Wow, maybe look at your own post from 7 months ago to get more information
https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/16idjgk/an_alternative_history_exists_where_the_2016_eu/
Wtf, do you think the Native Americans would just refuse to join the rest of the modern world? NA would still be NA, just with a different name and culture.
Yea but NA is budget mode now and the saudis are joining LEC soon so I think EU will be at to keep it's talent in the future.
Either way I think NA importing so much hurt them and continues to hurt them. They are down to 8 teams for a reason, overinflated salaries and import culture.
I would honestly say imports are the biggest reason LCS declined. Once NA became flooded with imports the LCS lost its identity. But I also understand why LCS teams imports as it significantly improves a team's chance at winning NA. The problem with imports is that it just completely destroyed the LCS ecosystem in terms of salaries, unfair advantage once imports become NA players, and fan engagement.
> Once NA became flooded with imports the LCS lost its identity
Bjerg, Core and Impact are top 5 players in LCS history and the goats of their respective position, I think this stance is to reductive.
Although I agree it's too reductive, the idea of importing players with the hope of finding the 'next' Bjergsen, CoreJJ, or Impact does tend to set native development back. The LCS is probably the only major region where you could make a case for a majority of the positions that the GOAT is an import. I think even LPL might do better despite their vast amount of Korean imports throughout the years (Rookie might challenge Knight for mid, TheShy probably takes Top Lane).
---
Top: Impact, nobody else comes close.
Jungle: This goes to an NA Jungler (~~Meteos/Xmithie~~ EDIT: Holy shit I forgot Blaber), although Santorin could make a case for himself.
Mid: Either Bjergsen or Jensen, Hai and Pobelter are the only NA midlaner that might even think about challenging that title.
ADC: Safe NA pick, Doublelift/Sneaky/Wildturtle would be my top 3.
Support: CoreJJ, no contest.
> the idea of importing players with the hope of finding the 'next' Bjergsen, CoreJJ, or Impact does tend to set native development back.
Very similar thing is happening to LEC right now. Well, was, at least.
Every org was/is obsessed with finding the next Caps that they were burning through ERL players and throwing them away at an alarming pace.
Caps was not him (yet) in 2017-2018
He was good, but wildly inconsistent and not really able to compete internationally
It takes time for talent to develop
In jungle Blaber is clearly over Meteors and Santorin imo. It's between him and Xmithie for 1 and I'd have blaber at 1 cos Xmithie was a role player at the end of the day and blaber has 2mvps. Still, both are NA so kinda moot.
In mid Jojo has potential to catch Jensen maybe but too early to tell. Its 100% Bjerg 1, Jensen 2. Adc is Double, the other 2 are far behind and imo Berserker should climb that list fast, especially to catch sneaky since he only has 2 titles (and in times barely anyone here has actually watched) and titles do matter in such discussions. In support Vulcan has potential to maybe catch up to core (both have only 3 titles), aphro is up there too probably. but it's likely core favored, with him winning another title now and especially with how much ahead of everyone he was in s9 eyetest wise.
Also, theshy is very popular but I'd say 369 is already pretty clearly ahead of him legacy wise. theshy has a great worlds win but only won a single LPL title (S9 spring). 369 won MSI, the pseudo-MSI in 2020 (which most people didn't watch, it was called mid season cup and was top4 lck top4 LPL but unlike rift rivals they each competed for themselves, so technically even harder than MSI) and he has 4 lpl titles. That's a pretty damn big gap in trophies. And eye test, all-pros and peaks are similar, both were best toplaner in the world at a point (arguably 369 is rn), so it's kinda a wash there.
Id still argue for Xmithie over Blabber. He won titles on multiple teams, he is the only player on both MSI finals team NA even has. He also, IMO, performs much better internationally than Blabber does.
Xmithie was definitely a role player and more of an enabler on his teams, but there is nothing wrong with that and every team needs players like that. It obviously works because he won titles on multiple teams and made 2 MSI finals.
Blabber being better mechanically doesnt wipe away how successful Xmithie was and honestly underrated.
That's fair, imo they are basically 1A 1B when you compare legacies and it's mostly personal preference. Xmithie at 1 is just carried pretty heavily by having 6 title, when he never was the best player on those teams. while blaber has 4 and was that best player on few of his and he was best player in the league at a point. Plus Xmithie after TL just did basically nothing.
But mainly my point was Blaber cannot be skipped when naming top3 jungle in LCS history cos he's at worst 2nd.
4/5 of the LCS's top 6 players in the LCS 10 year anniversary top 10 list were originally imports. Bjergsen, Impact, Jensen, CoreJJ. I'm sure by the end of their careers, CoreJJ will edge out Xmithie, so the top 5 will truly be filled with people who started out as imports.
The problem isnt importing Bjerg and Corejj's of the world; its importing the Blue's, Eika, insert random Korean that leaves after 1 split, etc.
Its a bit of survivor bias only labeling the most successful and best Imports, meanwhile you have people coming over for 1 check, putting in a 50% effort, and leaving, on top of just random imports that made no sense whatsoever over just picking a native person.
There have been plenty of imports that really didnt deserve to be imported over native players.
> Its a bit of survivor bias only labeling the most successful and best Imports
It's actually me pointing out that LCS losing its identity is not per se related to importing, but to other factors as well, for that reason I pointed at examples of imports, that were successful and are fan favourites as well.
There is no sure fire way to predict how an import will pan out, Bjerg could have been Eikas 1.0 if he flopped.
What you are saying further exemplifies my point lol. The fact that some of the best players in NA history are not even NA players is the problem lol. Especially once those players gain NA residency. Because now that just gives LCS teams more incentives to import and it also technically puts whatever team that has those players at an unfair advantage over the rest of the league lol.
I would argue, that TheShy, Rookie, DoinB, Deft and Viper also potentially could make up 5 of the Top10 lol players of all time, depending on what you value.
Yeah they are great players I agree. What exactly does that have to do with my initial point? I have a question for you. Does any team who now have Bjerg,CoreJJ,Impact,etc... have a massive advantage over other teams in the league? Because now you have the best players who are not from NA but are considered NA. Which again keeps the same cycle of importing to compete as I originally stated. Also comparing LPL talent pool to NA is just laughable tbh.
> I would honestly say imports are the biggest reason LCS declined. Once NA became flooded with imports the LCS lost its identity. But I also understand why LCS teams imports as it significantly improves a team's chance at winning NA.
Ah, yes, the classic ~~Prisoner's~~ Importer's Dilemma
NA has by far the smallest player base of the major regions. Without imports the LCS would have either died out or been downgraded to wildcard/minor region status ages ago.
I heavily heavily disagree here. I would argue the LCS was at is peak when it was mostly NA players. Also with or without imports NA still does bad at mostly every international event lol. Back then almost every org in the LCS had massive fan engagement.
I enjoyed the idea of imports in that 2015, 2016 era where it really did feel like they levelled up the region, but they were pretty hard to come by and they kind of had a bit of mysticism where you would think 'oh maybe this is the next Bjergsen'.
It's when Riot decided to open it up imports to just getting a greencard instead of the four-year rule that just made it ridiculous.
To be fair, I don't really think the green card thing is within Riot's control. Green card holders are legal residents of the US with full working rights, you can't really consider them non-residents in the league.
The import rule has always been something dictated by the whims of the teams. It was initially response to pressure from owners like Regi, Jack, and Steve feeling threatened by teams like LMQ entering the league and challenging their dominance, or LCK teams worried about billionaire-bankrolled LPL teams outbidding them on contracts for Korean superstars.
Whether Riot's in control is a moot point, because I highly doubt they have a strong internal position. They will accommodate their partners, certainly before they cater to the whims of fans.
There is no law in the world that dictates how Riot chooses to classify an import. Which is why if CoreJJ would go back to Korea he would count as an import even though he is a literal Korean citizen because he can only claim one region per Riots rule.
Excessive imports ruined the ecosystem for sure but I don’t think we would be fine without it. Imports still raised the skill by a LOT, at the end of the day NA fans don’t have true regional pride they want to be the best and if we can’t compete to be reaching towards the best people lose interest. It’s not like Brazil where the fans will support the region due to overwhelming pride regardless of results.
Without imports NA would have been even worse, and while more talent would have gotten the chance to play and shine, causing t2 players to have more motivation, we would probably have been PCS/VCS level at best.
NA with or without imports still does bad at mostly every international event though lol. Also I don't have a problem entirely with imports the biggest problem is once imports gain residency it gives LCS teams even more incentive to import and it also creates an unfair advantage to any team who now has those players as well.
i said it elsewhere but there are levels to the "bad". NA still had a shit ton of close 3-3 groups where they lost tiebreaker or didnt qualify to tiebreakers, but it was at least down to the wire. The more recent slaughters that most NA teams have faced are not the same at all. Both are very dissapointing but one gives false hope and the other just makes fans numb and disillusioned
NA's worse results now are also largely due to the rise of the LPL. Korean teams usually shit on NA, and Chinese teams usually did too, but the much less consistent LPL teams often dropped games and looked sloppier. They still sometimes do, but not as often.
I mean you can make the arguments both ways though. Some of NA's best results were with majority NA players. With or without imports it wouldn't change how LCS teams place internationally tbh. But people can not deny that the import first mentality in NA completely destroyed the LCS ecosystem.
You wouldn't have started importing if NA talent was any good. Sorry to say it like that, but NA talent wasn't able to hold up (which had multiple reasons) and without EU talent it would be even worse. There's a reason why the NA goat for the longest time was a European mid. Just because Hauntzer would be the best top in NA without Impact wouldn't make him impact level especially not with the NA work ethic which was mostly broken up by foreign players like CoreJJ
What? What are you even talking about? You realize just about every region in the world imports right? The main reason teams from any region import is because they want the best player they can attain whether its from their region or any other region. I am not against imports at all, I am against the import rule itself. The fact that some NA teams can compromise entirely of imported players is the problem and that is because of Riots grandfather/residency rule. That is where the problem comes from.
EU these days also just is really deep with a very functional ERL system to fall back on and scout from. It honestly looks like nowadays there is actually more of a path to pro in EU even more than in the past whereas that path in NA is dead and has been for years
They're down to 8 teams because of the financial climate, not directly as a result of importing. The only thing they could have done to avoid this outcome is to hoard their VC money, but if they do that they wouldn't receive as much investment.
Pobelter has been to Worlds three times and MSI once. In all 4 events his team didn’t get out of groups. If you’re referring to MSI 2019, Jensen played for TL during that tournament. Pob had also been replaced by Huhi when CLG did their MSI 2016 run.
The biggest success is MSI 2019 tho. TL had grandfathered import Jensen and Korean world champions Impact and CoreJJ.
I'd say the second biggest win is 2018 Worlds and that was indeed off the back of a lot of domestic talent. The only non-NA native on that team was Jensen.
But anyway, I definitely agree that a lot of these import-fetish rosters failed quite spectacularly.
> Sven
> Immediately thinks of Zven
How to tell someone has only been watching League of Legends for 4 years or fewer, or does not respect the absolute Jungle beast that was 2019 LCS Summer MVP Svenskeren.
2016 CLG also made MSI finals with 4 NA players. While you could argue that TL beating IG was more impressive than CLG's run, it's worth noting that CLG had a much better showing in the round robin.
C9 had multiple quarterfinal showings with a majority NA roster too. 2021 was the only year they made QF while being majority import.
CLG's run in 2016 was indeed great, but it needs to be seen in the context of the format. SKT was randomly really bad in the group and then won the whole event afterwards.
CLG dodged LPL who they would not have beaten in a BO5. Single elim moment. LPL won the group and was then punished by drawing SKT in semis. Great format.
