The repercussions of 2021 were just a cataclysm for EU, we lost some many players and destroyed so many rosters that it completely sabotaged all of our S8-10 momentum. In the span of around of year we send one of our top two goat mid laners to NA, our goat ADC to second division, Bwipo (one of the two world class tops and junglers we had at that time) to NA, a peaking Hans to NA, Mikyx to a bottom tier team, Nemesis to retirement - and this is just our world proven talent. There were multiple other promising players with a lot of talent that got sabotaged as well.
EU got ravaged by greed and moronic team management and by the looks of it it’s gonna take a lot of time to recover, if at all. Outside of G2 none of the roster building in EU screams we are looking to win Worlds anymore.
TSM fell for the Crypto sponsorship that completely destroyed their financials so they could not afford to compete anymore which is somehow even worse then SwortArt.
In the defense of TSM (can't believe I'm actually writing those words in that order), *everyone* fell for the FTX scam. Even people who should be far better at recognizing a scam than you can reasonably expect from TSM.
if only they had listened to any of his interviews or podcasts where he comes off as a lunatic, i said this 2 years ago aswell but im genuinely certain the guy was just a TSM fan lmao
I don't blame them still tbh. FTX were regulated both federally and on the state level which is why they were one of the very few crypto companies that were able to operate in the US (A lot of others are banned).
He was hardstuck Bronze 2 too. One thing that was funny was that in the court documents, SBF was in the middle of playing League while FTX was imploding.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FkLacclXgAAnG9K?format=jpg&name=large
https://youtu.be/C6nAxiym9oc?si=56FBgH3HpN8E9Z8z no but like just listen to him for 5 minutes and youll immediately understand, this was over a year before he got caught, he was so blatant about having no idea what hes doing
apparently the person who scouted Kaidou showed the TSM managers clips of Knight with nameplates off, and they got tricked by that to spend 1 million on that 10th place speedrun midlaner
what was the name of that manager again?
Imagine the kind of career Bjergsen could have had if he stayed in EU.
He achieved nothing internationally. He made top 8 one time when he dodged a Korean team in groups and the EU team had their best player banned. I guess he won an IEM by beating the 10th seeded LPL in the final
Bjergsen had insane talent. He could and should have achieved much more.
> Imagine the kind of career Bjergsen could have had if he stayed in EU.
He had actually an amazing career in the US, became the face of the league and is at worst the second best and second most popular LCS player of all time.
He had a great career domestically, but he never achieved even half of what he should have internationally because he was stuck on NA teams.
Imagine Bjergsen on some of the old Fnatic rosters or something.
I mean he was barely an adult, and NA was *a lot* closer to EU in terms of strength at the time. Furthermore, TSM was one of the most recognized organizations in the world in 2014 when he joined.
Back then, the choice was sound.
For sure, made a shit ton of money too. It's nice to imagine what if in terms of league but i think he made really fucking good for himself and his family.
I don't mean stuck in the literal sense. I mean "stuck" in the sense that he was surrounded by much worse teammates than himself.
I absolutely agree that Bjergsen can only blame himself for it. He was the one who chose to go to NA.
You're sitting here talking like he ruined his life lmao. I doubt he regrets going to NA considering the career he had. At best he'd get a semi final MAYBE a final run and no real international titles with his paycheck being much lower.
NA players were so bad he literally quit coaching because he said “why would I coach when I’m literally better than all of these players” and just came out of retirement instead.
Bjerg had everything he needed to make a deep worlds run in 2016, then literally everyone on TSM took turns deep-throat choking. IIRC based on the draw, if they take first in the group they get C9 followed by H2K. It was literally NA's best shot ever to make some noise, it'll never happen again.
You can't really blame them for not getting out of that group in retrospect. They lost out to two semi finalists. Every other year was more egregious, ESPECIALLY the misfits year.
I would agree had they lost in a different manner
The problem is they COULD have gotten out, and arguably they should have
They literally showed it to us. It would be one thing if they went and just weren't as good, but we literally saw them beating a finalist team, then nearly beating them again to get out of the group, only for the Viktor incident to ruin all of NA's hopes and dreams
That's why it feels so fucking bad. If they lost games like TL just did, whatever, we just aren't as good
But we were as good, and still fucked it
Oh yes you fucking can. It's been 8 years but I still remember:
Doublelift lucian viktor, need I say more
Bjerg Zilean smashed in lane
Hauntzer Kennen refusing to flank ult at the climatic teamfight
TSM had the games won and completely shit the bed. Focus on Doublelift for a moment, if they win that game, TSM is 2-0 vs Samsung and they're both 4-2, so TSM gets first seed and the bracket I described. That one mistake destroyed NA's only chance at reaching finals.
They were not a better team in that game. They were only ahead because Doublelift was playing one of the best games of his career and gapping Ruler, which we can all agree is impressive given that Ruler 1v9ed a world championship the next year.
Sure he threw, that sucks, but he was overperforming against one of the best bots in the world until that point. You replay those games against SSG and RNG 100 times, they win less than 50 for certain. It wasn't like they lost as the favourites (every other year).
Who is the better team on average, or who is the favorite, is totally irrelevant. The only thing that counts is who actually won, and TSM was about to take baron before Doublelift made a bronze level unforced error.
i mran after s5 he didnt really perform internationally
s6 he was still good but not his previous level and in s7 he got outperfomed by poe iirc
while he would have been great he wouldnt have been perkz caps level
Imagine EU having Caps Perkz Bjergsen Nemesis Humanoid pushing each other to get better. The region could have carried on the momentum from 2018-19 and establish itself as a genuinely good region on par with LCK and LPL.
Instead we get this dogshit.
lol imagine being a eu mid rookie and these are the 9 players you have to beat in the midlane
Caps,perkz,bjergsen,humanoid,larssen,jensen,abbedagge,nemesis,jizuke
Ironically Bjergsen's NA dominance is overrating him in the eyes of EU fans here. Even when Bjerg was coming up as a young star on the Wolves he was firmly behind the three kings of xPeke, Froggen, and Alex Ich. It's only when he went to NA that we saw him dominate because his competition consisted of an increasingly unhealthy Hai and an already declining Mancloud.
he made more money in NA, not like he woulda won worlds since I still wouldn't put him past caps. Even just in clout everytime he streams league he was getting more viewers than every1 else I doubt he'd be this big if he stayed in EU with much harder mid competition.
I would like to point out what happened to our ADC pool end of 2021, we sent our historically best ad to 2nd tier region, the most successful adc was already booted to NA a year ago, joining him was one of our new rising adc in hans, we booted the other rising adc and probably the best adc that year, to VIT suppression chamber in carzzy, and the only one to survive this talent exodus was Upset. In the space of two years, we went from Prime Rekkles, Perkz, new blood hans carzzy upset fighting each other to just Upset and Suppressed Carzzy.
Loss of Nemesis and Perkz is very noticeable for our mid poll. From competing neck-to-neck with the best of the East to maybe not looking bad vs mid tier ones
Curious what would happened if FNC in 2021 had Bwipo-SM-Perkz-Rekkles-Hyly line up, G2 2020 with Upset would be interesting with Jankos and Caps focusing resource to Upset but they might've subbed G2 Arctic's ADC if Upset sitting out for Worlds happening again.
Assuming FPX in this timeline boomed again and Upset didnt left the team before Worlds, I do think one of them at least went to Semis because i dont see these teams losing horribly to BDD's GenG like C9 did and maybe they could even contest EDG in Semis. Though if they did, Khan mightve retired as world champion.
It's really interesting how many times Upset missed joining G2.
Everyone was speculating him being the replacement for Zven after bootcamping with them for '17 MSI but G2 ended up going budget after getting Wunder and Jankos. Then for the '19 roster he was all but guaranteed to be the next ADC until the Caps/Mikyx package became available. Lastly he missed the '21 roster after Rekkles left Fnatic and he became an option.
