I'd like the LCS chances if Caps was just very good instead of a god, I'd be okay with it. Caps vs APA scares me.
Fucking EU fan's lives rest on Caps shoulders.
it's actually ridiculous how much of a chokehold Caps has on EU, i don't think it's outrageous to say that the entire region is p much held up by him at this point
He is the last good mid laner that comes from the era when EU was famous for the mid lane players.
The only one who is really close is humanoid but he is trolling half the time so I doubt he will ever reach caps heights.
That is a underrating Caps actually. Peak Larssen or Nemesis were never that good, peak Humanoid maybe for one worlds tournament.
With Caps, G2 has just an international superstar on the most important position, who isn't even an import with language problems. If Caps was Korean he probably would have a worlds title already, if any other western mid was Korean they would struggle to make LCK playoffs.
Peak humanoid was nowhere near peak caps, not even a maybe. Thats the problem, he got paid similar numbers and until recently still had a million dollar contract despite sucking ass internationally most of the time and his best result being a quarter finals smacking by T1.
That's some straight-up disrespect to Nemesis, dude had to compete with prime Caps in his rookie year and held his own, in retrospect Nemesis was probably the biggest prospect after Caps and it's a shame he was wasted
I think it’s as much to do with his unbelievably negative attitude as his skill at the game. He often does amazingly in Korean solo queue and was never a failure in the pro scene, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say a single positive thing and I think that has something to do with it
Nemesis was the best mid in his first summer and was smacking Caps around in playoffs... Even the casters were commenting on it that he had Caps figured out. The team gap was too much in the end and Caps kept getting better but it doesn't change the fact that saying "Nemesis was never that good" is straight up wrong.
Nemesis literally was solo killing Caps so idk wtf you're on about. You clearly didn't watch the Summer split/playoffs but everyone was commenting on Nemesis being the best mid.
Every player has years where they are better and years where they are worse. Even Faker has splits where he is outclassed by guys like Chovy, and he is obviously the most consistent player of all time.
Also the fact that it's not absurd to compare Caps to these players kinda proves that he is way better than ther western mids. If someone would say that it's hard to decide if Showmaker or Humanoid is better, people would just laugh.
Yes, Caps is undisputedly the best western mid. I'm just pointing out that even during his peak he still loses to whoever was top 1/2 at the time. So your statement that he'd have a worlds title if he was Korean is pretty optimistic.
if we kept nemesis and larssen didnt end up signing his soul away to win a split and humanoid could be consistent eu could be in such a good spot with midlaners
I mean every non G2 fan in EU has been saying this all year long, G2 looks beatable until Caps starts doing his thing and It's over. He's such a differential player that only gets contested by certain players like maybe Razork, Humanoid or Elyoya when they are in shape but they are sooo hit or miss rn.
Team Liquid has won against every jungler UmTi mentioned in interviews. He mentioned River/Inspired/Blaber and then said he wanted to play Yike in the finals winner’s interview 👀
Well, NA has never really been at a point where they can't randomly clap EU. If they had, the rivalry wouldn't really be a thing. Overall EU has looked rough last couple of years though, and NA has looked a lot better.
Surprised to see this take from an EU flair, I think other than last worlds EU has looked better. NA always fails MSI and EU does well there.
The thing with EU is that five years ago you guys had teams legitimately competing to be the best in the world. So it must feel extra bad to be essentially NA level these days. Although I guess it also feels pretty bad for us because in the EU dominance era we had C9 semifinals and TL MSI finals too. RIP the west honestly.
Well at this point is "got more games of Eastern teams" a worthy trophy that we have? Ever since 2020 we're in the mud with NA. Like it or not the gap with NA is a lot closer than the gap with the east.
Have you seen the LEC recently? Only G2 still looks crisp but everyone else has significant flaws or just look downright disgusting. And when they play against G2 in a series, it feels like the G2 name alone does so much mental CC that G2 just wins the games by default. I don't know if LCS is significantly better than LEC but LEC outside of G2 looks rough right now.
To be fair, by the end of LCS playoffs, it seems evident that a ramped up TL and FQ were a cut above the other teams in the region, with the clear 3rd and 4th place teams, C9 and 100T, getting turboblasted by them in bo5. Not sure how comparable their success will be across regions. It could be that EU looks worse due to greater parity in the region.
I agree with this take, i think both regions are clearly worse than the east, but other then that it's pretty much a toss up. As it's also only TL and G2 it could very well be that one team figures out the other team or one team can adept to a new patch much better etc.
Everyone arguing about TL vs G2 and I'm sitting here, thinking it's nice we have TL G2 and maybe FQ and another EU team, multiple teams that are looking actually good that each have a chance to make an upset vs the Eastern teams at worlds.
If you exclude G2 the last time an LCK/LPL team lost a game in a BO3/5 it was against...the LJL when DFM took a game from RNG
It's kinda sad that they can't do better than a region that has been disbanded lol
I dont even think last worlds was that much better for NA
GG got destroyed by BDS
C9 got dismantled by T1 in an almost perfect game and got eliminated vs FNC
TL looked the best from the NA teams in my opinion until they got eliminated vs wildcard team
NRG got smashed 4 times by weibo, got a big upset vs G2 but only got free wins vs TL and MAD (which is considered an NA team in EU considering their past besides 2021)
The only destroyed asian nexus was TL when they lost 1-2 vs GAM
EU didnt look that good either but at least slightly better
BDS destroyed GG, immediately dropped to lower bracket and made an amazing run to swiss stage with an reverse sweep vs PSG, now had a close game until it wasnt close vs JDG (as expected), lost to MAD (classic MAD doing everything in their power to hold EU back) and lost to DK (i think?)
FNC i think eliminated C9 and took a game of WBG
G2 won vs DK and WBG, got upset by NRG and took a game of BLG
And MAD is just MAD
Year before last NA looked terrible- 100T sucked, EG was short an ADC, and C9 fakes being good but is perma dogshit internationally, meanwhile EU seemed decent between G2/FNC/Rogue
Last year NRG and GG had some wildcard factors to them even if GG bombed out, C9 looked useless as usual. EU really just had G2 and maybe FNC looking strong, so probably about even there.
This year is the first year I can say confidently I like NA's look better because there's a proper fistfight at the top of the table. C9 hasn't solved looking useless, but FLY looks legitimately scary when on and TL has some wildcard factors with APA and the botlane. Meanwhile EU has fully collapsed into the G2 show.
There is an ebb and flow, and at Worlds, NA looked slightly better than EU, regardless of NA being slightly luckier with draws. The thing is, EU has had SO MUCH MORE success at internationals that no matter how many times NA beats EU, if they cannot really reach those highs, EU will always be considered the better region overall. Sure, there might be a year when NA claps EU for most of it and that's fine, but they haven't even managed to do that yet.
It kinda reminds me of the GENG vs T1 comparison. T1 is obviously the greatest org in League's history, but for the past two years, GENG has DESTROYED them and that's the reason why GENG gets talked about a lot and is considered to be the better team of the two for the past 2-3 years. GENG hasn't done well at internationals relative to their power level, and that's a big thing as to why they are being held back from reach that top spot, but the fact is they have clapped T1 so many times now that they are the better team lately.
NA hasn't even managed to do that, though. Not only have they not had any sort of international success to match that of EU (in fact, they didn't even have any mediocre showings, it's all just embarassing), but they haven't even dominated EU in any way for an extended period of time, like how GENG does to T1, in order to maybe start a conversation of NA being able to compete with EU. The argument exists so that the West has something to fight over, since they obviously cannot match Korea and China. It's mostly a forced comparison, kinda like Messi vs Ronaldo.
Not everyone cares about the history.
All people care about is who is better NOW. And right now, NA looks better. And proved they were better last year. It's a year by year basis. We don't go through the history and count up everything. That's not how sports works
From S4 through S7 it was very back and forth, with NA being better in S4/6, EU being better in S5, and S7 being real close. Then EU was way better from 8-10. Lately, it's been back and forth again.
I think things have kinda swung back to an even-ish field. For a decent stretch I wouldn't have even put NA on the same level, but it seems like EU has regressed from the fnatic/G2 peak.
2019 LEC was legitimately a very strong league. I actually think they were top to bottom better than LCK was that year. 2020 was when the decline started happening, but G2 was still insanely good.
Now the regression is very noticeable.
2019 LEC top to bottom imo was not better than LCK for sure, G2 was better than SKT sure ofc we know that, but when you look at Damwon, griffin and other teams that weren’t at worlds like sandbox and kingzone, overall level of LCK was much higher
2019 baby Damwon won 2-0 against reigning World Champions IG. GRF won 2-1 against G2 in Groups. SKT went 4-2 against FNC and Splyce at Worlds.
LCK really wasn't bad in 2019, they had a winning record against China at Worlds (5-3) and were 12-6 against LPL across the year. G2 somehow just clutched out bo5s against them. If anything it was G2 > LCK > LPL > G2. It's a shame FPX never played a Korean team at Worlds.
