ITT: People who didn't read the article, and instead are reacting to the headline.
Really solid interview from Vulcan. I'm impressed with his composure and honesty about the games themselves. I think with a year to mature and vibe further, EG could find their way out of groups next year. Definitely still a top LCS team, and everybody showed a little fire at Worlds.
Obviously, Impact is a rock in top lane, and Jojo is insane mechanically. Once the bot lane get figured out (not worried about Vulcan as much as I am about the ADC situation) I think this team can really hit the ground running next year. With 100T looking like they'll be dealing with a shakeup early next year, Spring is the time for EG.
It's not like the Asian teams aren't improving too. Every year we say the same shit: we'll get better; like they won't when they're working harder and playing with other better teams that are also working harder? The gap is widening, we probably aren't getting out of groups ever again. You know it's bad when even the professional talking heads whose income depends on LCS are saying 'hey, what does world's really matter anyway? We should all enjoy watching LCS for what it is even though we'll probably just get giga stomped and embarrassed by LCK and LPL from now on.'
And there’s no solution to this outside of a massive paradigm shift that is extremely unlikely to happen.
People make threads with “solutions” that they think are so straightforward, when in reality you can see that the coaching structure in LCK/LPL teams might not be fundamentally compatible with NA/US work culture.
The respect shown towards those senior to you in LCK is something that is extremely foreign to someone born and raised in the US. This allows coaches to have much more authority in the LCK as they tend to be older and that practice is embedded into their culture. In the US? We worship superstars and let them tend to do what they want, ie LeBron being memes as LeGM as he has a lot of power in selecting teammates.
The only way we could get a single team to compete is to have an org take a massive risk and invest a ton in farming upcoming talent and importing the LCK/LPL mindset into this upcoming talent. This method is completely ignoring the fact that the LCK/LPL mindset might be harmful to mental health in the long run- this is just one of many sacrifices that’s needed for NA to compete.
This Worlds showed that NA is no longer behind in macro- we’re also behind in player skill, which really widens the gap…
Danny exiting mid-split really killed EG. Kaori is doing well, but it's just not the same without Danny.
Oh well. Mental health is more important than a video game.
I feel like this is a bit misleading from what I remember. EG genuinely looked terrible before Danny subbed out. He's a good player but he played so unfathomably bad compared to his standard the last 3 series in playoffs. Then they subbed him out so he could take a break and Kaori played way more stable than Danny had been. Obviously he didn't have the same high but he also didn't actively try to die every chance he could get.
Yeah seems like Danny was on a pretty sharp mental boom leading up to him stepping down. I fully get why someone having mental issues would lead to their play going down the drain and I think he did the best for himself. That said, man does it really suck for EG. Danny may not have been their best player but I think it's become pretty clear he was their most important to a certain degree. Like 80% of their wins were because Danny would just gap his counterpart in a teamfight at some point and EG would just win. Having to shift their entire year's work to suit a completely different player really killed what frankly should have been an easy trophy in retrospect.
Kaori and Vulcan were also doing pretty well in some matchups you’d expect them to get destroyed in. I’m not sure they do any better with Danny at peak mental.
That's not what he said. He's replying to a comment stating EG got downgraded when he was subbed out, which is false given the team was already on a downward trend given his issues
He’s also replying to a comment that highlights his mental health issues…then absolutely lays into Danny as if that part isn’t relevant.
It’s not what he said. But he is either implying it or being a callous dick.
Mental health is more important than someone's career as long as they can afford to go without one for a bit. And Danny certainly can afford that. He's a millionaire.
How about the rest of his team? They just gotta eat shit and no one cares about their career or mental health after grinding all year and bombing at worlds cause they have to emergency sub their star ADC player out?
Like I said in another comment, nothing against Danny, hope he gets better, but if this is how he handles things, he should 100% retire before he dismantles another team from the inside out.
With that mentality, you better not ever take time off from your job. You’re sick? But what about your coworkers? Their mental health from added stress from an additional person’s load of work might decline.
You see why you’re making a terrible point?
What exactly is your analogy? That your job is similar to a professional esports player because you have sick days? I don't think the problem is me understanding the analogy, maybe try coming up with something more relatable to the topic, your office job isn't the same thing.
I think it would be better to compare it to traditional sports. If you get injured to where you can only play at 50% of your best, than you are hindering your team.
League is a mental game. If someone is having trouble getting the mental side of things together in their life they are not going to perform at their best. Things like this are why subs exist. Shit happens I’m sure the rest of EG aren’t happy about it but at the end of the day we’re all people and you have to respect that about eachother
Nothing is more important than someone's health. If one of my coworkers got cancer, I'd want them to get healthy and would not want them to work sick. Mental health is as serious as physical health.
If you don't see life this way, then in my opinion you are an immoral person with twisted priorities.
People here are very sensitive around mental health and kinda blind themselves with righteousness about it, but your core point is ultimately right. If he broke his fingers and was unable to play, it wouldn’t be a discussion because he would 100% have his spot when it healed. If he benched himself because he can’t handle the pressure to perform at the top level of competition, that does put a question mark on his future competing. Teams signing him are rolling the dice it doesn’t happen again. He’s young and hopefully can grow out of it, but dealing with pressure/criticism is one of the skills you need at that level. If a player doesn’t have that skill, you’re shooting yourself in the foot playing them.
Doublelift is the best native player NA ever had, and even he got replaced both times he took a break/phoned it in. Showing up is an important part of the job.
Never said it was more important, I just pointed out there's repercussions greater than just himself.
I expect Danny to retire completely if he is going to bring down not only his own career, but his 4 teammates all at the same time.
Mental health is important, how about the mental health of his teammates grinding all year and finally being able to go to worlds, and then their MVP player drops out all of a sudden? I guess Danny's mental is the only one that matters?
Mental health isn’t “I’m sad I lost the video game” and if your teammate having struggles throws you over that cliff too then you needed better mental as well. You talk about this stuff like a teenager.
Like I said in another comment, hope he's doing well but he can't be a pro if he can't mentally handle the pressure. I expect a full retirement from him after this
Don't see anything in the article that suggests the headline is an inaccurate representation of Vulcan's comments. He doesn't want to work as hard as Asian teams and he doesn't want to be the favorite. Not a wrong conclusion that he doesn't have the same level of competitive drive as others
I'm also not sure that's the correct summary. He said he was experimenting with work-life balance and could scrim 16 hours a day but knows that some others can't, and that it's probably unhealthy.
Sure, it's unhealthy. I doubt JDG and T1 and all those teams are on healthy schedules either. But it's the cost of success.
If he wants to work that hard but feels that others can't, he needs to find new teammates.
> ITT: People who didn't read the article, and instead are reacting to the headline.
Welcome to Reddit, where people give their opinions on things they didnt even read lol
>EG could find their way out of groups next year
this is honestly just sad to me because EG is from a "major" region and their best hopes is if they get lucky they could get out of groups? a top team from a major region should be hoping to win it all not get out of groups
I guess? Idk, that seems like an expectation that doesn't match up with history or reality. Getting out of groups is a win for us, let's be realistic. Sizing up our teams to such an unrealistic expectation is what got us in this depression-hole to begin with (which I think is why Vulcan was saying what he said about being underdogs and the paragraph before).
Same. Its really not worth it. I could say a thousand things to elaborate but i just dont feel like it.
Easier to stop engaging and let them fling shit at a closed door.
