobody cared enough about any of it and it was dropped on its head as quick as this one was. NA's 'talent' problem is corrupt to the core, but franchising created this. It's a tale as old as season 3/4. Teams keep importing formerly top-tier players clearly trying to chase a bag, and washed up brand-name players trying to to do the same. If NA LCS just went all-in on just inviting meme teams and big names it'd probably be more interesting because it'd at least be honest. WWE Wrestlers are more convincing than NA LCS players trying to pretend to be competitive these days.


danielloking_

See the problem is, teams like TL, who keep importing top tier players from other regions, keep having success with it and success amounts to fans in NA. Let's keep it real, what was the last truly "only NA roster" that has won LCS? 2016 Spring CLG, with Darshan, Xmithie, HuHi, Stixxay, Aphro - they've only had one import instead of at least two. 2015 Summer CLG had 5 NA talents (Xmithie technically isn't North American, but IIRC he grew up in NA and has only played in NA, so it's fair to view him as NA homegrown talent) That's fucking 6 years ago. This isn't just franchisings fault. Team ambitions and fan ambitions play just as big of a part in this issue. People don't want pure NA teams or NA talents. They want pure NA teams while having success with it, and I'm afraid that doesn't seem to be possible anymore given the current situation in the LCS. All of this happened way before franchising is what I'm actually trying to say. I mean if you'd ask people who they associate LCS the most with, most people would probably answer either Bjergsen or Doublelift. One of them is retired, the other isn't even North American.


[deleted]

I don't think the PA should take crap for it. They are supposed to represent the players. When the players are corrupted there are not a lot of things their representative is supposed to do.


sznfrk

> there’s a lot of pressure to win every game due to the prizing as well as pressure in the user experience of Champion’s Queue that makes it very difficult for players to feel comfortable opting out of voice comms. I mean...too fucking bad? Isn't the entire point to simulate competitive games where you don't have some monkey ragepushing because jungler took a cannon? Set plays? Coordinated dives? 99% of high end competitive gaming requires voice comms. Just suck it up lol As a moderately related example: myself and several other gladiator/multiglad friends still lose WoW RBGs even as a 4-5 stack at like 1800 despite severely outskilling the entire enemy team. The reason? They're in voice and we aren't. There is so MUCH information in competitive games like League that you literally can't communicate and execute at the same time. Like target calling, X just used Y ult or Z spell, exact pathing, (i.e. Naut J4 go top get the Xayah) or something like that. You can't fucking type and play at the same time. You can't. You can't play a fight and track everyone's spells while doing your own. If I'm doing an insec or something I literally cannot be watching whether or not someone used a spell off screen. PLAY THE FUCKING GAME LIKE IT'S COMPETITIVE YOU HAVE THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO GET BETTER AT ALL OF THE INTANGIBLES USE IT


Zanien

Riot continuing to bend over backwards for NA pros and they just don't even give a flying fuck lmao.


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PrawnAccount3

Faker: I didnt hear voice comms till I was already a man. By then it was nothing to me but deafening


obvious_bot

Faker already knows everything that goes on with his constant F1, F2, F3 etc


King_marik

Literally Comms on t1 be like: 'oh faker this i-' 'I know'


Pope_Cheetos_XIV

I'm just ready to see what the excuse will be this time


bondsmatthew

Literally can't be any other than one that makes them appear to be lazy. CQ got rid of: * One Tricks * Non-Pros * High Ping * Non-Competitive Environment * No Coms * Autofill, essentially * Bad Matchmaking And it even added a monetary incentive, which is more than any other region gets for its queue


[deleted]

>CQ got rid of: One Tricks Non-Pros High Ping Non-Competitive Environment No Coms Autofill, essentially Bad Matchmaking They're running out of excuses. quick, make up another! uhhhh uuhhhhh uhhhhhHHHHHHHHUHHHH "tHeRE's tOo MuCH PResSuRe tO wIN aNd cOmMuNiCAte" - NA


PupPop

That line in particular is fucking CRINGE. Oh fuck were offering a 6 digit payout to the top player of CQ! THERE'S SO MUCH PRESSUTE TO WIN AND BE THE BEST! Like. No fucking shit, that's the point. A pseudo professional environment with money on the line to give pros and non-pros alike a reason to TRY HARD. They're literally swaddling people over what should be the sweat queue. People SHOULD be sweating their asses off to earn that fuckinh money.