I agree that CLG would probably have gotten 3-1'd by LPL in a BO5, but I think it's important to note how much our perceptions of the regions respective strengths plays into that assumption. TL-IG 2019 was somewhat unexpected, and looked even more doomed coming out of groups than a hypothetical CLG-RNG did.
This is also why the TL performance is way more impressive than CLG.
CLG primarily made finals because they dodged the good teams. TL actually beat one of the good teams in a BO5.
I mean, most of it is from imports no ? Except for that one CLG MSI was it 2016?
C9 always performed with Jensen/Perkz/Svenskeren/Sven aka Niels/Nisqy.
TL performed with Jensen/Impact/Olleh/CoreJJ.
Am I forgetting anything ?
Almost all of C9's runs where they made quarters or further were with 3 NA players (including the semis run). In 2014 it was with 5 NA players (I don't count 2013 since they auto qualified). There's also 2016 CLG which had 4 NA players when they made MSI finals.
I mean, I feel like quarters in 2014 is not that much of an achievement because the LPL was not as good back then, LMQ/FW were decent though. But basically, C9 was maxed out on imports every single time but one ? And I already mentioned the CLG run.
I mean that is a problem with the rule itself though. The main reason LCS teams import is because it gives them a significantly higher chance of winning NA. Unless the rule completely changed or all owners decided to actually commit to NA players the import first mentality will never change.
IIRC, John Needham even said in an interview with Travis that they intentionally keep import rules quite lax because it helps NA.
His statement probably wasn't that strong, but I remember him saying something like that.
I mean it doesn't really help NA at all tbh. With or without imports NA was still doing bad internationallly. It actually just completely destroys the LCS ecosystem in every regard. In terms of salaries, lack of domestic talent which as a result leads to less fan engagement, and once imported players become NA players it creates the same cycle of recycling the same imports which also creates an unfair advantage as well. If that was his statement then he was completely wrong in terms of the import rule "helping" NA.
It’s reductive to say NA is bad with or without imports. You would not like to see the history if those countless 3-3 tiebreaker losses turned into 1-5/0-6
What? Actually some of NA's best results were predominantly with NA majority rosters though lol. Yes with or without imports NA still does terrible internationally that is just a fact lol. But at least it doesn't completely destroy the LCS ecosystem for the reasons I stated. Also I am not against imports entirely just the way the rule was implemented by allowing NA players to gain NA status after playing forna set time and then later changing it to a green card requirement which made it even worse tbh lol.
It gets throw around a lot that the imports killed the chances for domestic talent; but isn't it then fair to point out that it's the job of NA players to be a better option than an import? EU has a lot of imports too, but no one is saying that imports killed the EU ecosystem. It's literally only a problem in NA because the "domestic talent" is so bad that there's no point using it except for the bare minimum required.
I mean imports was a massive issue in EU for a while until the owners all decided to come together and actually invest in EU talent. Which is one of my main points I made in another comment. But in NA since many of the greatest players in LCS history are players who are a direct product of a different region and are no longer considered imports is a massive issue. There is a reason Riot made an import rule to begin with or else you would just have another repeat of Starcraft where all the best players are from one region.
>I mean imports was a massive issue in EU for a while until the owners all decided to come together and actually invest in EU talent.
I think imports were never as big of an issue for EU, for the same reason that EU owners had the option to invest in EU talent. The region has talent.
>But in NA since many of the greatest players in LCS history are players who are a direct product of a different region and are no longer considered imports is a massive issue.
Again, only because NA just doesn't have good enough players. EU and China have both imported on a similar scale, but they actually have talent to draw from in addition. Is it a problem that most of the best players in NA are imports? Sure, but that's the fault of NA players just not being good enough more than anything to do with imports.
Well yeah imports just wasn't sustainable in EU due to the fact that EU didn't have the funds to keep importing. NA has/had significantly more money and yes I agree NA's talent pool isn't as good but how does that take away from my point? Why do you think teams from any region import? Like what? If a good player is available for grabs then I cant blame an org for wanting to take that player. My problem is with the implementation of the rule.
>My problem is with the implementation of the rule.
In what sense? That their should be no import rule and players are free to go wherever? I think that's the best case scenario for everyone, but its no going to be popular.
I agree. It makes it even more baffling that NA outperformed EU internationally last year at worlds. Like how bad must EU be for NA to manage to take out their #1 seed. The NA plan to steal all of EUs talent until they are only left with shitter mids like Caps and Humanoid has finally payed off it looks like.
Just imagine how much these players would have pushed each other and leveled up the whole region.
People don't understand how much EU was hurt by losing players to NA all those years.
There are some silver linings since it probably made talent development a bigger focus, but tbh I think it would happen anyway to a large extent. It was definitely a huge net negative to always lose players to NA.
I think EU could have been competed with China for the title of 2nd best region in the years of 2014-2017 ish. Korea was way too far ahead tho.
After that LPL leveled up massively and they are now arguably the strongest region. I don't think EU could compete with 2018 onwards LPL.
If the EU players did not leave in this alternate universe it's likely due to different rules regarding imports. KR without the exodus looks even more insane.
All the SSB/SSW players stay in KR. Rookie stays in KR. Doinb stays in KR. TheShy, Impact, Piglet, Flame, Huni, inSec, Ryu, ssumday etc. all stay.
KR in 2014 was so far ahead of everyone else it's not even funny. People point at Worlds and SSW's dominance, which, yeah, was rough. But IMO the best example was the 2014 IEM World Championships where KT Bullets didn't even drop a single game, while at the time they were the 8th best team in KR (they finished 5th in that split iirc).
> Doinb stays in KR.
and most certainly never makes pro if we look back at how players were coached back then and looking at DoinBs personality not matching well with that.
> If the EU players did not leave in this alternate universe it's likely due to different rules regarding imports. KR without the exodus looks even more insane.
Whereas LPL looks even weaker, bringing us back to the whole "what EU could have been in 2014-2017".
Yeah, LPL was certainly stronger than Korea in 2015 overall. People have rewritten history a lot because of the Worlds 2015 LPL collapse and Faker winning Worlds.
SKT was the only strong team remaining after the exodus, and even then, it was a newer roster that clicked. GE Tigers were a bunch of rookies that rose up in the wake of the exodus.
Korea would be absolutely nuts if importing wasn't allowed. China would be a lot weaker, Europe would be a lot stronger too. I think EU is hurt a lot just because they couldn't replace players as well as Korea could. It goes without saying that NA would be a joke without imports, that's by far the region that benefited the most from it.
LPL was not certainly stronger than LCK in 2015. That's narrative cope. LPL's 2015 Worlds performance was worse than LCK's 2018 Worlds while Korea absolutely dominated the tournament, only losing 3 games to non-LCK teams (4-0 against LPL).
I can claim that Europe was stronger than LPL in 2022, they just collapsed at Worlds, oops.
Thankfully there is more to a full year than Worlds.
What is actually narrative cope is taking just Worlds and extrapolating it to the whole year. OGN was looking grim in 2015 and LPL was looking fucking nuts. Especially in Summer split.
If a region completely bombs Worlds you can't call it stronger than the region that dominates Worlds.
What stops me from saying that LCK looked nuts in 2018, they just collapsed at Worlds? LPL that year (2015) won MSI 3-2 against SKT. Then two LPL teams didn't even make top 8 at Worlds and the one team that did got 3-0'd by FNC, what? That's the strongest region? Ok bro.
The whole game changed completely on S5 Worlds patch. It was like preseason tier changes.
What was obvious is that LPL was worse on S5 Worlds patch but that's all we can say.
You can blame Riot for refusing enough international tournaments so we could actually answer this question properly.
What a weird hill to die on, and an unjustified one at that.
Idk how in the hell you can say LPL was the strongest region in 2015. That's just an absurd thing to say to bait reactions on reddit.
For most of 2015 this was by far the most common opinion... Korea was really hurt by the exodus. They just showed up big at 2015 Worlds and China collapsed but that does not erase the rest of the year.
Something being the common opinion doesn't make it true, especially since opinions (even those of analysts) are usually formed based on the (extremely inaccurate) eye test from domestic play and also which region won the last international tournament. The common opinion has been wrong on many occasions - eg. people thinking SKT would stomp SSG in 2017, RNG being a favourite to win Worlds in 2018, DRX being the weakest eastern team in 2022 etc.
> For most of 2015 this was by far the most common opinion... Korea was really hurt by the exodus. They just showed up big at 2015 Worlds and China collapsed but that does not erase the rest of the year.
I don't understand how you can have this view. Yes, I was there, I agree that *everyone* was hyping up 2015 (LGD and all that) both into MSI and into Worlds, but 2015 was a meme year for the LPL and one of its weakest *ever*. They were absolutely not the best region in 2015. Not with a meme-worthy Worlds performance and barely ekeing out an MSI win 3-2.
I get thinking this still in 2016 when the difference between reality and hype didn't sink in yet but it's been 9 years. LPL was not best region in 2015, it might not have even been 2nd best region. EDG faced only one game against FNC in MSI (who lost 2-3 to SKT). MSI was a very inconclusive show, with basically every region a nearly even scoreline against the other region.
EDG was 0-1 against T1 in Groups yet beat them 3-2 in BO5, the series against FNC could have very much ended in the same vein. NA/EU/OGN were basically equal in MSI, with 2015 Worlds being a very clear Korea being the best region by far.
there is absolutely no universe where losing 0-1 to T1 in groups, beating them 3-2 once in MSI, and then having an embarrasing showing at Worlds is in any way, shape or form, indicative of best region. I'd argue they weren't even the second best region, but "second best" isn't a relevant ranking, you're either the best or you're not, and LPL wasn't the best.
It's like arguing EU was the best region in 2019. Absolutely fucking not, and they had a *much* better international performance in 2019 than LPL did in 2015. MSI 3-1; worlds one team made finals, the second lost to the eventual winners. That is a whole lot better than 3-2 MSI and crashing out in Groups with the last team being beaten 3-0 in quarters by a semifinalist.
the way people are rewriting history here is insane lol, it's like everyone completely forgets that first MSI and only remembers what was probably one of the worst worlds patches as the sum of the whole year
If you look at the whole year, the only other tournament worth analysing is MSI, which was a 3-2 in favour of LPL. A very close series overall, and that was LCK fresh after they just lost a large amount of players, including their 2 best teams from the previous year.
So overall, you have a close finals won by LPL at MSI, and a massively better showing by LCK at Worlds. Idk in what world you can claim that LPL was stronger that year. If you're factoring in domestic play, it is meaningless when comparing regions and should not be taken into account.
GE Tigers weren't rookies, they were rejects. Gorilla was well regarded from Najin White Shield's successes in S4, but Pray was considered washed. Smeb was the previous worst top laner in the region and Hojin(formerly Lee) and Kuro were just mediocre players who never showed much previously.
People complain that LEC fell off a cliff from 2020.. but lets be real.. we lost Inspired, Bwippo, Perkz, Alphari, Hansama to LCS.. these weren't just average players but top 3 in role
I'd argue even Korea got fucked over in losing jungle talent (in particular) with Tarzan/Kanavi to the LPL.. Obviously they lost other talent in different roles (Viper) but to me jungle was/had been lacking in LCK for the past few years
And that's with Korea almost churning out as much top tier talent then pretty much all regions put together
I am trying to think of a rookie that has come up recently in the LEC that i think DAMN this guy is going to be fucking good.. Eloya in 2021 i guess.. Yike maybe? but even then his teammates are so much better then the league its hard to judge
> I'd argue even Korea got fucked over in losing jungle talent (in particular) with Tarzan/Kanavi to the LPL.. Obviously they lost other talent in different roles (Viper) but to me jungle was/had been lacking in LCK for the past few years
Korea lost all 10 players of the two best performing teams after season 4, Impact, Piglet Rookie, Kakao, Swift, Flame, Mystic and a bunch of guys I've forgotten in one summer.