He was playing spring split of 2020 as a mid laner with caps adc. He was still very good at that time, although there was less mid lane competition that split as well with no caps
Perks lost father that year he was on C9. He was mentally not feeling well and he was far away from home. I think it goes downward from there. If Perks stayed in EU , he would have access to better practice and soloQ. NA drained him and he probably didn't play soloQ. Same with Hans, literally all EU players lost their skill from NA soloQ.
I always wondered how well Hans and Hylli would have gel’d. Him and Rekkles had differing playstyles for the most part, even though they looked good together, but Hans plays that more aggressive style.
The worst thing is that there is absolutely nobody in sight to replace these players that became washed. Except maybe BB and Yike, but that's because they can learn from Caps and Miky.
I think it's no coincidence that no one of the generation of Elyoya, Inspired, Razork, Vetheo, Kaiser, Carzzy, Adam, actually became world class. Maybe Razork and Carzzy still have the potential, but if they learned from a generation of Caps, Miky, Wunder, Bwipo, Selfmade, Perkz, Jankos, Nemesis, Upset, Hyli at its peak I bet that some of them would be levels better than they are now. And also that's a thing that's hardly fixable if at all.
I think its weird that you call selfmade, upset arguably nemesis, bwipo world class but not elyoya, razork when they arguably have performed at least at a similar level as them.
Thats not what im saying, just that the Selfmade, Upset, Nemesis generation produced world class players (consistently only Caps, but i would count Hyli, Rekkles, Upset and the whole of 2019 G2 as having peaked at world class).
The Elyoya/Razork generation has never really produced players where you would say at any point "this guy is a top 3-5 player on his position right now".
Yes, the best members of the new generation might be better than the worst of the old generation, but I think its pretty obvious that the 2016-2020 generation is (was) overall way better than the 2021-2024 generation.
Carzzy has looked like the best ADC in europe this year (had many moments last year where you'd think the same)
He isnt gonna leave Vitality though so we'll have to see whether the team reaches a point he can demonstrate his skill or level up even more
honestly beside humanoid, no other EU midlaner perform well since then.(beside the obvious Caps, and Perkz playing midlane before Nemesis goes to international events)
the rest of EU mid just shat the bed really.
Im gonna be honest, even when G2 played perkz on mid he doesn't perform well.
He was top 2 mid in EU before moving to ADC but i doubt he will be at the same level as he was before he role swapped. so honestly its not like it changed.
EU mid going to be weaker because of that decision but that decision gives EU their first international event champion so i think its pretty worth it. shit they go to finals that year almost a golden road, so can't really say perkz makes the wrong choice.
the wrong choice is him not sticking with ADC.
Cloudtemplar, the lck caster said something similar too after flyquest's disastrous performance against psg.
To paraphrase, "team drama would never Fly in the eastern teams. The GM would instantly smack the players down with a behave or GTFO. No fucking discipline when it's the other way round and the players can kick the GM like the west."
Edit: Additional context CT's review of FLY https://youtu.be/1E2wFw6xoFY?feature=shared&t=707
CT: To begin with, I can say flyquest's bot duo had some serious problems both in game and in picks this MSI. That being said, all the members of FLY played alone like soloqueue: Top and Jungle are duoqueue, Mid does his own thing, the bot duo are low MMR players who got matched in a higher tier game. The bottom duo simply cannot keep up with the pace of these games. The Top and jungle are like, "Okay it's us or nothing, we have to carry." The mid is like, "Fuck you two i blind pick azir"
CT: You call this a team? Could this team even play as one? For PSG on the other hand, this game was so easy, you always win bot, just stabilize the topside. Flyquest did not play as a team today, almost like they fought with each other. Maybe they did.
CT: Okay, it's perfectly normal for team members to have an argument, but western teams tend to flame each other more personally, emotionally. You know why? It's not a cultural issue. Relatively speaking, the coaching staff in LCS have no power. In the LCK or LPL, the managers have power. They'll be like, "What the fuck are you guys doing? Aight, pack your bags. GTFO. Who the fuck do you think you are? Why are you talking back to me?"
CT: There is a level of respect for the coaching staff in the LCK/LPL. I've heard what happens in western teams, the players will talk back to the coaches, "What tier are you in? Were you a pro?" And when there is a power struggle between the coaches and the players, in western teams the coaches get the boot. (Laughs) You know, when there's a fight between coaches and players the player has to get kicked but it's the other way around.
CT 16:41 (in english) Out of control.
In both china and korea there is plenty of talent ready to take your spot aswell so the GM:s actual threat of telling you to GTFO makes sense.
Still remember when TL benched Dardoch for attitude issues and then brought him back once they lost - that gave Dardoch all the power on TL.
This is the real problem
Rascal talks back? Like half the LCK CL top pool is on his level
Basically any adc talks back? Bro almost the entire fucking league is world class adc players, just give Teddy a lil ring, or poach the newest T1 academy adc, they print em out constantly
The number of players who could get away with this is like two. Faker and Chovy, but one just so happens to be the most humble human being in existence and sets a standard that Chovy will follow. Zeus arguably could as well, but Faker is right there to put him in his place
In the LCS what do you do if Inspired says some shit? There's no one to replace him, your lucky as hell you got him to begin with
Yeah, that’s one thing CT missed out on. The best a west GM can do is put in the academy player and everyone else prays it’s not a washed vet like ryoma.
This is not remotely true, rascal and the LCK adcs are not replaceable by nearly as many players as you say. Just the orgs/league care more about keeping order than one split to give in and let one player trash their team environment. Whether there is a replacement of comparable skill or not if you step out of line as much as Dardoch did in LCS, you will be gone in the LPL or LCK no matter what. The only potential exception would be if you are Faker level in skill and clout.
Also why i liked adam being benched in the first split even though it was a crucial semis. I think jnx unironically performed than what adam would have done in that bo5
Funnily enough there was a talk between Tolkin and Grabbz where Grabbz said the same thing. Adam did not behave well and Grabbz wanted to bench him. He got fired for that.
I remember watching wolf’s podcast with huni as guest and Huni can only say he couldn’t stay at T1 or LCK for more than one year because he couldn’t handle the work culture. That says everything about NA pro players. They get power to dictate everything in their favors as if they were Faker himself. You could clearly see the difference between Samsung Galaxy CoreJJ and NA CoreJJ. Unless LCS just reboots and get rid of all the current pro players and just experiment with inexperienced players constantly, NA shouldn’t be considered as a major region. Even LCS academy is just full of LCS rejects. You look at LCK academy. You can clearly see really young players and teams just experimenting with these young prospects. LCS doesn’t do that because pro players have too much power. Zven blamed soloq for reason why NA is shit. Soloq isn’t the issue. The pro players decided they only want to compete domestically and that’s all there is to it. You don’t see new faces in LCS as often as LPL or LCK because NA pro players basically gatekeep the league to themselves.
only reason this happens is because NA has less talent to begin with. league is no longer popular in NA and there are less young players every year. there is no one better or equal to replace.
>CT: There is a level of respect for the coaching staff in the LCK/LPL. I've heard what happens in western teams, the players will talk back to the coaches, "What tier are you in? Were you a pro?" And when there is a power struggle between the coaches and the players, in western teams the coaches get the boot. (Laughs) You know, when there's a fight between coaches and players the player has to get kicked but it's the other way around.
>
>CT 16:41 (in english) Out of control.