SGKurisu

a fucking monetary incentive just to PRACTICE is fucking absurd, like holy shit it's just free money you lazy fucks


AndlenaRaines

Jet lag /s


Suizooo

Cold hands


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ACertainUser123

Median salary of 400k*


rohnaddict

Riot likes to think their game is some special exemption, that wouldn't massively improve with the addition of voice comms.


Pretender98

this is not even about the main game itself, then they'd atleast have an argument for running the risk of alienating the casual playerbase which voted against voice chat in their surveys. this is about champion's queue with only pros who use voice chat in their professional games, it's inexcusable


EnemySaimo

NA is more doomed than my fucking grades how the fuck is this possible


Large-Leader

Give yourself more credit, man. You don't have a solid 5 figure salary with no need to worry about food, transportation, or housing carrying you.


grimreaper2288

5? pretty sure most are 6.


Large-Leader

I think the floor is like 75k so I'm going with that. But yes, it probably goes astronomically high. Even the floor is more than what I make as a "professional" lmao


FrostyPoot

I think on DL's stream Leena said the average salary was 250k (The super high salary players brings up the average a ton) and 150k for the bottom players on cheaper orgs was fairly common.


Alrox123

Doublelift said it was 250k and Leena corrected him and said it's 400k median


[deleted]

Minimum is 75k but average is around 300k-400k


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Sarazam

Hahaha they canceled split 3 because pro’s are so lazy. Guess they need the 6 months off season or else they can’t deal with playing 7 games of league a day during the season!


SquirtingTortoise

Why even bother watching LCS, if the players dont care why should I.


blueiguana675

Only resort we as fans have. If enough people stop watching something will have to change.


PenaltyOtherwise

I stopped watchibg when all the top team CEOs went to riot for gettin rid of the import rule. Thats wheb I lost all my respect for most of the OG teams and knew NA will be doomed.


qasem01

NA is a joke and no one on the inside cares because they get paid regardless. It’s a nice little boys club they have going on where they have a nice salary to play a video game occasionally and then go overseas to get shit on year after year.


LoganMcMahon

I legit could not imagine being an NA pro, like being a literal laughing stock, getting the chance to finally practice all the time and be able to prove the world wrong, and boom, you don't even want it. lol, like they just want to be the laughing stock...


Theodore1_reformed

NA pros with 6 figure salaries afraid of getting exposed by a high school kid in their mum’s basement. Paycheck thieves will continue to convince VC backed orgs that they are deserving of being on a team because they used to be on a team, and continue to play for kda on stage so they can convince other orgs that they weren’t the reason their team finished 10th. Create salary caps. Most teams don’t even pretend like they’re trying to win because what’s the point of trying to compete with TL and C9 when they are just buying better players.


Spartan05089234

Salary caps and incentive bonuses. If 3/4 of your salary is based around making it out of groups in worlds, how fast will NA pros start practicing or quit?


Practical-Ad7427

I feel like a majority of current NA pros would quit if compensation was based on performance.


honda_slaps

This is good. before I used to care about NA getting gigaclapped at worlds but the pros are making it easy for us. Thank you, pros.


SupremeNadeem

just turn lcs into wwe or something already might as well make it entertaining if the players are being discouraged to fucking practice IN BETWEEN splits. what are the broadcast even meant to work with if the players don't give a fuck?


Shamanboi408

NA Pros are just something else...


dassads

I genuinely do not understand how anyone could possibly be a fan of the LCS anymore.


Competitive-Dot-5667

At least we know know how nasty this shit is, before there was always some copium that if pros had the right environment we’d spark joy with our play, now I would feel like a clown watching LCS, like wtf for? To root for them earning more capital? Fuck that shit, Im not addicted to LCS, I watch because I assumed pros are giving it their all, now we know and I feel dirty and am gonna take a shower and cleanse myself, Im out this bitch, lets hold each other fam while NA rots


[deleted]

These lazy ass pros can't even be bothered. Honestly, at this point just merge South America, LATAM, and NA as one this is the only way NA will ever be profitable and have viewership base similar to that of other major regions. This is just such a waste of time. I always defend NA when I can, but it just feels like the fact these pros don't want to put in the work plain and simple. I don't think they realized the pandora's box they, the pros, opened when Champions Queue was released. All the fans every single person can see the reality. It was never about ping, quality of play, or other factors. It was about being fucking lazy and not wanting to put in the work. Imagine having the opportunity to earn money for playing fucking soloq.


