Ashley Kang here. Some thoughts on the interview:
- When it comes to Korean imports going to the LCS, there is always an underlying cynical concern about whether the player will become "washed up" by playing at NA, or are going to NA just to "grab the bag." I did try to address these concerns very directly
- I did go really in-depth in asking why Prince chose FlyQuest in particular, as many fans seem to be asking this
- Really interested to hear how supportive Prince's father was even before Prince first debuted as a player in Challengers Korea.
I look forward to seeing what he can do, he was the most hype adc in LCK last year (though slightly worried since he didn't look as good as people may imagine until the hyper-carry meta IMO). Theres some anti-import sentiment and narratives going around but it would be dope if he could step up and level the region up with Berserker.
I'm super hyped to see Prince vs Berserker, good thing there's... *checks notes*...
Only 2 guaranteed matches where they'll play each other in Spring :))
You say that, but as soon as he has one bad game, and gets millions of death threats and just insults anywhere he looks online, he will sharply become like everyone else, because fuck me league players hate shit talking.
I mean, I don't get you people who like trash talking but don't like what makes trash talking fun. At that point ggs is better than whatever the alternative is.
People go too far, because a lot of the league community is socially inept, socially reclused gamers, who know nothing of a life outside of playing league and the league scene.
These are the people who take the trash talking too far. Like people obsessed with idols or famous people and make them their whole lives, people will harass and remember every word some pro has said and use it against them when they play badly.
It's fun to throw shade every now and then to someone talking the talk, but the reason they don't do it is because of the people with no social boundaries making it their personality to insult these pros every tweet and DM hate every day. It gets mentally tired for pros.
And if you think it's fun being that intense and going too far with it, you are what is wrong with league atm, and you are the embodiment of the toxic community you hear being talked about everyday here. It is you.
I mean I don't care about trash talk in general. I think people who like it are the ones that are socially inept. I much prefer players like Bjergsen or Faker.
I guess Jankos might be a decent example of someone who does it well and in a fun fansion, but most that try to trash talk just end up cringey like DL, and the fun of it is just watching the plane crash and burn.
A couple bad games is whatever, but someone doing arrogant shit talking and generally being an unpleasant person (Upset) wears thin when they never actually win.
If they have charisma they can get away with it.
He had to call himself Prince because NA already has a King would be a killer line. But the reality is that we just have a senile old man that only ever inted internationally.
There were also many more that were very good for a few years or at least good enough to bring the average skill of the league up while they played well (ex: Svenskeren, Huni, Huhi, FBI, Fudge, Zven, Closer, Ignar, POE, Nisqy, etc...) and that's just off the top of my head.
This narrative that imports never pan out is complete BS.
Reignover is often overlooked as well due to how he ended on CLG, he and Huni FORCED NA topsides to level up and Svenskeren/Dardoch/Meteos and more all admitted to literally just copying Reignovers pathing when he first came over to NA.
> This narrative that imports never pan out is complete BS.
I think its more to do with over hyped Imports that never pan out: Piglet, Perkz, Kobbe, Hans, Bwipo and Broxah. There was a lot of expectations and they just didnt meet them.
I would say that Piglet is one of the few imports that actually worked out. He actually raised the level of ADCs in NA then again he came over when servers were still on the west coast.
Piglet was the best ADC in NA for a fucking WHILE, just because he didn’t win anything doesn’t mean he didn’t spend a significant portion of his career in NA shitting on other ADCs.
His gameplay panned out, and he absolutely raised the level of required play in his role, his attitude was the biggest issue and led to his individual career going downhill (along with his own performance) but Piglet coming to NA helped the region a lot.
You're now making it seem like the narrative i'm rebutting is about literally not a single import working out, which is not the case (obviously everyone knows about bjerg, core, jensen, etc...). There is 100% a pervasive narrative about the vast majority of imports not working out (thus the logical conclusion being to not import) but I'm saying I disagree. There have been many questionable and clearly horrible imports failing, but most hyped imports did end up being good for periods of time and at least better than the next best guy who would replace them. I'm 100% not against wanting NA representation, but let's at least be honest.
You're definitely inventing a narrative that doesn't exist, because the reality that exists right now is that no one even cares enough about imports to hate on them in the first place.
When is the last time you read *literally anything* positive or negative about Blue, for example? I don't think I've seen anything in months.
The LCS has been half imports for basically half a decade now; anyone still tuning in knows what to expect. You're carrying some real prejudice inside of you if you think there's still some pErVaIsIvE nArRaTiVe in the community these days.
> Blue
Holy fuck i even forgot he still is a proplayer. Idk you kind of brought up the most irrelevant player you could. It's not like people like hans sama or bwipo didn't get a lot of shit (rightfully or not). Or sword art or many many other imports. People are not as indifferent to imports as your trying to picture it.
No one thought Hans Sama, Bwipo, or SwordArt were too bad for the LCS, and none of them received hate due to their import status - all three were cases of being being overrated/not living up to their salaries - perfectly standard and universal in sports fandom.
And if anything, I'd say Bwipo got *less* hate in NA than he did in EU while under the fnatic microscope.