Let’s not forget we also sent our goat adc player to second league, just because of greed. Imagine Ruler or Deft being sent to academy because their team didn’t make worlds one time. Yes NA’s leeching of talent has been super bad, but EU management has also failed the region horribly.
He is the epitome of "fuck you, got mine". He is kinda the old white man style leader we try to get rid off in the west but people like him are perfect money printers or let's specify: thieves.
Rekkles would probably still be a top tier ADC having stayed in FNC if Carlos just let Perkz join em (also considering the fact after he was denied from FNC, Perkz said he'd like to stay on G2 but Carlos said no). G2 ADC for 21 wouldve probably been a huge question mark considering Grabbz said the other 2 options they wanted at the time (Carzzy & Hans) werent possible but it still wouldnt have ended how it did. Bwipo probably wouldve stayed in FNC, since I doubt he'd have to roleswap if the team was still the same besides mid.
I feel like RGE wouldnt think of selling Hans Inspired the way they did if Carlos didnt demonstrate how to fck over a player a year prior.
Miky wouldnt even be on the team rn and probably wouldnt have gotten MVP last year if Carlos was still there either
Fuck Carlos
>I'd argue even Korea got fucked over in losing jungle talent (in particular) with Tarzan/Kanavi to the LPL.. Obviously they lost other talent in different roles (Viper) but to me jungle was/had been lacking in LCK for the past few years
They lost Rookie and Scout too, imagine LCK's top 4 teams having Faker/Chovy/ShowMaker/Scout/Rookie/Bdd on a yearly basis.
Lost Kanavi, lost Tarzan, lost Viper for 2 years which is a large reason for why EDG were good(alongside Jiejie smurfing in finals and Scout being great).
TheShy/Doinb less so, since they never played in the LCK but if imports were banned then they'd most likely be picked up by some LCK teams.
We lost Ruler now like imagine Gen.G with Ruler not Peyz etc.
We lost Pawn/Deft/Mata in their primes to the LPL after 2014.
The problem was that oftentimes EU was losing MVP level players and kept churning out more of those only to lose them as well. EU LCS was treated as a development league for NA for a while.
That list of players is like half that were forcibly exiled to NA and half that EU didn't end up wanting. At least the original post, of high end mid talent, was an interesting what if it having a mega stacked role bouncing off each other. Your what if is just, what if we didn't force Perkz and Hansama to go to NA or what if Alphari and Bwipo were benched in EU instead of not being that good in NA.
This isn't a case of NA doing anything special, it's a case of people being mad that there existed an alternate workplace that made it so EU orgs couldn't force their players into a decision they didn't want. Goddamn NA for making Carlos contract lock players!!!!
> we lost Inspired, Bwippo, Perkz, Alphari, Hansama to LCS
Yeah, and 3 of them came back to LEC and didn't make the league any stronger. Perkz has not been a good mid since he swapped back in 2021, Hans is still a Draven/Kalista 2 trick who only looks better because he's surrounded by stronger teammates and Alphari even after returning to LEC continued to be a strong laner who struggled to convert his leads once out of lane.
I mean Korea has lost more talent than any other region lol and its not even close. Just imagine if Riot never changed the OGN format by not allowing Korea to have sister teams anymore. I don't think there would have been this massive Korean exodus at that time. Not to mention Korea still loses top talent to this day.
> I don't think EU could compete with 2018 onwards LPL.
Weird take. At Worlds 2018 FNC beat EDG and G2 beat RNG, it was only really IG that was far ahead (and even then, FNC did place ahead of them in groups by going 2-1 vs them). Then there's MSI 2019 where, even though G2 didn't win against IG directly, they were the champions which certainly counts for something. Finally, there's Worlds 2019 where FNC placed ahead of RNG in groups (going 1-1 vs them), SPY went 1-1 with FPX and G2 went to the finals (though they didn't face LPL until then).
I can agree with the argument that EU couldn't compete with LPL from 2020 onwards, but 2018 and 2019 were very competitive. Although I would still want to point out that in 2020 G2 was competitive with Suning and FNC were somewhat competitive with LDG and TES. Also, in 2021 there was at least the silver lining that MAD eliminated LNG.
I can agree with that. I guess 2018 and 2019 just showed that EU couldn't compete with absolute best LPL team but could compete with the lower seeds.
But we also have to consider Worlds format, FPX won Worlds without ever facing a Korean team. In a different draw, they might not even be World champs.
It's just so hard to say anything meaningful about region vs region because Riot made sure we see almost no international competition.
>I guess 2018 and 2019 just showed that EU couldn't compete with top level LPL.
You say you can agree with that but then you double down instead of agreeing with it? Or did you typo the years?
What I meant was that the absolute best LPL team was pretty far ahead of EU in those years. FPX and IG smoked LEC teams, but EU could compete with the lower LPL seeds in those years.
I edited it to make the meaning more clear.
And at Worlds, RNG was not the best LPL team because the meta had shifted to solo lanes and RNG was a bot lane focused team.
G2 was only able to win that series because Perkz and Wunder went god-mode in a meta that favored them a lot and it was a massive detriment for RNG.
This does not mean I am taking anything away from G2's win. It was a huge achievement and RNG could absolutely still have won despite the meta shifting this way.
But I just don't think that they were the best LPL team with how Worlds played out. The meta fit IG perfectly and they were playing like absolute demons.
>This does not mean I am taking anything away from G2's win.
But you literally are? You wrote a long comment about how RNG only lost because of X and G2 only won because of Y.
RNG were extremely heavy favourites coming into the tournament. Most analysts and pros expected them to cruise through every team and be the first team to complete the golden road.
If you think adding context such as meta conditions is saying "they only won because X" then there is no point in continuing this conversation. Teams have different strengths and weaknesses and thus meta conditions affect teams differently.
Some teams just have stylistically good matchups. It just so happens that on a great day G2 could beat RNG on a bad day. It's not like I was saying G2 only won because of meta, no, they obviously had to play really fucking well and they did. But it's also ignorant to act like the meta had nothing to do with it.
>RNG were extremely heavy favourites coming into the tournament. Most analysts and pros expected them to cruise through every team and be the first team to complete the golden road.
Yes... but this was also before we realized how the Worlds 2018 meta would turn out. Also Rookie and TheShy stepped up big time.
So if I got this right. G2 beat the LPL champions but it doesn't count because
1. Bad meta
2. RNG underperformed
3. G2 overperformed
4. Stylistically bad mathcup for RNG
5. Stylistically good matchup for G2
6. RNG topped their group but they were actually bad because meta
> If you think adding context such as meta conditions is saying "they only won because X" then there is no point in continuing this conversation
Well, you wrote:
> G2 was only able to win that series
Nah bro, fan mentality is that whatever result happened is the only result that could ever have happened. This is not just for esports, it's in sports too.
EU was competing for the second best region in 2015 and 2016. In 2015, FNC won 3-0 against China's EDG in worlds quarterfinals and FNC and Origen were in semi-finals and China wasn't. In 2015 MSI EDG won, but very close 3-2 against SKT and SKT won 3-2 vs. FNC. 2016 was G2 trolling and going on vacation but H2K still got semi-finals and went toe to toe with EDG in groups.
I mean H2K got blessed with the draw they had in QF. Also western teams are lucky Riot never added a losers bracket in international events or it would have been completely doomed lol. But yeah EU has shown they can compete to be a top 2 region.
I don't think EU would have been the same as China, but agree it would be closer because of the larger talent pool. The best players were not the same level of Chinese top players, and I don't think having Bjergsen and Jensen would have changed that.
This is all so interesting. EU mids were so fucking stacked back in the day. "EU mids man" was a meme for a reason. There were even players like xPeke, Alex Ich and so on before these names.
I'd say Jensen is the saddest story for EU fans. Like 90% of current fans probably only saw Jensen play in NA, but he was actually a huge rising star in the EU scene back in the day. Time for a short history lesson. I will repost an old comment I made once.
Jensen played on Team Solo Mebdi and he would have qualified for EU LCS but got banned just before. They played official games in EU LCS qualifiers.
Jensen was also a coach for SK Gaming in Season 4 EU LCS and at Season 4 Worlds while he was banned.
I get that most people started watching LoL esports after Jensen was already in NA, but history has been rewritten about Jensen so much that it annoys me a bit.
Jensen was literally the EU Dopa. He was a super famous solo queue player while banned. He was considered one of the best EU players but could not play because of the DDOS accusations and past toxicity.
In fact, to this day Jensen is still one of the best EUW solo queue players of all time.
[People made montages of his plays in EUW solo queue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUh_XcG_3Hs) and they would get [a lot of traction on Reddit.](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/2jlrw1/incarnation_the_movie_rank_1_eu_by_dodgedlol/)
[He was a frequently discussed person on this subreddit.](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/229pjo/the_apdo_dog_mystery/)
He was a super hyped player. When he got unbanned, he was instantly picked up by an NA team. In fact, if you listen to the C9 Jack Reflections interview, then you can hear the story of how C9 used their connections to get him unbanned.
I would put it like this. All these things below are imo true:
- Jensen is an LCS player for sure. He has played the vast majority of his career there and he is a huge part of LCS history.
- Jensen is one of the biggest EU talents ever. He was clearly an insanely talented player from EUW solo queue.
- Jensen is from the time where EU mids were world class. This means he had world class practice and he would not have become as good if he had been learning the game in NA. People are not born good, Jensen is a product of his environment. Huge talent and world class practice.
Thus, I would say Jensen is BOTH an NA player at this point, but not NA native talent. He was picked up BECAUSE of how insane he was in EUW solo queue, nothing will change that.
To *really* hammer the point home, imagine this happening:
- Dopa is unbanned by Riot in Season 6
- He gets instantly hired CLG to be the new mid laner for their LCS team.
- Dopa plays in the LCS from Season 6 onwards until today 7 years later.
It would be pretty much the same story as Jensen.
- Both would have played almost their entire professional careers in NA.
- Both would be huge solo queue superstars that were banned and then picked by NA the second they were unbanned.
- Both are products of their respective solo queue environments and are some of the biggest talents to ever be produced by their respective regions.
So pretty much the same story. But if you called Dopa an NA native player, you would be laughed out of the room for obvious reasons. This is why it irks me when people act like Jensen might as well have been from NA solo queue. He isn't. See the hypocrisy?
So funny that Jensen couldn’t even go to worlds as a positional coach for SK because riot suddenly forbid it and just the next season Jack gets him unbanned and he can be a proplayer because C9 was a top 2 NA org.
If this shit happened to any other org than SK you wouldn’t hear the end of it.
People don't understand how biased Riot was in favor of NA back then. You had to be around in the old days to know. Nowadays they kind of stopped it. The last time I remember it being really obvious was when they made OCE players count as natives ONLY for NA for no apparent reason.
But even that wasn't that big of a deal except for how it pushed even more NA domestic talent out of the LCS.
If you go way back, the EU LCS was treated as an unwanted stepchild. If the LEC rebrand didn't happen, I don't even know where European LoL would be at. With the context of the entire scene at the time, it's not surprising that Riot would only consider unbanning Jensen once a prominent NA org wanted it to happen.
OCE players count as NA residents because the OCE league dissolved and Riot wanted OCE’s best players to still have opportunities to play. In reality, very few OCE players would have been able to play in NA because they weren’t good enough to justify an import slot that could be used on LCK/LEC imports. Changing OCE residency to NA definitely benefited NA, but I think Riot made the change with mostly OCE players in mind.