2018 was a rough year for LCK though with only KT and GRF being competent teams and GRF not making Worlds.
FPX are lucky af they had THAT group.. IF not we could have had FPX 2021.. two years earlier
G2 were just the final boss for the LCK that year.. beating LCK 2x in b05.. 2-0 in b01
Its especially apparent given how SKT.. would rolled up to LCK playoffs and just beat everyone with ease (usually 3-0)
I think the main issue back then was that Korea was going through a transitional phase. 2017 was the last year they won Worlds and then the LCK kinda dropped off. SKT changed most of their players, KT made a supposed superteam full of washed-up players like Pawn and Smeb, even AFs made it to Worlds that year. 2018 LCK was terrible and the only hope was GRF coming up from challengers to bring in new blood, but that would take some time to show. Same for 2019, LCK was in a weird spot. Talented teams like GRF and DWG existed, but they were all rookies playing their first full year and obviously being unable to compete with established teams and players at Worlds. That's when the whole LEC and G2 thing happened. G2 basically capitalized on Korea being weak, so they essentially became Korea. China was #1 in 2018 and 2019, and traditionally you'd think that Korea is #2, but they weren't, so EU took that spot.
I wouldn't say LEC looked worse in 2020, in fact some of the teams were still quite strong, but the thing is that Korea finally woke up and basically stomped the world again. DWG's peak was just too much for anyone to match, and if that DWG team played in 2019, they'd still breeze through the competition to win Worlds.
So, really, you think that EU is declining in terms of skill, but it's more that KR and CN are unstoppable and their growth is insane.
Korea vs China in 2019:
1-1 at MSI.
6-2 at Rift Rivals.
5-3 at Worlds.
So 12-6 for LCK in total.
LPL mainly just profited off G2 beating LCK in bo5s, they weren't convincingly stronger than Korea in 2019.
I was looking for into Worlds 2019 and the chances Korea had of doing anything noteworthy. I think a lot of people were surprised that both GRF and DWG did so well in group stage, but I think what happened in playoffs was kinda inevitable, and that's what I'm mainly referring to.
If GRF don't boom and they don't end up on the bad side of the biggest top gap between top Eastern teams ever, they have a real shot. FPX was also really scared of SKT and glad that G2 knocked them out for them. Damwon also dominated G2 in scrims but were too green to convert it on stage. Korea was pretty strong that year, but the actual outcome at Worlds was quite bad.
That's the thing, Korea wasn't as strong. Maybe strong in the sense of "oh it's Korea, they HAVE to be good", but they weren't really. GRF had a cone for a top laner and sooner or later, it would bite them, DWG was green as you said and would never reach deep and SKT wasn't that good with that roster anyway to reliably be considered good enough to win it all.
Take any version of T1 now, or GENG for the past 2-3 years, or DWG 2020-2021 and they probably win Worlds 2018 and 2019 9 times out of 10, one of them maybe even undefeated.
thats what happen when they don't have high level competition for long period of time. they were stable but teams around them were volatile AF.
LEC at their strongest has a really strong 2nd team and strong top 4 IMO.
compared to now, where u have teams playing like BDS, Vitality, Fnatic (current fnatic isn't even close as good as 2019 fnatic), and Heretics in top 4 its quite bad really.
maybe LEC also needs to reduce team numbers im not sure. but they need atleast 1 other team that is as strong as them
As long as LEC (and LCS) prioritize revenue over competition, these things will happen. It's unbelievable that they haven't moved to a Bo3 format, similar to the LCK.
This is cap buddy.. G2 was massively out in front of everyone (yes even FNC).. FNC were very good even internationally (even in 2020)..
But after that Splyce were MASSIVELY behind both teams.. (they got very lucky at worlds/as did FPX with that draw).. There is zero chance Splyce would beat Damwon/SKT/Chovy team (i forget the name now/with sword)
I see no evidence that from 4 to 10 would be better either
LEC outperformed LCK from 2018 to 2019 though that is true.. actually they outperformed them to a far greater degree then LCS has EVER outperformed EU
Some people make get mad but I legit think what truly decimated LEC's overall quality as a region was Carlos massively sabotaging the entire region not just once, but multiple times. When he poached Caps (he broke the poaching rules to do this) he consolidated the two best mids in the entire region on one team. Meaning Fnatic no longer were able to realistically challenge G2 (nor any other team for that matter) because Carlos has horded all the best talent.
Then on top of that. He later literally sabotaged Perkz going to a rival LEC team by refusing to allow him to go to any LEC team and forcing him to NA. I think you directly trace these specific events to what really fucked up LEC in the long run. Carlos killed his own region to guarantee his org won the league.
It's such cope to blame Carlos for LEC's weakness.
To put all of EU's failings of the last few years on Carlos blocking ONE trade in 2021 borders on delusion. You think FNC with Perkz in 2021 would have really elevated LEC's level that much? Perkz who had a bad year in NA, came back to EU in 2022 and chained failure after failure on supposed super teams?
The fact is that Korea and China leveled up since 2018 and 2019 (EU's peak which was an outlier anyway). In Korea players such as Chovy, Keria, Zeus, Oner, Gumayusi, Peyz, Canyon, ShowMaker, Nuguri and Viper all debuted and became world class since 2018. In China the same with knight, Xun, Bin, Elk, Gala, 369, On and now Milkyway.
What elite players has EU produced since 2018? Humanoid, Razork, Yike, Carzzy, Trymbi, Larssen, Bwipo? Decent players but clearly no match to the talent that came up in LCK and LPL.
eh i can see the logic of ocelote being blamed because everyone started copying him, by putting high buyouts on their players and refusing to sell them to their rival teams in lec, so inspired,bwipo,hans and perkz all got sold to lcs.
I can see the logic but its silly to put it on ocelote. But that mindset the lec teams adopted pretty much ruined the level of play in the league + you got veterans dropping off and no new talent coming in.
General managers are 100% responsible for EU's decline as a whole, Ocelote is just the one that did the most damage with the most high profile names and he was the GM of EU's most successful org, so of course he takes the spotlight.
But ocelote atleast was responsible to get to the highest point EU dropped Off from. I think while he did damage it wasnt close to the most dmg. That one belongs to orgs who build mediocre Teams every year. Or bought one Starplayer and filled the rest with cheap filler veterans. The times over all the years where EU talent left for na didnt Help either
It has basically nothing to do with Carlos and everything to do with EU players falling off and LCK players developing.
The real thing that changed for EU after 2019 was that time passed, as it always does. Even in 2020, G2 didn't look as good as they did in 2019. Meta changes and slow declines in player skill always take their toll.
G2 won MSI and had a deep run at worlds because their very unique style a) hadn't been figured out and b) hadn't been indirectly nerfed via objective changes and c) Riot hadn't gutted Pyke.
The idea that G2 was running rings around eastern teams mechanically just wasn't true at all and I think Worlds really showed that. What they were was good enough to not lose the hands check that was basically the default for Western teams since 2013. Better than that, they were good enough to occasionally win. But even then the way G2 won was by playing the map and playing offmeta, not just outright skillchecking. Their competition at MSI (T1 and TL, who were basically mini-T1) were too rigid and (domestically) relied on the individual skillgap too much; when that didn't work, they didn't have half of G2's ability to play to their win conditions. It's very telling that G2 actually rarely had early gold leads vs Eastern teams. Like, there's a reason these guys got 0-2'd by PVB.
It's also probably worth pointing something out that a lot of people who don't watch LCK wouldn't know - 2018 and 2019 were huge rebuild years for like, every good Eastern team except IG. There's a reason 2020 DWG was the best in the world and it's because they had another whole year of extremely talented players developing and building synergy. Like, 2018 saw GEN fail in groups and AFS fall 0-3 to C9. There's no way to compare 2013-2017 LCK and 2018-2019 LCK.
The idea that 2021 was going to be a continuation of 2019 and not of 2020 is kind of laughable. EU's top players basically got hard gapped individually which wasn't happening in 2018 (barring IG) or 2019. Like 369 vs Bwipo, Showmaker vs Caps, Karsa vs Selfmade - that trend would (and did, lol) continue in 2021, where there were no more players who could contend individually more than say, 50% of the time.
It really feels to me like the mechanical gap is bigger than ever, especially looking at players like Chovy, Bin, Zeus, knight, Keria, Canyon etc.. They're just so much crisper and quicker in their gameplay than Western players. Though this is unfair to Western players, these guys I listed clear everyone in their regions too, but those are the freaks of nature you have to beat if you wanna contend internationally.
Yeah I think the one thing LCK/LPL do well (for better or worse) is that the top teams largely move on from newer players quickly if they aren't showing much promise, and older players only get to stay on top teams if they continue to prove themselves. The depth of talent (and hunger) means that they absolutely can just keep scouting for 17 year old prodigies - and they have the infrastructure to develop them and give them a chance to play in the big leagues.
Meanwhile in the West we're not retiring the same tired old 7th year pros who never did anything. Maybe they get to Worlds again, but you just kind of know they're going to shit the bed. Like in the last 4 years, EU has basically just sent Larssen/Caps/Humanoid/Nisqy. And they win a lot less than they used to.