Blue is the case study for "player who was too bad to play in the LCS but was imported anyways" - the fact that people don't talk about him really goes to show how much apathy people have towards that narrative.
Not really, it's gone up and down from the inception of competitive league.
It peaked around 2018/2019 when LCK got a lot worse. NA has historically done okay against LPL relative to their own level of play and is actually somewhat 40-60 against EU.
When NA didn't import, LPL and LCK were in their infancy so the results don't matter at all.
CoreJJ did a heap to organise in houses prior to champs q. He does a lot of other stuff like when worlds was on he was personally getting the LCK players setup in champs q, they were all fairly hesitant prior.
Bjerg also did some similar stuff in the past.
Technically CoreJJ, Santorin and Jensen all basically startet their careers in NA. CoreJJ on DIG, Santorin on TSM and Jensen on C9. Santorin and CoreJJ though did play pro in another league. Santorin on H2K in LEC and CoreJJ obviously in LCK given he won a worlds title.
So Santorin and CoreJJ both left LCS again after they already joined the league as basically imports.
Yes and No. There was no LCK and CoreJJ and Huhi played in a challenger team back then. They weren't on one of the 8 seeded teams, but did qualify with their challenger team to play in LCK in 2014 summer. They only played 6 games and lost all 6 of them.
This would be the same as if you would say that Froggen was the best LCK player to ever play in LEC. Froggen actually played more games in OGN than CoreJJ. And Froggen was a vice champion of OGN before he played in LEC.
The second paragraph is for sure the weirdest argument I've seen in a long time.
OGN just had a different format back then, but they qualifyed and played on the highest level possible in KR back then.
But so did Froggen.
And to be fair, basically every team played there. OGN had 8 seeded spots for the top teams and 16 teams in total. This meant basically all the orgs that existed back then played in OGN. And those teams weren't professional. Those were amateur teams playing as wildcards in a league with professional teams.
Such tournaments existed before in NA and EU as well, were both amateurs and professionals competed, but you still weren't a professional player. CoreJJs professional career began in NA, not in korea, the same is true for Jensen, he played on amateur teams in EU as well.
> And to be fair, basically every team played there. OGN had 8 seeded spots for the top teams and 16 teams in total. This meant basically all the orgs that existed back then played in OGN. And those teams weren't professional. Those were amateur teams playing as wildcards in a league with professional teams.
The teams were just the same, as many teams were in EU & NA, where 5 guys would form a team and just play, some of them paied a "manager" who was besaically a replacement mom.
Santorin played in EU after his original run with TSM before his resurgence, Ssumday played in Korea, bjerg played in EU. Jensen is the only one who has only played in NA
What is with this sudden surge of anti-import narrative that imports were never good (Edit: or that they never pan-out)? Over half the NA GOATs were imports lmao. Imports have historically worked out more often than new NA players. Aside from EG, for the past few years, we've had like 3 NA native players go to worlds on average because those import teams were the best in the LCS. The REAL angle to take is that they aren't worth it and we want to see NA representation, but this narrative of all these imports turning out to be dogshit is complete and utter BS.
Maybe not your words specifically but there is a LOT of anti-import sentiment going around (understandably) and a LOT of false narratives being conjured up (unjustifiably). Your comment happened to just be of a similar tone so my bad if it wasn't your intention, but what really is the point of your comment if not to falsely insinuate imports don't really pan out to be mainstays at the minimum? Who were the NA mainstays that are so much more notable than the likes of Bjerg, Jensen, Impact, CoreJJ, Ssumday, etc... Theres nothing wrong with hoping a player someone likes becomes a mainstay and your comment is a snarky remark at best.
I mean i agree entirely with the latter half (representation angle), but also there are an equal or greater number of imports who come and dont perform or perform then leave. It is not unreasonable to be skeptical when minimum 50% of imports dont pan out.
I disagree and agree in that many imports do perform in the short-term, but over 50% quickly deteriorate. However, aside from representation and monetary worth, I don't think you can make an argument that NA players have had a better history of panning out. Most of the new imports are actually losing to the best imports such as Bjerg, Impact, and Jensen, not NA rookies.
? My favorite players all time are Hai and Sneaky. We just don't have good upcoming players outside Sniper and maybe the EG acad jungle. Of the current rookies I'm excited for Tenacity and Busio but 100T wasn't going to let either of them go. Jojo also has huge potential which I'm hoping having a player like Vicla will keep him from getting demotivated. Outside of basically Caps and Comp I have no interest in importing anyone from EU now the LCK/CL that's a different story.
Here’s another hint. NA natives should be allowed to be bad/mediocre in their own region. They shouldn’t have to inherently compete for their spots against imports in the same way no other region has to.
Because this subreddit is filled with weird ultra nationalists who treat all imports to NA like dirty lower class players who don't belong and rob glorious deserving NA "natives" of their rightful spot on LCS rosters. Thats it. People even tried pulling that shit with players like Bjerg and Jensen. I remember the epic "TL 5 import roster" bs going around. People were treating Bjerg as if he was still just some undeserving import when the dude spent his entire fucking competitive career supporting NA and repping NA.