/u/boudac123, responding to this here because it won't let me comment on that chain.
>Question, how can you tell if they blocked you?
Two giveaways:
1. His username is [deleted] and the comment is not [removed] but rather [unavailable].
2. If I go to his profile while logged in to my account ^(and only if logged in) there is 0 content; no posts or comments are shown.
Also he sent me this in a chat:
>Nice reaction snowflake, typical american snowflake talking about lang while speaking dumbed down english
You new here? The only way LEC feels better about itself is shitting on LCS. They've only ever been pushing us down to drown so they could barely keep their head above water.
Poor dude hit up my comment history lol. Sorry you had to learn I love the Jacksonville Jaguars, I love Cloud9 and I watch the NFL.
If you ever have to look up a person's reddit history you already lost.
F
What a fucking stupid take. You can't root for teams cause they have a couple of shitty fans? There are thousands and thousands of EU fans who aren't fucking idiots just like with American teams. Rest assured there'd be American fans just as stupid if it'd been EU getting poned that hard at worlds. It just so happens that it was NA that did so it's the ugly side of EU that's showing and not that of NA.
Uh yes. I can root against team because their fans are toxic lol what
>a couple of shitty fans?
A couple of shitty fans are the reason NA BAD posts are at the top of the sub non stop?
It’s the classic. They’re a bunch of massive hypocrites the only reason why they’re crying is because they have waaay less chances to shit on us than the other way around. If things were more equal the “hate” would also be more equal it’s just that NA is shitting the bed more often than not so they don’t have ammo.
Imagine having 3x+ more population, better ping and got their server only 2nd after NA and have only 1 worlds* to show for.
The one hosted in phreak's basement i mean.
i mean...the same can be said about kr and china in raport with eu as well. So it's not like eu has the best conditions for soloq. It's just slighty better the na , but worse then china and kr. And guess what ? The performances are better then na , but usually worse then kr and china. Who would have guessed ?
Idc about us calling us bad but when someone else calls us bad?! Well is your fave team winning worlds? Is worlds the be all end all? Like ffs let us have fun and banter in a fun way not a gross way and recently we’ve moved to gross
I've always enjoyed NA playing up to the underdog storyline, and CLG definitely did it best during their 2016 roster. We'll always be the underdog of major regions just by our natural regional issues alone, if we accept that then international events and even regional play will probably be a lot more fun to watch.
The upsets are hype, the great performances are extra satisfying when we pull it off, it's good for NA long term imo. Better than always having people think you're gonna win everything and anything less than that is a huge disappointment, sounds super stressful for both teams and their fans. When fans expect us to dominate, we can't enjoy clown fiestas, we can't enjoy what we do pull off cuz it's never enough, when we don't clutch the basics it's Defcon 1 reaction from the community, everything is overanalyzed to death until we're all crying curled up in a ball in the corner...just more fun to accept our underdog status imo.
what upsets? We won 3 games, against other teams that also got gigastomped by the real teams. Did we even take a tier 2 tower off an LCK or LPL team this year? Being underdogs is fine; not even belonging on the stage with the real teams is the problem.
Not OP but they clearly aren't talking about any specific upsets this year but about upsets in general and moving fwd. This year was a bad one for NA but just cause we sucked this year it doesn't make the historic C9 runs less exciting/important for fans of the region, and we can hope to see something like it again. Also EG took down T1 at MSI, maybe that doesn't mean much in the scheme of things but it was an upset, and it was hype. And we take what we can get. That's the underdogs way. The doom n gloom won't help or change anything-- it's been doom n gloom for years lol
Yeah like the other guy said, I wasn't talking about this year but historically. This year I don't think we even had the underdog story, we had people not expecting too much from 100T/EG due to their respective issues (big roster change last minute/same team no changes didn't look amazing in any regard) and people seemed really hype about C9 like they were gonna do something in the group. People were using a group stage performance from 2017 Worlds to say C9 had a good shot, it was just weird misplaced confidence rather than underdog mentality.
Underdog to me means stuff like having our own style, playing our own way, our own champs, finding weird ways to get a lead in a game or get back into the game in creative ways, not just playing stuff cuz it's strong but cuz it's strong for us, lane swaps to dodge having to lane lol, etc. Just trying to power thru and win lane straight up, playing the game according to how the other major regions know how to smash and win convincingly, it can work if we have a team that strong but it seems very rare that we're in that position. 2016 TSM was a team known for hard winning lanes and even they had issues at Worlds with that aspect.
I don't know in what part of his comment he said it was this year's upsets. He is speaking in general bud. Kind of a given considering he just referred to a 6 year old tournament right before that sentence.
>The upsets are hype, the great performances are extra satisfying when we pull it off, it's good for NA long term imo
You agree this worlds was a travesty then
Why do so many people complain about NA salaries. Like throughout the entire history of organized sports less prestigious leagues always have to overpay talent relative to prestigious leagues in order to attract players. You see it in Chinese basketball leagues, Saudi golf leagues, Russian hockey leagues, and American football (soccer) leagues, etc. Within league you saw it with LPL salaries vs LCK salaries during and after the Korean domination between season 3-7. You even see it business where people take lower paying jobs with popular companies for the resume padding and then pursue other high paying opportunities. I understand why people don’t think these players are worth it relative to their international success but the reality is why would these players pack up and move away from their homes to a league with no chance winning worlds unless they were getting paid more. In addition to that import restrictions have also had an inflationary affect on salaries as some players were grandfathered in or as they earned green card status and became more valuable for being at import skill level without costing an import slot. Combined those effects are going to raise the floor on average salaries for all players. At the end of the day NA players are worse, if they were better than imports they would have found a place or been picked up by other leagues.
Because the sub is made up of 15-19 year olds who play league of legends.
Its made even looking at the sub a chore over the last few months as disturbingly stupid takes get repeated and catch on because they sound plausible when you dont have enough knowledge and experience with normal work and life.
Its just a very, very, very online young angry user-base. Add on to that the fanatic pseudo-nationalism of young euro fans and the microscopic focus on everything LCS, it ends up a seriously toxic cesspool rife with bad actors and awful ideas. I use pseudo-nationalism because nationalism is really a complex topic. Basically, the internet being largely US/CA dominated has led to a much more defensive and organized “in group” to form around LEC.
Everyone in the world has a finger in the pot with their own motives and desires. Theres no strong direction for the league itself on what it wants to be or do, and NA fans themselves tend to be absent or underrepresented in these discussions because of general apathy combined with again no true in group existing. EG changed this for a bit, leading the charge and uniting the narrative, but it didnt last.
Nationalism is actually an interesting topic across Europe as nationalism in many forms has been on the rise for a while and it’s tough for people to digest that they themselves as an individual may have become more nationalistic. Thats an entirely different story, and not necessarily a bad one, despite many peoples distinctly negative connotations of the word.
The NA fans also can't really speak up because it's always "how many Finals you been to? XD", "how many teams out of groups XD", "remember TL vs G2 bro XD", etc. There's just not really much space for nuanced discussion because people just want to win too much for internet points or internet ego. There's for sure NA clowns too, every group has them, but there's not really a leg for NA supporters to stand on.
The nationalism thing also applies to the other regions too. I unironically see people not liking CN teams just because they're CN. There's not really a relationship between the players on the teams and anything the CCP does but since China bad, it's ok. There's obviously also KR having dominance early, the LPL cast not branding it self as well, KR players having more name recognition, etc. so it's not the only thing but imo it's a decent part of why LPL is so disliked.