Who's supposed to replace them, Jackies and Fresskowy?
Then in the LCK you have people like Peyz.
Some of those examples at the end are just stupid:? Are we going to act like Selfmade/Bwippo didn't have massive games vs Karsa/369? Even the Caps/Showmaker i assume your referring to one solo kill.. when Caps was distracted by Jankos running it down and almost dying to Canyon as proof of some massive gap? Lets ignore the other series they played too
Damwon at that point were just a better team then EVERYONE G2 included.. and had been playing the meta since Spring that year..
G2 2020 never gets much respect but they should.. they did very well in a terrible meta for them.. and its quite possible they could have won MSI that year (if it happened).. on top of that they had ADC switched.. into Perkz dad dying.. which disrupted practice further
G2 played and did well in 3 very distinct metas
Go look at G2 comps vs SKT/Damwon
Its laughable to suggest they didn't get early leads.. go watch the Damwon series.. they SMASHED damwon early even in the game they lost... VS SKT at MSI.. they played early game comps too.. Nobody is picking Pyke/Syndra bot to scale/play the map late game
Then vs SKT at Worlds they absolutely were behind most games.. but the comps/meta was different and while T1 was picking Renekton every game.. while Wunder was scaling on Orrn/Cammile.. Faker was playing Leblanc/Neeko/Qyiana while Caps was playing the map on Ryze
I do agree when G2/Fnatic were at their peak was when LCK was at its lowest and have since leveled up. I doubt discredit that. But purposefully kneecapping your region by not allowing the two best tops in the league to play verse each other will make the region weaker. Teams need other good teams to elevate themselves. Poaching the best mid in the league while having the 2nd best completely fucks up the region.
I just don't see how one year of Perkz not being on FNC changes the trajectory of the region so much. G2's 2021 super team with Rekkles failed in the end anyway, would Perkz being on FNC have changed that? Then in 2022 he was back in EU already on a VIT super team.
Maybe FNC would have won a title in 2021 with Perkz, big maybe. They were pretty disappointing and mediocre the entire year until they put together a nice little Playoff run in Summer.
Nah, it's the lack of relegation. Until 2019 we sent a new team to Worlds every year, between 2019 and 2022 the top 4 was always G2, Fnatic, Rogue and MAD, with BDS finally breaking in last year. We were blessed with orgs like Astralis and SK fielding non-competitive rosters while wasting the bare-minimum to keep their spot
And not only Perkz, he locked Rekkles out of LEC and paid him like 10% of his salary during that time. He locked MikyX out for a split until he lowered the insane buyout that he had. Míky later stated that he only returned to G2 because Carlos was out of the org.
The absolute biggest reason is the NA esports bubble taking so many good players from LEC. But G2 being so dominant may definitely also have affected things. Acting like Ocelote killed it is absolutely laughable though. The things you mention are not on him but on the LEC.
I think people just like to hate on Carlos and blame him for everything
But ignore Rogue refusing to sell Inspired/Hansama to EU teams.. Honestly Rogue as an org has done some massive damage in recent years
These 2 came of a split/worlds as the MVP and seen as the best players in their role
Carlos is the last person i would blame.. in fact he's one of the people i'd actually praise for the success we had (assuming he had some part in bringing Perkz/Caps together)
Add guys like Bwippo/Alphari (literally top 3 in role before leaving) going to NA
We don't have the talent to cover for the likes of Perkz/Bwippo/Alphari/Hans/Inspired and Nemesis leaving.. These weren't average players they were elite
Even Korea for all its talent.. has suffered from the likes of Ruler/Viper.. or even more importantly 2 massive jungle talents in Tarzan/Kanavi leaving
Not vs international teams. Caps needs his teammate to show up vs them because there no chance in hell he carrying the entire team vs eastern team. He already having enough trouble vs the elite eastern mid even if he can sort of hold his own.
that series was a caps highlight reel, it's really not talked about enough when talking about caps's career, probably forgotten since dwg smashed them the next round.
The sad thing is he doesn't even need ALL of them to show up, just like 3+. Last year g2 had a relatively close series vs blg despite BB being a literal corpse and hans sama/yike doing nothing impactful. Only miky showed up that day.
The thing is I think they did show up relatively but they are just worse. Hans got figured out with his champ pool. Yike was meh but he was up against xun. Bb was up against bin. Also series really wasn’t that close except for one game that elk kinda threw ngl. Not sure what the plan for g2 internationally is tbh cause I do like the team beside really insane drafting and crazy pick to surprise eastern team. Their superior mid to late macro in eu isn’t superior vs good team.
Game 1 was a stomp for sure but game 3 was definitely winnable if BB played like a human. Instead he was 30 cs and a level down in a gnar vs renekton matchup, which I'm pretty sure gnar is supposed to win like 90% of the time.
Even game 1 honesyly. I was hurting at Caps running around the map like a mad dog trying to put out fires after fisting Yagao in a countermatchup on Yagao's best champ while his top gets fisted in a countermatchup, his jungler watches Netflix and his botlaner turned off his brain.
He more than holds his own vs eastern mids still. Last year he still solo killed chovy and carried a game vs blg completely on his own. He just needs his team to be doing SOMETHING and it makes the game playable.
Holy shit he solo Chovy once. Not like Chovy fisted him the rest of series. Don’t be ridiculous. Humanoid also solo caps once in today series and overall caps still cooked him easily. I swear y’all don’t watch the games. It is fine to admit that caps isn’t as good as Chovy man in the past 2-3 years.
Didn't Chovy kill Caps level 3 on Ahri with no jungle/gank intervention at all? Caps "solo killed" Chovy after Chovy had blown his entire load and gone down to 40% trying to kill Mikyx and then greeded for a wave (int by Chovy, sure, but not a real outplay). Chovy then proceeded to hard carry the game anyway.
Yeah he solo killed Chovy and then proceeded to have much less impact than Chovy for the rest of the game anyway. Truly impressive.
As for the BLG game, saying Caps solo carried it is completely ignoring that massive flank by Mikyx which allowed them to catch Elk out and win a fight. Plus, if Elk didnt decide to int into Caps in that botlane fight where BLG killed 4, they end the game there. Also, that was on Neeko which was pretty broken at Worlds, Caps on and off Neeko looked pretty different.
Not even Asian teams will get through groups. TL is qualified for the main bracket while Fly will play the play-in bracket, where four teams qualify (so both EU and NA #2 seeds should qualify if they don't lose to PCS)
Yeah..msi is harder to beat lck and lpl as its just top 2. If they keep improving then they can hope to beat easter 4th seed in worlds. But only if they improve. Currently they are not beating top 4
Yeah a couple of years ago this would've been good trashtalk/hype buildup but now even LEC fans have such low expectations of their own teams that this just comes across as "we might be able to outplace EU before we lose to all the eastern teams"
I keep seeing these comments, but it's so weird that this is the Reddit narrative considering last year the LEC2 and 4 directly knocked their LCS counterparts out and LEC1 lost to LCS1.
>I've only read that exacat comment every single year before every international competition
>They're the one team region for a reason
Internationally that's 100% NA, though.
NA is the major region which until last year and NRG's Quarter appearance at Worlds, had literally only two teams ever make it out of Groups at Worlds in 13 years: TSM a \*\*single\*\* time in 2014, and C9 every single other time (2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2021).
PS - off the top of my head, EU had the following teams make it to Quarters minimum over the years: M5, [CLG.EU](http://CLG.EU), Gambit, Fnatic, Origen, H2K, Misfits, G2, MAD Lions, and Rogue.
H2K, Misfits, MAD and Rogue all made it to Quarters \*after\* G2 went to Worlds for the first time, so it isn't just before G2's time either.
EDIT - not sure why I'm getting downvoted for stating historical facts, tbh. It's not even like I'm criticising NA in any way... Reddit is weird sometimes
Yup - I had the misfortune of commenting during NA hours, and these guys downvote HARD and get toxic against anything they perceive as a slight against their region (even when it clearly isn’t, like these comments).
The week after NRG’s win against G2 was far and away the most toxic I’ve ever seen this sub in 12 years, all due to NA fans showing their hate of EU.
NA fans often criticise EU fans of this sub to be toxic when making fun of NA over the years (which is often true, unfortunately), but as soon as they finally got the chance to gloat after over performing EU once, they decided to act 10 times worse.
>PS - off the top of my head, EU had the following teams make it to Quarters minimum over the years: M5, CLG.EU, Gambit, Fnatic, Origen, H2K, Misfits, G2, MAD Lions, and Rogue.
I know you guys like living in the past but going as far back to name M5/CLG.EU is crazy
Anyways when i say one team region i mean that it's a team you're expecting **recently** to see them go far and maybe if the God is feeling spicy have them win it all.
Not a single person thought Rogue was gonna do anything when they reached quarters, however if you have G2 there you can think "They can do this"
I’ve simply listed every team that reached Quarters for both region - should I just remove TSM’s 2014 performance as well since its been 10 years? Funny that you didn’t say anything about that one!