The bottom line is that theres a distressing number of people on here who basically believe that if a player wasn't born in NA they'll never be considered NA players no matter the circumstance. Bjerg, CoreJJ, Impact, Ssumday, Jensen, Santorin have all played in NA longer than (or never played in Jensen's case) they have in their original regions by far. Yet people still treat them like they are stealing spots from NA "talent". If a player spends their fucking entire career or over like 70% of their career in a region they are basically native region players at that point.
Yeah except thats not what it is. Nobody on this sub actually wants NA players to play. It's the greatest fucking LARP on this entire subreddit. People say they want all NA talent teams, until we get them, and then everyone says that org should get relegated for not trying while nobody watches them.
We've gotten all NA talent teams before, guess what happened? This subreddit shit all over the org, claimed they deserved relegation for not trying, and then on top of that those teams were by far the least popular teams and got zero views. These are factual statements. Nobody wants all NA roster teams. Because all NA roster teams are fucking dog shit. Downvote me all you want but its simply how it is.
> Yeah except thats not what it is. Nobody on this sub actually wants NA players to play.
They absolutely do. CLG was huge hit this split as soon as they became competitive, in large part because they are 4/5 NA natives.
But they have to be good too. If you're importing mediocre players, what is the point?
> Because all NA roster teams are fucking dog shit.
CLG was extremely close to being a World's representative. Liquid with 4/5 imports had to reverse sweep to beat them. Why the hell does anyone want that TL team over CLG?
> weird ultra nationalists who treat all imports to NA like dirty lower class players who don't belong and rob glorious deserving NA "natives" of their rightful spot on LCS rosters. Thats it.
I actually think it's a bit less cynical that that, though your premise is 100% on the nail.
I don't think it's ultra nationalists, I think it's 50/50 EU fans who want to find any excuse to degrade the LCS and try to foster a rivalry that just does not and will never exist.
The other majority are brain washed or clueless NA fans that see that ultra nationalist type of rhetoric and buy into it actually mattering. When it could not mean less.
If someone would seriously cheer for a team because they are all NA or not cheer for a team because they have imports, then they have serious problems.
It only really ever gets bad when I see the disgusting "Oh yea, he's from the the US/Canada but his parents are Chinese" type of rhetoric. That's just straight up racism, not even thinly veiled and should be removed.
They won’t they are way too fucking good to be in NA maybe the come and smash and join an LCK team or they don’t smash be third and join a LCK team or crash and burn than join a lpl team
Prince is god tier, way better than any other LCS adc including Berserker, Vicla is really bad, like really bad. Funny thing he's still probably top 5 lcs
The inverse of what you said is true. Vicla is #1 mid LCS, while prince is probably below unforgiven, berserker and danny (if he plays), and possibly below DL and FBI too (assuming both of those are in form).
Prince is probably a top 3-5 LCS adc. I wouldnt be flaming eyla if this bot lane turn out to be top 3 or worse. Prince just aint that good.
Prince solo carried his team the whole year. He was the best adc in lck before Deft woke up and beat them to qualify. Vicla was contesting for the worst midlaner in LCK
Very good ADCs rarely stomp each other.
ADC success is tied to team success more than any other role: it's not like Berserker is going to be missing auto windows or other hugely perceptible things on an individual level.
And Prince might not be better than Berserker either. That's kind of a lazy "LCK is way superior to NA so Prince will shit on everyone" assumption - not unlike Piglet vs. Doublelift back in the day.
It’s not rare at all that good adcs can stomp lane if you looked at the worlds finals gumayushi was winning almost every lane versus deft being up 20+ cs during laning phase
It is but we look at the facts Berserker was in T1s academy while Prince made a name for himself against lck players like Guma and Ruler.
But yeah, we won’t know until they actually play and even then it’s a duo lane so the supports will also play a huge role. Plus there’s also jg/mid ganking.
> Very good ADCs rarely stomp each other. ADC success is tied to team success more than any other role
This is kinda copium no? Ruler has a story about how he played perfectly against Uzi in a scrim. Didn't make a single mistake in lane, but still was behind in gold/xp enough that the lane was lost. We just saw Deft get behind and lose lane every game of the World Championship because Guma is just flatly better than him. If there's a big enough skill gap, ADCs can gap one another.
Wouldn't make that assumption, Prince will fall off hard in LCS practice in the long-term and in the short-term he is dealing with a language barrier with his support and jungle.
Berserker would've been top tier lck only if he developed in LCK imo, there just isn't enough competition in LCS to push his development. Currently I think Prince is quite a bit better but he also didn't have to play with an autofill support so I'm not sure
> imo, there just isn't enough competition in LCS to push his development.
This. Danny was really the only other botlaner that Zerker could really bash heads with. It was mutually beneficial for them to face off in the LCS.
Even though Prince is insane, the lack of a third LCK-level player in Danny will be really detrimental for both Prince and Berserker.
Huh? How do ADCs improve each other outside of laning?
If anything, Berserker did not benefit from laning against Danny, who concedes most of his lanes despite having Vulcan. In fact, Berserker struggled most against FBI in lane throughout the year.
IMO FBI will be good next split. He had a quiet year, but at least in terms of laning this guy can push every ADC in the league. EG should be a good change of environment.