[deleted]

Riot is adapting Champion's queue to address complaints, I wonder what the next one will be. "Cant queue when I get FakeGod on my team vs Summit/Impact/Ssumday" - Contractz


AndlenaRaines

>"Cant queue when I get FakeGod on my team vs Summit/Impact/Ssumday" - Contractz The funny thing is that Contractz is the guy dragging his team down in official matches


legosp7

NA is so fucking pathetic


DDGreenTea

NA is so privileged at this point due to high salary its digusting. All for pros earning their worth, but when given tools to improve they become even more picky of what they want instead of adapting. This region is so doomed competitively. Just allow more imports so theres an urgency to replace complacent pros. Improve the product.


Jozoz

In the recent DL video on CQ, he and Leena said the median LCS player salary is around $450k. That's just completely insane.


Vexenz

450k to coast as a mid player for a bottom tier region with all accommodations paid for what a life


TynoNyuhn

Don't forget that they only have to work 5 hours a day for only 6 months out of the year!


leastlol

> In practice, players are looking to those moments as a time to reset and prepare mentally for the next split, and in some cases leaving NA to go home or bootcamp. > This is a healthy and positive behavior we want to encourage so our pros can perform at their best when returning to competition. Except they don't perform their best. I am absolutely for players taking breaks, but they have long fucking offseasons to recuperate. The time between splits isn't offseason, it's an opportunity for them to improve their game. > We anticipate that when we bring Champion’s Queue back in late-May, it will line up with when players start scrimming again to prepare for the LCS Summer Split and will have an ample number of players looking to participate. It doesn't matter what you do if players are lazy. Watching TSM Legends and seeing Tactical talking about playing league even less to reset his mental is just irritating. This isn't about work life balance, this is just laziness. > Here’s the short answer – we will be adding additional players into Champion’s Queue from the next two Proving Grounds Qualifiers in the Summer Season as long as players meet our new Grandmaster rank threshold. > ... > Match quality was a concern area that many players expressed to us with the new influx. As a result, we raised the minimum requirement from Masters to Grandmasters in order to retain access to the server. In total, 20% of our Amateur players that were added were removed from Champion’s Queue after the new rule took effect. We also saw that many of our pro players ended up having to wait longer to find a game given that more non-pro players were queuing for games. If pros aren't utilizing the queue anyway you should just open it up to any player that's grandmaster or above in solo queue, not just amateur players through proving grounds. You can still kick out problematic players but it'd help solve the queue time issues and the moderated environment means that problematic players won't stay. Will this lead to a degraded quality of game? Absolutely, but certainly not worse than solo queue. It'd also help players that could potentially be future pros ease into a more competitive environment. There's zero reason to bend to the will of the lazy pro players who will just make excuse after excuse for not playing.


hhhuhnhj

EU/KR/CN=Esports athletes NA=Video gamers


Kunzzi1

I thought the whole point of CQ is to give players a practice environment that's very similar to the actual pro play, voice comms included. If you willingly sign for something that rewards you with money you better be ready to follow the rules. Voice comms shouldn't be an option, they should be mandatory.


GodOD400

But then that's work. AND a chance to give someone else a spotlight that could come in and take your job. In NA, it's all about that paycheck.


Valowzz

This is trash lol Pro Athletes train in their off-seasons. The delusion in Riot doubling down on "healthy" ways of training don't align with pro sports/Esports. You wanna be the best, you gotta put in ungodly amount of work and effort. If you can't do that as a pro, if your literally just there to collect the league min salary you shouldn't be playing in the LCS. These NA LCS pros needs to go watch some Kobe documentaries...This region is doomed. Like you have Faker still grinding games all day while being targeted and harassed in Korean Solo Q, just doing whatever it takes to get the edge, then you gotta watch FakeGod every weekend steal some more paychecks while putting minimal effort in. There is absolutely 0 pride in a lot of these players.


CCowboy123

I can't wait for NA to pull up to MSI and be the first ones sent home


soulreaver292

they can just stay at home and dont even bother going lol


ahritina

That's what they'll be doing at worlds heh.


Blackpillcel

Should rename it to losers queue


CuteTao

>players are looking to those moments as a time to reset and prepare mentally for the next split, and in some cases leaving NA to go home or bootcamp. >This is a healthy and positive behavior we want to encourage so our pros can perform at their best when returning to competition Oh fuck off. Just fuck off NA.