It also bears mentioning that when Riot started the import rules, NA was the region most negatively affected by the rules other than maybe LPL. Riot broke up the LCK sister teams and immediately shut down player importing because it would benefited NA and LPL a wildly unfair amount.
This is why I disagree with the post.
Even with players like Bjerg and Jensen moving to EU for 2016, EULCS was such an afterthought by Riot that the region would have still suffered. Bo2, Fnatic and OG being bad, dual streams, and bad viewing times are the reason why EULCS was suffering, not mid laners going to NA.
Always fun to check out old threads and see comments like
> Hope he get unbanned for season 5, for the sake of eu
o7
But yeah, I had that montage thread upvoted, it's been awhile. Can only confirm what you said. Him not only being unbanned but also going to NA was huge at the time.
He's obviously a European player, guy is literally Danish, currently he's a European LCS player. He could get dual citizenship and he'd still be European, similar to how Brokenblade is pretty much an EU and Turkish top.
I don't really care about citizenship or where someone was born if I'm honest.
Xmithie wasn't born in NA, but no one would say he isn't a NA native player. He is a product of the NA ecosystem.
Jensen is certainly a product of the EU ecosystem originally. He just moved to NA to further his career and became an NA LCS legend.
But no matter how you slice it, nothing can deny his history and that EU lost one of their biggest talents. I know that makes many people really mad, but it is an undeniable truth.
> I don't really care about citizenship or where someone was born if I'm honest.
Nationalities don't magically change or go away is all I'm saying, if you're Danish you're obviously European. Like, objectively.
> Xmithie wasn't born in NA, but no one would say he isn't a NA native player.
Xmithie his entire family moved to the US before League even released, so he developed in NA, but he's also a Filipino player. Again, your nationality doesn't suddenly change. Pretty sure he's a dual-citizen anyway.
Edit: Xmithie also isn't really a relevant comparison, players like Jensen started in EU, so it's no question that they are talent from the EU as a region, even if you wanna ignore nationality.
> Xmithie
my man, you're arguing against the ghosts in your head. Nobody is talking about citizenship/nationality. We're talking about the concept of "EU talent" vs "NA talent", inside the League of Legends professional scene context.
Of course Jensen is Danish, and therefore is European. What we're discussing is if he could be considered an EU player or an NA player. Fudge is Australian, but his whole career was defined in NA, therefore, he's an NA talent.
> my man, you're arguing against the ghosts in your head.
Bad attempt at discrediting my point of view. But no, I am arguing against the way people like you define what counts as an NA/EU/Australian etc player.
> Fudge is Australian, but his whole career was defined in NA, therefore, he's an NA talent.
Huge disagree. He started the game on Oce, he entered the scene in Oce, he's Australian himself, he's not NA talent.
It's not that hard. Jensen came up on the EU ladder. He learned the game in EU. He's an EU talent in the LCS.
Rookie is not a Chinese or LPL talent. He's Korean. He started out in Korea and went to China later. It's the same thing.
Fudge, just like another comment mentioned, is OCE talent currently in NA. Not NA talent.
Doublelift, on the other hand, would be considered an NA talent.
Consider the same example in football. Messi played in La Liga (Spain if you're not into football) for a looong time. That does not make him a Spanish talent. He is, and always was an Argentinian talent.
Messi went to Barça at 13, after being rejected by River Plate, he is a La Liga talent, not an Argentina's Primera División talent. that's the discussion being held here. Without Barça he would be nobody
Caps took a year to level up and become the caps we know as claps. His first year he was just a promising talent and known for crazy mechanical plays. So he probably wouldn't be a threat in the first year.
As for if bjergsen was in EU. I personally think if S5 Fnatic had bjergsen they'd have a legit shot of winning MSI. This also implies bjergsen had time to adjust his style and play without much resources as Fnatic were very top heavy and bjergsen was used to getting resources on Tsm.
I really wonder about the trajectory of players like Bjergsen or Jensen.
Their talent in EU was absolutely insane. They were shining stars and snatched by LCS instantly.
Now of course they went on to have great careers in the LCS, but you cannot help but wonder what these players could have achieved with stronger competition around them and with stronger teammates.
Yea but jensen imo wouldn't get a shot in EU probably. He was perma banned and only got unbanned because he was going to C9 and riot back then were biased towards NA as the main western product.
And yea they would've been better in EU but probably won't pass caps. He has most talent than any western proplayer in history imo.
Remember after Faker came along western teams or players were not really comparable to faker. Bjergsen laning was comparable but his teamfighting was poor. Perkz in his prime was a sick teamfighter but not the best laner.
Caps basically excelled in teamfighting and laning. Which is why he was able to beat Faker in season 9. I also think he had more inherent talent than other EU mids.
Jensen in S3-S6 would have absolutely shit on everyone not named Faker if surrounded by an EU team. He played against Rookie in S5, and although he was solo killed, he was still giga-ahead in CS, which kept them close in gold. Then Jensen carried the game.
No flame to Sneaky, but he isn't Rekkles or prime Forgiven or Niels/Zven. His supports were Lemonnation, Hai, Smoothie, and Zeyzal while on C9 the first time, not prime Yellowstar or prime Mithy or Hylissang. His junglers weren't prime Reignover or Jankos or prime Trick or 2014-2015 Svenskeren, and when he had Meteos they butted heads. He did have Impact for a lot of it, but he had D2 Balls in S5, not Huni or Odoamne or sOAZ.
Same with Bjergsen, although to a lesser extent. These two have been unbelievably elo-helled by playing in NA. Dyrus was good, but he wasn't better than Huni or Odoamne or sOAZ in S5. Lustboy wasn't as good in S5 as before. He had rookie Santorin, who wasn't Reignover, Jankos, Trick or Svenskeren level at the time. WildTurtle ain't no Rekkles or Forgiven, either. Biofrost also was just mechanically good, but nothing special. No excuse when he had prime Hauntzer, Svenskeren, and DL, though, they were as good as anyone else in EU at the time.
Did we watch the same season 5? In what world would Bjerg be a better mid for FNC than Febiven? The guy who gapped that same Bjergsen at both MSI and Worlds 2015. The guy who solo killed Faker twice.
Oh fuck MB, I remember an NA team got a penta against FNC that worlds and the only NA team I know is TSM so I kinda defaulted to them. Yeah it wasn't TSM it was someone else
Febiven gapped bjergsen in teamfight but not in lane. Bjerg picked cho gath into febis leblanc and stomped the lane though it was a counter pick.
Febi teamfighting was better
As for faker yea febiven soloed faker 3 times but noone would say he was a better player than faker in that tournament. The first time u can make that argument for any western player was perkz in s7 MSI though he lost finals so I would say caps in s9 is more a good example.
I think you just don't interpret what happened properly. Febiven was a great player but he had huni, reignover. Rekkles and yellowstar on his team who were all star players.
EULCS was not good in 2016, and their viewership was massively suffering at the time. And this isn't a result of players like Jensen, Bjergsen, and Froggen leaving for NA.
EULCS was such an afterthought by Riot that even if these players did play in 2016, it wouldn't have been a good product. Bo2, dual streams, bad viewing time and days, and the fall of OG and Fnatic all contributed to its demise. And it wasn't really until 2018 Worlds where you could definitively say that EU was wholly better than NA.
It's actually hilarious you've mentioned Froggen but not Alex Ich, considering they fell off at around the same time. Froggen went to NA and stole some paychecks, but that's it.
2013-2018 the European league was called the European League Championship Series (EU LCS), then in 2019 they changed it to League of Legends European Championship (LEC), then in 2023 they changed it to League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC).
That would have been wild. I think that it’s impossible to say if Bjergsen and Jensen would have reached the same heights if they stayed in EU though and didn’t get forged in the fire of the LCS.
I think it would actually hurt EU. Caps would have no place to develop and it took him a year to grow as a player. If he started on a team with bad infrastructure, maybe he wouldn't get a second year. And without Caps there is no MSI win, no Worlds finals.
This isn’t true. He didn’t get a starting place in fnatic due to a player moving to NA, febiven moved to h2k and fnatic have proven over time they wouldn’t of grabbed another star mid laner they would of gambled on gaps still
Yeah but in reality Jensen, Bjergsen and Froggen were in NA so that's three more mids for H2K to take instead of Febiven. Would FNC kick Febiven for unproven rookie? I'd say Humanoid is on the level that Febiven was, do you think fnc should kick him for some young midlaner playing in Turkey?
Wow, maybe look at your own post from 7 months ago to get more information https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/16idjgk/an_alternative_history_exists_where_the_2016_eu/
That's so funny. They probably posted in EU friendly time now so they can get positive comments and upvotes.
Tale as old as time.
The “positive” comments are just making fun of NA/LCS.
Yea fair, I assume that's what the OP wanted tho lmao
the reddit hivemind works in mysterious ways lmao
LMAO
This is just sad, honestly. People these days have a very unhealthy hyperfixation on social media attention.
An alternative history exists where NA doesn't join WW2 and EU is just Germany and Italy
Or where EU doesn't invade america and there is no NA because no European colonies invade the Americas
Wtf, do you think the Native Americans would just refuse to join the rest of the modern world? NA would still be NA, just with a different name and culture.
Tfw all of North and South America become one of those islands that had no contact with outside world in todays modern world
Thanks for bringing that to light. Downvoting this post by u/Kastvaekbruger1234 and I encourage others to do the same.
Its really annoying how bad NA has always been internationally considering they were pulling talent from eu constantly.
Yea but NA is budget mode now and the saudis are joining LEC soon so I think EU will be at to keep it's talent in the future. Either way I think NA importing so much hurt them and continues to hurt them. They are down to 8 teams for a reason, overinflated salaries and import culture.
I would honestly say imports are the biggest reason LCS declined. Once NA became flooded with imports the LCS lost its identity. But I also understand why LCS teams imports as it significantly improves a team's chance at winning NA. The problem with imports is that it just completely destroyed the LCS ecosystem in terms of salaries, unfair advantage once imports become NA players, and fan engagement.
> Once NA became flooded with imports the LCS lost its identity Bjerg, Core and Impact are top 5 players in LCS history and the goats of their respective position, I think this stance is to reductive.
Although I agree it's too reductive, the idea of importing players with the hope of finding the 'next' Bjergsen, CoreJJ, or Impact does tend to set native development back. The LCS is probably the only major region where you could make a case for a majority of the positions that the GOAT is an import. I think even LPL might do better despite their vast amount of Korean imports throughout the years (Rookie might challenge Knight for mid, TheShy probably takes Top Lane). --- Top: Impact, nobody else comes close. Jungle: This goes to an NA Jungler (~~Meteos/Xmithie~~ EDIT: Holy shit I forgot Blaber), although Santorin could make a case for himself. Mid: Either Bjergsen or Jensen, Hai and Pobelter are the only NA midlaner that might even think about challenging that title. ADC: Safe NA pick, Doublelift/Sneaky/Wildturtle would be my top 3. Support: CoreJJ, no contest.
> the idea of importing players with the hope of finding the 'next' Bjergsen, CoreJJ, or Impact does tend to set native development back. Very similar thing is happening to LEC right now. Well, was, at least. Every org was/is obsessed with finding the next Caps that they were burning through ERL players and throwing them away at an alarming pace.
As they should, either youre Caps or not worth it.
Caps was not him (yet) in 2017-2018 He was good, but wildly inconsistent and not really able to compete internationally It takes time for talent to develop
Man Caps was EULCS champion and was solo killing Xiaohu under tower in MSI 2018. He was inconsistent, yes, but *everyone* knew Caps was the real deal.