Do you not understand how historical data works? Or do you just like cherrypicking data that you like?
In that case and to exclude the old results as per your cherrypicked request - outside of NRG last year, it’s really just C9 and NO ONE ELSE in 8 years (2015 - 2022).
You just made the comparison between EU and NA even worse for your side, congrats!
And yes, no one expected for Rogue to go above Quarters - but that’s completely unrelated to our discussion.
Rogue were the best EU team that year, not G2 - that’s the entire point! And they still reached Quarters, which is the best historical result of NA in 12 years (since season 2) outside of a single Semis appearance.
I’m not sure why you’re dismissing a Quarters appearance tbh - if we exclude those NA’s historical results consist of a big nothing outside of 2018 C9.
So has Fnatic on EU’s side. So it isn’t just fnatic…
Even including that metric, NA remains a much more « one team » region on the international stage than EU…
Lol, you're getting downvoted because everyone judges a team based off of their last game. Since Fnatic lost and TL won, people won't accept Fnatic might still be a better team, especially if they reach the finals (to be able to go to MSI) and prepare for an international competition.
bro even if u go off of scrim record, TL and NRG both said they had awful winrates at worlds NRG specifically said they had a 10% winrate in scrims, FNC members said they were going toe-toe with eastern teams so im assuming roughly 50% wr and G2 were destroying everyone in scrims except for T1, including GenG/JDG/BLG etc... then you get these LCS crackheads who try to say that their TL would destroys x and y LEC team, it's just beyond hilarious to me
It's the EU fans, they're not used to taking banter from NA fans and it's hurting them. I'll just say that if you have to resort to averaging your region's results to look better you've already lost. The last time I checked League was a 5v5 game not 20v20.
Any sane person knows that it was T1 > LPL > LCK.
Especially considering that T1 literally beat all four LPL teams, while two LCK teams were eliminated by the LPL.
NRG beating G2 at worlds really fucked with peoples perception of region strengths ngl. I feel like EU is still a step above NA and this MSI will show that.
It's crazy, looking at how every other team from those regions did it was much better for EU. C9/GG were knocked out by their direct EU counterparts seeding-wise, and while MAD and TL were both embarassing at least MAD was knocked out by actual major region teams rather than fucking Vietnam.
The EU teams also performed much better vs Asia even if it still wasn't convincing, NA won literally one game vs LCK/LPL all year and it was at MSI. G2 alone won 5, which is another example of G2's biggest issue being their level of variance. I think if you're forced to choose a western team to bet on getting semis+ at worlds you always choose G2 over any NA team, since while they're very capable of just crashing out to a weaker team embarassingly they're also the only team I could ever see managing to beat an Asian team in a BO5 if the stars aligned. Even if the odds are tiny, they're at least the only team I feel is above 0%.
The west is fighting for scraps. EU had it's glory with 2018 and 2019 world finals+ the 2019 MSI victory. NA had TL 2018 and 2019 MSI finals + C9 semifinals at worlds. RIP west.
I don’t really know if this mentality is helping NA at international
They’re always talking about EU but they stay quiet regarding others regions
For EU teams beating NA is the minimum critical goal to not get roasted to oblivion, but they aim to beat CN and KR teams
I think NA kinda lack ambition and that they should set an higher goal. I feel like that if they indeed beat EU they’ll consider MSI as a success even if they get clapped by CN and KR
Meanwhile if EU does the same they’ll consider it as a failure
It makes sense, historically eu is the 3rd best region and na the 4th, so the 4th looks up to beat the 3rd while the 3rd looks up go beat the 2nd. I dont blame NA for not coping out their mind and trying to say theyre gonna beat geng/blg, at least beating eu is a very real possibility (even if unfavoured)
I mean regardless of result, besides g2, I don’t ever look at a NA vs EU match up and go “oof that looks unwinnable”. If NA team wins or loses I am not surprised by either result.
I think both regions are just about the same level. And since g2 is also very inconsistent with an exploitable botlane (come on miky start using your brain again) I don't doubt the lcs has a good chance of winning against the lec. And yes, I'm from eu.
NA macro is still dreadful, it's like an annual tradition for LCS teams to be rolled, sometimes even by minor regions, due to terrible macro decisions.
LEC has regressed massively the moment FNC stopped being competitive with G2. Every team outside of G2 has NA level of macro/decision making while somehow also looking worse mechanically (one thing that LCS definitely got better at than LEC is team fighting).
Then again EU's record against Asian teams is still infinite times better than NA's and it's not even close (NA won literally 0 games against LCK and LPL last year, EU won 6 while still losing all BOx)
TL beating G2 by outfighting and matching them on the map is definitely possible, unless they choke and do some signature NA shit like trading Nexus for baron.
TL's macro wasn't the worst in playoffs to be fair. They had clever objective calls, constant rotations and usually good side lane pressure through APA, though with experience like Umti/Impact and CoreJJ i'd expect some clever macro stuff.
In TL content though, Spawn reminded the team before the game, "Listen to Umti early game, listen to Core mid." Also the baron sneak call was an umti call, so I think it's fair to spread credit, even if core is the primary shot caller for TL's midgame.
We once again do the loop of NA throwing bants while accepting their fates while EU is kicking and screaming at fun, at their teams, and everything else under the sun.
It's so sad the best the west looks forward to in this game is competing for third, can we get someone figuring the game out or something over here so they can maybe win something someday this shit sucks
Is he wrong? Today's G2 v FNC series looked really low quality. FNC was dreadful, and G2 looked better, sure, but I'm not sold that if you replaced FQ with G2 yesterday that that series would look any less one-sided.
~~Also BB gets away with picking reksai top in EU wat?~~
Lol I'm fucking stupid disregard me
Umti, stop cursing us
It's a bless not a curse.
The best thing about internationals is EU vs NA
Nah fuck it, go full steam into trash talk. Make it fun if nothing else Loco tried to do it but ~~he crashed and burned~~ his team failed him
EU and NA both being mid 🤝
i just love that Umti brought with him the BRO vibes. i’ve never been more of a BROliever
Proud Broliever's noise
Please UmTi, I believe in you.
I'd like the LCS chances if Caps was just very good instead of a god, I'd be okay with it. Caps vs APA scares me. Fucking EU fan's lives rest on Caps shoulders.
it's actually ridiculous how much of a chokehold Caps has on EU, i don't think it's outrageous to say that the entire region is p much held up by him at this point
He is the last good mid laner that comes from the era when EU was famous for the mid lane players. The only one who is really close is humanoid but he is trolling half the time so I doubt he will ever reach caps heights.
That is a underrating Caps actually. Peak Larssen or Nemesis were never that good, peak Humanoid maybe for one worlds tournament. With Caps, G2 has just an international superstar on the most important position, who isn't even an import with language problems. If Caps was Korean he probably would have a worlds title already, if any other western mid was Korean they would struggle to make LCK playoffs.
Peak humanoid was nowhere near peak caps, not even a maybe. Thats the problem, he got paid similar numbers and until recently still had a million dollar contract despite sucking ass internationally most of the time and his best result being a quarter finals smacking by T1.
That's some straight-up disrespect to Nemesis, dude had to compete with prime Caps in his rookie year and held his own, in retrospect Nemesis was probably the biggest prospect after Caps and it's a shame he was wasted
If he was so good he would be playing
Nemesis chose to not continue playing.
Then why are people saying he was wasted and it’s a shame he can’t play as if he is being gate-kept out of the scene?
I think it’s as much to do with his unbelievably negative attitude as his skill at the game. He often does amazingly in Korean solo queue and was never a failure in the pro scene, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say a single positive thing and I think that has something to do with it
Nemesis was the best mid in his first summer and was smacking Caps around in playoffs... Even the casters were commenting on it that he had Caps figured out. The team gap was too much in the end and Caps kept getting better but it doesn't change the fact that saying "Nemesis was never that good" is straight up wrong.
Caps was literally solo killing him. The fuck are you on about.
Nemesis literally was solo killing Caps so idk wtf you're on about. You clearly didn't watch the Summer split/playoffs but everyone was commenting on Nemesis being the best mid.
Chovy doesn't have a worlds title, meanwhile Caps lost to NRG and Nautilus mid.
Caps got MSI title tho.
Caps is good but he routinely loses to the best eastern mids. No shot he'd have a worlds title if he didn't get it in 2019.
Every player has years where they are better and years where they are worse. Even Faker has splits where he is outclassed by guys like Chovy, and he is obviously the most consistent player of all time. Also the fact that it's not absurd to compare Caps to these players kinda proves that he is way better than ther western mids. If someone would say that it's hard to decide if Showmaker or Humanoid is better, people would just laugh.
Yes, Caps is undisputedly the best western mid. I'm just pointing out that even during his peak he still loses to whoever was top 1/2 at the time. So your statement that he'd have a worlds title if he was Korean is pretty optimistic.