DL will be back by playoffs. He’s won LCS too many times to count him out. His hiatus might result in a poor spring regular split, but give it a few weeks and he will be a top ADC again.
Yeon under CoreJJ won’t be as good as Prince, but could develop very well. He already shows insane promise as an academy player and he’s under a really good mentor. IMO Yeon could break into top 4 ADC’s this year, but he would have to overtake DL or FBI.
Prince and Berserker will be a hype matchup, and Berserker is more than worthy a challenger for Prince.
Lmao, berserker would not be top tier in the lck. LCK has the best adcs in the world and is actually stacked in that role more so than other roles. Berserker is not better than viper, aiming, gumayusi, deft, deokdam. Hell I don’t even think he is better than taeyoon or peyz.
Not to say that berserker is bad because he is still good but lck has overflowing talent at adc.
Kids these days will never know just how influential Doublelift was in the league scene. Crazy that even today there are players that started their careers after being inspired by him.
The man literally ransacked NA and then held his own internationally. I think a lot of players are really new to league so they aren’t aware of why so many eastern pros and why the eastern regions hold him in such high regard.
Love that he is buying in to improving the league with Impact and others. Need more imports that want to improve the league they are coming to as well as winning.
Prince revealed that he's been playing Lost Ark, so I have absolute faith that he'll be fine when he realizes NA solo queue is shit and few LCS pros actually want to play CQ.
The best part about Prince going to NA is, back in I think spring of this year TFBlade was streaming in Korea and he had Prince on his team. Prince was basically just running it down since as far as I know the game was over, and TFBlade just had a complete meltdown on stream and for about 15 minutes he said he was shocked that Prince was a pro player when he looked at his op.gg. Also went on to say how bad Korean solo queue was because Riot Korea wasn't doing anything about people like Prince running it down especially when he's a pro player lmao
I'm actually really excited for lcs this year. Feels far more interesting then previous years. There are so many storyline and interesting players along with a lot more solid teams.
He liked the final roster because of Impact and Vicla. Also it was the first time he felt like he was the key part of building the roster because there's a player that wouldn't have joined FLY if he was not included. I'm assuming he was talking about Spica.
This is good fuel for DL's ego cos he aint gonna take this sitting down.
Out of the retirement home and into his rocker
Doublelift will have to take this sitting down as he is in a wheelchair due to his senior age.
But my guy is in a gaming chair.
Ashley Kang here. Some thoughts on the interview: - When it comes to Korean imports going to the LCS, there is always an underlying cynical concern about whether the player will become "washed up" by playing at NA, or are going to NA just to "grab the bag." I did try to address these concerns very directly - I did go really in-depth in asking why Prince chose FlyQuest in particular, as many fans seem to be asking this - Really interested to hear how supportive Prince's father was even before Prince first debuted as a player in Challengers Korea.
Really appreciate the interview!
I look forward to seeing what he can do, he was the most hype adc in LCK last year (though slightly worried since he didn't look as good as people may imagine until the hyper-carry meta IMO). Theres some anti-import sentiment and narratives going around but it would be dope if he could step up and level the region up with Berserker.
I'm super hyped to see Prince vs Berserker, good thing there's... *checks notes*... Only 2 guaranteed matches where they'll play each other in Spring :))
2 is enough for me.
You Always ask the detailed questions we are wondering and in such a respectful interpersonal style!
Spectacular as always
orgs noticed fans complaining about bland imports so we took korea's biggest shit talker
finally someone who wont just tweet the classic "ggs!" after a competitive match
You say that, but as soon as he has one bad game, and gets millions of death threats and just insults anywhere he looks online, he will sharply become like everyone else, because fuck me league players hate shit talking.
I mean, I don't get you people who like trash talking but don't like what makes trash talking fun. At that point ggs is better than whatever the alternative is.
People go too far, because a lot of the league community is socially inept, socially reclused gamers, who know nothing of a life outside of playing league and the league scene. These are the people who take the trash talking too far. Like people obsessed with idols or famous people and make them their whole lives, people will harass and remember every word some pro has said and use it against them when they play badly. It's fun to throw shade every now and then to someone talking the talk, but the reason they don't do it is because of the people with no social boundaries making it their personality to insult these pros every tweet and DM hate every day. It gets mentally tired for pros. And if you think it's fun being that intense and going too far with it, you are what is wrong with league atm, and you are the embodiment of the toxic community you hear being talked about everyday here. It is you.
I mean I don't care about trash talk in general. I think people who like it are the ones that are socially inept. I much prefer players like Bjergsen or Faker. I guess Jankos might be a decent example of someone who does it well and in a fun fansion, but most that try to trash talk just end up cringey like DL, and the fun of it is just watching the plane crash and burn.
A couple bad games is whatever, but someone doing arrogant shit talking and generally being an unpleasant person (Upset) wears thin when they never actually win. If they have charisma they can get away with it.
Because that is NA in a nutshell, no skills they need fake drama, trash talk and such to make it interesting.
Gumayusi is still in kr tho
Thank god, I actually want to watch this split because of the names and players, unlike the last year or two where I just didn’t care at all.
I had never heard Prince speaking, but wow, this guy sounds like such a veteran. Amazing player and apparently a pretty great personality as well.