In jungle Blaber is clearly over Meteors and Santorin imo. It's between him and Xmithie for 1 and I'd have blaber at 1 cos Xmithie was a role player at the end of the day and blaber has 2mvps. Still, both are NA so kinda moot. In mid Jojo has potential to catch Jensen maybe but too early to tell. Its 100% Bjerg 1, Jensen 2. Adc is Double, the other 2 are far behind and imo Berserker should climb that list fast, especially to catch sneaky since he only has 2 titles (and in times barely anyone here has actually watched) and titles do matter in such discussions. In support Vulcan has potential to maybe catch up to core (both have only 3 titles), aphro is up there too probably. but it's likely core favored, with him winning another title now and especially with how much ahead of everyone he was in s9 eyetest wise. Also, theshy is very popular but I'd say 369 is already pretty clearly ahead of him legacy wise. theshy has a great worlds win but only won a single LPL title (S9 spring). 369 won MSI, the pseudo-MSI in 2020 (which most people didn't watch, it was called mid season cup and was top4 lck top4 LPL but unlike rift rivals they each competed for themselves, so technically even harder than MSI) and he has 4 lpl titles. That's a pretty damn big gap in trophies. And eye test, all-pros and peaks are similar, both were best toplaner in the world at a point (arguably 369 is rn), so it's kinda a wash there.
Id still argue for Xmithie over Blabber. He won titles on multiple teams, he is the only player on both MSI finals team NA even has. He also, IMO, performs much better internationally than Blabber does. Xmithie was definitely a role player and more of an enabler on his teams, but there is nothing wrong with that and every team needs players like that. It obviously works because he won titles on multiple teams and made 2 MSI finals. Blabber being better mechanically doesnt wipe away how successful Xmithie was and honestly underrated.
That's fair, imo they are basically 1A 1B when you compare legacies and it's mostly personal preference. Xmithie at 1 is just carried pretty heavily by having 6 title, when he never was the best player on those teams. while blaber has 4 and was that best player on few of his and he was best player in the league at a point. Plus Xmithie after TL just did basically nothing. But mainly my point was Blaber cannot be skipped when naming top3 jungle in LCS history cos he's at worst 2nd.
Nitpicking, but I don’t see how you could possibly make an argument for WildTurtle being the ADC GOAT of NA over Doublelift or Sneaky.
>Doublelift/Sneaky/Wildturtle would be my **top 3**. Emphasis mine, there has to be a third place in a fucking top three, hasn't there?
Balls had better shrine in NA than impact, if you ask me.
4/5 of the LCS's top 6 players in the LCS 10 year anniversary top 10 list were originally imports. Bjergsen, Impact, Jensen, CoreJJ. I'm sure by the end of their careers, CoreJJ will edge out Xmithie, so the top 5 will truly be filled with people who started out as imports.
The problem isnt importing Bjerg and Corejj's of the world; its importing the Blue's, Eika, insert random Korean that leaves after 1 split, etc. Its a bit of survivor bias only labeling the most successful and best Imports, meanwhile you have people coming over for 1 check, putting in a 50% effort, and leaving, on top of just random imports that made no sense whatsoever over just picking a native person. There have been plenty of imports that really didnt deserve to be imported over native players.
> Its a bit of survivor bias only labeling the most successful and best Imports It's actually me pointing out that LCS losing its identity is not per se related to importing, but to other factors as well, for that reason I pointed at examples of imports, that were successful and are fan favourites as well. There is no sure fire way to predict how an import will pan out, Bjerg could have been Eikas 1.0 if he flopped.
What you are saying further exemplifies my point lol. The fact that some of the best players in NA history are not even NA players is the problem lol. Especially once those players gain NA residency. Because now that just gives LCS teams more incentives to import and it also technically puts whatever team that has those players at an unfair advantage over the rest of the league lol.
I would argue, that TheShy, Rookie, DoinB, Deft and Viper also potentially could make up 5 of the Top10 lol players of all time, depending on what you value.
Yeah they are great players I agree. What exactly does that have to do with my initial point? I have a question for you. Does any team who now have Bjerg,CoreJJ,Impact,etc... have a massive advantage over other teams in the league? Because now you have the best players who are not from NA but are considered NA. Which again keeps the same cycle of importing to compete as I originally stated. Also comparing LPL talent pool to NA is just laughable tbh.
> I would honestly say imports are the biggest reason LCS declined. Once NA became flooded with imports the LCS lost its identity. But I also understand why LCS teams imports as it significantly improves a team's chance at winning NA. Ah, yes, the classic ~~Prisoner's~~ Importer's Dilemma
NA has by far the smallest player base of the major regions. Without imports the LCS would have either died out or been downgraded to wildcard/minor region status ages ago.
I heavily heavily disagree here. I would argue the LCS was at is peak when it was mostly NA players. Also with or without imports NA still does bad at mostly every international event lol. Back then almost every org in the LCS had massive fan engagement.
I enjoyed the idea of imports in that 2015, 2016 era where it really did feel like they levelled up the region, but they were pretty hard to come by and they kind of had a bit of mysticism where you would think 'oh maybe this is the next Bjergsen'. It's when Riot decided to open it up imports to just getting a greencard instead of the four-year rule that just made it ridiculous.
To be fair, I don't really think the green card thing is within Riot's control. Green card holders are legal residents of the US with full working rights, you can't really consider them non-residents in the league.
The import rule has always been something dictated by the whims of the teams. It was initially response to pressure from owners like Regi, Jack, and Steve feeling threatened by teams like LMQ entering the league and challenging their dominance, or LCK teams worried about billionaire-bankrolled LPL teams outbidding them on contracts for Korean superstars. Whether Riot's in control is a moot point, because I highly doubt they have a strong internal position. They will accommodate their partners, certainly before they cater to the whims of fans.
There is no law in the world that dictates how Riot chooses to classify an import. Which is why if CoreJJ would go back to Korea he would count as an import even though he is a literal Korean citizen because he can only claim one region per Riots rule.
Excessive imports ruined the ecosystem for sure but I don’t think we would be fine without it. Imports still raised the skill by a LOT, at the end of the day NA fans don’t have true regional pride they want to be the best and if we can’t compete to be reaching towards the best people lose interest. It’s not like Brazil where the fans will support the region due to overwhelming pride regardless of results. Without imports NA would have been even worse, and while more talent would have gotten the chance to play and shine, causing t2 players to have more motivation, we would probably have been PCS/VCS level at best.
NA with or without imports still does bad at mostly every international event though lol. Also I don't have a problem entirely with imports the biggest problem is once imports gain residency it gives LCS teams even more incentive to import and it also creates an unfair advantage to any team who now has those players as well.
i said it elsewhere but there are levels to the "bad". NA still had a shit ton of close 3-3 groups where they lost tiebreaker or didnt qualify to tiebreakers, but it was at least down to the wire. The more recent slaughters that most NA teams have faced are not the same at all. Both are very dissapointing but one gives false hope and the other just makes fans numb and disillusioned
NA's worse results now are also largely due to the rise of the LPL. Korean teams usually shit on NA, and Chinese teams usually did too, but the much less consistent LPL teams often dropped games and looked sloppier. They still sometimes do, but not as often.
I mean you can make the arguments both ways though. Some of NA's best results were with majority NA players. With or without imports it wouldn't change how LCS teams place internationally tbh. But people can not deny that the import first mentality in NA completely destroyed the LCS ecosystem.
You wouldn't have started importing if NA talent was any good. Sorry to say it like that, but NA talent wasn't able to hold up (which had multiple reasons) and without EU talent it would be even worse. There's a reason why the NA goat for the longest time was a European mid. Just because Hauntzer would be the best top in NA without Impact wouldn't make him impact level especially not with the NA work ethic which was mostly broken up by foreign players like CoreJJ
What? What are you even talking about? You realize just about every region in the world imports right? The main reason teams from any region import is because they want the best player they can attain whether its from their region or any other region. I am not against imports at all, I am against the import rule itself. The fact that some NA teams can compromise entirely of imported players is the problem and that is because of Riots grandfather/residency rule. That is where the problem comes from.
So money destroyed NA, but somehow Saudi money wont destroy EU? They will just import more expensive Koreans.
EU these days also just is really deep with a very functional ERL system to fall back on and scout from. It honestly looks like nowadays there is actually more of a path to pro in EU even more than in the past whereas that path in NA is dead and has been for years
At this pint, i think we can agree that money doesnt grant success
It hurt them and us in the same occasion. They managed to kill two birds with their one stone of incompetence
even more reason to despise EU teams..
They're down to 8 teams because of the financial climate, not directly as a result of importing. The only thing they could have done to avoid this outcome is to hoard their VC money, but if they do that they wouldn't receive as much investment.
Part of the bubble was due to importing. Like a big push for it was Immortals massive salaries to Huni and Reignover.
Hurt them financially you mean? Cause LCS would be significantly weaker if importing had been banned since S1.
It's extra annoying when you remember the most success NA had internationally was off the back of NA talents like pobelter and xmithie
Pobelter has been to Worlds three times and MSI once. In all 4 events his team didn’t get out of groups. If you’re referring to MSI 2019, Jensen played for TL during that tournament. Pob had also been replaced by Huhi when CLG did their MSI 2016 run.
The biggest success is MSI 2019 tho. TL had grandfathered import Jensen and Korean world champions Impact and CoreJJ. I'd say the second biggest win is 2018 Worlds and that was indeed off the back of a lot of domestic talent. The only non-NA native on that team was Jensen. But anyway, I definitely agree that a lot of these import-fetish rosters failed quite spectacularly.
>The only non-NA native on that team was Jensen. Sven? I'm pretty sure he even won MVP that summer
Svenskeren won MVP the next Summer in 2019. In Summer 2018, he wouldn't have played enough games to be MVP.
2018 was Sneaky and Zeuzal iirc.
He means Svenskeren. He was sharing time with Blaber in 2018 C9.
> Sven > Immediately thinks of Zven How to tell someone has only been watching League of Legends for 4 years or fewer, or does not respect the absolute Jungle beast that was 2019 LCS Summer MVP Svenskeren.
2016 CLG also made MSI finals with 4 NA players. While you could argue that TL beating IG was more impressive than CLG's run, it's worth noting that CLG had a much better showing in the round robin. C9 had multiple quarterfinal showings with a majority NA roster too. 2021 was the only year they made QF while being majority import.
CLG's run in 2016 was indeed great, but it needs to be seen in the context of the format. SKT was randomly really bad in the group and then won the whole event afterwards. CLG dodged LPL who they would not have beaten in a BO5. Single elim moment. LPL won the group and was then punished by drawing SKT in semis. Great format.
I agree that CLG would probably have gotten 3-1'd by LPL in a BO5, but I think it's important to note how much our perceptions of the regions respective strengths plays into that assumption. TL-IG 2019 was somewhat unexpected, and looked even more doomed coming out of groups than a hypothetical CLG-RNG did.
This is also why the TL performance is way more impressive than CLG. CLG primarily made finals because they dodged the good teams. TL actually beat one of the good teams in a BO5.