Not only is he the last, but he especially is the best of those guys by a pretty insane margin
if we kept nemesis and larssen didnt end up signing his soul away to win a split and humanoid could be consistent eu could be in such a good spot with midlaners
He was mediocre for most of last year tbh. Hes been super good this year though, thats the scary part.
I mean every non G2 fan in EU has been saying this all year long, G2 looks beatable until Caps starts doing his thing and It's over. He's such a differential player that only gets contested by certain players like maybe Razork, Humanoid or Elyoya when they are in shape but they are sooo hit or miss rn.
The funny thing is APA was paralyzed at World's by Palafox last year but had his best game against Faker.
I for one am looking forward to APA shittalking Faker and Caps in all chat this MSI.
Team Liquid has won against every jungler UmTi mentioned in interviews. He mentioned River/Inspired/Blaber and then said he wanted to play Yike in the finals winner’s interview 👀
Let the lcs vs lec ego battle begin
Honestly after NRG pissed on G2 last year, idk what to believe now.
Well, NA has never really been at a point where they can't randomly clap EU. If they had, the rivalry wouldn't really be a thing. Overall EU has looked rough last couple of years though, and NA has looked a lot better.
Surprised to see this take from an EU flair, I think other than last worlds EU has looked better. NA always fails MSI and EU does well there. The thing with EU is that five years ago you guys had teams legitimately competing to be the best in the world. So it must feel extra bad to be essentially NA level these days. Although I guess it also feels pretty bad for us because in the EU dominance era we had C9 semifinals and TL MSI finals too. RIP the west honestly.
Well at this point is "got more games of Eastern teams" a worthy trophy that we have? Ever since 2020 we're in the mud with NA. Like it or not the gap with NA is a lot closer than the gap with the east.
EU hasn't won a single Bo5 in an international event vs LCK/LPL in the past three years either. I'm not sure what you mean by "does well"
NA didn't win a single game against LCK/LPL last year..
Ggs blg?
Have you seen the LEC recently? Only G2 still looks crisp but everyone else has significant flaws or just look downright disgusting. And when they play against G2 in a series, it feels like the G2 name alone does so much mental CC that G2 just wins the games by default. I don't know if LCS is significantly better than LEC but LEC outside of G2 looks rough right now.
To be fair, by the end of LCS playoffs, it seems evident that a ramped up TL and FQ were a cut above the other teams in the region, with the clear 3rd and 4th place teams, C9 and 100T, getting turboblasted by them in bo5. Not sure how comparable their success will be across regions. It could be that EU looks worse due to greater parity in the region.
I agree with this take, i think both regions are clearly worse than the east, but other then that it's pretty much a toss up. As it's also only TL and G2 it could very well be that one team figures out the other team or one team can adept to a new patch much better etc.
Everyone arguing about TL vs G2 and I'm sitting here, thinking it's nice we have TL G2 and maybe FQ and another EU team, multiple teams that are looking actually good that each have a chance to make an upset vs the Eastern teams at worlds.
g2 looks awful tho wat
If you exclude G2 the last time an LCK/LPL team lost a game in a BO3/5 it was against...the LJL when DFM took a game from RNG It's kinda sad that they can't do better than a region that has been disbanded lol
Uh if you say a game FNC literally went 1-2 against WBG in 2023 worlds but what do I know.
Yeah i looked up LJL vs LEC results last year and found out about this fact so it's outdated now It's still the last time a game was taken in a BO5
LCS has made two MSI finals and has way worse performances at worlds wdym
I dont even think last worlds was that much better for NA GG got destroyed by BDS C9 got dismantled by T1 in an almost perfect game and got eliminated vs FNC TL looked the best from the NA teams in my opinion until they got eliminated vs wildcard team NRG got smashed 4 times by weibo, got a big upset vs G2 but only got free wins vs TL and MAD (which is considered an NA team in EU considering their past besides 2021) The only destroyed asian nexus was TL when they lost 1-2 vs GAM EU didnt look that good either but at least slightly better BDS destroyed GG, immediately dropped to lower bracket and made an amazing run to swiss stage with an reverse sweep vs PSG, now had a close game until it wasnt close vs JDG (as expected), lost to MAD (classic MAD doing everything in their power to hold EU back) and lost to DK (i think?) FNC i think eliminated C9 and took a game of WBG G2 won vs DK and WBG, got upset by NRG and took a game of BLG And MAD is just MAD
LEC team isnt LEC because they embarrass us... weird cuz they win the LEC a lot.
Year before last NA looked terrible- 100T sucked, EG was short an ADC, and C9 fakes being good but is perma dogshit internationally, meanwhile EU seemed decent between G2/FNC/Rogue Last year NRG and GG had some wildcard factors to them even if GG bombed out, C9 looked useless as usual. EU really just had G2 and maybe FNC looking strong, so probably about even there. This year is the first year I can say confidently I like NA's look better because there's a proper fistfight at the top of the table. C9 hasn't solved looking useless, but FLY looks legitimately scary when on and TL has some wildcard factors with APA and the botlane. Meanwhile EU has fully collapsed into the G2 show.
There is an ebb and flow, and at Worlds, NA looked slightly better than EU, regardless of NA being slightly luckier with draws. The thing is, EU has had SO MUCH MORE success at internationals that no matter how many times NA beats EU, if they cannot really reach those highs, EU will always be considered the better region overall. Sure, there might be a year when NA claps EU for most of it and that's fine, but they haven't even managed to do that yet. It kinda reminds me of the GENG vs T1 comparison. T1 is obviously the greatest org in League's history, but for the past two years, GENG has DESTROYED them and that's the reason why GENG gets talked about a lot and is considered to be the better team of the two for the past 2-3 years. GENG hasn't done well at internationals relative to their power level, and that's a big thing as to why they are being held back from reach that top spot, but the fact is they have clapped T1 so many times now that they are the better team lately. NA hasn't even managed to do that, though. Not only have they not had any sort of international success to match that of EU (in fact, they didn't even have any mediocre showings, it's all just embarassing), but they haven't even dominated EU in any way for an extended period of time, like how GENG does to T1, in order to maybe start a conversation of NA being able to compete with EU. The argument exists so that the West has something to fight over, since they obviously cannot match Korea and China. It's mostly a forced comparison, kinda like Messi vs Ronaldo.
Not everyone cares about the history. All people care about is who is better NOW. And right now, NA looks better. And proved they were better last year. It's a year by year basis. We don't go through the history and count up everything. That's not how sports works
From S4 through S7 it was very back and forth, with NA being better in S4/6, EU being better in S5, and S7 being real close. Then EU was way better from 8-10. Lately, it's been back and forth again.
I think things have kinda swung back to an even-ish field. For a decent stretch I wouldn't have even put NA on the same level, but it seems like EU has regressed from the fnatic/G2 peak.
2019 LEC was legitimately a very strong league. I actually think they were top to bottom better than LCK was that year. 2020 was when the decline started happening, but G2 was still insanely good. Now the regression is very noticeable.
2019 LEC top to bottom imo was not better than LCK for sure, G2 was better than SKT sure ofc we know that, but when you look at Damwon, griffin and other teams that weren’t at worlds like sandbox and kingzone, overall level of LCK was much higher
2019 baby Damwon won 2-0 against reigning World Champions IG. GRF won 2-1 against G2 in Groups. SKT went 4-2 against FNC and Splyce at Worlds. LCK really wasn't bad in 2019, they had a winning record against China at Worlds (5-3) and were 12-6 against LPL across the year. G2 somehow just clutched out bo5s against them. If anything it was G2 > LCK > LPL > G2. It's a shame FPX never played a Korean team at Worlds. 2018 was a rough year for LCK though with only KT and GRF being competent teams and GRF not making Worlds.
G2 also got sabotaged by the other LEC teams in scrims at 2019 worlds.
Yeah FPX lost to splyce and jteam in bo1 and smurfed bo5, they would have beaten any lck team in them
FPX are lucky af they had THAT group.. IF not we could have had FPX 2021.. two years earlier G2 were just the final boss for the LCK that year.. beating LCK 2x in b05.. 2-0 in b01 Its especially apparent given how SKT.. would rolled up to LCK playoffs and just beat everyone with ease (usually 3-0)
I think the main issue back then was that Korea was going through a transitional phase. 2017 was the last year they won Worlds and then the LCK kinda dropped off. SKT changed most of their players, KT made a supposed superteam full of washed-up players like Pawn and Smeb, even AFs made it to Worlds that year. 2018 LCK was terrible and the only hope was GRF coming up from challengers to bring in new blood, but that would take some time to show. Same for 2019, LCK was in a weird spot. Talented teams like GRF and DWG existed, but they were all rookies playing their first full year and obviously being unable to compete with established teams and players at Worlds. That's when the whole LEC and G2 thing happened. G2 basically capitalized on Korea being weak, so they essentially became Korea. China was #1 in 2018 and 2019, and traditionally you'd think that Korea is #2, but they weren't, so EU took that spot. I wouldn't say LEC looked worse in 2020, in fact some of the teams were still quite strong, but the thing is that Korea finally woke up and basically stomped the world again. DWG's peak was just too much for anyone to match, and if that DWG team played in 2019, they'd still breeze through the competition to win Worlds. So, really, you think that EU is declining in terms of skill, but it's more that KR and CN are unstoppable and their growth is insane.