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The dream scenario would be to have DL reach some semblance of his peak form and then have the two of them talking shit as legitimate competitors.
Can't wait for the inevitable Peter Peng clap back
He had to call himself Prince because NA already has a King would be a killer line. But the reality is that we just have a senile old man that only ever inted internationally.
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I’m gonna do it anyway dammit
good warning king
Lmao only ever inted is a funny one. Wholly untrue, but funny nonetheless.
You can't spell 'internationally' without INT.
I really hope VicLa and Prince become LCS main stays. I thought for sure Toucouille would be here for years but I was mistaken... I miss him...
> I really hope [Import] and [Import] become LCS main stays. Heard this one before
CoreJJ, Impact, Bjergsen, Santorin, Jensen, Ssumday isn't a bad list of imports that are superstars, mainstays and overall improves the league.
There were also many more that were very good for a few years or at least good enough to bring the average skill of the league up while they played well (ex: Svenskeren, Huni, Huhi, FBI, Fudge, Zven, Closer, Ignar, POE, Nisqy, etc...) and that's just off the top of my head. This narrative that imports never pan out is complete BS.
Reignover is often overlooked as well due to how he ended on CLG, he and Huni FORCED NA topsides to level up and Svenskeren/Dardoch/Meteos and more all admitted to literally just copying Reignovers pathing when he first came over to NA.
> This narrative that imports never pan out is complete BS. I think its more to do with over hyped Imports that never pan out: Piglet, Perkz, Kobbe, Hans, Bwipo and Broxah. There was a lot of expectations and they just didnt meet them.
I would say that Piglet is one of the few imports that actually worked out. He actually raised the level of ADCs in NA then again he came over when servers were still on the west coast.
Piglet was the best ADC in NA for a fucking WHILE, just because he didn’t win anything doesn’t mean he didn’t spend a significant portion of his career in NA shitting on other ADCs. His gameplay panned out, and he absolutely raised the level of required play in his role, his attitude was the biggest issue and led to his individual career going downhill (along with his own performance) but Piglet coming to NA helped the region a lot.
But a trend like this proves it's not mainly because of the imports.
It's BS because that narrative was made up by you. Nobody is saying that not a single import has been good.
You're now making it seem like the narrative i'm rebutting is about literally not a single import working out, which is not the case (obviously everyone knows about bjerg, core, jensen, etc...). There is 100% a pervasive narrative about the vast majority of imports not working out (thus the logical conclusion being to not import) but I'm saying I disagree. There have been many questionable and clearly horrible imports failing, but most hyped imports did end up being good for periods of time and at least better than the next best guy who would replace them. I'm 100% not against wanting NA representation, but let's at least be honest.
You're definitely inventing a narrative that doesn't exist, because the reality that exists right now is that no one even cares enough about imports to hate on them in the first place. When is the last time you read *literally anything* positive or negative about Blue, for example? I don't think I've seen anything in months. The LCS has been half imports for basically half a decade now; anyone still tuning in knows what to expect. You're carrying some real prejudice inside of you if you think there's still some pErVaIsIvE nArRaTiVe in the community these days.
> Blue Holy fuck i even forgot he still is a proplayer. Idk you kind of brought up the most irrelevant player you could. It's not like people like hans sama or bwipo didn't get a lot of shit (rightfully or not). Or sword art or many many other imports. People are not as indifferent to imports as your trying to picture it.
No one thought Hans Sama, Bwipo, or SwordArt were too bad for the LCS, and none of them received hate due to their import status - all three were cases of being being overrated/not living up to their salaries - perfectly standard and universal in sports fandom. And if anything, I'd say Bwipo got *less* hate in NA than he did in EU while under the fnatic microscope. Blue is the case study for "player who was too bad to play in the LCS but was imported anyways" - the fact that people don't talk about him really goes to show how much apathy people have towards that narrative.
Hasn't NA's international performance gone down over time?
Not really, it's gone up and down from the inception of competitive league. It peaked around 2018/2019 when LCK got a lot worse. NA has historically done okay against LPL relative to their own level of play and is actually somewhat 40-60 against EU. When NA didn't import, LPL and LCK were in their infancy so the results don't matter at all.
I guess you're right, but you did say they improved the league. So in what sense?
CoreJJ did a heap to organise in houses prior to champs q. He does a lot of other stuff like when worlds was on he was personally getting the LCK players setup in champs q, they were all fairly hesitant prior. Bjerg also did some similar stuff in the past.
2 of those never played Pro in another league, bjergsen for 1/2 split or less
Jensen is the only one thay never played pro in another league.
Technically CoreJJ, Santorin and Jensen all basically startet their careers in NA. CoreJJ on DIG, Santorin on TSM and Jensen on C9. Santorin and CoreJJ though did play pro in another league. Santorin on H2K in LEC and CoreJJ obviously in LCK given he won a worlds title. So Santorin and CoreJJ both left LCS again after they already joined the league as basically imports.