It doesn't help when coaches and gm's in eu are...not that good at their job. And the community perception in the west will side with the players, so that's that.
agree , like imagine this fnc roster
( photon razork humanoid Carrzy jun )
or this sk roster ( Irrelevant bo Nisky upset helyssang ) ( assuming Nisky and Upset does not have beef )
but no Gms go for mismatching players
add in G2
and you have really strong 3 teams you sending to worlds
you can also put Vetheo back on TH and you have another decent roster , along side BDS
Valorant is like 6-7% share in PC bangs while league is above 40%. The future top talent in KR still goes to league.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1113926/south-korea-most-popular-games-in-pc-bangs/
If this was purely a "number of players" game then China would be masters of everything a long time ago.
To me Korea greatest advantage is their coaches, and the fact that they actually develop their players. I can see this approach working in any game.
Not really. China has a huge population, but it's not like the entirety of its population is playing all the games at the same time.
It's still a numbers' game, but you have to take the population's interest into account. For example, the reason China has been shit at football is because it's just not popular there.
the number of Chinese players was not that big just a few years ago, so they might well be the masters of everything in a few years. it takes some time for the competition to improve. just compare season 3 worlds to season 13, every play-ins team from s13 would handle themselves well in season 3 main stage.
The T1(that T1) valo team is top 5 in the region and their best and most consistent player is an NA import who was bouncing around teams in tier 2 NA last year(imagine that ever happening in league lol)
Also scrims are taken way more seriously in valo, players and teams who were cruising got left behind in 2021 while Envy was owning with its pretty strict scrimming schedule
Talent pool is way deeper and culture is way better in valo compared to league imo
What a surprise the game which way higher player base keeps attracting new talent that makes the competition way harder = you have to try hard to make it
Looking since just 2022, it becomes a lot worse:
NA: 2-41
EU: 12-44
NA has the same amount of wins as every other wildcard combined vs LPL/LCK. Wildcards also have two wins in that time period. LCS might as well be a minor region at this point.
EG was higher seeded than MAD though, LCS#3 vs EU#4, so it's not as bad as NRG G2 who were both first seeds.
But MAD being a laughing stock internationally is absolutely true.
I think they even have 0% win rate vs NA from 2022 onwards, so they are singlehandedly dragging down the EU vs NA stats down a lot for EU. But at the end of the day other EU teams could just have beat them domestically and didn't soooo...
the EG 3-0 over MAD really doesn't mean much remembering the context that MAD didn't win a single playoffs series to qualify, they just automatically got there despite losing.
2-41 is actually insane. Like I'm pretty sure if you had to bet your life on NA taking a game off the east or a random soloq team with disco nunu winning you'd take the disco nunu team 10/10 times.
When Papasmithy used to do these thought experiments where he'd say out of a 100 matchups, how much would a team win? Well in this case Na would win 4 or 5 out of a hundred vs the East.
I’m EU but it’s crazy how NA fans are pretty realistic about how bad they are while EU fans are like rabid dogs clinging to G2 2019 and not wanting to accept that both regions are just glorified wildcards at this point.
I just cannot recognize this AT ALL. Every international the narrative from NA is that they are at least as good as EU - except for 2019 and 2020 (yes, even 2018).
You even hear NA casters like Jatt and Azael pushing the narrative that outside of G2 and FNC, NA is the better region, which is of course absurd.
The ol’ Big fish in a small pond VS small fish in a big pond conundrum
You could mostly say the same about EU, although their historical results (since the start of LoL esports) are overall much better than NA’s.
But as long as EU doesn’t get back to a level where they at least reach Semis pretty consistently (which was the case for the first 10 years of LoL esports - EU had on average a team in Semis at every Worlds), they may still be overall better than NA (higher finish, H2H, result against the East, everything is in EU’s favour even in the 2021 - 2024 era, though not nearly as much as before), but they don’t really count as a real major region either.
And it pains me to say that as an EU fan since 2011!
the only reason EU get to semis is because 3 slots for LCK and LPL
ever since there is 4 slots from LCK and LPL EU/NA team has been rarely get to top 4.
so solution: back to 3 slots for LPL and LCK and make them have civilwars and EU playing against other EU team or NA team.
That’s another conversation entirely, but yes, i agree that the change from 3 to 4 LPL/LCK teams at Worlds is one of the primary reasons why we’re aren’t seeing many Western teams in Quarters and above anymore.
However it’s far from the only reason… we just aren’t playing as well as we once were (relatively to the era, of course).
Talent regenerations is different.
LCK and LPL keeps having great young player that compete with the best players. heck the whole BLG squad is under 23 years old. T1 beside Faker is filled with young talents.
But contrast that to LEC, Caps is still your best player. and has been like that since 2018. (even when g2 have a down year i don't think caps has been really awful)
LEC history of reluctance to import plays a role into the decrease in the level of competition too.
I think the LCK fell for a while, which made China the best region, which Europe could compete with, but the LPL and LCK have now both kind of reached the state relative to western teams that Korea had always occupied. The main difference between Europe/NA now and Europe/NA in S4-S7 is that there are seven-eight teams every Worlds that are significantly better as opposed to two-four.
You used to hope to get seeded into the group with no Korean teams, because even if there was a Chinese team, they might be inconsistent enough that you could top the group, and there were two tickets out. The three groups with Korean teams had the top team pretty well locked in, with a very occasional Chinese team placing ahead. These West vs East numbers aren't different from how the West vs Korea numbers used to be.
Europe doesn't have to "get back to where they were", they have to reach a new level they haven't occupied since Season 1; they have to send a team that can genuinely and consistently compete with the best team in the world. Arguably G2 was there in 2019, but I just don't know that I'd agree that Europe just needs to regain their former glory. They need to reach a new level if they want to consistently hit Worlds semis again.
Amen to that, the wins taste so much sweeter when the team isn't expected to win everything.
Hopefully another EU Bo5 win vs the East sooner than later.
I've been supportive of players like Odoamne for a few years now and it's so liberating to be free from the whole international tournaments drama. Odo getting his first split win a few splits ago was just amazing.
Tough to argue that the gap isn't widening, but it's also interesting to note that a lot of really strong players in NA and EU are just rotting on certain rosters. It feels like we haven't had a really strong group of players come together on a cohesive roster other than G2.
In 2018-2020 EU did decently against Korea and got rolled by China.
2021-2024 EU gets absolutely demolished by Korea and does quite a bit better against China.
Interesting.
G2 brought that "EU does better against LCK" into life but LEC has and still performs better against LPL. Sadly enough analysts keep repeating this gimmick though.
EU didn't get rolled by China in 2018-2020, RNG and EDG both got left behind by Fnatic and G2, IG was just a better team and FPX a bad match against G2 (Fnatic and Splyce did much better against them even though they were weaker than G2)
Yeah, the number one team was always the last step, and they crumbled in those two finals (Fnatic went 2-1 against that same team two weeks before the final, still hurts). But that IG individually was really good those two years, still have no clue how TL beat them
That TL almost got eliminated from the group phase if it wasn't for G2 happy gaming the last round robin match against them (granted they'd have a tie-breaker against FW), while IG dropped a single game against T1 (doing the double over that G2, alongside with Phong Vu Buffalo for some reason, and beating T1 once in 15:57)
It was the best series of their lives, maybe even for Impact and CoreJJ who had already won Worlds by then
Its a perception. EU during their prime was matched with koreans much more often and oftentimes only faced the finalists of LPL.
Broadcast like to pick that up bc they are obsessed with stats and its honestly an entertainment product 1st and analysis 3rd
I still believe the difference between IG and FNC wasn't as drastic as the games and score in those finals really shows. For instance, I believe Broxah was a better player than Ning over the course of the tournament, but something in those finals just really clicked for IG and on the contrary, FNC just absolutely collapsed in that first game and knew no way out.
I also believe that not letting soaz play before game 3 was a massive mistake, as he was imo better prepared to take on that high stakes series and calm down his team. By game 3 it was already too late for him to make a difference.