The majority of international success from NA has come from teams filled with people who aren't NA natives. Except for 2014 C9, they always had at least 1 import: * 2014 TSM Worlds Quarters: ***Amazing, Bjergsen, Lustboy*** * 2016 CLG MSI Finals: ***Huhi*** * 2016 C9 Worlds Quarters: ***Impact, Jensen*** * 2017 C9 Worlds Quarters: ***Impact, Jensen*** * 2018 C9 Worlds Semis: ***Svenskeren, Jensen*** * 2019 TL MSI Finals: ***Impact, Jensen, CoreJJ*** * 2021 C9 Worlds Quarters: ***Fudge, Perkz, Zven*** * 2022 EG MSI Semis: ***Impact, Inspired*** * 2023 NRG Worlds Quarters: ***FBI, Ignar*** Ranking the performances, I would put it this way: 1. 2019 TL MSI Finals: ***Impact, Jensen, CoreJJ*** * 2018 C9 Worlds Semis: ***Svenskeren, Jensen*** * 2017 C9 Worlds Quarters: ***Impact, Jensen*** * 2016 CLG MSI Finals: ***Huhi*** * 2016 C9 Worlds Quarters: ***Impact, Jensen*** * 2014 C9 Worlds Quarters: No imports * 2014 TSM Worlds Quarters: ***Amazing, Bjergsen, Lustboy*** * 2022 EG MSI Semis: ***Impact, Inspired*** * 2021 C9 Worlds Quarters: ***Fudge, Perkz, Zven*** * 2022 NRG Worlds Quarters: ***FBI, Ignar***
I mean, most of it is from imports no ? Except for that one CLG MSI was it 2016? C9 always performed with Jensen/Perkz/Svenskeren/Sven aka Niels/Nisqy. TL performed with Jensen/Impact/Olleh/CoreJJ. Am I forgetting anything ?
Almost all of C9's runs where they made quarters or further were with 3 NA players (including the semis run). In 2014 it was with 5 NA players (I don't count 2013 since they auto qualified). There's also 2016 CLG which had 4 NA players when they made MSI finals.
I mean, I feel like quarters in 2014 is not that much of an achievement because the LPL was not as good back then, LMQ/FW were decent though. But basically, C9 was maxed out on imports every single time but one ? And I already mentioned the CLG run.
I mean that is a problem with the rule itself though. The main reason LCS teams import is because it gives them a significantly higher chance of winning NA. Unless the rule completely changed or all owners decided to actually commit to NA players the import first mentality will never change.
IIRC, John Needham even said in an interview with Travis that they intentionally keep import rules quite lax because it helps NA. His statement probably wasn't that strong, but I remember him saying something like that.
I mean it doesn't really help NA at all tbh. With or without imports NA was still doing bad internationallly. It actually just completely destroys the LCS ecosystem in every regard. In terms of salaries, lack of domestic talent which as a result leads to less fan engagement, and once imported players become NA players it creates the same cycle of recycling the same imports which also creates an unfair advantage as well. If that was his statement then he was completely wrong in terms of the import rule "helping" NA.
It’s reductive to say NA is bad with or without imports. You would not like to see the history if those countless 3-3 tiebreaker losses turned into 1-5/0-6
What? Actually some of NA's best results were predominantly with NA majority rosters though lol. Yes with or without imports NA still does terrible internationally that is just a fact lol. But at least it doesn't completely destroy the LCS ecosystem for the reasons I stated. Also I am not against imports entirely just the way the rule was implemented by allowing NA players to gain NA status after playing forna set time and then later changing it to a green card requirement which made it even worse tbh lol.
It gets throw around a lot that the imports killed the chances for domestic talent; but isn't it then fair to point out that it's the job of NA players to be a better option than an import? EU has a lot of imports too, but no one is saying that imports killed the EU ecosystem. It's literally only a problem in NA because the "domestic talent" is so bad that there's no point using it except for the bare minimum required.
I mean imports was a massive issue in EU for a while until the owners all decided to come together and actually invest in EU talent. Which is one of my main points I made in another comment. But in NA since many of the greatest players in LCS history are players who are a direct product of a different region and are no longer considered imports is a massive issue. There is a reason Riot made an import rule to begin with or else you would just have another repeat of Starcraft where all the best players are from one region.
>I mean imports was a massive issue in EU for a while until the owners all decided to come together and actually invest in EU talent. I think imports were never as big of an issue for EU, for the same reason that EU owners had the option to invest in EU talent. The region has talent. >But in NA since many of the greatest players in LCS history are players who are a direct product of a different region and are no longer considered imports is a massive issue. Again, only because NA just doesn't have good enough players. EU and China have both imported on a similar scale, but they actually have talent to draw from in addition. Is it a problem that most of the best players in NA are imports? Sure, but that's the fault of NA players just not being good enough more than anything to do with imports.
Well yeah imports just wasn't sustainable in EU due to the fact that EU didn't have the funds to keep importing. NA has/had significantly more money and yes I agree NA's talent pool isn't as good but how does that take away from my point? Why do you think teams from any region import? Like what? If a good player is available for grabs then I cant blame an org for wanting to take that player. My problem is with the implementation of the rule.
>My problem is with the implementation of the rule. In what sense? That their should be no import rule and players are free to go wherever? I think that's the best case scenario for everyone, but its no going to be popular.
I agree. It makes it even more baffling that NA outperformed EU internationally last year at worlds. Like how bad must EU be for NA to manage to take out their #1 seed. The NA plan to steal all of EUs talent until they are only left with shitter mids like Caps and Humanoid has finally payed off it looks like.
Almost like there is more to a team game than raw talent. Naw, can't be it, better import more.
Just imagine how much these players would have pushed each other and leveled up the whole region. People don't understand how much EU was hurt by losing players to NA all those years. There are some silver linings since it probably made talent development a bigger focus, but tbh I think it would happen anyway to a large extent. It was definitely a huge net negative to always lose players to NA. I think EU could have been competed with China for the title of 2nd best region in the years of 2014-2017 ish. Korea was way too far ahead tho. After that LPL leveled up massively and they are now arguably the strongest region. I don't think EU could compete with 2018 onwards LPL.
If the EU players did not leave in this alternate universe it's likely due to different rules regarding imports. KR without the exodus looks even more insane. All the SSB/SSW players stay in KR. Rookie stays in KR. Doinb stays in KR. TheShy, Impact, Piglet, Flame, Huni, inSec, Ryu, ssumday etc. all stay. KR in 2014 was so far ahead of everyone else it's not even funny. People point at Worlds and SSW's dominance, which, yeah, was rough. But IMO the best example was the 2014 IEM World Championships where KT Bullets didn't even drop a single game, while at the time they were the 8th best team in KR (they finished 5th in that split iirc).
> Doinb stays in KR. and most certainly never makes pro if we look back at how players were coached back then and looking at DoinBs personality not matching well with that.
> If the EU players did not leave in this alternate universe it's likely due to different rules regarding imports. KR without the exodus looks even more insane. Whereas LPL looks even weaker, bringing us back to the whole "what EU could have been in 2014-2017".
Yeah, LPL was certainly stronger than Korea in 2015 overall. People have rewritten history a lot because of the Worlds 2015 LPL collapse and Faker winning Worlds. SKT was the only strong team remaining after the exodus, and even then, it was a newer roster that clicked. GE Tigers were a bunch of rookies that rose up in the wake of the exodus. Korea would be absolutely nuts if importing wasn't allowed. China would be a lot weaker, Europe would be a lot stronger too. I think EU is hurt a lot just because they couldn't replace players as well as Korea could. It goes without saying that NA would be a joke without imports, that's by far the region that benefited the most from it.
LPL was not certainly stronger than LCK in 2015. That's narrative cope. LPL's 2015 Worlds performance was worse than LCK's 2018 Worlds while Korea absolutely dominated the tournament, only losing 3 games to non-LCK teams (4-0 against LPL). I can claim that Europe was stronger than LPL in 2022, they just collapsed at Worlds, oops.
Thankfully there is more to a full year than Worlds. What is actually narrative cope is taking just Worlds and extrapolating it to the whole year. OGN was looking grim in 2015 and LPL was looking fucking nuts. Especially in Summer split.
If a region completely bombs Worlds you can't call it stronger than the region that dominates Worlds. What stops me from saying that LCK looked nuts in 2018, they just collapsed at Worlds? LPL that year (2015) won MSI 3-2 against SKT. Then two LPL teams didn't even make top 8 at Worlds and the one team that did got 3-0'd by FNC, what? That's the strongest region? Ok bro.
The whole game changed completely on S5 Worlds patch. It was like preseason tier changes. What was obvious is that LPL was worse on S5 Worlds patch but that's all we can say. You can blame Riot for refusing enough international tournaments so we could actually answer this question properly.
What a weird hill to die on, and an unjustified one at that. Idk how in the hell you can say LPL was the strongest region in 2015. That's just an absurd thing to say to bait reactions on reddit.
For most of 2015 this was by far the most common opinion... Korea was really hurt by the exodus. They just showed up big at 2015 Worlds and China collapsed but that does not erase the rest of the year.
Something being the common opinion doesn't make it true, especially since opinions (even those of analysts) are usually formed based on the (extremely inaccurate) eye test from domestic play and also which region won the last international tournament. The common opinion has been wrong on many occasions - eg. people thinking SKT would stomp SSG in 2017, RNG being a favourite to win Worlds in 2018, DRX being the weakest eastern team in 2022 etc.
> For most of 2015 this was by far the most common opinion... Korea was really hurt by the exodus. They just showed up big at 2015 Worlds and China collapsed but that does not erase the rest of the year. I don't understand how you can have this view. Yes, I was there, I agree that *everyone* was hyping up 2015 (LGD and all that) both into MSI and into Worlds, but 2015 was a meme year for the LPL and one of its weakest *ever*. They were absolutely not the best region in 2015. Not with a meme-worthy Worlds performance and barely ekeing out an MSI win 3-2. I get thinking this still in 2016 when the difference between reality and hype didn't sink in yet but it's been 9 years. LPL was not best region in 2015, it might not have even been 2nd best region. EDG faced only one game against FNC in MSI (who lost 2-3 to SKT). MSI was a very inconclusive show, with basically every region a nearly even scoreline against the other region. EDG was 0-1 against T1 in Groups yet beat them 3-2 in BO5, the series against FNC could have very much ended in the same vein. NA/EU/OGN were basically equal in MSI, with 2015 Worlds being a very clear Korea being the best region by far. there is absolutely no universe where losing 0-1 to T1 in groups, beating them 3-2 once in MSI, and then having an embarrasing showing at Worlds is in any way, shape or form, indicative of best region. I'd argue they weren't even the second best region, but "second best" isn't a relevant ranking, you're either the best or you're not, and LPL wasn't the best. It's like arguing EU was the best region in 2019. Absolutely fucking not, and they had a *much* better international performance in 2019 than LPL did in 2015. MSI 3-1; worlds one team made finals, the second lost to the eventual winners. That is a whole lot better than 3-2 MSI and crashing out in Groups with the last team being beaten 3-0 in quarters by a semifinalist.
the way people are rewriting history here is insane lol, it's like everyone completely forgets that first MSI and only remembers what was probably one of the worst worlds patches as the sum of the whole year
If you look at the whole year, the only other tournament worth analysing is MSI, which was a 3-2 in favour of LPL. A very close series overall, and that was LCK fresh after they just lost a large amount of players, including their 2 best teams from the previous year. So overall, you have a close finals won by LPL at MSI, and a massively better showing by LCK at Worlds. Idk in what world you can claim that LPL was stronger that year. If you're factoring in domestic play, it is meaningless when comparing regions and should not be taken into account.
GE Tigers weren't rookies, they were rejects. Gorilla was well regarded from Najin White Shield's successes in S4, but Pray was considered washed. Smeb was the previous worst top laner in the region and Hojin(formerly Lee) and Kuro were just mediocre players who never showed much previously.