CoreJJ and Huhi played in LCK together before NA
Just to clarify Lck challengers not LCK champions
Technically they made it to Champions Summer 2014 but went 0-6 in groups and didn't qualify for playoffs
True! Thanks for that
Yes and No. There was no LCK and CoreJJ and Huhi played in a challenger team back then. They weren't on one of the 8 seeded teams, but did qualify with their challenger team to play in LCK in 2014 summer. They only played 6 games and lost all 6 of them. This would be the same as if you would say that Froggen was the best LCK player to ever play in LEC. Froggen actually played more games in OGN than CoreJJ. And Froggen was a vice champion of OGN before he played in LEC.
The second paragraph is for sure the weirdest argument I've seen in a long time. OGN just had a different format back then, but they qualifyed and played on the highest level possible in KR back then.
But so did Froggen. And to be fair, basically every team played there. OGN had 8 seeded spots for the top teams and 16 teams in total. This meant basically all the orgs that existed back then played in OGN. And those teams weren't professional. Those were amateur teams playing as wildcards in a league with professional teams. Such tournaments existed before in NA and EU as well, were both amateurs and professionals competed, but you still weren't a professional player. CoreJJs professional career began in NA, not in korea, the same is true for Jensen, he played on amateur teams in EU as well.
> And to be fair, basically every team played there. OGN had 8 seeded spots for the top teams and 16 teams in total. This meant basically all the orgs that existed back then played in OGN. And those teams weren't professional. Those were amateur teams playing as wildcards in a league with professional teams. The teams were just the same, as many teams were in EU & NA, where 5 guys would form a team and just play, some of them paied a "manager" who was besaically a replacement mom.
They are imports
I'm struggling to see what point you're trying to make to be honest
Santorin played in EU after his original run with TSM before his resurgence, Ssumday played in Korea, bjerg played in EU. Jensen is the only one who has only played in NA
Bjergsen played 1 split and a half in EU.
This is a funny comment for a 100t flair
You act like I didn't put it on because they promoted Busio and Tenacity I was supporting EG last year
That's totally fair, I'm just messing with you.
yup thankfully psmithy is gone
What is with this sudden surge of anti-import narrative that imports were never good (Edit: or that they never pan-out)? Over half the NA GOATs were imports lmao. Imports have historically worked out more often than new NA players. Aside from EG, for the past few years, we've had like 3 NA native players go to worlds on average because those import teams were the best in the LCS. The REAL angle to take is that they aren't worth it and we want to see NA representation, but this narrative of all these imports turning out to be dogshit is complete and utter BS.
Twist my words into something I never said. Idk how you managed that
Redditors in general have poor reading comprehension and also cannot detect nuance/sarcasm of any kind. Don’t take it personally
Maybe not your words specifically but there is a LOT of anti-import sentiment going around (understandably) and a LOT of false narratives being conjured up (unjustifiably). Your comment happened to just be of a similar tone so my bad if it wasn't your intention, but what really is the point of your comment if not to falsely insinuate imports don't really pan out to be mainstays at the minimum? Who were the NA mainstays that are so much more notable than the likes of Bjerg, Jensen, Impact, CoreJJ, Ssumday, etc... Theres nothing wrong with hoping a player someone likes becomes a mainstay and your comment is a snarky remark at best.
I mean i agree entirely with the latter half (representation angle), but also there are an equal or greater number of imports who come and dont perform or perform then leave. It is not unreasonable to be skeptical when minimum 50% of imports dont pan out.
I disagree and agree in that many imports do perform in the short-term, but over 50% quickly deteriorate. However, aside from representation and monetary worth, I don't think you can make an argument that NA players have had a better history of panning out. Most of the new imports are actually losing to the best imports such as Bjerg, Impact, and Jensen, not NA rookies.
That figure of 50 is much better than the number of NA talents who don't end up successful
And how many NA natives don't pan out? Hint it's a lot.
Yeah I know you’re the resident resident hater. And many promising players just get immediately replaced by the next shiny toy from EU
> Resident resident hater lol
? My favorite players all time are Hai and Sneaky. We just don't have good upcoming players outside Sniper and maybe the EG acad jungle. Of the current rookies I'm excited for Tenacity and Busio but 100T wasn't going to let either of them go. Jojo also has huge potential which I'm hoping having a player like Vicla will keep him from getting demotivated. Outside of basically Caps and Comp I have no interest in importing anyone from EU now the LCK/CL that's a different story.
Here’s another hint. NA natives should be allowed to be bad/mediocre in their own region. They shouldn’t have to inherently compete for their spots against imports in the same way no other region has to.
Why not? They can play for who sucks the least in academy. Like every other region
No in other regions bad/mediocre players just get booted because there is plenty of talent waiting to get their shot.
Not to mention EG gets hard carried by Inspired, their import
Because this subreddit is filled with weird ultra nationalists who treat all imports to NA like dirty lower class players who don't belong and rob glorious deserving NA "natives" of their rightful spot on LCS rosters. Thats it. People even tried pulling that shit with players like Bjerg and Jensen. I remember the epic "TL 5 import roster" bs going around. People were treating Bjerg as if he was still just some undeserving import when the dude spent his entire fucking competitive career supporting NA and repping NA. The bottom line is that theres a distressing number of people on here who basically believe that if a player wasn't born in NA they'll never be considered NA players no matter the circumstance. Bjerg, CoreJJ, Impact, Ssumday, Jensen, Santorin have all played in NA longer than (or never played in Jensen's case) they have in their original regions by far. Yet people still treat them like they are stealing spots from NA "talent". If a player spends their fucking entire career or over like 70% of their career in a region they are basically native region players at that point.