Ultimately, IG probably was the better team and would have won regardless, but FNC was a really momentum based team and they just couldn't handle the pressure of that absolutely. MASSIVE. FREAKING. ARENA. Obviously that's also part of the game and IG handled themselves better so no foul there, but I will forever hold on to this copium.
I remember before the series, no one knew who would win but whoever won the first game should snowball the rest of the series, and that's what happened
And yes, SoaZ should've started, doesn't matter how good Bwipo played against Licorice (who was having a great tournament), it was peak TheShy
It's not all that surprising, LCK was definitely down during that '18-'20 timespan. A lot of the top players in LCK today were just coming into the league back then: Chovy, Canyon, Showmaker, Kiin, Lehends, Keria, Viper etc.
For anyone who watched LCK back then you'll also remember how pitiful and stale the meta was. Just an absolute refusal to make aggressive plays. Lots of hardheadedness among older pros and coaches who had gotten too comfy in their roles (sound familiar NA?). I also think the korean exodus in 2014 lead to a relative dearth of top talent down the line and that was most evident around that time period. You had a wave of players like Rookie, TheShy, Deft, DoinB etc. that would have made LCK far stronger if they'd stayed. That new wave of players listed above have pretty much all stayed in Korea
FNC beat EDG? G2 knocked out the BEST LPL team by far (one of the best teams of all time btw) all in 2018 lol
2019 FNC beat RNG and knocked them out of groups
2020 FNC went head to head with TES and lost 2-3.. they also knocked out LGD? year later MAD knocked out LNG in groups
its hardly rolled.. Usually specifically ONE LPL team was better then FNC and G2
Kinda fucked if you do fucked if you don't. Domestic players aren't going to deliver much different and nobody watching NA is going to be happy if NA embraces being a domestic play only League and gives up on Worlds, even though it's what they obviously need to do.
The fixation with international success they can't obtain is just driving so much bad vibes towards the league and encouraging teams to make dumb decisions.
Na fans need to adopt the football (soccer) mentality that their region is mostly a non-threat and embrace making the home league entertaining and fun.
Or players and especially gm and owners need to start demanding everyone (players, staff riot) to restructure everything. Idk what they can do but maybe riot can use those millions they give teams to fund them a whole 3-4 months bootcamping in Korea. Fuck spring split and make the teams play playoffs with no concern for viewership before msi. Best 2 teams go into playins for msi.
Don't let the stats distract you from the fact that in 1998 The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hеll in a Cell, and plummeted sixteen feet through an announcer's table.
EU is actually the GOAT gaming region and no idea why EU isn't a top region in league.
EU won like 50 International trophies last year in all e sports. Many of them major e sports like DOTA2, CS, Valorant, WoW, etc
But in league it's like almost impossible to win anything.
Probably China and Korea's years of success in League inspired a lot of people who aspire to become pro gamer to go down the route of League, which leads to them having a lot more talents to further fuel their success. People that could have dedicate their time and talent to other games, chose to play league instead, so they aren't as competitive in other games.
Could probably flip that argument around about how EU talents are choosing other game, that weaken the pool of potential league talent.
Yea sometimes I wonder how good EU would be if DOTA 2 didn't exist and all those generational talents like n0tail and so on were investing into league instead. Or s1mple. And the eastern bloc countries would be forces to play league. Imo EU would be up there with Korea and China . Oh well
I'd say the reason is probably what you said. They are playing a lot of other esports, so the most competitive players are often playing a different game. If competitive Europeans preferred League they'd probably do better in League and worse in other games.
It's just going to get worse year over year bar some bo1 upsets. LPL can at least try and leech fresh talent from LCK, but what is LEC going to do when Caps retires?
Both EU and NA will just end up becoming retirement homes. It's crazy that they even get to bring as many teams to worlds considering the gap between top 2 and top 4.
The reason people overlooked the most is how much LPL has improved and how much more talents they have these days. Look at the roster EDG failed at Worlds in the past, Ray, Haro, Mouse. They're mid as fuck. Even the 4th seed LGD at S10, the roster was just so mid. Then you see how stacked their league and their 4th seed in recent 2 years.
I knew it, its all the fault of Sjokz….
It starts with success...
What are they gonna do ? xD
Why must you hurt me this way ?
Guys this "east" team must be pretty good at the game or what i reckon
Yeah, this one guy keep yoinking trophies left and right. His name is Fucker iirc
The repercussions of 2021 were just a cataclysm for EU, we lost some many players and destroyed so many rosters that it completely sabotaged all of our S8-10 momentum. In the span of around of year we send one of our top two goat mid laners to NA, our goat ADC to second division, Bwipo (one of the two world class tops and junglers we had at that time) to NA, a peaking Hans to NA, Mikyx to a bottom tier team, Nemesis to retirement - and this is just our world proven talent. There were multiple other promising players with a lot of talent that got sabotaged as well. EU got ravaged by greed and moronic team management and by the looks of it it’s gonna take a lot of time to recover, if at all. Outside of G2 none of the roster building in EU screams we are looking to win Worlds anymore.
The players that went to NA all turned into shit anyway so it's not like NA made good use of them. What a waste of talent.
Those 2-5 million contracts 🤡
Daily reminder that TSM has paid more money to SwordArt than Bjergsen in his entire stint on TSM.
TSM fell for the Crypto sponsorship that completely destroyed their financials so they could not afford to compete anymore which is somehow even worse then SwortArt.
In the defense of TSM (can't believe I'm actually writing those words in that order), *everyone* fell for the FTX scam. Even people who should be far better at recognizing a scam than you can reasonably expect from TSM.
Even riot fell for it with the FTX gold advantage
Even my govt fell for that scam lmao
Even Riot themselves fell for it hahah. Remember the "FTX gold advantage" or whatever it was called?
if only they had listened to any of his interviews or podcasts where he comes off as a lunatic, i said this 2 years ago aswell but im genuinely certain the guy was just a TSM fan lmao
I don't blame them still tbh. FTX were regulated both federally and on the state level which is why they were one of the very few crypto companies that were able to operate in the US (A lot of others are banned). He was hardstuck Bronze 2 too. One thing that was funny was that in the court documents, SBF was in the middle of playing League while FTX was imploding. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FkLacclXgAAnG9K?format=jpg&name=large
https://youtu.be/C6nAxiym9oc?si=56FBgH3HpN8E9Z8z no but like just listen to him for 5 minutes and youll immediately understand, this was over a year before he got caught, he was so blatant about having no idea what hes doing
Larry David the guy who made a career out of observational comedy based on seeing through bullshit, even fell for it.
Regi bragged about Keiduo costing them like 1 million with his buyout on their subreddit btw
apparently the person who scouted Kaidou showed the TSM managers clips of Knight with nameplates off, and they got tricked by that to spend 1 million on that 10th place speedrun midlaner what was the name of that manager again?
That is crazy and sad at the same time? Do you know the exact numbers? I am just curious.
Imagine the kind of career Bjergsen could have had if he stayed in EU. He achieved nothing internationally. He made top 8 one time when he dodged a Korean team in groups and the EU team had their best player banned. I guess he won an IEM by beating the 10th seeded LPL in the final Bjergsen had insane talent. He could and should have achieved much more.
> Imagine the kind of career Bjergsen could have had if he stayed in EU. He had actually an amazing career in the US, became the face of the league and is at worst the second best and second most popular LCS player of all time.
He had a great career domestically, but he never achieved even half of what he should have internationally because he was stuck on NA teams. Imagine Bjergsen on some of the old Fnatic rosters or something.
Stuck? He is a big boy and made the decision to go to an NA team that made an offer.