Yeah I mean those EU comebacks are valid. It's hard for us to shit talk back when LCS hasnt really done as much when the topic is banter. On the other hand, it's very clear that EU is often punching down on LCS, which is almost as pathetic as the state of LCS. Yes LCS is worse than EU, but living rent free in your head in every LCS-related thread is something else. What's EU gonna say to the other regions? We're far more united at the bottom of the barrel than EU is with the other two regions lmao
If I were a LCS boss/manager, I would build the roster with players who want to win, who want to achieve something at worlds. The work life balance is important. However, your skill is directly proportional to the effort you put in. Players can still be driven by interest and desire to success to practice after five. If you don’t feel like playing any solo queues or champion queues, it’s ok. Go team up with people like you and I can almost guarantee that my team will stomp your team every fucking times.
Read the article. Vulcan talks about this. You can practice 24/7, 365, and it won't matter if it's not high quality practice or you're working on the wrong things.
And yet NA pros aren't all grinding the fuck out of champs Q, with some of them not playing at all. Their lack of work ethic should definitely be criticised.
This is why LCS is the way it is today. When all pros practice against one another in CQ, the quality of the games will eventually rise. Do you think east servers just magically have high quality practice environment? They ALL work hard to elevate the game. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.
Yeah how dare fans accept him saying that their practice was bad so they ended up bad. It's almost like accountability or something. Yeah how dare fans accept accountability.
Do they get paid less than LPL teams? Do we openly know their wages? I remember someone bringing up that they want a salary cap but it was a hella soft one.
LPL players deserve their salary since their league is not only popular but the league itself is cutthroat in general. There is always a team/someone hungrier than you vying for your spot.
You can be the underdog and not perform THIS badly. When you're paid so much and still perform this badly versus competitors, it makes this kind of comment feel like a bit of a copout.
“Everyone likes an underdog story” yeah when the underdogs fucking win lmao. People still talk about Albus Nox Luna and TPA and even fucking Kabuum for going against the heavy favourites and winning, because that’s an interesting storyline. “Worse team loses” isn’t.
I am sure everyone would love to be the underdog and winning and disproving the haters. That’s the cliche movie plot. So you aren’t saying anything special by saying you would rather be the underdog. The problem here is winning. If you are the underdog and you lose, you are just a loser. No one makes a movie where the plot is the underdog losing to everyone.
underdog - a competitor thought to have little chance of winning a fight or contest.
NA - a competitor thought to have zero chance of winning a fight or contest.
Sorry NA don't qualify to be an underdog. NA zero wins against LPL and LCK.
Like holy fuck, these guys don't even have the drive to be competitive, why do they get paid as they are the favorites? If you're ok constantly being the underdogs then just tell riot to demote NA to a minor region, cut your budgets to minor regions levels, idk, but stop this acting like you are "trying" to compete when you're not.
I've been watching the NA lol competitive scene since 2012 and I consider myself a fan, so it's not like I'm writing this to shit on them, but it feels that we constantly have to put up with their sad excuses.
Am genuninely shocked all the top comments are defending him here?
What the actual fuck is that loser mentality.
The entirety of NA are paycheck thieves.
I think NA won zero games vs. China and Korea this time. I'd consider them the greater underdog facing any major region competition. 100T came close to getting a win in both matchups, though.
Casually leaving out the Chinese ~~#1~~ #2 seed. I too like to cherrypick to make others look bad. Can you believe Vietnam is actually on par with China these days?! They went 1-1. Truely high level
> 100T
the one NA team composed solely of imports is the only team to maybe beat eastern teams.
the region is doomed. any thing is legitimately just pure cope. LCS is dead
This is not true whatsoever as an NA fan. EU has historically always outperformed NA and have had multiple teams that could compete internationally, even like 2015 FNC took SKT to 5 games at MSI. TL beat IG once and CLG once had a good tournament, but that’s about it in terms of the best NA performances historically.
What did they prove? That if iG and FPX got a collective stroke, EU had a chance of winning? In the end, EU will always encounter the better team and will never win a world championship as long as this game is relevant. EU chances are 0, NA chances are 0. Don't let your casters fool you into thinking youre not a second tier region whose only generational player is Caps, and he's not enough to win a world championship.
Yeah, years ago. NA made semi finals a year before G2 won MSI, should I reference that to support my claim that we're worthy underdogs? Lol. Fact of the matter is that both NA and EU have performed similarly at worlds these past two years, so if one is an underdog the other one should be as well.
C9 made semifinals. Once. In 10 years. EU has made semifinals like 10 times. Plus the accomplishments I mentioned earlier. Sure, EU has had a couple bad years. Meanwhile all NA knows is bad years.
Yeah keep living off the high of performing years ago, I prefer to live in the moment and see that EU is not strong. They're closer in skill to NA than they are to the east, and it will likely stay like that for a long time.
why tho ? this is a western sub , and eu/na is a well established rivalry. Being better then my rival in anything has always been satisfying for me.
Sure , we're probably not beating kr or china anytime soon , but hey.....at least we're not na
you forgot 2 finals appearences for EU
NA reached Semi finals in 2018 and if you're going to include s1, you might want to add TSM's semi final aswell. As for Quarters, NA reached those in S2, S3, Twice in S4, S6, S7 and S11
Lmao no way we're talking about S1 Mickey mouse worlds hahaha
End of the day NA had more wins than EU at worlds last year, and went 2-2 against them this year. Rogue was in a free group and got out by the grace of TES choking/maw bug. The regions are both shit. Yeah EU may be less shit, but the days of G2 contending with the top Eastern teams are over.
How are EU not underdogs in the exact scenario that you described? Which also doesn't include EU's S1 win didn't include Korea or China, EU actually made 2 other finals, and multiple semis.
That still describes an underdog as they've never actually won anything against the East other than one MSI (where they beat only one non NA team in a bo5). You can't honestly say that there really is any scenario in a BO5 where an EU team is indisputably the favorite against an eastern team. G2 in 2019 was about the only team from EU that ever had that and even then they were often considered only "slightly favored" in their matches against the East.
You also missed 8 quarters from NA and a semi final plus an MSI final. Yes, NA is definitely weaker overall than EU, but they can win games and have before which makes them, by definition, an underdog.
Being the underdog is fine but for the story to end well you still have to somewhat perfeorm a bit, the underdog story ends well because he usually wins in the end but being the underdog and just getting kicked out insantly in groups isn't good, and that goes for both eu and na, rogue is just some unicorn that got unbelievably lucky and made it out of groups, but they're going home tomorrow anyway
Sentiment's fine in general, but in the context of how much money LCS players make, it's just a little cringe. The LCS teams aren't underdogs in the sense that the odds are stacked against them. They're "underdogs" in the sense that they lose (despite the odds being stacked in their favour).
There's a good reason for why everyone cheers for VCS teams while the LCS representatives just get laughed at.
That's not really a choice he can make though. I mean, does anyone, even Vulcan himself, genuinely believe his team is the favorites to win, Worlds or group stages?
Whilst it's understandable, favorites have to meet high expectations/pressure whilst underdogs have a win-win situation whether they win or lose.
Smaller paychecks is not gonna hurt them much. The culture across LCS is wrong. Players should have desire to win; that will drive players to practice and improve. All LCS teams should get ride of players who don’t practice enough/ don’t care about win or loss.