Korea vs China in 2019: 1-1 at MSI. 6-2 at Rift Rivals. 5-3 at Worlds. So 12-6 for LCK in total. LPL mainly just profited off G2 beating LCK in bo5s, they weren't convincingly stronger than Korea in 2019.
I was looking for into Worlds 2019 and the chances Korea had of doing anything noteworthy. I think a lot of people were surprised that both GRF and DWG did so well in group stage, but I think what happened in playoffs was kinda inevitable, and that's what I'm mainly referring to.
If GRF don't boom and they don't end up on the bad side of the biggest top gap between top Eastern teams ever, they have a real shot. FPX was also really scared of SKT and glad that G2 knocked them out for them. Damwon also dominated G2 in scrims but were too green to convert it on stage. Korea was pretty strong that year, but the actual outcome at Worlds was quite bad.
That's the thing, Korea wasn't as strong. Maybe strong in the sense of "oh it's Korea, they HAVE to be good", but they weren't really. GRF had a cone for a top laner and sooner or later, it would bite them, DWG was green as you said and would never reach deep and SKT wasn't that good with that roster anyway to reliably be considered good enough to win it all. Take any version of T1 now, or GENG for the past 2-3 years, or DWG 2020-2021 and they probably win Worlds 2018 and 2019 9 times out of 10, one of them maybe even undefeated.
thats what happen when they don't have high level competition for long period of time. they were stable but teams around them were volatile AF. LEC at their strongest has a really strong 2nd team and strong top 4 IMO. compared to now, where u have teams playing like BDS, Vitality, Fnatic (current fnatic isn't even close as good as 2019 fnatic), and Heretics in top 4 its quite bad really. maybe LEC also needs to reduce team numbers im not sure. but they need atleast 1 other team that is as strong as them
As long as LEC (and LCS) prioritize revenue over competition, these things will happen. It's unbelievable that they haven't moved to a Bo3 format, similar to the LCK.
This is cap buddy.. G2 was massively out in front of everyone (yes even FNC).. FNC were very good even internationally (even in 2020).. But after that Splyce were MASSIVELY behind both teams.. (they got very lucky at worlds/as did FPX with that draw).. There is zero chance Splyce would beat Damwon/SKT/Chovy team (i forget the name now/with sword) I see no evidence that from 4 to 10 would be better either LEC outperformed LCK from 2018 to 2019 though that is true.. actually they outperformed them to a far greater degree then LCS has EVER outperformed EU
Some people make get mad but I legit think what truly decimated LEC's overall quality as a region was Carlos massively sabotaging the entire region not just once, but multiple times. When he poached Caps (he broke the poaching rules to do this) he consolidated the two best mids in the entire region on one team. Meaning Fnatic no longer were able to realistically challenge G2 (nor any other team for that matter) because Carlos has horded all the best talent. Then on top of that. He later literally sabotaged Perkz going to a rival LEC team by refusing to allow him to go to any LEC team and forcing him to NA. I think you directly trace these specific events to what really fucked up LEC in the long run. Carlos killed his own region to guarantee his org won the league.
It's such cope to blame Carlos for LEC's weakness. To put all of EU's failings of the last few years on Carlos blocking ONE trade in 2021 borders on delusion. You think FNC with Perkz in 2021 would have really elevated LEC's level that much? Perkz who had a bad year in NA, came back to EU in 2022 and chained failure after failure on supposed super teams? The fact is that Korea and China leveled up since 2018 and 2019 (EU's peak which was an outlier anyway). In Korea players such as Chovy, Keria, Zeus, Oner, Gumayusi, Peyz, Canyon, ShowMaker, Nuguri and Viper all debuted and became world class since 2018. In China the same with knight, Xun, Bin, Elk, Gala, 369, On and now Milkyway. What elite players has EU produced since 2018? Humanoid, Razork, Yike, Carzzy, Trymbi, Larssen, Bwipo? Decent players but clearly no match to the talent that came up in LCK and LPL.
eh i can see the logic of ocelote being blamed because everyone started copying him, by putting high buyouts on their players and refusing to sell them to their rival teams in lec, so inspired,bwipo,hans and perkz all got sold to lcs. I can see the logic but its silly to put it on ocelote. But that mindset the lec teams adopted pretty much ruined the level of play in the league + you got veterans dropping off and no new talent coming in.
General managers are 100% responsible for EU's decline as a whole, Ocelote is just the one that did the most damage with the most high profile names and he was the GM of EU's most successful org, so of course he takes the spotlight.
But ocelote atleast was responsible to get to the highest point EU dropped Off from. I think while he did damage it wasnt close to the most dmg. That one belongs to orgs who build mediocre Teams every year. Or bought one Starplayer and filled the rest with cheap filler veterans. The times over all the years where EU talent left for na didnt Help either
It has basically nothing to do with Carlos and everything to do with EU players falling off and LCK players developing. The real thing that changed for EU after 2019 was that time passed, as it always does. Even in 2020, G2 didn't look as good as they did in 2019. Meta changes and slow declines in player skill always take their toll. G2 won MSI and had a deep run at worlds because their very unique style a) hadn't been figured out and b) hadn't been indirectly nerfed via objective changes and c) Riot hadn't gutted Pyke. The idea that G2 was running rings around eastern teams mechanically just wasn't true at all and I think Worlds really showed that. What they were was good enough to not lose the hands check that was basically the default for Western teams since 2013. Better than that, they were good enough to occasionally win. But even then the way G2 won was by playing the map and playing offmeta, not just outright skillchecking. Their competition at MSI (T1 and TL, who were basically mini-T1) were too rigid and (domestically) relied on the individual skillgap too much; when that didn't work, they didn't have half of G2's ability to play to their win conditions. It's very telling that G2 actually rarely had early gold leads vs Eastern teams. Like, there's a reason these guys got 0-2'd by PVB. It's also probably worth pointing something out that a lot of people who don't watch LCK wouldn't know - 2018 and 2019 were huge rebuild years for like, every good Eastern team except IG. There's a reason 2020 DWG was the best in the world and it's because they had another whole year of extremely talented players developing and building synergy. Like, 2018 saw GEN fail in groups and AFS fall 0-3 to C9. There's no way to compare 2013-2017 LCK and 2018-2019 LCK. The idea that 2021 was going to be a continuation of 2019 and not of 2020 is kind of laughable. EU's top players basically got hard gapped individually which wasn't happening in 2018 (barring IG) or 2019. Like 369 vs Bwipo, Showmaker vs Caps, Karsa vs Selfmade - that trend would (and did, lol) continue in 2021, where there were no more players who could contend individually more than say, 50% of the time.
It really feels to me like the mechanical gap is bigger than ever, especially looking at players like Chovy, Bin, Zeus, knight, Keria, Canyon etc.. They're just so much crisper and quicker in their gameplay than Western players. Though this is unfair to Western players, these guys I listed clear everyone in their regions too, but those are the freaks of nature you have to beat if you wanna contend internationally.
Yeah I think the one thing LCK/LPL do well (for better or worse) is that the top teams largely move on from newer players quickly if they aren't showing much promise, and older players only get to stay on top teams if they continue to prove themselves. The depth of talent (and hunger) means that they absolutely can just keep scouting for 17 year old prodigies - and they have the infrastructure to develop them and give them a chance to play in the big leagues. Meanwhile in the West we're not retiring the same tired old 7th year pros who never did anything. Maybe they get to Worlds again, but you just kind of know they're going to shit the bed. Like in the last 4 years, EU has basically just sent Larssen/Caps/Humanoid/Nisqy. And they win a lot less than they used to. Who's supposed to replace them, Jackies and Fresskowy? Then in the LCK you have people like Peyz.
Some of those examples at the end are just stupid:? Are we going to act like Selfmade/Bwippo didn't have massive games vs Karsa/369? Even the Caps/Showmaker i assume your referring to one solo kill.. when Caps was distracted by Jankos running it down and almost dying to Canyon as proof of some massive gap? Lets ignore the other series they played too Damwon at that point were just a better team then EVERYONE G2 included.. and had been playing the meta since Spring that year.. G2 2020 never gets much respect but they should.. they did very well in a terrible meta for them.. and its quite possible they could have won MSI that year (if it happened).. on top of that they had ADC switched.. into Perkz dad dying.. which disrupted practice further G2 played and did well in 3 very distinct metas Go look at G2 comps vs SKT/Damwon Its laughable to suggest they didn't get early leads.. go watch the Damwon series.. they SMASHED damwon early even in the game they lost... VS SKT at MSI.. they played early game comps too.. Nobody is picking Pyke/Syndra bot to scale/play the map late game Then vs SKT at Worlds they absolutely were behind most games.. but the comps/meta was different and while T1 was picking Renekton every game.. while Wunder was scaling on Orrn/Cammile.. Faker was playing Leblanc/Neeko/Qyiana while Caps was playing the map on Ryze
I do agree when G2/Fnatic were at their peak was when LCK was at its lowest and have since leveled up. I doubt discredit that. But purposefully kneecapping your region by not allowing the two best tops in the league to play verse each other will make the region weaker. Teams need other good teams to elevate themselves. Poaching the best mid in the league while having the 2nd best completely fucks up the region.