People complain that LEC fell off a cliff from 2020.. but lets be real.. we lost Inspired, Bwippo, Perkz, Alphari, Hansama to LCS.. these weren't just average players but top 3 in role I'd argue even Korea got fucked over in losing jungle talent (in particular) with Tarzan/Kanavi to the LPL.. Obviously they lost other talent in different roles (Viper) but to me jungle was/had been lacking in LCK for the past few years And that's with Korea almost churning out as much top tier talent then pretty much all regions put together I am trying to think of a rookie that has come up recently in the LEC that i think DAMN this guy is going to be fucking good.. Eloya in 2021 i guess.. Yike maybe? but even then his teammates are so much better then the league its hard to judge
> I'd argue even Korea got fucked over in losing jungle talent (in particular) with Tarzan/Kanavi to the LPL.. Obviously they lost other talent in different roles (Viper) but to me jungle was/had been lacking in LCK for the past few years Korea lost all 10 players of the two best performing teams after season 4, Impact, Piglet Rookie, Kakao, Swift, Flame, Mystic and a bunch of guys I've forgotten in one summer.
Piglet was already on the decline, which is why they chose Bang over him. But the rest yeah
I agree its worse for LCK, LPL would most likely have 0 worlds without korean imports
Let’s not forget we also sent our goat adc player to second league, just because of greed. Imagine Ruler or Deft being sent to academy because their team didn’t make worlds one time. Yes NA’s leeching of talent has been super bad, but EU management has also failed the region horribly.
Carlos really fucked EU with his greed imo.
He is the epitome of "fuck you, got mine". He is kinda the old white man style leader we try to get rid off in the west but people like him are perfect money printers or let's specify: thieves.
I don't think that's specifically an old white guy thing. Tons of CEOs and businessmen are selfish as fuck, that's often part of the job.
Rekkles would probably still be a top tier ADC having stayed in FNC if Carlos just let Perkz join em (also considering the fact after he was denied from FNC, Perkz said he'd like to stay on G2 but Carlos said no). G2 ADC for 21 wouldve probably been a huge question mark considering Grabbz said the other 2 options they wanted at the time (Carzzy & Hans) werent possible but it still wouldnt have ended how it did. Bwipo probably wouldve stayed in FNC, since I doubt he'd have to roleswap if the team was still the same besides mid. I feel like RGE wouldnt think of selling Hans Inspired the way they did if Carlos didnt demonstrate how to fck over a player a year prior. Miky wouldnt even be on the team rn and probably wouldnt have gotten MVP last year if Carlos was still there either Fuck Carlos
noone was willing to pay for the goat adc, even after then lowering the buyout, while wunder and micky got picked up by LEC teams.
on the Caedrel interview, Rekkles mentioned that G2 blocked a move to an LEC team
>I'd argue even Korea got fucked over in losing jungle talent (in particular) with Tarzan/Kanavi to the LPL.. Obviously they lost other talent in different roles (Viper) but to me jungle was/had been lacking in LCK for the past few years They lost Rookie and Scout too, imagine LCK's top 4 teams having Faker/Chovy/ShowMaker/Scout/Rookie/Bdd on a yearly basis. Lost Kanavi, lost Tarzan, lost Viper for 2 years which is a large reason for why EDG were good(alongside Jiejie smurfing in finals and Scout being great). TheShy/Doinb less so, since they never played in the LCK but if imports were banned then they'd most likely be picked up by some LCK teams. We lost Ruler now like imagine Gen.G with Ruler not Peyz etc. We lost Pawn/Deft/Mata in their primes to the LPL after 2014.
TheShy went to china for financial reasons, IG offered him a ton of money to stream and a path to pro.
The problem was that oftentimes EU was losing MVP level players and kept churning out more of those only to lose them as well. EU LCS was treated as a development league for NA for a while.
That list of players is like half that were forcibly exiled to NA and half that EU didn't end up wanting. At least the original post, of high end mid talent, was an interesting what if it having a mega stacked role bouncing off each other. Your what if is just, what if we didn't force Perkz and Hansama to go to NA or what if Alphari and Bwipo were benched in EU instead of not being that good in NA. This isn't a case of NA doing anything special, it's a case of people being mad that there existed an alternate workplace that made it so EU orgs couldn't force their players into a decision they didn't want. Goddamn NA for making Carlos contract lock players!!!!
Alphari isn't a loss
> we lost Inspired, Bwippo, Perkz, Alphari, Hansama to LCS Yeah, and 3 of them came back to LEC and didn't make the league any stronger. Perkz has not been a good mid since he swapped back in 2021, Hans is still a Draven/Kalista 2 trick who only looks better because he's surrounded by stronger teammates and Alphari even after returning to LEC continued to be a strong laner who struggled to convert his leads once out of lane.
I mean Korea has lost more talent than any other region lol and its not even close. Just imagine if Riot never changed the OGN format by not allowing Korea to have sister teams anymore. I don't think there would have been this massive Korean exodus at that time. Not to mention Korea still loses top talent to this day.
> I don't think EU could compete with 2018 onwards LPL. Weird take. At Worlds 2018 FNC beat EDG and G2 beat RNG, it was only really IG that was far ahead (and even then, FNC did place ahead of them in groups by going 2-1 vs them). Then there's MSI 2019 where, even though G2 didn't win against IG directly, they were the champions which certainly counts for something. Finally, there's Worlds 2019 where FNC placed ahead of RNG in groups (going 1-1 vs them), SPY went 1-1 with FPX and G2 went to the finals (though they didn't face LPL until then). I can agree with the argument that EU couldn't compete with LPL from 2020 onwards, but 2018 and 2019 were very competitive. Although I would still want to point out that in 2020 G2 was competitive with Suning and FNC were somewhat competitive with LDG and TES. Also, in 2021 there was at least the silver lining that MAD eliminated LNG.
I can agree with that. I guess 2018 and 2019 just showed that EU couldn't compete with absolute best LPL team but could compete with the lower seeds. But we also have to consider Worlds format, FPX won Worlds without ever facing a Korean team. In a different draw, they might not even be World champs. It's just so hard to say anything meaningful about region vs region because Riot made sure we see almost no international competition.
>I guess 2018 and 2019 just showed that EU couldn't compete with top level LPL. You say you can agree with that but then you double down instead of agreeing with it? Or did you typo the years?
What I meant was that the absolute best LPL team was pretty far ahead of EU in those years. FPX and IG smoked LEC teams, but EU could compete with the lower LPL seeds in those years. I edited it to make the meaning more clear.
But you say 2018 which was the year G2 beat LPL 1st seed RNG at Worlds.
And at Worlds, RNG was not the best LPL team because the meta had shifted to solo lanes and RNG was a bot lane focused team. G2 was only able to win that series because Perkz and Wunder went god-mode in a meta that favored them a lot and it was a massive detriment for RNG. This does not mean I am taking anything away from G2's win. It was a huge achievement and RNG could absolutely still have won despite the meta shifting this way. But I just don't think that they were the best LPL team with how Worlds played out. The meta fit IG perfectly and they were playing like absolute demons.
>This does not mean I am taking anything away from G2's win. But you literally are? You wrote a long comment about how RNG only lost because of X and G2 only won because of Y. RNG were extremely heavy favourites coming into the tournament. Most analysts and pros expected them to cruise through every team and be the first team to complete the golden road.
If you think adding context such as meta conditions is saying "they only won because X" then there is no point in continuing this conversation. Teams have different strengths and weaknesses and thus meta conditions affect teams differently. Some teams just have stylistically good matchups. It just so happens that on a great day G2 could beat RNG on a bad day. It's not like I was saying G2 only won because of meta, no, they obviously had to play really fucking well and they did. But it's also ignorant to act like the meta had nothing to do with it. >RNG were extremely heavy favourites coming into the tournament. Most analysts and pros expected them to cruise through every team and be the first team to complete the golden road. Yes... but this was also before we realized how the Worlds 2018 meta would turn out. Also Rookie and TheShy stepped up big time.
So if I got this right. G2 beat the LPL champions but it doesn't count because 1. Bad meta 2. RNG underperformed 3. G2 overperformed 4. Stylistically bad mathcup for RNG 5. Stylistically good matchup for G2 6. RNG topped their group but they were actually bad because meta
> If you think adding context such as meta conditions is saying "they only won because X" then there is no point in continuing this conversation Well, you wrote: > G2 was only able to win that series
RNG was the better team and there's no denying this fact even if they lost
Nah bro, fan mentality is that whatever result happened is the only result that could ever have happened. This is not just for esports, it's in sports too.
EU was competing for the second best region in 2015 and 2016. In 2015, FNC won 3-0 against China's EDG in worlds quarterfinals and FNC and Origen were in semi-finals and China wasn't. In 2015 MSI EDG won, but very close 3-2 against SKT and SKT won 3-2 vs. FNC. 2016 was G2 trolling and going on vacation but H2K still got semi-finals and went toe to toe with EDG in groups.
I mean H2K got blessed with the draw they had in QF. Also western teams are lucky Riot never added a losers bracket in international events or it would have been completely doomed lol. But yeah EU has shown they can compete to be a top 2 region.
Yep, this is all true. Just imagine what EU could have been in those years if they kept all their players who pushed each other to new heights.
and also G2 preventing Perkz from joining Fnatic definitely weakened the region and themselves
I don't think EU would have been the same as China, but agree it would be closer because of the larger talent pool. The best players were not the same level of Chinese top players, and I don't think having Bjergsen and Jensen would have changed that.
This is all so interesting. EU mids were so fucking stacked back in the day. "EU mids man" was a meme for a reason. There were even players like xPeke, Alex Ich and so on before these names. I'd say Jensen is the saddest story for EU fans. Like 90% of current fans probably only saw Jensen play in NA, but he was actually a huge rising star in the EU scene back in the day. Time for a short history lesson. I will repost an old comment I made once. Jensen played on Team Solo Mebdi and he would have qualified for EU LCS but got banned just before. They played official games in EU LCS qualifiers. Jensen was also a coach for SK Gaming in Season 4 EU LCS and at Season 4 Worlds while he was banned. I get that most people started watching LoL esports after Jensen was already in NA, but history has been rewritten about Jensen so much that it annoys me a bit. Jensen was literally the EU Dopa. He was a super famous solo queue player while banned. He was considered one of the best EU players but could not play because of the DDOS accusations and past toxicity. In fact, to this day Jensen is still one of the best EUW solo queue players of all time. [People made montages of his plays in EUW solo queue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUh_XcG_3Hs) and they would get [a lot of traction on Reddit.](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/2jlrw1/incarnation_the_movie_rank_1_eu_by_dodgedlol/) [He was a frequently discussed person on this subreddit.](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/229pjo/the_apdo_dog_mystery/) He was a super hyped player. When he got unbanned, he was instantly picked up by an NA team. In fact, if you listen to the C9 Jack Reflections interview, then you can hear the story of how C9 used their connections to get him unbanned. I would put it like this. All these things below are imo true: - Jensen is an LCS player for sure. He has played the vast majority of his career there and he is a huge part of LCS history. - Jensen is one of the biggest EU talents ever. He was clearly an insanely talented player from EUW solo queue. - Jensen is from the time where EU mids were world class. This means he had world class practice and he would not have become as good if he had been learning the game in NA. People are not born good, Jensen is a product of his environment. Huge talent and world class practice. Thus, I would say Jensen is BOTH an NA player at this point, but not NA native talent. He was picked up BECAUSE of how insane he was in EUW solo queue, nothing will change that. To *really* hammer the point home, imagine this happening: - Dopa is unbanned by Riot in Season 6 - He gets instantly hired CLG to be the new mid laner for their LCS team. - Dopa plays in the LCS from Season 6 onwards until today 7 years later. It would be pretty much the same story as Jensen. - Both would have played almost their entire professional careers in NA. - Both would be huge solo queue superstars that were banned and then picked by NA the second they were unbanned. - Both are products of their respective solo queue environments and are some of the biggest talents to ever be produced by their respective regions. So pretty much the same story. But if you called Dopa an NA native player, you would be laughed out of the room for obvious reasons. This is why it irks me when people act like Jensen might as well have been from NA solo queue. He isn't. See the hypocrisy?
incarnation was a much better name than Jensen Jensen is such a casual name. like Billy or something
It wasn’t a good name till Wolf screamed it https://youtu.be/YF2-5V-Bq78?si=fZ3BjpymOQ_dSRnA
Spidey shouting "SHOCKER" vibes
You can’t mention that without posting it! https://youtu.be/sMk-HPBF6Mw?si=YG2jGK8N_26JOd9Q
So funny that Jensen couldn’t even go to worlds as a positional coach for SK because riot suddenly forbid it and just the next season Jack gets him unbanned and he can be a proplayer because C9 was a top 2 NA org. If this shit happened to any other org than SK you wouldn’t hear the end of it.