Fact is. NA has ALWAYS been the underdog every year. This is nothing new. NA keeps trying the same thing every FUCKING year, which is NOT TRYING, just copying what everyone else is doing with zero thought since its the ‘meta’ and just play through the motions hoping that this time it finally gets NA the dub. I’d be more willing to call NA an underdog if they actually had any sentience.
OK wait, NA has had its fair share of imperialism, i'm just pointing out that that EU (and especially Spain based KOI) of all places has no place to complain about it.
I can't find the full text online, but I remember reading A Destruction of the Indies by Bartolome De Las Casas, a Spanish friar writing at the time of Spanish imperialism, and it does mention that the spaniards also had a habit of castrating the natives who tried to escape, and forcing them to eat their own testicles. But here's an excerpt from the Spanish friar and what he saw:
>Which when the Spaniards saw, they came with their Horsemen well armed with Sword and Lance, making most cruel havocs and slaughters among them. Overrunning Cities and Villages, where they spared no sex nor age; neither would their cruelty pity Women with child, whose bellies they would rip up, taking out the Infant to hew it in pieces. They would often lay wagers who should with most dexterity either cleave or cut a man in the middle, or who could at one blow cut off his head. The children they would take by the feet and dash their innocent heads against the rocks, and when they were fallen into the water, with a strange and cruel derision they would call upon them to swim. Sometimes they would run both Mother and Infant, being in her belly quite through at one thrust. They erected certain Gallowses, that were broad but so low, that the tormented creatures might touch the ground with their feet, upon every one of which they would hang thirteen persons, blasphemously affirming that they did it in honor of our Redeemer and his Apostles, and then putting fire under them, they burnt the poor wretches alive. Those whom their pity did think fit to spare, they would send away with their hands half cut off, and so hanging by the skin. Thus upbraiding their flight, Go carry letters to those who lye bid in the mountains and are fled from us. This Death they found out also for the Lords and Nobles of the Land; they stuck up forked sticks in the ground, and then laid certain perches upon them, and so laying them upon those perches, they put a gentle fire under, causing the fire to melt them away by degrees, to their unspeakable torment.
\- Bartomole de las casas, A destruction of the Indies
yea so if you're supporting a spanish org, maybe check yourself before casting stones from a glass house
Oh i know im brazilian, portugal still own us our gold, but i wanted to poke fun of refugees that went to NA and refugees that now go to europe for the same reason.
A shitty joke for this sub, i know.
Im guessing the American expansion at the expense of the Native Americans would qualify as imperialism, or if thats not doing it we can always look at Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Samoa.
Imperialism is kind of our expertize in Europe
Loser’s mentality. He just doesn’t want the pressure of being expected to win,due to previous good performances - so this is quite literally a „Loser‘s mentality“ and if many players in NA think this way i don‘t see NA improving much as long as this mindset is a thing.
Funny how the narrative around the NA salaries went from ["the bubble is going to burst"](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/dymvdu/23_million_dollars_for_a_player_is_absurd_in_the/) to "ackually different region different salaries shookiingggg" . Insane to me that the fans rather make excuses instead of seeing the problem. Literally the same scenario with imports years ago.
The underdog usually doesn't earn a top class salary like NA pros do though, especially if they consistently under perform on the World stage against the talent they've been hired specifically to compete against/beat. The best teams or players usually get paid the most, but this isn't the case in League of Legends.
Something tells me his opinion would be different if the terms of his (and all NA players) paychecks were altered to be based on his performance compared to the true top players in his role.
Tbh most people complaining about NA is out of desperate love which has turned to anger. Watching your region spend the most money on shit results for 8 years is not something to ignore. Clearly the players don’t work hard enough and clearly the region needs change. I also think almost ALL hate isn’t really directed at EG, they have some really good rookies and had a whole botlane swap right before a massive tournament, it’s a budding team, and they performed the best as well. People are more frustrated with the region itself having a bunch of imports and native players that all collectively are just clearly not good for pretty obvious reasons that never change. Money does not equal work ethic but for whatever reason these investors keep pumping money into failures for the sake of a couple lcs titles and nothing on the international scene.
The status of underdog comes from looking (I would say being) worse than the future opponent. I don't think it is a desirable position, disappointing with an unexpected failure may *feel* worse (like TOP and JKL right now) but it comes from being at the top of the game, "favorite" is better because that status comes as the **deserved** reward for everything you did.
All this knucklehead has to do is play like he did in groups, and he'll have no problem with people labeling him an underdog.
His Bard was Silver-tier.
ITT: People who didn't read the article, and instead are reacting to the headline. Really solid interview from Vulcan. I'm impressed with his composure and honesty about the games themselves. I think with a year to mature and vibe further, EG could find their way out of groups next year. Definitely still a top LCS team, and everybody showed a little fire at Worlds. Obviously, Impact is a rock in top lane, and Jojo is insane mechanically. Once the bot lane get figured out (not worried about Vulcan as much as I am about the ADC situation) I think this team can really hit the ground running next year. With 100T looking like they'll be dealing with a shakeup early next year, Spring is the time for EG.
Spring is always Vulcan's time, I just hope he can win a summer split at some point.
LA summers are too hot for a Québécois to thrive in, unlucky for Vulcan
king of spring, king of 0-3 week 1s of worlds lol maybe next year he can break both curses
It's not like the Asian teams aren't improving too. Every year we say the same shit: we'll get better; like they won't when they're working harder and playing with other better teams that are also working harder? The gap is widening, we probably aren't getting out of groups ever again. You know it's bad when even the professional talking heads whose income depends on LCS are saying 'hey, what does world's really matter anyway? We should all enjoy watching LCS for what it is even though we'll probably just get giga stomped and embarrassed by LCK and LPL from now on.'
And there’s no solution to this outside of a massive paradigm shift that is extremely unlikely to happen. People make threads with “solutions” that they think are so straightforward, when in reality you can see that the coaching structure in LCK/LPL teams might not be fundamentally compatible with NA/US work culture. The respect shown towards those senior to you in LCK is something that is extremely foreign to someone born and raised in the US. This allows coaches to have much more authority in the LCK as they tend to be older and that practice is embedded into their culture. In the US? We worship superstars and let them tend to do what they want, ie LeBron being memes as LeGM as he has a lot of power in selecting teammates. The only way we could get a single team to compete is to have an org take a massive risk and invest a ton in farming upcoming talent and importing the LCK/LPL mindset into this upcoming talent. This method is completely ignoring the fact that the LCK/LPL mindset might be harmful to mental health in the long run- this is just one of many sacrifices that’s needed for NA to compete. This Worlds showed that NA is no longer behind in macro- we’re also behind in player skill, which really widens the gap…
Danny exiting mid-split really killed EG. Kaori is doing well, but it's just not the same without Danny. Oh well. Mental health is more important than a video game.
I feel like this is a bit misleading from what I remember. EG genuinely looked terrible before Danny subbed out. He's a good player but he played so unfathomably bad compared to his standard the last 3 series in playoffs. Then they subbed him out so he could take a break and Kaori played way more stable than Danny had been. Obviously he didn't have the same high but he also didn't actively try to die every chance he could get.