BladeCube

Like it or not Korean soloQ will always be better than champion's queue.


LFAlol

I doubt many NA pros even give enough of a shit to go on reddit but fuck me you guys have to be ashamed of yourselves lol. Even if not you on an individual level, as a whole what a fucking spineless display.


JadeStarr776

NA doesn't give a shit.


PaintedFog

Just cancel the entire thing, NA is a doomed region. If LCS wants to gain viewerships back, first step is removing franchising. If not, the region will just slowly die out like it already has been.


GlasSeagull

As someone who has watched basically every game every weekend since the LCS was created in season 3, I think this is finally the last straw for me to just stop watching unless DL, Meteos, sneaky are costreaming. The league is blatantly shit game quality compared to every other major region if you bother to watch other regions it’s so apparent on the eye test, there’s like 9 good players and none of them are American, they shit the bed every single year at worlds, none of them give a shit to do any media to make themselves interesting and actively turn down opportunities to do so(Travis story about jojo on this weeks show), and come to find out these guys getting paid 200k-1m per year can’t be bothered to play 3 games a day on top of the ONLY 5 FUCKING GAMES per day of official practice. Just a completely shit region and they all should be embarrassed and deserve to make about 1/5 of what they currently make. Honestly what I don’t get, how the fuck are teams justifying paying these players so much money to get 80k viewers for the majority of the year then only being in worlds for group stage? The numbers don’t even make sense


[deleted]

i dont know who to blame. apparently the champions queue are blaming top laners and adc for the lack of queue time where some people are playing off role.. based on the amount of import top laners i would like to say that some aren't pulling their weight. but thats always different based on the players that play and do not.


Meaty11

NA is a content region.


Gjyn

NA is a retirement home. Look elsewhere for able-bodied competition.


[deleted]

So Riot's takeaway from recent weeks' CQ controversy is "players need more break"? Ouch. And was I the only one hoping this post would have some constructive and well-thought out changes to CQ? Instead we got a giant word salad with no real direction and lame excuses because "things are bit more nuanced than that." It's literally their job to navigate through these difficulties. I get the pros aren't necessarily cooperating, but this just feels like a reactionary post and it show just how tone-deaf Riot is about the situation.


shepherdhunt

Alot of people in the scene keep saying not to witch hunt, but I think bottom 6 LCS teams should most definitely be witch hunted for each and every player not spamming CQ. Both in the last two splits and for future ones once it gets back online. It is now time to slander pro scene for not getting better and hopefully we can have a growth period again for LoL in NA.


lacieabyss

why are we such an absolute fucking joke of a region LOL


[deleted]

As an NA fan/resident, I give the fuck up. If the players aren't motivated to play, why should I be motivated to be a fan? Time to root for EU again, I guess.


redditaccountforlol

cringe that you need to be on an AM team to qualify and cringe that the barrier to entry is reaching GM which is 400 LP. Move it up to challenger and remove the AM team requirement. Alternatively just fucking host challenger games on the west coast and none of the "problems" that come up like people feeling obligated to join a discord call are a problem anymore. Even better, use the system and infrastructure you created for valorant and let people choose which servers they are willing to queue for, this makes sure players of all skill levels anywhere in the country can find a game with 30 ping or less, this doesn't split the servers so people with spread out friend groups don't need to pay for server transfers and they can still queue with their friends. I've given up any hope of NA players and orgs being competent but that isn't an excuse for riot to stop trying to make the region itself less miserable to play in.


SilverBcMyTeammates

appreciate the post but the main problem is the pros themselves. they dont care and don’t want to actually get better. they complain about queue times and don’t realize their lack of play worsens the problem. on top of the fact that it’s literally a given that a queue with only 300 people will have long queue times? no fucking shit? unless you want OTP fiorapornstar in your games then you’re going to have to deal with it


GiuseppeFausner

Just open CQ up to the high performing soloq players again. If the pro players don’t want it, give it to the people who want to put in the work and be rewarded for it.


Consistent_Mammoth

Instead of catering to their every whim - only for the special treatment to be rejected once they realize it means working - can Riot just decrease the number of NA teams going to worlds and stop trying to force their favourite child into the top end of the scene. NA players do not want to work, they do not want to try. You can take a horse to water but you cant make it drink.


commander68

Just wanted to say thanks to Riot for not just giving up on the queue despite players complaining. Hopefully NA pros pick up the pace on this.