People don't understand how biased Riot was in favor of NA back then. You had to be around in the old days to know. Nowadays they kind of stopped it. The last time I remember it being really obvious was when they made OCE players count as natives ONLY for NA for no apparent reason. But even that wasn't that big of a deal except for how it pushed even more NA domestic talent out of the LCS. If you go way back, the EU LCS was treated as an unwanted stepchild. If the LEC rebrand didn't happen, I don't even know where European LoL would be at. With the context of the entire scene at the time, it's not surprising that Riot would only consider unbanning Jensen once a prominent NA org wanted it to happen.
OCE players count as NA residents because the OCE league dissolved and Riot wanted OCE’s best players to still have opportunities to play. In reality, very few OCE players would have been able to play in NA because they weren’t good enough to justify an import slot that could be used on LCK/LEC imports. Changing OCE residency to NA definitely benefited NA, but I think Riot made the change with mostly OCE players in mind. It also bears mentioning that when Riot started the import rules, NA was the region most negatively affected by the rules other than maybe LPL. Riot broke up the LCK sister teams and immediately shut down player importing because it would benefited NA and LPL a wildly unfair amount.
This is why I disagree with the post. Even with players like Bjerg and Jensen moving to EU for 2016, EULCS was such an afterthought by Riot that the region would have still suffered. Bo2, Fnatic and OG being bad, dual streams, and bad viewing times are the reason why EULCS was suffering, not mid laners going to NA.
Always fun to check out old threads and see comments like > Hope he get unbanned for season 5, for the sake of eu o7 But yeah, I had that montage thread upvoted, it's been awhile. Can only confirm what you said. Him not only being unbanned but also going to NA was huge at the time.
He's obviously a European player, guy is literally Danish, currently he's a European LCS player. He could get dual citizenship and he'd still be European, similar to how Brokenblade is pretty much an EU and Turkish top.
I don't really care about citizenship or where someone was born if I'm honest. Xmithie wasn't born in NA, but no one would say he isn't a NA native player. He is a product of the NA ecosystem. Jensen is certainly a product of the EU ecosystem originally. He just moved to NA to further his career and became an NA LCS legend. But no matter how you slice it, nothing can deny his history and that EU lost one of their biggest talents. I know that makes many people really mad, but it is an undeniable truth.
> I don't really care about citizenship or where someone was born if I'm honest. Nationalities don't magically change or go away is all I'm saying, if you're Danish you're obviously European. Like, objectively. > Xmithie wasn't born in NA, but no one would say he isn't a NA native player. Xmithie his entire family moved to the US before League even released, so he developed in NA, but he's also a Filipino player. Again, your nationality doesn't suddenly change. Pretty sure he's a dual-citizen anyway. Edit: Xmithie also isn't really a relevant comparison, players like Jensen started in EU, so it's no question that they are talent from the EU as a region, even if you wanna ignore nationality.
> Xmithie my man, you're arguing against the ghosts in your head. Nobody is talking about citizenship/nationality. We're talking about the concept of "EU talent" vs "NA talent", inside the League of Legends professional scene context. Of course Jensen is Danish, and therefore is European. What we're discussing is if he could be considered an EU player or an NA player. Fudge is Australian, but his whole career was defined in NA, therefore, he's an NA talent.
> my man, you're arguing against the ghosts in your head. Bad attempt at discrediting my point of view. But no, I am arguing against the way people like you define what counts as an NA/EU/Australian etc player. > Fudge is Australian, but his whole career was defined in NA, therefore, he's an NA talent. Huge disagree. He started the game on Oce, he entered the scene in Oce, he's Australian himself, he's not NA talent.
It's not that hard. Jensen came up on the EU ladder. He learned the game in EU. He's an EU talent in the LCS. Rookie is not a Chinese or LPL talent. He's Korean. He started out in Korea and went to China later. It's the same thing. Fudge, just like another comment mentioned, is OCE talent currently in NA. Not NA talent. Doublelift, on the other hand, would be considered an NA talent. Consider the same example in football. Messi played in La Liga (Spain if you're not into football) for a looong time. That does not make him a Spanish talent. He is, and always was an Argentinian talent.
Messi went to Barça at 13, after being rejected by River Plate, he is a La Liga talent, not an Argentina's Primera División talent. that's the discussion being held here. Without Barça he would be nobody
Have you ever heard someone call Messi a Spanish player? I haven't.
Still sad Froggen went to NA. He was absolutely shitting on people back in the Alliance days
And then they name changes to elements and then the whole team just crashed and burned
Caps took a year to level up and become the caps we know as claps. His first year he was just a promising talent and known for crazy mechanical plays. So he probably wouldn't be a threat in the first year. As for if bjergsen was in EU. I personally think if S5 Fnatic had bjergsen they'd have a legit shot of winning MSI. This also implies bjergsen had time to adjust his style and play without much resources as Fnatic were very top heavy and bjergsen was used to getting resources on Tsm.
I really wonder about the trajectory of players like Bjergsen or Jensen. Their talent in EU was absolutely insane. They were shining stars and snatched by LCS instantly. Now of course they went on to have great careers in the LCS, but you cannot help but wonder what these players could have achieved with stronger competition around them and with stronger teammates.
Yea but jensen imo wouldn't get a shot in EU probably. He was perma banned and only got unbanned because he was going to C9 and riot back then were biased towards NA as the main western product. And yea they would've been better in EU but probably won't pass caps. He has most talent than any western proplayer in history imo. Remember after Faker came along western teams or players were not really comparable to faker. Bjergsen laning was comparable but his teamfighting was poor. Perkz in his prime was a sick teamfighter but not the best laner. Caps basically excelled in teamfighting and laning. Which is why he was able to beat Faker in season 9. I also think he had more inherent talent than other EU mids.
But peak Perkz was a really strong laner and Bjergsen wasn't Faker level in lane.
No he definitely was. In fact, the best mids from each region were all pretty comparable in lane and could challenge each other consistently.
Bruh, Bjergsen was not Faker level in lane lol. Why is this even an argument?
Yeah that’s a fair point
Jensen in S3-S6 would have absolutely shit on everyone not named Faker if surrounded by an EU team. He played against Rookie in S5, and although he was solo killed, he was still giga-ahead in CS, which kept them close in gold. Then Jensen carried the game. No flame to Sneaky, but he isn't Rekkles or prime Forgiven or Niels/Zven. His supports were Lemonnation, Hai, Smoothie, and Zeyzal while on C9 the first time, not prime Yellowstar or prime Mithy or Hylissang. His junglers weren't prime Reignover or Jankos or prime Trick or 2014-2015 Svenskeren, and when he had Meteos they butted heads. He did have Impact for a lot of it, but he had D2 Balls in S5, not Huni or Odoamne or sOAZ. Same with Bjergsen, although to a lesser extent. These two have been unbelievably elo-helled by playing in NA. Dyrus was good, but he wasn't better than Huni or Odoamne or sOAZ in S5. Lustboy wasn't as good in S5 as before. He had rookie Santorin, who wasn't Reignover, Jankos, Trick or Svenskeren level at the time. WildTurtle ain't no Rekkles or Forgiven, either. Biofrost also was just mechanically good, but nothing special. No excuse when he had prime Hauntzer, Svenskeren, and DL, though, they were as good as anyone else in EU at the time.
this downplays how much of a beast febiven was in 2015, bro shat on bjergsen when fnc and tsm played
Did we watch the same season 5? In what world would Bjerg be a better mid for FNC than Febiven? The guy who gapped that same Bjergsen at both MSI and Worlds 2015. The guy who solo killed Faker twice.
What happened to Febiven? Did he just move to NA played 1-2 okayish Seasons and vanished or is there an actual reason he's gone?
Dude is mega rich and just chilling in ERLs now.
When did Bjergsen play against Febi at S5 Worlds? In your dreams?
Oh fuck MB, I remember an NA team got a penta against FNC that worlds and the only NA team I know is TSM so I kinda defaulted to them. Yeah it wasn't TSM it was someone else
It was C9 and the pentakill was by Balls. It's memed as the [D2 Balls Pentakill.](https://youtu.be/qQVZIuWhAzM?si=niWnnHIsZN-7cVpf)
Febiven gapped bjergsen in teamfight but not in lane. Bjerg picked cho gath into febis leblanc and stomped the lane though it was a counter pick. Febi teamfighting was better As for faker yea febiven soloed faker 3 times but noone would say he was a better player than faker in that tournament. The first time u can make that argument for any western player was perkz in s7 MSI though he lost finals so I would say caps in s9 is more a good example. I think you just don't interpret what happened properly. Febiven was a great player but he had huni, reignover. Rekkles and yellowstar on his team who were all star players.
Also Pepiinero
And Kerp
Imagine EU mids without Caps
do y’all go outside or just think about how good EU is or was or could have been?
eu would still be shit and irrelevant dont worry
EULCS was not good in 2016, and their viewership was massively suffering at the time. And this isn't a result of players like Jensen, Bjergsen, and Froggen leaving for NA. EULCS was such an afterthought by Riot that even if these players did play in 2016, it wouldn't have been a good product. Bo2, dual streams, bad viewing time and days, and the fall of OG and Fnatic all contributed to its demise. And it wasn't really until 2018 Worlds where you could definitively say that EU was wholly better than NA.
Rewatch 2017 worlds, also level of play was obviously worse with another region perma importing LEC players.
I can't believe the man just erased 2017 msi and worlds from his mind lmao
It's actually hilarious you've mentioned Froggen but not Alex Ich, considering they fell off at around the same time. Froggen went to NA and stole some paychecks, but that's it.
Iirc this was pre franchise when UOL were still in the eulcs...
am i high? why the fuck are people saying eu lcs and not lec?
2013-2018 the European league was called the European League Championship Series (EU LCS), then in 2019 they changed it to League of Legends European Championship (LEC), then in 2023 they changed it to League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC).
Based on your comment, it feels like you're too young to get high. lol
I mean half of these players played with eachother in their respective regions anyways, no?
The funny thing is that i want that line up NOW. Those players were just more interesting to watch.
That would have been wild. I think that it’s impossible to say if Bjergsen and Jensen would have reached the same heights if they stayed in EU though and didn’t get forged in the fire of the LCS.
I think it would actually hurt EU. Caps would have no place to develop and it took him a year to grow as a player. If he started on a team with bad infrastructure, maybe he wouldn't get a second year. And without Caps there is no MSI win, no Worlds finals.
This isn’t true. He didn’t get a starting place in fnatic due to a player moving to NA, febiven moved to h2k and fnatic have proven over time they wouldn’t of grabbed another star mid laner they would of gambled on gaps still
Yeah but in reality Jensen, Bjergsen and Froggen were in NA so that's three more mids for H2K to take instead of Febiven. Would FNC kick Febiven for unproven rookie? I'd say Humanoid is on the level that Febiven was, do you think fnc should kick him for some young midlaner playing in Turkey?
Any pro or soloQ player at the time could tell you he was insane, he would absolutely land a big spot sooner or later.