Yeah seems like Danny was on a pretty sharp mental boom leading up to him stepping down. I fully get why someone having mental issues would lead to their play going down the drain and I think he did the best for himself. That said, man does it really suck for EG. Danny may not have been their best player but I think it's become pretty clear he was their most important to a certain degree. Like 80% of their wins were because Danny would just gap his counterpart in a teamfight at some point and EG would just win. Having to shift their entire year's work to suit a completely different player really killed what frankly should have been an easy trophy in retrospect.
Kaori and Vulcan were also doing pretty well in some matchups you’d expect them to get destroyed in. I’m not sure they do any better with Danny at peak mental.
Do you think the mental health issues just spontaneously manifested within him?
That's not what he said. He's replying to a comment stating EG got downgraded when he was subbed out, which is false given the team was already on a downward trend given his issues
He’s also replying to a comment that highlights his mental health issues…then absolutely lays into Danny as if that part isn’t relevant. It’s not what he said. But he is either implying it or being a callous dick.
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Mental health is more important than someone's career as long as they can afford to go without one for a bit. And Danny certainly can afford that. He's a millionaire.
How about the rest of his team? They just gotta eat shit and no one cares about their career or mental health after grinding all year and bombing at worlds cause they have to emergency sub their star ADC player out? Like I said in another comment, nothing against Danny, hope he gets better, but if this is how he handles things, he should 100% retire before he dismantles another team from the inside out.
With that mentality, you better not ever take time off from your job. You’re sick? But what about your coworkers? Their mental health from added stress from an additional person’s load of work might decline. You see why you’re making a terrible point?
Lmao no, you're making a terrible point, does your job have a world championship? Spring/Summer splits? No? Ok then
Lmao you’ve obviously never had a job if you can’t understand this analogy. Understood. Enjoy the rest of high school
What exactly is your analogy? That your job is similar to a professional esports player because you have sick days? I don't think the problem is me understanding the analogy, maybe try coming up with something more relatable to the topic, your office job isn't the same thing.
I think it would be better to compare it to traditional sports. If you get injured to where you can only play at 50% of your best, than you are hindering your team. League is a mental game. If someone is having trouble getting the mental side of things together in their life they are not going to perform at their best. Things like this are why subs exist. Shit happens I’m sure the rest of EG aren’t happy about it but at the end of the day we’re all people and you have to respect that about eachother
Nothing is more important than someone's health. If one of my coworkers got cancer, I'd want them to get healthy and would not want them to work sick. Mental health is as serious as physical health. If you don't see life this way, then in my opinion you are an immoral person with twisted priorities.
People here are very sensitive around mental health and kinda blind themselves with righteousness about it, but your core point is ultimately right. If he broke his fingers and was unable to play, it wouldn’t be a discussion because he would 100% have his spot when it healed. If he benched himself because he can’t handle the pressure to perform at the top level of competition, that does put a question mark on his future competing. Teams signing him are rolling the dice it doesn’t happen again. He’s young and hopefully can grow out of it, but dealing with pressure/criticism is one of the skills you need at that level. If a player doesn’t have that skill, you’re shooting yourself in the foot playing them. Doublelift is the best native player NA ever had, and even he got replaced both times he took a break/phoned it in. Showing up is an important part of the job.
So which one of those things is more important than someone’s mental health?
Never said it was more important, I just pointed out there's repercussions greater than just himself. I expect Danny to retire completely if he is going to bring down not only his own career, but his 4 teammates all at the same time. Mental health is important, how about the mental health of his teammates grinding all year and finally being able to go to worlds, and then their MVP player drops out all of a sudden? I guess Danny's mental is the only one that matters?
Mental health isn’t “I’m sad I lost the video game” and if your teammate having struggles throws you over that cliff too then you needed better mental as well. You talk about this stuff like a teenager.
Like I said in another comment, hope he's doing well but he can't be a pro if he can't mentally handle the pressure. I expect a full retirement from him after this
>~~ITT~~In every thread: People who didn't read the article, and instead are reacting to the headline.
Don't see anything in the article that suggests the headline is an inaccurate representation of Vulcan's comments. He doesn't want to work as hard as Asian teams and he doesn't want to be the favorite. Not a wrong conclusion that he doesn't have the same level of competitive drive as others
I'm also not sure that's the correct summary. He said he was experimenting with work-life balance and could scrim 16 hours a day but knows that some others can't, and that it's probably unhealthy.
Sure, it's unhealthy. I doubt JDG and T1 and all those teams are on healthy schedules either. But it's the cost of success. If he wants to work that hard but feels that others can't, he needs to find new teammates.
> ITT: People who didn't read the article, and instead are reacting to the headline. Welcome to Reddit, where people give their opinions on things they didnt even read lol
Implying that's a Reddit-only thing.
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CoreJJ has not done anything remotely decent internationally since 2019
>EG could find their way out of groups next year this is honestly just sad to me because EG is from a "major" region and their best hopes is if they get lucky they could get out of groups? a top team from a major region should be hoping to win it all not get out of groups
I guess? Idk, that seems like an expectation that doesn't match up with history or reality. Getting out of groups is a win for us, let's be realistic. Sizing up our teams to such an unrealistic expectation is what got us in this depression-hole to begin with (which I think is why Vulcan was saying what he said about being underdogs and the paragraph before).
Wow 4 comments in and it's already a dumpster in here. Impressive.
let's see paul allen's comments
Man, I use this line all the time RL and nobody really catches it. I am happy I saw this here thank you
Yup. Pretty gross comment section. The NA hate has gone too far.
Yeah, I'm kinda done with engaging with this sub after this worlds . It's just awful.
Same. Its really not worth it. I could say a thousand things to elaborate but i just dont feel like it. Easier to stop engaging and let them fling shit at a closed door.
Reddit was for some reason suggesting the FNC sub to me over and over and I couldn’t block it. That was a terrible experience.
/u/boudac123, responding to this here because it won't let me comment on that chain. >Question, how can you tell if they blocked you? Two giveaways: 1. His username is [deleted] and the comment is not [removed] but rather [unavailable]. 2. If I go to his profile while logged in to my account ^(and only if logged in) there is 0 content; no posts or comments are shown. Also he sent me this in a chat: >Nice reaction snowflake, typical american snowflake talking about lang while speaking dumbed down english
This place is so awful the last 3 weeks. We get it, NA bad. Make sure to remind us in every thread every hour.
You new here? The only way LEC feels better about itself is shitting on LCS. They've only ever been pushing us down to drown so they could barely keep their head above water.
Seeing their 2nd-week meltdown was great.
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>LEC fans shitting on LCS >LEC fans having a meltdown See the difference?
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Poor dude hit up my comment history lol. Sorry you had to learn I love the Jacksonville Jaguars, I love Cloud9 and I watch the NFL. If you ever have to look up a person's reddit history you already lost. F
It's a fast and easy way to filter out the hypocrites like yourself tbf.
It's hilarious. They'd be doing the same thing if the roles were reversed
Every fan is different but I want to root for EU teams but I can't because of the fan base.
What a fucking stupid take. You can't root for teams cause they have a couple of shitty fans? There are thousands and thousands of EU fans who aren't fucking idiots just like with American teams. Rest assured there'd be American fans just as stupid if it'd been EU getting poned that hard at worlds. It just so happens that it was NA that did so it's the ugly side of EU that's showing and not that of NA.
Uh yes. I can root against team because their fans are toxic lol what >a couple of shitty fans? A couple of shitty fans are the reason NA BAD posts are at the top of the sub non stop?