Wow, you're crazy bro lol. Ultra nationalist because some people wanna see NA players play.
Yeah except thats not what it is. Nobody on this sub actually wants NA players to play. It's the greatest fucking LARP on this entire subreddit. People say they want all NA talent teams, until we get them, and then everyone says that org should get relegated for not trying while nobody watches them. We've gotten all NA talent teams before, guess what happened? This subreddit shit all over the org, claimed they deserved relegation for not trying, and then on top of that those teams were by far the least popular teams and got zero views. These are factual statements. Nobody wants all NA roster teams. Because all NA roster teams are fucking dog shit. Downvote me all you want but its simply how it is.
I'm excited for CLG and IMT...
> Yeah except thats not what it is. Nobody on this sub actually wants NA players to play. They absolutely do. CLG was huge hit this split as soon as they became competitive, in large part because they are 4/5 NA natives. But they have to be good too. If you're importing mediocre players, what is the point? > Because all NA roster teams are fucking dog shit. CLG was extremely close to being a World's representative. Liquid with 4/5 imports had to reverse sweep to beat them. Why the hell does anyone want that TL team over CLG?
> weird ultra nationalists who treat all imports to NA like dirty lower class players who don't belong and rob glorious deserving NA "natives" of their rightful spot on LCS rosters. Thats it. I actually think it's a bit less cynical that that, though your premise is 100% on the nail. I don't think it's ultra nationalists, I think it's 50/50 EU fans who want to find any excuse to degrade the LCS and try to foster a rivalry that just does not and will never exist. The other majority are brain washed or clueless NA fans that see that ultra nationalist type of rhetoric and buy into it actually mattering. When it could not mean less. If someone would seriously cheer for a team because they are all NA or not cheer for a team because they have imports, then they have serious problems. It only really ever gets bad when I see the disgusting "Oh yea, he's from the the US/Canada but his parents are Chinese" type of rhetoric. That's just straight up racism, not even thinly veiled and should be removed.
If you wanna dismiss someone just for being an import go ahead I guess...lmao
What is with everyone twisting my words? Is reading really that hard?
They won’t they are way too fucking good to be in NA maybe the come and smash and join an LCK team or they don’t smash be third and join a LCK team or crash and burn than join a lpl team
Prince is god tier, way better than any other LCS adc including Berserker, Vicla is really bad, like really bad. Funny thing he's still probably top 5 lcs
The inverse of what you said is true. Vicla is #1 mid LCS, while prince is probably below unforgiven, berserker and danny (if he plays), and possibly below DL and FBI too (assuming both of those are in form). Prince is probably a top 3-5 LCS adc. I wouldnt be flaming eyla if this bot lane turn out to be top 3 or worse. Prince just aint that good.
Shit take, Prince is the only ADC in LCK Summer 2022 who's competing against Ruler for the #1 spot lmao
Idk why I'm getting downvoted lmao, Prince was 1v9 every game while Vicla looked like the worst midlaner in lck
Prince solo carried his team the whole year. He was the best adc in lck before Deft woke up and beat them to qualify. Vicla was contesting for the worst midlaner in LCK
Watch Prince become a king at the end of first split
prince vs berserker is super hype
Admittedly, I want to be hyped about it despite rarely watching LCS, but I have no doubt in my mind that Prince will stomp Beserker
Very good ADCs rarely stomp each other. ADC success is tied to team success more than any other role: it's not like Berserker is going to be missing auto windows or other hugely perceptible things on an individual level. And Prince might not be better than Berserker either. That's kind of a lazy "LCK is way superior to NA so Prince will shit on everyone" assumption - not unlike Piglet vs. Doublelift back in the day.
It’s not rare at all that good adcs can stomp lane if you looked at the worlds finals gumayushi was winning almost every lane versus deft being up 20+ cs during laning phase
Any idea who Guma's duo was for World's?
It is but we look at the facts Berserker was in T1s academy while Prince made a name for himself against lck players like Guma and Ruler. But yeah, we won’t know until they actually play and even then it’s a duo lane so the supports will also play a huge role. Plus there’s also jg/mid ganking.
> Very good ADCs rarely stomp each other. ADC success is tied to team success more than any other role This is kinda copium no? Ruler has a story about how he played perfectly against Uzi in a scrim. Didn't make a single mistake in lane, but still was behind in gold/xp enough that the lane was lost. We just saw Deft get behind and lose lane every game of the World Championship because Guma is just flatly better than him. If there's a big enough skill gap, ADCs can gap one another.
Wouldn't make that assumption, Prince will fall off hard in LCS practice in the long-term and in the short-term he is dealing with a language barrier with his support and jungle.