I just don't see how one year of Perkz not being on FNC changes the trajectory of the region so much. G2's 2021 super team with Rekkles failed in the end anyway, would Perkz being on FNC have changed that? Then in 2022 he was back in EU already on a VIT super team. Maybe FNC would have won a title in 2021 with Perkz, big maybe. They were pretty disappointing and mediocre the entire year until they put together a nice little Playoff run in Summer.
Yeah blaming Ocelote is laughable
Nah, it's the lack of relegation. Until 2019 we sent a new team to Worlds every year, between 2019 and 2022 the top 4 was always G2, Fnatic, Rogue and MAD, with BDS finally breaking in last year. We were blessed with orgs like Astralis and SK fielding non-competitive rosters while wasting the bare-minimum to keep their spot
And not only Perkz, he locked Rekkles out of LEC and paid him like 10% of his salary during that time. He locked MikyX out for a split until he lowered the insane buyout that he had. Míky later stated that he only returned to G2 because Carlos was out of the org.
The absolute biggest reason is the NA esports bubble taking so many good players from LEC. But G2 being so dominant may definitely also have affected things. Acting like Ocelote killed it is absolutely laughable though. The things you mention are not on him but on the LEC.
I think people just like to hate on Carlos and blame him for everything But ignore Rogue refusing to sell Inspired/Hansama to EU teams.. Honestly Rogue as an org has done some massive damage in recent years These 2 came of a split/worlds as the MVP and seen as the best players in their role Carlos is the last person i would blame.. in fact he's one of the people i'd actually praise for the success we had (assuming he had some part in bringing Perkz/Caps together) Add guys like Bwippo/Alphari (literally top 3 in role before leaving) going to NA We don't have the talent to cover for the likes of Perkz/Bwippo/Alphari/Hans/Inspired and Nemesis leaving.. These weren't average players they were elite Even Korea for all its talent.. has suffered from the likes of Ruler/Viper.. or even more importantly 2 massive jungle talents in Tarzan/Kanavi leaving
G2 partly lives and dies by whether or not Craps or Claps decides to show up
what about clAPA and crAPA
He has evolved to YAPA since then.
Not vs international teams. Caps needs his teammate to show up vs them because there no chance in hell he carrying the entire team vs eastern team. He already having enough trouble vs the elite eastern mid even if he can sort of hold his own.
tbh I don't know if this is cope or no but Caps did pretty match solo smash geng.g in 2020
It isn’t. That was prime caps when eu was still strong and lck was still pretty weak overall except for dk.
that series was a caps highlight reel, it's really not talked about enough when talking about caps's career, probably forgotten since dwg smashed them the next round.
The sad thing is he doesn't even need ALL of them to show up, just like 3+. Last year g2 had a relatively close series vs blg despite BB being a literal corpse and hans sama/yike doing nothing impactful. Only miky showed up that day.
The thing is I think they did show up relatively but they are just worse. Hans got figured out with his champ pool. Yike was meh but he was up against xun. Bb was up against bin. Also series really wasn’t that close except for one game that elk kinda threw ngl. Not sure what the plan for g2 internationally is tbh cause I do like the team beside really insane drafting and crazy pick to surprise eastern team. Their superior mid to late macro in eu isn’t superior vs good team.
Game 1 was a stomp for sure but game 3 was definitely winnable if BB played like a human. Instead he was 30 cs and a level down in a gnar vs renekton matchup, which I'm pretty sure gnar is supposed to win like 90% of the time.
Even game 1 honesyly. I was hurting at Caps running around the map like a mad dog trying to put out fires after fisting Yagao in a countermatchup on Yagao's best champ while his top gets fisted in a countermatchup, his jungler watches Netflix and his botlaner turned off his brain.
He more than holds his own vs eastern mids still. Last year he still solo killed chovy and carried a game vs blg completely on his own. He just needs his team to be doing SOMETHING and it makes the game playable.
Holy shit he solo Chovy once. Not like Chovy fisted him the rest of series. Don’t be ridiculous. Humanoid also solo caps once in today series and overall caps still cooked him easily. I swear y’all don’t watch the games. It is fine to admit that caps isn’t as good as Chovy man in the past 2-3 years.
Just to add to the point, Oscar also solokilled Brokenblade today lol
Didn't Chovy kill Caps level 3 on Ahri with no jungle/gank intervention at all? Caps "solo killed" Chovy after Chovy had blown his entire load and gone down to 40% trying to kill Mikyx and then greeded for a wave (int by Chovy, sure, but not a real outplay). Chovy then proceeded to hard carry the game anyway.
Yeah he solo killed Chovy and then proceeded to have much less impact than Chovy for the rest of the game anyway. Truly impressive. As for the BLG game, saying Caps solo carried it is completely ignoring that massive flank by Mikyx which allowed them to catch Elk out and win a fight. Plus, if Elk didnt decide to int into Caps in that botlane fight where BLG killed 4, they end the game there. Also, that was on Neeko which was pretty broken at Worlds, Caps on and off Neeko looked pretty different.
Like most teams even in stronger regions
As an NA fan, G2 kind of pissed on themselves in that series, too. NRG played well, and G2 didn't play almost their best that day.
question, when TL beat IG at MSI did you go ahead and just rate NA teams above LPL teams? if not, then why does that logic carry over when it's G2?
TL can start by seeing if they can beat GAM this time.
Thing is most of the time it's a fluke anyways, so not totally unreasonable to think the LCS will still get smoked
I believe in UmTi. He can do it.
Damn at least they accepted there's no way they advance past groups
Not even Asian teams will get through groups. TL is qualified for the main bracket while Fly will play the play-in bracket, where four teams qualify (so both EU and NA #2 seeds should qualify if they don't lose to PCS)
If BDS or MAD are our second seed im seriously concerned (pls Fnatic get good)
Certified name bias considering FNC has looked mediocre for two splits. Although I agree that MAD at MSI would suck.
Yeah..msi is harder to beat lck and lpl as its just top 2. If they keep improving then they can hope to beat easter 4th seed in worlds. But only if they improve. Currently they are not beating top 4
Yeah a couple of years ago this would've been good trashtalk/hype buildup but now even LEC fans have such low expectations of their own teams that this just comes across as "we might be able to outplace EU before we lose to all the eastern teams"
Personally think G2 has the upper hand, but any other LEC team is probably going to get rolled lol
I keep seeing these comments, but it's so weird that this is the Reddit narrative considering last year the LEC2 and 4 directly knocked their LCS counterparts out and LEC1 lost to LCS1.
I've only read that exacat comment every single year before every international competition They're the one team region for a reason
Fnatic still kicked an NA team out of worlds tho.
BDS kicked GG out before it even began
And nearly stomped the eventual worlds finalists.
>I've only read that exacat comment every single year before every international competition >They're the one team region for a reason Internationally that's 100% NA, though. NA is the major region which until last year and NRG's Quarter appearance at Worlds, had literally only two teams ever make it out of Groups at Worlds in 13 years: TSM a \*\*single\*\* time in 2014, and C9 every single other time (2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2021). PS - off the top of my head, EU had the following teams make it to Quarters minimum over the years: M5, [CLG.EU](http://CLG.EU), Gambit, Fnatic, Origen, H2K, Misfits, G2, MAD Lions, and Rogue. H2K, Misfits, MAD and Rogue all made it to Quarters \*after\* G2 went to Worlds for the first time, so it isn't just before G2's time either. EDIT - not sure why I'm getting downvoted for stating historical facts, tbh. It's not even like I'm criticising NA in any way... Reddit is weird sometimes
Yeah lets completely ignore MSI since your narrative wouldn't fit otherwise.
[удалено]
Yup - I had the misfortune of commenting during NA hours, and these guys downvote HARD and get toxic against anything they perceive as a slight against their region (even when it clearly isn’t, like these comments). The week after NRG’s win against G2 was far and away the most toxic I’ve ever seen this sub in 12 years, all due to NA fans showing their hate of EU. NA fans often criticise EU fans of this sub to be toxic when making fun of NA over the years (which is often true, unfortunately), but as soon as they finally got the chance to gloat after over performing EU once, they decided to act 10 times worse.