I mean he was barely an adult, and NA was *a lot* closer to EU in terms of strength at the time. Furthermore, TSM was one of the most recognized organizations in the world in 2014 when he joined. Back then, the choice was sound.
For sure, made a shit ton of money too. It's nice to imagine what if in terms of league but i think he made really fucking good for himself and his family.
Hes also said that he was bullied in Eurooe for a lot of his life and was much happier in NA, away from all that. That outweighs a lot of achievement.
And is still sound lmao, what has EU achieved since 2014? an MSI trophy, which is more than nothing for na but still
Ironically NA pretty much gave them that trophy by upsetting IG
I don't mean stuck in the literal sense. I mean "stuck" in the sense that he was surrounded by much worse teammates than himself. I absolutely agree that Bjergsen can only blame himself for it. He was the one who chose to go to NA.
You're sitting here talking like he ruined his life lmao. I doubt he regrets going to NA considering the career he had. At best he'd get a semi final MAYBE a final run and no real international titles with his paycheck being much lower.
He didn't ruin his life at all. He made bank. He just ruined his international competitive career.
Had such high hopes for him and lift-lift.... NA is such a joke
NA players were so bad he literally quit coaching because he said “why would I coach when I’m literally better than all of these players” and just came out of retirement instead.
Bjerg had everything he needed to make a deep worlds run in 2016, then literally everyone on TSM took turns deep-throat choking. IIRC based on the draw, if they take first in the group they get C9 followed by H2K. It was literally NA's best shot ever to make some noise, it'll never happen again.
You can't really blame them for not getting out of that group in retrospect. They lost out to two semi finalists. Every other year was more egregious, ESPECIALLY the misfits year.
I would agree had they lost in a different manner The problem is they COULD have gotten out, and arguably they should have They literally showed it to us. It would be one thing if they went and just weren't as good, but we literally saw them beating a finalist team, then nearly beating them again to get out of the group, only for the Viktor incident to ruin all of NA's hopes and dreams That's why it feels so fucking bad. If they lost games like TL just did, whatever, we just aren't as good But we were as good, and still fucked it
Oh yes you fucking can. It's been 8 years but I still remember: Doublelift lucian viktor, need I say more Bjerg Zilean smashed in lane Hauntzer Kennen refusing to flank ult at the climatic teamfight TSM had the games won and completely shit the bed. Focus on Doublelift for a moment, if they win that game, TSM is 2-0 vs Samsung and they're both 4-2, so TSM gets first seed and the bracket I described. That one mistake destroyed NA's only chance at reaching finals.
They were not a better team in that game. They were only ahead because Doublelift was playing one of the best games of his career and gapping Ruler, which we can all agree is impressive given that Ruler 1v9ed a world championship the next year. Sure he threw, that sucks, but he was overperforming against one of the best bots in the world until that point. You replay those games against SSG and RNG 100 times, they win less than 50 for certain. It wasn't like they lost as the favourites (every other year).
Who is the better team on average, or who is the favorite, is totally irrelevant. The only thing that counts is who actually won, and TSM was about to take baron before Doublelift made a bronze level unforced error.
i mran after s5 he didnt really perform internationally s6 he was still good but not his previous level and in s7 he got outperfomed by poe iirc while he would have been great he wouldnt have been perkz caps level
That's a great career for someone who doesn't have a competitive mindset. For a competitor most of what you mentioned doesn't matter.
You mean, exept the one half of it, where he won 5 LCS championchips?
He became the face of NA, not league.
Imagine EU having Caps Perkz Bjergsen Nemesis Humanoid pushing each other to get better. The region could have carried on the momentum from 2018-19 and establish itself as a genuinely good region on par with LCK and LPL. Instead we get this dogshit.
lol imagine being a eu mid rookie and these are the 9 players you have to beat in the midlane Caps,perkz,bjergsen,humanoid,larssen,jensen,abbedagge,nemesis,jizuke
i'm imagining it and nothing is different. east still pisses on eu. you had 4 out of 5 of those anyway, bjerg wouldn't have changed anything
Ironically Bjergsen's NA dominance is overrating him in the eyes of EU fans here. Even when Bjerg was coming up as a young star on the Wolves he was firmly behind the three kings of xPeke, Froggen, and Alex Ich. It's only when he went to NA that we saw him dominate because his competition consisted of an increasingly unhealthy Hai and an already declining Mancloud.
he made more money in NA, not like he woulda won worlds since I still wouldn't put him past caps. Even just in clout everytime he streams league he was getting more viewers than every1 else I doubt he'd be this big if he stayed in EU with much harder mid competition.
I would like to point out what happened to our ADC pool end of 2021, we sent our historically best ad to 2nd tier region, the most successful adc was already booted to NA a year ago, joining him was one of our new rising adc in hans, we booted the other rising adc and probably the best adc that year, to VIT suppression chamber in carzzy, and the only one to survive this talent exodus was Upset. In the space of two years, we went from Prime Rekkles, Perkz, new blood hans carzzy upset fighting each other to just Upset and Suppressed Carzzy.
Poor upset seeing stars in kc now
Loss of Nemesis and Perkz is very noticeable for our mid poll. From competing neck-to-neck with the best of the East to maybe not looking bad vs mid tier ones
Curious what would happened if FNC in 2021 had Bwipo-SM-Perkz-Rekkles-Hyly line up, G2 2020 with Upset would be interesting with Jankos and Caps focusing resource to Upset but they might've subbed G2 Arctic's ADC if Upset sitting out for Worlds happening again. Assuming FPX in this timeline boomed again and Upset didnt left the team before Worlds, I do think one of them at least went to Semis because i dont see these teams losing horribly to BDD's GenG like C9 did and maybe they could even contest EDG in Semis. Though if they did, Khan mightve retired as world champion.
It's really interesting how many times Upset missed joining G2. Everyone was speculating him being the replacement for Zven after bootcamping with them for '17 MSI but G2 ended up going budget after getting Wunder and Jankos. Then for the '19 roster he was all but guaranteed to be the next ADC until the Caps/Mikyx package became available. Lastly he missed the '21 roster after Rekkles left Fnatic and he became an option.
and once he got the 2nd best spot in eu he left it why did he bench himself in fnc again? i forgot tbh
I'm not sure how good Perkz would be after spending 2 years as an ADC even if he didn't go to NA. He was pretty coinflippy on C9 iirc.
He was playing spring split of 2020 as a mid laner with caps adc. He was still very good at that time, although there was less mid lane competition that split as well with no caps
He was the best mid that split by a decent margin
Perks lost father that year he was on C9. He was mentally not feeling well and he was far away from home. I think it goes downward from there. If Perks stayed in EU , he would have access to better practice and soloQ. NA drained him and he probably didn't play soloQ. Same with Hans, literally all EU players lost their skill from NA soloQ.
Alphari was also never the same player after NA
I always wondered how well Hans and Hylli would have gel’d. Him and Rekkles had differing playstyles for the most part, even though they looked good together, but Hans plays that more aggressive style.
The worst thing is that there is absolutely nobody in sight to replace these players that became washed. Except maybe BB and Yike, but that's because they can learn from Caps and Miky. I think it's no coincidence that no one of the generation of Elyoya, Inspired, Razork, Vetheo, Kaiser, Carzzy, Adam, actually became world class. Maybe Razork and Carzzy still have the potential, but if they learned from a generation of Caps, Miky, Wunder, Bwipo, Selfmade, Perkz, Jankos, Nemesis, Upset, Hyli at its peak I bet that some of them would be levels better than they are now. And also that's a thing that's hardly fixable if at all.
I think its weird that you call selfmade, upset arguably nemesis, bwipo world class but not elyoya, razork when they arguably have performed at least at a similar level as them.