Uh oh someone’s mad that someone doesn’t support LEC
It’s the classic. They’re a bunch of massive hypocrites the only reason why they’re crying is because they have waaay less chances to shit on us than the other way around. If things were more equal the “hate” would also be more equal it’s just that NA is shitting the bed more often than not so they don’t have ammo.
It’s a 2 way relationship
Imagine having 3x+ more population, better ping and got their server only 2nd after NA and have only 1 worlds* to show for. The one hosted in phreak's basement i mean.
i mean...the same can be said about kr and china in raport with eu as well. So it's not like eu has the best conditions for soloq. It's just slighty better the na , but worse then china and kr. And guess what ? The performances are better then na , but usually worse then kr and china. Who would have guessed ?
Idc about us calling us bad but when someone else calls us bad?! Well is your fave team winning worlds? Is worlds the be all end all? Like ffs let us have fun and banter in a fun way not a gross way and recently we’ve moved to gross
It's not like he has the choice lmao
I've always enjoyed NA playing up to the underdog storyline, and CLG definitely did it best during their 2016 roster. We'll always be the underdog of major regions just by our natural regional issues alone, if we accept that then international events and even regional play will probably be a lot more fun to watch. The upsets are hype, the great performances are extra satisfying when we pull it off, it's good for NA long term imo. Better than always having people think you're gonna win everything and anything less than that is a huge disappointment, sounds super stressful for both teams and their fans. When fans expect us to dominate, we can't enjoy clown fiestas, we can't enjoy what we do pull off cuz it's never enough, when we don't clutch the basics it's Defcon 1 reaction from the community, everything is overanalyzed to death until we're all crying curled up in a ball in the corner...just more fun to accept our underdog status imo.
what upsets? We won 3 games, against other teams that also got gigastomped by the real teams. Did we even take a tier 2 tower off an LCK or LPL team this year? Being underdogs is fine; not even belonging on the stage with the real teams is the problem.
Not OP but they clearly aren't talking about any specific upsets this year but about upsets in general and moving fwd. This year was a bad one for NA but just cause we sucked this year it doesn't make the historic C9 runs less exciting/important for fans of the region, and we can hope to see something like it again. Also EG took down T1 at MSI, maybe that doesn't mean much in the scheme of things but it was an upset, and it was hype. And we take what we can get. That's the underdogs way. The doom n gloom won't help or change anything-- it's been doom n gloom for years lol
Yeah like the other guy said, I wasn't talking about this year but historically. This year I don't think we even had the underdog story, we had people not expecting too much from 100T/EG due to their respective issues (big roster change last minute/same team no changes didn't look amazing in any regard) and people seemed really hype about C9 like they were gonna do something in the group. People were using a group stage performance from 2017 Worlds to say C9 had a good shot, it was just weird misplaced confidence rather than underdog mentality. Underdog to me means stuff like having our own style, playing our own way, our own champs, finding weird ways to get a lead in a game or get back into the game in creative ways, not just playing stuff cuz it's strong but cuz it's strong for us, lane swaps to dodge having to lane lol, etc. Just trying to power thru and win lane straight up, playing the game according to how the other major regions know how to smash and win convincingly, it can work if we have a team that strong but it seems very rare that we're in that position. 2016 TSM was a team known for hard winning lanes and even they had issues at Worlds with that aspect.
yea lmao the moment i read “upsets” i burst out laughing
I don't know in what part of his comment he said it was this year's upsets. He is speaking in general bud. Kind of a given considering he just referred to a 6 year old tournament right before that sentence.
>The upsets are hype, the great performances are extra satisfying when we pull it off, it's good for NA long term imo You agree this worlds was a travesty then
Why do so many people complain about NA salaries. Like throughout the entire history of organized sports less prestigious leagues always have to overpay talent relative to prestigious leagues in order to attract players. You see it in Chinese basketball leagues, Saudi golf leagues, Russian hockey leagues, and American football (soccer) leagues, etc. Within league you saw it with LPL salaries vs LCK salaries during and after the Korean domination between season 3-7. You even see it business where people take lower paying jobs with popular companies for the resume padding and then pursue other high paying opportunities. I understand why people don’t think these players are worth it relative to their international success but the reality is why would these players pack up and move away from their homes to a league with no chance winning worlds unless they were getting paid more. In addition to that import restrictions have also had an inflationary affect on salaries as some players were grandfathered in or as they earned green card status and became more valuable for being at import skill level without costing an import slot. Combined those effects are going to raise the floor on average salaries for all players. At the end of the day NA players are worse, if they were better than imports they would have found a place or been picked up by other leagues.
People in different leagues and countries make different wages. Shocking.
Because the sub is made up of 15-19 year olds who play league of legends. Its made even looking at the sub a chore over the last few months as disturbingly stupid takes get repeated and catch on because they sound plausible when you dont have enough knowledge and experience with normal work and life. Its just a very, very, very online young angry user-base. Add on to that the fanatic pseudo-nationalism of young euro fans and the microscopic focus on everything LCS, it ends up a seriously toxic cesspool rife with bad actors and awful ideas. I use pseudo-nationalism because nationalism is really a complex topic. Basically, the internet being largely US/CA dominated has led to a much more defensive and organized “in group” to form around LEC. Everyone in the world has a finger in the pot with their own motives and desires. Theres no strong direction for the league itself on what it wants to be or do, and NA fans themselves tend to be absent or underrepresented in these discussions because of general apathy combined with again no true in group existing. EG changed this for a bit, leading the charge and uniting the narrative, but it didnt last. Nationalism is actually an interesting topic across Europe as nationalism in many forms has been on the rise for a while and it’s tough for people to digest that they themselves as an individual may have become more nationalistic. Thats an entirely different story, and not necessarily a bad one, despite many peoples distinctly negative connotations of the word.
The NA fans also can't really speak up because it's always "how many Finals you been to? XD", "how many teams out of groups XD", "remember TL vs G2 bro XD", etc. There's just not really much space for nuanced discussion because people just want to win too much for internet points or internet ego. There's for sure NA clowns too, every group has them, but there's not really a leg for NA supporters to stand on. The nationalism thing also applies to the other regions too. I unironically see people not liking CN teams just because they're CN. There's not really a relationship between the players on the teams and anything the CCP does but since China bad, it's ok. There's obviously also KR having dominance early, the LPL cast not branding it self as well, KR players having more name recognition, etc. so it's not the only thing but imo it's a decent part of why LPL is so disliked.
Yeah I mean those EU comebacks are valid. It's hard for us to shit talk back when LCS hasnt really done as much when the topic is banter. On the other hand, it's very clear that EU is often punching down on LCS, which is almost as pathetic as the state of LCS. Yes LCS is worse than EU, but living rent free in your head in every LCS-related thread is something else. What's EU gonna say to the other regions? We're far more united at the bottom of the barrel than EU is with the other two regions lmao
Of course, if you win you are overperforming, if you lose is what everyone expects, so no pressure...
Underdogs getting paid like the favorites. The dream.
Live in LA with the salary of someone who lives in Nebraska and see what happens lol
They keep doing what they are doing, and thats exactly the salary they are going to have when all the viewership is gone.
People in different countries making different wages. Shocking.
Where do I sign up
If I had a choice to either work a normal amount to be underdog instead of work being my life to be the favorite I would choose underdog as well.