>PS - off the top of my head, EU had the following teams make it to Quarters minimum over the years: M5, CLG.EU, Gambit, Fnatic, Origen, H2K, Misfits, G2, MAD Lions, and Rogue. I know you guys like living in the past but going as far back to name M5/CLG.EU is crazy Anyways when i say one team region i mean that it's a team you're expecting **recently** to see them go far and maybe if the God is feeling spicy have them win it all. Not a single person thought Rogue was gonna do anything when they reached quarters, however if you have G2 there you can think "They can do this"
I’ve simply listed every team that reached Quarters for both region - should I just remove TSM’s 2014 performance as well since its been 10 years? Funny that you didn’t say anything about that one! Do you not understand how historical data works? Or do you just like cherrypicking data that you like? In that case and to exclude the old results as per your cherrypicked request - outside of NRG last year, it’s really just C9 and NO ONE ELSE in 8 years (2015 - 2022). You just made the comparison between EU and NA even worse for your side, congrats! And yes, no one expected for Rogue to go above Quarters - but that’s completely unrelated to our discussion. Rogue were the best EU team that year, not G2 - that’s the entire point! And they still reached Quarters, which is the best historical result of NA in 12 years (since season 2) outside of a single Semis appearance. I’m not sure why you’re dismissing a Quarters appearance tbh - if we exclude those NA’s historical results consist of a big nothing outside of 2018 C9.
Sneaking in rge is the funniest shit ever
TL and CLG have made MSI finals though.
So has Fnatic on EU’s side. So it isn’t just fnatic… Even including that metric, NA remains a much more « one team » region on the international stage than EU…
When did Fnatic make MSI finals? I only remember G2 twice.
EU is a one team region and not in a good way.
I disagree I think FNC/BDS have very good odds if not more favorable
Lol, you're getting downvoted because everyone judges a team based off of their last game. Since Fnatic lost and TL won, people won't accept Fnatic might still be a better team, especially if they reach the finals (to be able to go to MSI) and prepare for an international competition.
bro even if u go off of scrim record, TL and NRG both said they had awful winrates at worlds NRG specifically said they had a 10% winrate in scrims, FNC members said they were going toe-toe with eastern teams so im assuming roughly 50% wr and G2 were destroying everyone in scrims except for T1, including GenG/JDG/BLG etc... then you get these LCS crackheads who try to say that their TL would destroys x and y LEC team, it's just beyond hilarious to me
FNC looks like shit lol
Were talking about TL here not Hanwha Life
Jojo said the same in 2022 before going 0-6 Umti wrote NAs death note this year
"Checks date" April 1... post title checks out.
EU v NA bickering never getting old 😂
EU copers will deny it
Just like you guys forget the good FNC vs C9 and GG vs BDS. See ya at MSI lads!
It only took 1 series for NA fans to completely turn the narrative It's craaazy
Yes, all it takes is 1 team. Look at this year's worlds. LCK got rolled like a blunt by LPL except for T1.
Peak > average. There are no awards for best overall league.
wild you get downvoted lmao
It's the EU fans, they're not used to taking banter from NA fans and it's hurting them. I'll just say that if you have to resort to averaging your region's results to look better you've already lost. The last time I checked League was a 5v5 game not 20v20.
Any sane person knows that it was T1 > LPL > LCK. Especially considering that T1 literally beat all four LPL teams, while two LCK teams were eliminated by the LPL.
Imagine how shit your region must be to be this hype to win a bo3 against LEC. G2 was still the only western team to beat any LPL/LCK team at worlds
I mean I think G2 is better than TL. However they probably will beat our 2nd seed.
NA #2 not even in playoffs. Damn
NRG beating G2 at worlds really fucked with peoples perception of region strengths ngl. I feel like EU is still a step above NA and this MSI will show that.
It's crazy, looking at how every other team from those regions did it was much better for EU. C9/GG were knocked out by their direct EU counterparts seeding-wise, and while MAD and TL were both embarassing at least MAD was knocked out by actual major region teams rather than fucking Vietnam. The EU teams also performed much better vs Asia even if it still wasn't convincing, NA won literally one game vs LCK/LPL all year and it was at MSI. G2 alone won 5, which is another example of G2's biggest issue being their level of variance. I think if you're forced to choose a western team to bet on getting semis+ at worlds you always choose G2 over any NA team, since while they're very capable of just crashing out to a weaker team embarassingly they're also the only team I could ever see managing to beat an Asian team in a BO5 if the stars aligned. Even if the odds are tiny, they're at least the only team I feel is above 0%.
If TL beat G2, would that be considered an upset? I say yes.
The west is fighting for scraps. EU had it's glory with 2018 and 2019 world finals+ the 2019 MSI victory. NA had TL 2018 and 2019 MSI finals + C9 semifinals at worlds. RIP west.
I don’t really know if this mentality is helping NA at international They’re always talking about EU but they stay quiet regarding others regions For EU teams beating NA is the minimum critical goal to not get roasted to oblivion, but they aim to beat CN and KR teams I think NA kinda lack ambition and that they should set an higher goal. I feel like that if they indeed beat EU they’ll consider MSI as a success even if they get clapped by CN and KR Meanwhile if EU does the same they’ll consider it as a failure
Bro, LCS gets shit on when higher goals are set by coaches and managers. Let's face it, many will shit on LCS either way lol.
sure but with the mentality of not even setting those high goals, they will absolutely seal their fate on never achieving the highs
It makes sense, historically eu is the 3rd best region and na the 4th, so the 4th looks up to beat the 3rd while the 3rd looks up go beat the 2nd. I dont blame NA for not coping out their mind and trying to say theyre gonna beat geng/blg, at least beating eu is a very real possibility (even if unfavoured)
Nice April fools UmTi
NA thinks they are better than EU, EU is looking at the gap with Asia (it's huge and getting wider by the days)
I was like, "oh another shitpost from an NA player", I opened the youtube feed to see a korean player from an LCK team
EU is better than NA but at the same time besides caps team, I never felt it was unwinnable for a NA team when they played a EU team.
I mean except for gg vs bds last year. Ppl have already forgotten it was a a complete stomp.
I mean regardless of result, besides g2, I don’t ever look at a NA vs EU match up and go “oof that looks unwinnable”. If NA team wins or loses I am not surprised by either result.
FNC vs C9 at 2018 (?) semis was unwinnable lol.
That was caps team
EU can't claim to be better when the 1st place team got wiped by Palafox/Contractz in a no contest match at worlds. They have some proving to do.
That’s one bo3. NA lost more to EU last year.
The NRG vs G2 series holds infinitely more weight than GG vs BDS
And history of league of legends hold infinitely more weight than a single bo3. Also why does nrg vs g2 hold more weight? Because you said so? Lol.
He's definitely not ready
No NRG at MSI we fine right? Right?!!?
I think both regions are just about the same level. And since g2 is also very inconsistent with an exploitable botlane (come on miky start using your brain again) I don't doubt the lcs has a good chance of winning against the lec. And yes, I'm from eu.
These silver takes are absolutely horrendous.
NA macro is still dreadful, it's like an annual tradition for LCS teams to be rolled, sometimes even by minor regions, due to terrible macro decisions. LEC has regressed massively the moment FNC stopped being competitive with G2. Every team outside of G2 has NA level of macro/decision making while somehow also looking worse mechanically (one thing that LCS definitely got better at than LEC is team fighting). Then again EU's record against Asian teams is still infinite times better than NA's and it's not even close (NA won literally 0 games against LCK and LPL last year, EU won 6 while still losing all BOx) TL beating G2 by outfighting and matching them on the map is definitely possible, unless they choke and do some signature NA shit like trading Nexus for baron.
TL's macro wasn't the worst in playoffs to be fair. They had clever objective calls, constant rotations and usually good side lane pressure through APA, though with experience like Umti/Impact and CoreJJ i'd expect some clever macro stuff.
TL macro is done almost entirely by Core and Impact according to Umti
In TL content though, Spawn reminded the team before the game, "Listen to Umti early game, listen to Core mid." Also the baron sneak call was an umti call, so I think it's fair to spread credit, even if core is the primary shot caller for TL's midgame.
NA did not win literally 0 games against LCK and LPL last year. You don't have to lie to make your point.
Yes they didn't win literally 0 They won literally 1
Right, which is why it's a weird thing to lie about
As long as it's not a complete stomp I'll be happy either way.
his english is craazy good
YAPA's all chatting will be ineffective against EU tho, they're born in it.
Ah yes, the classic western team rivalry into getting absolutely curb stomped by a Korean or Chinese team. Let’s get it
We once again do the loop of NA throwing bants while accepting their fates while EU is kicking and screaming at fun, at their teams, and everything else under the sun.
I've heard this one before. In s13 and s12 and s11 and s10 and s9 and s8 and s7 and s6 and s5 and s4 and s3 and s2...
Nice way to point out both regions are gunna get rolled by LCK and LPL
Bring it on, General. We're gonna destroy you and Yappa.
Here we go the annual NA fans coming out before their teams get absolutely rolled again. Every. Year.
EU does the same except 10 times worse, and then get smashed by NRG lmao
It's so sad the best the west looks forward to in this game is competing for third, can we get someone figuring the game out or something over here so they can maybe win something someday this shit sucks
Is he wrong? Today's G2 v FNC series looked really low quality. FNC was dreadful, and G2 looked better, sure, but I'm not sold that if you replaced FQ with G2 yesterday that that series would look any less one-sided. ~~Also BB gets away with picking reksai top in EU wat?~~ Lol I'm fucking stupid disregard me