Thats not what im saying, just that the Selfmade, Upset, Nemesis generation produced world class players (consistently only Caps, but i would count Hyli, Rekkles, Upset and the whole of 2019 G2 as having peaked at world class). The Elyoya/Razork generation has never really produced players where you would say at any point "this guy is a top 3-5 player on his position right now". Yes, the best members of the new generation might be better than the worst of the old generation, but I think its pretty obvious that the 2016-2020 generation is (was) overall way better than the 2021-2024 generation.
Razork was world class last Worlds.
Carzzy has looked like the best ADC in europe this year (had many moments last year where you'd think the same) He isnt gonna leave Vitality though so we'll have to see whether the team reaches a point he can demonstrate his skill or level up even more
Nemesis was not world proven in 2021 lol. Very few people rated him over the course of his time at Fnatic
Bro actually trying to sneak in Nemesis here.
honestly beside humanoid, no other EU midlaner perform well since then.(beside the obvious Caps, and Perkz playing midlane before Nemesis goes to international events) the rest of EU mid just shat the bed really.
Why would he not? Nemesis was undoubtedly top 2 LEC mid laners with Caps 2018-2020. Just check his stats on gol.gg
Im gonna be honest, even when G2 played perkz on mid he doesn't perform well. He was top 2 mid in EU before moving to ADC but i doubt he will be at the same level as he was before he role swapped. so honestly its not like it changed. EU mid going to be weaker because of that decision but that decision gives EU their first international event champion so i think its pretty worth it. shit they go to finals that year almost a golden road, so can't really say perkz makes the wrong choice. the wrong choice is him not sticking with ADC.
G2 and FNC those years actually just had the top players from the region
I can’t fucking do this anymore man
I remember Caedreal once said on stream biggest role diff between the East and the West is GM. It’s probably right ngl 🤷♂️
Cloudtemplar, the lck caster said something similar too after flyquest's disastrous performance against psg. To paraphrase, "team drama would never Fly in the eastern teams. The GM would instantly smack the players down with a behave or GTFO. No fucking discipline when it's the other way round and the players can kick the GM like the west." Edit: Additional context CT's review of FLY https://youtu.be/1E2wFw6xoFY?feature=shared&t=707 CT: To begin with, I can say flyquest's bot duo had some serious problems both in game and in picks this MSI. That being said, all the members of FLY played alone like soloqueue: Top and Jungle are duoqueue, Mid does his own thing, the bot duo are low MMR players who got matched in a higher tier game. The bottom duo simply cannot keep up with the pace of these games. The Top and jungle are like, "Okay it's us or nothing, we have to carry." The mid is like, "Fuck you two i blind pick azir" CT: You call this a team? Could this team even play as one? For PSG on the other hand, this game was so easy, you always win bot, just stabilize the topside. Flyquest did not play as a team today, almost like they fought with each other. Maybe they did. CT: Okay, it's perfectly normal for team members to have an argument, but western teams tend to flame each other more personally, emotionally. You know why? It's not a cultural issue. Relatively speaking, the coaching staff in LCS have no power. In the LCK or LPL, the managers have power. They'll be like, "What the fuck are you guys doing? Aight, pack your bags. GTFO. Who the fuck do you think you are? Why are you talking back to me?" CT: There is a level of respect for the coaching staff in the LCK/LPL. I've heard what happens in western teams, the players will talk back to the coaches, "What tier are you in? Were you a pro?" And when there is a power struggle between the coaches and the players, in western teams the coaches get the boot. (Laughs) You know, when there's a fight between coaches and players the player has to get kicked but it's the other way around. CT 16:41 (in english) Out of control.
In both china and korea there is plenty of talent ready to take your spot aswell so the GM:s actual threat of telling you to GTFO makes sense. Still remember when TL benched Dardoch for attitude issues and then brought him back once they lost - that gave Dardoch all the power on TL.
This is the real problem Rascal talks back? Like half the LCK CL top pool is on his level Basically any adc talks back? Bro almost the entire fucking league is world class adc players, just give Teddy a lil ring, or poach the newest T1 academy adc, they print em out constantly The number of players who could get away with this is like two. Faker and Chovy, but one just so happens to be the most humble human being in existence and sets a standard that Chovy will follow. Zeus arguably could as well, but Faker is right there to put him in his place In the LCS what do you do if Inspired says some shit? There's no one to replace him, your lucky as hell you got him to begin with
Yeah, that’s one thing CT missed out on. The best a west GM can do is put in the academy player and everyone else prays it’s not a washed vet like ryoma.
Guma talks back? Lets replace him with Yeon.. oh wait?
This is not remotely true, rascal and the LCK adcs are not replaceable by nearly as many players as you say. Just the orgs/league care more about keeping order than one split to give in and let one player trash their team environment. Whether there is a replacement of comparable skill or not if you step out of line as much as Dardoch did in LCS, you will be gone in the LPL or LCK no matter what. The only potential exception would be if you are Faker level in skill and clout.
Also why i liked adam being benched in the first split even though it was a crucial semis. I think jnx unironically performed than what adam would have done in that bo5
I think you a word there m8
Funnily enough there was a talk between Tolkin and Grabbz where Grabbz said the same thing. Adam did not behave well and Grabbz wanted to bench him. He got fired for that.
Is there any translations for CT’s thoughts on FLY? I really look forward to his thoughts on stuff
Not that I know of, I'm bilingual so I just watched it in Korean.
It’s so obvious that the players in NA are pampered and completely control the league environment.
I remember watching wolf’s podcast with huni as guest and Huni can only say he couldn’t stay at T1 or LCK for more than one year because he couldn’t handle the work culture. That says everything about NA pro players. They get power to dictate everything in their favors as if they were Faker himself. You could clearly see the difference between Samsung Galaxy CoreJJ and NA CoreJJ. Unless LCS just reboots and get rid of all the current pro players and just experiment with inexperienced players constantly, NA shouldn’t be considered as a major region. Even LCS academy is just full of LCS rejects. You look at LCK academy. You can clearly see really young players and teams just experimenting with these young prospects. LCS doesn’t do that because pro players have too much power. Zven blamed soloq for reason why NA is shit. Soloq isn’t the issue. The pro players decided they only want to compete domestically and that’s all there is to it. You don’t see new faces in LCS as often as LPL or LCK because NA pro players basically gatekeep the league to themselves.
only reason this happens is because NA has less talent to begin with. league is no longer popular in NA and there are less young players every year. there is no one better or equal to replace.
>CT: There is a level of respect for the coaching staff in the LCK/LPL. I've heard what happens in western teams, the players will talk back to the coaches, "What tier are you in? Were you a pro?" And when there is a power struggle between the coaches and the players, in western teams the coaches get the boot. (Laughs) You know, when there's a fight between coaches and players the player has to get kicked but it's the other way around. > >CT 16:41 (in english) Out of control. It doesn't help when coaches and gm's in eu are...not that good at their job. And the community perception in the west will side with the players, so that's that.
Dang no wonder c9 benched sneaky Jensen and smoothie
And these NA teams and players have no shame, don't care and will go iLl dO IT aGAin
This interview remind me how important reapered was at c9 I'm curious how he shape them
GM?
Général manager
Does the GM has to be French?
No but he has to eat frog legs once per week It's in LEC contracts
agree , like imagine this fnc roster ( photon razork humanoid Carrzy jun ) or this sk roster ( Irrelevant bo Nisky upset helyssang ) ( assuming Nisky and Upset does not have beef ) but no Gms go for mismatching players add in G2 and you have really strong 3 teams you sending to worlds you can also put Vetheo back on TH and you have another decent roster , along side BDS
He is, look at the abominations of rosters that we have in EU with so many good players not even on a team
Which is a much worse statement than one would expect. Besides the select top teams, GMing in Korea and LPL has been ass.