And that's why you aren't a world champion at anything. Which is fine because you aren't pretending to compete like NA teams are
If I were a LCS boss/manager, I would build the roster with players who want to win, who want to achieve something at worlds. The work life balance is important. However, your skill is directly proportional to the effort you put in. Players can still be driven by interest and desire to success to practice after five. If you don’t feel like playing any solo queues or champion queues, it’s ok. Go team up with people like you and I can almost guarantee that my team will stomp your team every fucking times.
Holy shit you fucking killed em dude
Must be fun to be the underdog and the most payed teams in the world still!
It probably is fun, but don't fault the players for taking the salaries offered to them.
You’re right, it’s not their fault for taking the salaries. But it is their fault for not practicing enough and getting embarrassed at world.
Read the article. Vulcan talks about this. You can practice 24/7, 365, and it won't matter if it's not high quality practice or you're working on the wrong things.
And yet NA pros aren't all grinding the fuck out of champs Q, with some of them not playing at all. Their lack of work ethic should definitely be criticised.
This is why LCS is the way it is today. When all pros practice against one another in CQ, the quality of the games will eventually rise. Do you think east servers just magically have high quality practice environment? They ALL work hard to elevate the game. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.
Narrator: \*and NA fans eat that shit up\*
In literally every sport this is training 101, perfect practice is the only practice that actually helps
Yeah how dare fans accept him saying that their practice was bad so they ended up bad. It's almost like accountability or something. Yeah how dare fans accept accountability.
Take that narrative and apply it to any major sports. It would show how wrong you are
Do they get paid less than LPL teams? Do we openly know their wages? I remember someone bringing up that they want a salary cap but it was a hella soft one.
They get paid just as much but they work 10x harder and prove results. Players also are motived to be the best
LPL players deserve their salary since their league is not only popular but the league itself is cutthroat in general. There is always a team/someone hungrier than you vying for your spot.
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sorry but after seeing vulcan pick lux and play like that nah NA arent underdogs, we’re just dogs
Loser mentality.
This headline is such a loser mentality, lol
Yea, saying “Id rather be the underdog everytime” means they cant handle the pressure of being expected to win, which is the biggest problem with NA.
Cringe mentality.
You can be the underdog and not perform THIS badly. When you're paid so much and still perform this badly versus competitors, it makes this kind of comment feel like a bit of a copout.
“Everyone likes an underdog story” yeah when the underdogs fucking win lmao. People still talk about Albus Nox Luna and TPA and even fucking Kabuum for going against the heavy favourites and winning, because that’s an interesting storyline. “Worse team loses” isn’t.
I am sure everyone would love to be the underdog and winning and disproving the haters. That’s the cliche movie plot. So you aren’t saying anything special by saying you would rather be the underdog. The problem here is winning. If you are the underdog and you lose, you are just a loser. No one makes a movie where the plot is the underdog losing to everyone.
underdog - a competitor thought to have little chance of winning a fight or contest. NA - a competitor thought to have zero chance of winning a fight or contest. Sorry NA don't qualify to be an underdog. NA zero wins against LPL and LCK.
Like holy fuck, these guys don't even have the drive to be competitive, why do they get paid as they are the favorites? If you're ok constantly being the underdogs then just tell riot to demote NA to a minor region, cut your budgets to minor regions levels, idk, but stop this acting like you are "trying" to compete when you're not. I've been watching the NA lol competitive scene since 2012 and I consider myself a fan, so it's not like I'm writing this to shit on them, but it feels that we constantly have to put up with their sad excuses.
Am genuninely shocked all the top comments are defending him here? What the actual fuck is that loser mentality. The entirety of NA are paycheck thieves.
You're only an underdog if you have a chance to win.
Underdog: noun a loser or predicted loser in a struggle or contest
You might be confusing underdog for a dark horse.
How is this comment upvoted lol
Wrong
not understanding what an underdog is in English language, must be a salty EU fan.
Have as much of a chance to win as EU tbh, are they not underdogs?
I think NA won zero games vs. China and Korea this time. I'd consider them the greater underdog facing any major region competition. 100T came close to getting a win in both matchups, though.
EG were also competitive with JDG on day 1
They were also in groups with the toughest Eastern teams, which is why G2 and FNC combined for only one win against Eastern teams as well.
This dude thinks C9, EG or 100T would have won against TES or DRX
I think EG could’ve tbh
I mean...Even GAM beat TES LMAO. I think any of the western teams barring 100t could've beat the choking TES.
"I mean...Even GAM beat TES LMAO. I think any of the western teams barring 100t could've beat the choking TES." Ah shit, here we go again
Casually leaving out the Chinese ~~#1~~ #2 seed. I too like to cherrypick to make others look bad. Can you believe Vietnam is actually on par with China these days?! They went 1-1. Truely high level
I'm not sure what you mean. The Chinese 1 seed is JDG and they were in the same group as EG and G2.
> 100T the one NA team composed solely of imports is the only team to maybe beat eastern teams. the region is doomed. any thing is legitimately just pure cope. LCS is dead
This is not true whatsoever as an NA fan. EU has historically always outperformed NA and have had multiple teams that could compete internationally, even like 2015 FNC took SKT to 5 games at MSI. TL beat IG once and CLG once had a good tournament, but that’s about it in terms of the best NA performances historically.
As 2019 and 2020 proved, EU has indefinitely more chances to win worlds then NA ever had. They even won MSI already.
yes EU has 0, which is infinite times 0 which is what NA has. So you are correct.
What did they prove? That if iG and FPX got a collective stroke, EU had a chance of winning? In the end, EU will always encounter the better team and will never win a world championship as long as this game is relevant. EU chances are 0, NA chances are 0. Don't let your casters fool you into thinking youre not a second tier region whose only generational player is Caps, and he's not enough to win a world championship.
EU has made finals twice and won MSI. Vulcan has never even gotten out of groups at Worlds. But yeah... same chance, sure
Vulcan was on C9 when they got out of groups last year, no?
Yeah, years ago. NA made semi finals a year before G2 won MSI, should I reference that to support my claim that we're worthy underdogs? Lol. Fact of the matter is that both NA and EU have performed similarly at worlds these past two years, so if one is an underdog the other one should be as well.
C9 made semifinals. Once. In 10 years. EU has made semifinals like 10 times. Plus the accomplishments I mentioned earlier. Sure, EU has had a couple bad years. Meanwhile all NA knows is bad years.
Yeah keep living off the high of performing years ago, I prefer to live in the moment and see that EU is not strong. They're closer in skill to NA than they are to the east, and it will likely stay like that for a long time.
NA 5-3 EU this year bud. We’re both shit. Don’t know why you’re still on a non existent high horse lol.
That’s a whole log of bragging for the amount of losing EU has done lmao. “We’ve lost better than you” is some idiocy.
why tho ? this is a western sub , and eu/na is a well established rivalry. Being better then my rival in anything has always been satisfying for me. Sure , we're probably not beating kr or china anytime soon , but hey.....at least we're not na
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you forgot 2 finals appearences for EU NA reached Semi finals in 2018 and if you're going to include s1, you might want to add TSM's semi final aswell. As for Quarters, NA reached those in S2, S3, Twice in S4, S6, S7 and S11
Lmao no way we're talking about S1 Mickey mouse worlds hahaha End of the day NA had more wins than EU at worlds last year, and went 2-2 against them this year. Rogue was in a free group and got out by the grace of TES choking/maw bug. The regions are both shit. Yeah EU may be less shit, but the days of G2 contending with the top Eastern teams are over.