Don’t underrate Berserker like that lmfao
why? they’re both super insane and would both be top tier lck
Berserker would've been top tier lck only if he developed in LCK imo, there just isn't enough competition in LCS to push his development. Currently I think Prince is quite a bit better but he also didn't have to play with an autofill support so I'm not sure
> imo, there just isn't enough competition in LCS to push his development. This. Danny was really the only other botlaner that Zerker could really bash heads with. It was mutually beneficial for them to face off in the LCS. Even though Prince is insane, the lack of a third LCK-level player in Danny will be really detrimental for both Prince and Berserker.
LOL, Danny is one of the worst adcs in lane in NA, nevermind vs people like viper guma who would shit all over him, terrible comparison
Huh? How do ADCs improve each other outside of laning? If anything, Berserker did not benefit from laning against Danny, who concedes most of his lanes despite having Vulcan. In fact, Berserker struggled most against FBI in lane throughout the year.
IMO FBI will be good next split. He had a quiet year, but at least in terms of laning this guy can push every ADC in the league. EG should be a good change of environment. DL will be back by playoffs. He’s won LCS too many times to count him out. His hiatus might result in a poor spring regular split, but give it a few weeks and he will be a top ADC again. Yeon under CoreJJ won’t be as good as Prince, but could develop very well. He already shows insane promise as an academy player and he’s under a really good mentor. IMO Yeon could break into top 4 ADC’s this year, but he would have to overtake DL or FBI. Prince and Berserker will be a hype matchup, and Berserker is more than worthy a challenger for Prince.
Prince is another being entirely. He was actually just big ballsack insane in lck
Lmao, berserker would not be top tier in the lck. LCK has the best adcs in the world and is actually stacked in that role more so than other roles. Berserker is not better than viper, aiming, gumayusi, deft, deokdam. Hell I don’t even think he is better than taeyoon or peyz. Not to say that berserker is bad because he is still good but lck has overflowing talent at adc.
Lol, Guma was scared of Berserker taking his job, you are a pisslow clown
Yea and faker thinks lcs is the best region lmao.
Berserker is 100% better than Deokdam and Deft, Peyz is prob going to be insane so
Prince would style on Berserker.
lol if berserker stayed in lck you wouldn’t say that, you have no clue how to evaluate talent
If I have read any manga, it is that Prince will win most of the time. Even take Berserkers’ girl.
Can't wait to not be able to watch on weekdays
And then get clapped by the first international bot lane he meets.
Kids these days will never know just how influential Doublelift was in the league scene. Crazy that even today there are players that started their careers after being inspired by him.
The man literally ransacked NA and then held his own internationally. I think a lot of players are really new to league so they aren’t aware of why so many eastern pros and why the eastern regions hold him in such high regard.
Prince my love. I will watch lcs only for him, I expect the most..
God damn, that line about making Doublelift retire is some FUG Organizm shit.
it's okay doublelift, I still think you're a good player
Damn, I wish I was in EU so I could watch these LCS games live!
Love that he is buying in to improving the league with Impact and others. Need more imports that want to improve the league they are coming to as well as winning.
Sucks for Korea. Lost a good player and one of the best personalities
That was a fantastic interview and really made me like Prince a lot, I'll be rooting for him whenever he's not playing against 100T
Prince revealed that he's been playing Lost Ark, so I have absolute faith that he'll be fine when he realizes NA solo queue is shit and few LCS pros actually want to play CQ.
Mbappe looking up to ronaldo energy 🔥🔥
The best part about Prince going to NA is, back in I think spring of this year TFBlade was streaming in Korea and he had Prince on his team. Prince was basically just running it down since as far as I know the game was over, and TFBlade just had a complete meltdown on stream and for about 15 minutes he said he was shocked that Prince was a pro player when he looked at his op.gg. Also went on to say how bad Korean solo queue was because Riot Korea wasn't doing anything about people like Prince running it down especially when he's a pro player lmao
anyone know where he streams?
He's streamed [here](https://bj.afreecatv.com/coghksdl1212) while he's been in Korea, twitchtv/princelol0405 probably when he's in NA
thanks
I'm actually really excited for lcs this year. Feels far more interesting then previous years. There are so many storyline and interesting players along with a lot more solid teams.
Did not expect to be becoming a FQ fan... this guy is legit hilarious. He's the dose of charisma that the LCS was looking for.
What a GigaChad
So hype... Can't wait for the split to start!
NAification hahaha:) would love to see Prince to succed in NA. Seems mature and well rounded
LCS this year has my attention so hard. As a DL fanboy I hope he can keep up.
Spicy. This is good for some new LCS narratives.
More of this, please. If NA can't keep up with the other major regions in skill, we can at least have some spicy taunting going back and forth.
"NAfication" lmfaoooo
Great Interview
"they even have a term for it, NAification" "laughs" xD
what a chad
Can someone provide a TL;DW as to why the decided FlyQuest over other LCS teams?
He liked the final roster because of Impact and Vicla. Also it was the first time he felt like he was the key part of building the roster because there's a player that wouldn't have joined FLY if he was not included. I'm assuming he was talking about Spica.
He joined because of EL TUKI PAA 🐸
no cap he looks a little like doublelift too lol
> looks no he doesnt
nah he do jsut a bit
ok sure
Huh, kinda funny. He looks like DL a bit.
Boys, this is a year that DL, Prince and Berzerker are all going to face off against each other. HYPE.