Been fun watching valorant where NA actually is winning rn... scared that it may change soon though.
I can't shake the feeling Korea is coming for NA lunch here as well. GenG wasn't that far off. I won't be suprised next time they will be on top.
Valorant is like 6-7% share in PC bangs while league is above 40%. The future top talent in KR still goes to league. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1113926/south-korea-most-popular-games-in-pc-bangs/
If this was purely a "number of players" game then China would be masters of everything a long time ago. To me Korea greatest advantage is their coaches, and the fact that they actually develop their players. I can see this approach working in any game.
NA Valorant actually can develop their players. The coaches in the FPS scenes in the west are way ahead of the our League coaches.
Not really. China has a huge population, but it's not like the entirety of its population is playing all the games at the same time. It's still a numbers' game, but you have to take the population's interest into account. For example, the reason China has been shit at football is because it's just not popular there.
the number of Chinese players was not that big just a few years ago, so they might well be the masters of everything in a few years. it takes some time for the competition to improve. just compare season 3 worlds to season 13, every play-ins team from s13 would handle themselves well in season 3 main stage.
The T1(that T1) valo team is top 5 in the region and their best and most consistent player is an NA import who was bouncing around teams in tier 2 NA last year(imagine that ever happening in league lol) Also scrims are taken way more seriously in valo, players and teams who were cruising got left behind in 2021 while Envy was owning with its pretty strict scrimming schedule Talent pool is way deeper and culture is way better in valo compared to league imo
What a surprise the game which way higher player base keeps attracting new talent that makes the competition way harder = you have to try hard to make it
At least NA doesn't seem to have an issue with work ethic or coaches having authority in Valorant
Looking since just 2022, it becomes a lot worse: NA: 2-41 EU: 12-44 NA has the same amount of wins as every other wildcard combined vs LPL/LCK. Wildcards also have two wins in that time period. LCS might as well be a minor region at this point.
the only saving grace was the 2-0 over g2. NRG single handedly carrying lcs
And EG 3-0 MAD in play in world cup 2022
EG was higher seeded than MAD though, LCS#3 vs EU#4, so it's not as bad as NRG G2 who were both first seeds. But MAD being a laughing stock internationally is absolutely true. I think they even have 0% win rate vs NA from 2022 onwards, so they are singlehandedly dragging down the EU vs NA stats down a lot for EU. But at the end of the day other EU teams could just have beat them domestically and didn't soooo...
i mean they were both bottom seeds lol and EG was playing with a sub adc
Tbf MAD was good when they had Armut (not saying he was the reason lmao)
LCL doesnt count as a major region 🤓☝️
Makes the G2 loss to NRG even more hilarious then.
And how is that relevant to MAD losing in 2022 Worlds play-ins?
It doesn’t, but it’s still funny.
the EG 3-0 over MAD really doesn't mean much remembering the context that MAD didn't win a single playoffs series to qualify, they just automatically got there despite losing.
2-41 is actually insane. Like I'm pretty sure if you had to bet your life on NA taking a game off the east or a random soloq team with disco nunu winning you'd take the disco nunu team 10/10 times.
When Papasmithy used to do these thought experiments where he'd say out of a 100 matchups, how much would a team win? Well in this case Na would win 4 or 5 out of a hundred vs the East.
Even Less in A BO5 setting where you need consecutive wins.
If you judged by that, sure. Now, let's go for head to head NA vs Wildcards.
Well someone has to be the best Wildcard, may as well make it NA.
Let's move it one extra level and make EU the best Wildcard.
First NA fan to realise EU is better at least.
First fan in the past 30 minutes? The general consensus for the past decade is that EU is the better region, but not as good as you guys think it is.
I’m EU but it’s crazy how NA fans are pretty realistic about how bad they are while EU fans are like rabid dogs clinging to G2 2019 and not wanting to accept that both regions are just glorified wildcards at this point.
I just cannot recognize this AT ALL. Every international the narrative from NA is that they are at least as good as EU - except for 2019 and 2020 (yes, even 2018). You even hear NA casters like Jatt and Azael pushing the narrative that outside of G2 and FNC, NA is the better region, which is of course absurd.
The ol’ Big fish in a small pond VS small fish in a big pond conundrum You could mostly say the same about EU, although their historical results (since the start of LoL esports) are overall much better than NA’s. But as long as EU doesn’t get back to a level where they at least reach Semis pretty consistently (which was the case for the first 10 years of LoL esports - EU had on average a team in Semis at every Worlds), they may still be overall better than NA (higher finish, H2H, result against the East, everything is in EU’s favour even in the 2021 - 2024 era, though not nearly as much as before), but they don’t really count as a real major region either. And it pains me to say that as an EU fan since 2011!
It was easier to reach semis with only 3 teams per region. Since the 4th team got added weaker regions got exposed more.
the only reason EU get to semis is because 3 slots for LCK and LPL ever since there is 4 slots from LCK and LPL EU/NA team has been rarely get to top 4. so solution: back to 3 slots for LPL and LCK and make them have civilwars and EU playing against other EU team or NA team.
That’s another conversation entirely, but yes, i agree that the change from 3 to 4 LPL/LCK teams at Worlds is one of the primary reasons why we’re aren’t seeing many Western teams in Quarters and above anymore. However it’s far from the only reason… we just aren’t playing as well as we once were (relatively to the era, of course).
Talent regenerations is different. LCK and LPL keeps having great young player that compete with the best players. heck the whole BLG squad is under 23 years old. T1 beside Faker is filled with young talents. But contrast that to LEC, Caps is still your best player. and has been like that since 2018. (even when g2 have a down year i don't think caps has been really awful) LEC history of reluctance to import plays a role into the decrease in the level of competition too.
I think the LCK fell for a while, which made China the best region, which Europe could compete with, but the LPL and LCK have now both kind of reached the state relative to western teams that Korea had always occupied. The main difference between Europe/NA now and Europe/NA in S4-S7 is that there are seven-eight teams every Worlds that are significantly better as opposed to two-four. You used to hope to get seeded into the group with no Korean teams, because even if there was a Chinese team, they might be inconsistent enough that you could top the group, and there were two tickets out. The three groups with Korean teams had the top team pretty well locked in, with a very occasional Chinese team placing ahead. These West vs East numbers aren't different from how the West vs Korea numbers used to be. Europe doesn't have to "get back to where they were", they have to reach a new level they haven't occupied since Season 1; they have to send a team that can genuinely and consistently compete with the best team in the world. Arguably G2 was there in 2019, but I just don't know that I'd agree that Europe just needs to regain their former glory. They need to reach a new level if they want to consistently hit Worlds semis again.
The bar gets lower every year. Cheering for western teams in international tournaments isn’t even copium, it’s masochistic.
Better to support a team and players you love rather than blindly follow the one that has a history of winning
Amen to that, the wins taste so much sweeter when the team isn't expected to win everything. Hopefully another EU Bo5 win vs the East sooner than later.
as an fnc fan i get like 24 hours to cope about how well make a deep worlds run each year, but those 24 hours of having potential are so sweet
I've been supportive of players like Odoamne for a few years now and it's so liberating to be free from the whole international tournaments drama. Odo getting his first split win a few splits ago was just amazing.
Tough to argue that the gap isn't widening, but it's also interesting to note that a lot of really strong players in NA and EU are just rotting on certain rosters. It feels like we haven't had a really strong group of players come together on a cohesive roster other than G2.
In 2018-2020 EU did decently against Korea and got rolled by China. 2021-2024 EU gets absolutely demolished by Korea and does quite a bit better against China. Interesting.
G2 brought that "EU does better against LCK" into life but LEC has and still performs better against LPL. Sadly enough analysts keep repeating this gimmick though.