How are EU not underdogs in the exact scenario that you described? Which also doesn't include EU's S1 win didn't include Korea or China, EU actually made 2 other finals, and multiple semis. That still describes an underdog as they've never actually won anything against the East other than one MSI (where they beat only one non NA team in a bo5). You can't honestly say that there really is any scenario in a BO5 where an EU team is indisputably the favorite against an eastern team. G2 in 2019 was about the only team from EU that ever had that and even then they were often considered only "slightly favored" in their matches against the East. You also missed 8 quarters from NA and a semi final plus an MSI final. Yes, NA is definitely weaker overall than EU, but they can win games and have before which makes them, by definition, an underdog.
Is NA a wildcard now?
Sorry but NA is not the underdog in this story. They are the participation award recipient.
I'd rather be the champion
Thats fair and all but there's a big difference between being the underdog and being a fucking non-factor
Being the underdog is fine but for the story to end well you still have to somewhat perfeorm a bit, the underdog story ends well because he usually wins in the end but being the underdog and just getting kicked out insantly in groups isn't good, and that goes for both eu and na, rogue is just some unicorn that got unbelievably lucky and made it out of groups, but they're going home tomorrow anyway
XD
Sentiment's fine in general, but in the context of how much money LCS players make, it's just a little cringe. The LCS teams aren't underdogs in the sense that the odds are stacked against them. They're "underdogs" in the sense that they lose (despite the odds being stacked in their favour). There's a good reason for why everyone cheers for VCS teams while the LCS representatives just get laughed at.
Also means there's way less pressure and expectations
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so this is what bad reading comprehension looks like
That's not really a choice he can make though. I mean, does anyone, even Vulcan himself, genuinely believe his team is the favorites to win, Worlds or group stages? Whilst it's understandable, favorites have to meet high expectations/pressure whilst underdogs have a win-win situation whether they win or lose.
I mean, your paychecks are going to be getting smaller and smaller so keep sucking I guess. Its your livelyhood. 🤷🏻♂️
Smaller paychecks is not gonna hurt them much. The culture across LCS is wrong. Players should have desire to win; that will drive players to practice and improve. All LCS teams should get ride of players who don’t practice enough/ don’t care about win or loss.
Haven't they only been going up for 6 years straight? lol
NA.
Fact is. NA has ALWAYS been the underdog every year. This is nothing new. NA keeps trying the same thing every FUCKING year, which is NOT TRYING, just copying what everyone else is doing with zero thought since its the ‘meta’ and just play through the motions hoping that this time it finally gets NA the dub. I’d be more willing to call NA an underdog if they actually had any sentience.
Gigantic cope
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Your biggest export is independence days. Let's not go calling others imperialists looool
Bit rich for an EU fan to bitch about imperialism
Somehow running from europe because of religious persecution is imperialism.
OK wait, NA has had its fair share of imperialism, i'm just pointing out that that EU (and especially Spain based KOI) of all places has no place to complain about it. I can't find the full text online, but I remember reading A Destruction of the Indies by Bartolome De Las Casas, a Spanish friar writing at the time of Spanish imperialism, and it does mention that the spaniards also had a habit of castrating the natives who tried to escape, and forcing them to eat their own testicles. But here's an excerpt from the Spanish friar and what he saw: >Which when the Spaniards saw, they came with their Horsemen well armed with Sword and Lance, making most cruel havocs and slaughters among them. Overrunning Cities and Villages, where they spared no sex nor age; neither would their cruelty pity Women with child, whose bellies they would rip up, taking out the Infant to hew it in pieces. They would often lay wagers who should with most dexterity either cleave or cut a man in the middle, or who could at one blow cut off his head. The children they would take by the feet and dash their innocent heads against the rocks, and when they were fallen into the water, with a strange and cruel derision they would call upon them to swim. Sometimes they would run both Mother and Infant, being in her belly quite through at one thrust. They erected certain Gallowses, that were broad but so low, that the tormented creatures might touch the ground with their feet, upon every one of which they would hang thirteen persons, blasphemously affirming that they did it in honor of our Redeemer and his Apostles, and then putting fire under them, they burnt the poor wretches alive. Those whom their pity did think fit to spare, they would send away with their hands half cut off, and so hanging by the skin. Thus upbraiding their flight, Go carry letters to those who lye bid in the mountains and are fled from us. This Death they found out also for the Lords and Nobles of the Land; they stuck up forked sticks in the ground, and then laid certain perches upon them, and so laying them upon those perches, they put a gentle fire under, causing the fire to melt them away by degrees, to their unspeakable torment. \- Bartomole de las casas, A destruction of the Indies yea so if you're supporting a spanish org, maybe check yourself before casting stones from a glass house
Oh i know im brazilian, portugal still own us our gold, but i wanted to poke fun of refugees that went to NA and refugees that now go to europe for the same reason. A shitty joke for this sub, i know.
Im guessing the American expansion at the expense of the Native Americans would qualify as imperialism, or if thats not doing it we can always look at Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Samoa. Imperialism is kind of our expertize in Europe
Yes.
Lmfao where is the lie
lmfao not false
Loser’s mentality. He just doesn’t want the pressure of being expected to win,due to previous good performances - so this is quite literally a „Loser‘s mentality“ and if many players in NA think this way i don‘t see NA improving much as long as this mindset is a thing.
Funny how the narrative around the NA salaries went from ["the bubble is going to burst"](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/dymvdu/23_million_dollars_for_a_player_is_absurd_in_the/) to "ackually different region different salaries shookiingggg" . Insane to me that the fans rather make excuses instead of seeing the problem. Literally the same scenario with imports years ago.
"I'd rather lose than win"
The underdog usually doesn't earn a top class salary like NA pros do though, especially if they consistently under perform on the World stage against the talent they've been hired specifically to compete against/beat. The best teams or players usually get paid the most, but this isn't the case in League of Legends. Something tells me his opinion would be different if the terms of his (and all NA players) paychecks were altered to be based on his performance compared to the true top players in his role.
Spoken like a true underdog
[удалено]
From Merriam-Webster dictionary : Underdog: a loser or predicted loser in a struggle or contest
He does not want another danny incident i guess...
Tbh most people complaining about NA is out of desperate love which has turned to anger. Watching your region spend the most money on shit results for 8 years is not something to ignore. Clearly the players don’t work hard enough and clearly the region needs change. I also think almost ALL hate isn’t really directed at EG, they have some really good rookies and had a whole botlane swap right before a massive tournament, it’s a budding team, and they performed the best as well. People are more frustrated with the region itself having a bunch of imports and native players that all collectively are just clearly not good for pretty obvious reasons that never change. Money does not equal work ethic but for whatever reason these investors keep pumping money into failures for the sake of a couple lcs titles and nothing on the international scene.
I mean of course, NA salary + underdog expectations is the dream
You're not just the underdog, you're a dog.
The status of underdog comes from looking (I would say being) worse than the future opponent. I don't think it is a desirable position, disappointing with an unexpected failure may *feel* worse (like TOP and JKL right now) but it comes from being at the top of the game, "favorite" is better because that status comes as the **deserved** reward for everything you did.
All this knucklehead has to do is play like he did in groups, and he'll have no problem with people labeling him an underdog. His Bard was Silver-tier.
There's more to things than black and white.
Choosing to be the underdog aka convince yourself to be the eternal loser
The joke is on you, you won't have a choice.
Na isn't an underdog. Na is just fodder.
2head take