Boards›Esports

Time to remove regional roster restrictions?

SciFi Scrivener·10/16/2017, 6:00:07 PM·2 votes·556 views

Here me out before hitting the down vote. One of the main reasons Riot has decided to keep the NA LCS to 10 teams is because of the available talent pool. They feel there is not enough NA talent to fill more than 10 competitive rosters. Wouldn't it make sense then to lift the regional restriction?

If Riot allowed NA LCS teams to have more than 2 international players we could have more teams. There are plenty of talented players either stuck on bad teams in other regions, or riding the bench on really good teams.

WhiteLotus, Blank, Untara are just a few names off the top of my head that could find spots in NA. Look at the lane dance TL had to play when they wanted to bring in Mickey for mid lane. They had to take Reignover out of the jungle and play Dardoch to free up an international player spot. Shouldn't they be able to play their best players no matter their nation of origin?

Maybe raising the limit to 3 is good enough, but raising or removing the limit should be considered an option to allow NA LCS to have more teams and a much more competitive environment.

11 Comments

IncrediPhiLL10/16/2017, 6:30:03 PM2 votes

I see your meaning, but I don’t like it. I’m not even thrilled about having 2 imports. It hardly feels like NA as it is.

Osbeorn10/16/2017, 6:36:59 PM2 votes

I think there should be no imports at all, would be much more interesting if everyone had to play in their own region.

Hellmet10/16/2017, 9:13:03 PM1 votes

Exactly, they should get rid of the current imports all together. If you want to build a franchise in the America you need to do it with... wait for it.... Americans. I hate the fact that most of these teams can't even communicate in English.. or that the damn coach can barely speak it.

ChompyWulf10/16/2017, 9:40:43 PM1 votes

If more imports were allowed would that actually allow for more teams, or would we instead see more import talent being aggressively poached to squeeze out more wins and more NA players would be dropped into free agency and then left looking to find a team in IWC regions?

Regions should be expected to keep mostly to the talent of a region, especially to connect with fans of that region.

The only way I can see lifting import regulations would be if a separate sort of elite league was formed, where instead of regions sending teams to worlds there would be multinational teams with their own league that has a playoff that culminates in the Summoners Cup while the regions are more like a Challenger league.

xJLx MCHammer10/16/2017, 11:16:36 PM1 votes

No

If I rather not see teams import 5 players speaking Koreans. I rather not see interviews in NA LCS with translators

I don’t mind seeing a few Koreans in each team because they have an incentive to learn English and intergrade