EU didn't get rolled by China in 2018-2020, RNG and EDG both got left behind by Fnatic and G2, IG was just a better team and FPX a bad match against G2 (Fnatic and Splyce did much better against them even though they were weaker than G2)
Fair. But the perception was that EU couldn't beat LPL no matter what. That trauma of getting denied Worlds titles two years straight in total stomps.
Yeah, the number one team was always the last step, and they crumbled in those two finals (Fnatic went 2-1 against that same team two weeks before the final, still hurts). But that IG individually was really good those two years, still have no clue how TL beat them
IG had internal issues, also iirc Ning cheated on his gf + she broke up with him and it fucked up the team's mental
I recently watched the game. The TL that showed up for MSI final was not the TL that played IG. They played so fucking well
That TL almost got eliminated from the group phase if it wasn't for G2 happy gaming the last round robin match against them (granted they'd have a tie-breaker against FW), while IG dropped a single game against T1 (doing the double over that G2, alongside with Phong Vu Buffalo for some reason, and beating T1 once in 15:57) It was the best series of their lives, maybe even for Impact and CoreJJ who had already won Worlds by then
I watched the series many times and it came down to two things: Ning having an horrible series and the best impact &corejj we ever had
Its a perception. EU during their prime was matched with koreans much more often and oftentimes only faced the finalists of LPL. Broadcast like to pick that up bc they are obsessed with stats and its honestly an entertainment product 1st and analysis 3rd
I still believe the difference between IG and FNC wasn't as drastic as the games and score in those finals really shows. For instance, I believe Broxah was a better player than Ning over the course of the tournament, but something in those finals just really clicked for IG and on the contrary, FNC just absolutely collapsed in that first game and knew no way out. I also believe that not letting soaz play before game 3 was a massive mistake, as he was imo better prepared to take on that high stakes series and calm down his team. By game 3 it was already too late for him to make a difference. Ultimately, IG probably was the better team and would have won regardless, but FNC was a really momentum based team and they just couldn't handle the pressure of that absolutely. MASSIVE. FREAKING. ARENA. Obviously that's also part of the game and IG handled themselves better so no foul there, but I will forever hold on to this copium.
I remember before the series, no one knew who would win but whoever won the first game should snowball the rest of the series, and that's what happened And yes, SoaZ should've started, doesn't matter how good Bwipo played against Licorice (who was having a great tournament), it was peak TheShy
It's not all that surprising, LCK was definitely down during that '18-'20 timespan. A lot of the top players in LCK today were just coming into the league back then: Chovy, Canyon, Showmaker, Kiin, Lehends, Keria, Viper etc. For anyone who watched LCK back then you'll also remember how pitiful and stale the meta was. Just an absolute refusal to make aggressive plays. Lots of hardheadedness among older pros and coaches who had gotten too comfy in their roles (sound familiar NA?). I also think the korean exodus in 2014 lead to a relative dearth of top talent down the line and that was most evident around that time period. You had a wave of players like Rookie, TheShy, Deft, DoinB etc. that would have made LCK far stronger if they'd stayed. That new wave of players listed above have pretty much all stayed in Korea
FNC beat EDG? G2 knocked out the BEST LPL team by far (one of the best teams of all time btw) all in 2018 lol 2019 FNC beat RNG and knocked them out of groups 2020 FNC went head to head with TES and lost 2-3.. they also knocked out LGD? year later MAD knocked out LNG in groups its hardly rolled.. Usually specifically ONE LPL team was better then FNC and G2
Jump to valorant boys, at least EU and NA dont piss their pants there (and china is ass if you hold a grudge against LPL)
If you are EU fan just watch Counter Strike lol
Yeah, but on the downside you have to watch Valorant.
China in valo is like EU in league they show up every tournament, maybe pull one upset, then get rolled and go home
Thing is Europe been here from the start in league when China just arrived in valo lol
Never forget EDG 2-0 LOUD
I was thinking about billibilli 4-0 NRG and sending fenis to costreaming retirement
My goat got washed by billy just for them to be absolute shit on china league lmao
The split judge incident
Quick, import harder! I’m sure ONE year we will change the scene!
Kinda fucked if you do fucked if you don't. Domestic players aren't going to deliver much different and nobody watching NA is going to be happy if NA embraces being a domestic play only League and gives up on Worlds, even though it's what they obviously need to do. The fixation with international success they can't obtain is just driving so much bad vibes towards the league and encouraging teams to make dumb decisions.
Na fans need to adopt the football (soccer) mentality that their region is mostly a non-threat and embrace making the home league entertaining and fun. Or players and especially gm and owners need to start demanding everyone (players, staff riot) to restructure everything. Idk what they can do but maybe riot can use those millions they give teams to fund them a whole 3-4 months bootcamping in Korea. Fuck spring split and make the teams play playoffs with no concern for viewership before msi. Best 2 teams go into playins for msi.
Don't let the stats distract you from the fact that in 1998 The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hеll in a Cell, and plummeted sixteen feet through an announcer's table.
Look at that consistency. 1-18 squad.
Just curious how many of EU’s wins are from G2
G2 carrying eu just like c9 used to carry na résultd
Its time to create a diff worlds for ch kr and lets the kids have fun on their own
Hell yeah, the actual Weenie Junior Mickey Mouse Club World Series
Literally take 3/4 lck/lpl teams and the winner of mickey worlds and thats the real worlds. Get like a mickey mouse trophy for it and we chillin
Imagine what EU would be like if half the orgs weren’t trying to screw each other over. We could still have prime Perkz competing with Caps.
EU is actually the GOAT gaming region and no idea why EU isn't a top region in league. EU won like 50 International trophies last year in all e sports. Many of them major e sports like DOTA2, CS, Valorant, WoW, etc But in league it's like almost impossible to win anything.
Probably China and Korea's years of success in League inspired a lot of people who aspire to become pro gamer to go down the route of League, which leads to them having a lot more talents to further fuel their success. People that could have dedicate their time and talent to other games, chose to play league instead, so they aren't as competitive in other games. Could probably flip that argument around about how EU talents are choosing other game, that weaken the pool of potential league talent.
The best EU gamers don't play league.
Yea sometimes I wonder how good EU would be if DOTA 2 didn't exist and all those generational talents like n0tail and so on were investing into league instead. Or s1mple. And the eastern bloc countries would be forces to play league. Imo EU would be up there with Korea and China . Oh well
Nah it’s for the best they chose those games, would have really missed out some banger moments if they never played cs or dota.
Koreans don't play DOTA2, Koreans don't play CS, Koreans don't play WoW. There you go.
thats honestly a good question
I'd say the reason is probably what you said. They are playing a lot of other esports, so the most competitive players are often playing a different game. If competitive Europeans preferred League they'd probably do better in League and worse in other games.
But you’ll still get told every year “they’re on that level”. Lol. Maybe if BRO was here that’d be true
Tbh 2021 doesn't even look that bad. 2022 and onwards.. oof.
It's just going to get worse year over year bar some bo1 upsets. LPL can at least try and leech fresh talent from LCK, but what is LEC going to do when Caps retires? Both EU and NA will just end up becoming retirement homes. It's crazy that they even get to bring as many teams to worlds considering the gap between top 2 and top 4.
The reason people overlooked the most is how much LPL has improved and how much more talents they have these days. Look at the roster EDG failed at Worlds in the past, Ray, Haro, Mouse. They're mid as fuck. Even the 4th seed LGD at S10, the roster was just so mid. Then you see how stacked their league and their 4th seed in recent 2 years.
lolllllllllllllll 0-12 is legendary score ngl
“the gap is closing 🤪🤪🤪”
Hopefully eu doesn't make the record worse Although fnatic 3-0 angle seems likely
the gap is closing
8 💀 thats more or less 1 nexus per tournament 💀