The Problem with Group Draws for Western Teams

This is something a lot of people have been talking about over the years, and I'm just going to take my turn. The west in general, (yes, EU as well) gets a pretty raw deal on group draws every year. Group draws have more or less decided what western teams get out in all cases, with only two exceptions. There are a ridiculous number of problems with the group draws, but for purposes of this post, I'm only going to focus on the region vs region aspect where you can't be drawn into a group that already has a team with the same region as you. Now, I honestly don't think the first seeds that western teams sends to worlds are typically that much weaker, if at all, from eastern teams. We just seldom get to see them in best of 5s, and the few times we actually have, it's been fairly close.

HOWEVER, the 2nd and 3rd seeds of eastern teams is what throws this whole thing off. Particularly when it's combined with the "No two teams in the same region" rule. It creates a scenario where China and Korea get to throw 3 teams that are similar in strength to a 1st seed, and then only have to play (usually) one other 1st seed caliber team. In situations where they do, it's usually very close, but we don't have a big enough sample size (really only 3-4 years, and groups like this only happen once a year). TSM's group in 2016, G2's group in 2017, and TL's group 2019, for example.

The only two exceptions to this are FNC 2019, and C9 2018. Now, C9 2018 I think is a special case, because of the extent that GenG totally collapsed. So really, the only time a western team got out of a group with Korea and China is FNC this year.

It's very easy to make claims that Western teams will never be as good, but realistically, the likely hood western teams succeed compared to eastern teams is largely due to the fact that eastern teams are seriously favored by this format. Even the tournament favorites can drop games in a volitile Bo1 format. G2 and SKT both dropped games.

To further this point, when western teams actually make it out of groups, their win loss record is typically close to 50%. The only time I can even remember a 1st seed from a western team getting out of groups is FNC 2018, and they went all the way to finals. I don't think FNC 2018 was significantly better than 1st seeds of previous years, they're just the first one who didn't draw KR and CN in their group, so they got to show it.

Then look at MSI. At MSI, regions only get to send one team, so the problem of western teams getting screwed by group draws isn't a thing. Suddenly, Western teams are looking pretty good again. EU won this year, NA made finals. Last year wasn't so hot, but in 2017 EU made finals, and in 2016 NA made finals. That's a pretty consistent record of all regions being represented in finals over the span of 4 years. You just can't get there with the current worlds format of draws. I think it's time to rethink the rules for worlds groups.