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Remove Import Restrictions

RangerDanger5000·8/17/2018, 5:31:32 AM·1 votes·2,582 views

Recently on Hot Line League, Travis Gafford and Markz's podcast, I came on and talked about the idea of removing import restrictions but I wanted to flesh out the idea and reasoning here.

A bit of context: In spring of 2014 the RNG sister team, LMQ, moved their entire team from China to the NA challenge scene. Once there, the team tore through quickly claiming a spot in the NA LCS for Summer of 2014. Many people believed this team would go onto smash the league, and while they did tie with Cloud9 for 1st in the regular season, they stumbled in playoffs landing in 3rd. The team ended up doing fairly bad at worlds with a measly 2-4 record. Overall it was odd to see a 6th place team in China with some big names to go to NA, but Riot intervention quickly ended the chance to ever see this again implementing the import restriction we now have. Now over 4 years later it's time we evaluate the necessity to implement the policy in the first place.

When initially reading the post Riot sent about the import restriction and subsequent posts on the subject it's easy to tell something isn't quiet right about the logic behind it. As the 2016 update goes on to note. the purpose of import restrictions is in "preserving opportunities for local talent while maintaining options for pro players who wanted to compete abroad (1).", but this seems illogical at best. If the point of import restrictions was to ensure that NA talent could develop and now there was an entire league dedicated to this pursuit, NA academy league, then there should be no problems with allowing an increased flow of players from other regions into professional play. Additionally, with an increase of talent in the region players would be forced to perform better in order to secure a spot on a team.

Now to address some criticism or counterclaims: As Markz and Travis both noted, if the import restriction was removed you would see full Korean teams smash NA. There are a few reasons this wouldn't happen. First, import teams rarely perform well. As much as we want to pretend LMQ did great, let's look at the rest of the league in NA during Summer of Season 4. This was a time in which TSM was doing fairly well, Cloud 9 was on a bit of a descent from their glory, Curse was, as their name suggests, still cursed to forever forth, Dignitas was the 5th best team in the league, and CLG was on a losing streak. Honestly, any team with decent players could have performed just as well as LMQ. In fact, LMQ did far worse than they should have done. Most people forget, but this team was a playoff team in China having a massive amount of resources dedicated to it. If NA is a weak as Riot feared in 2014, LMQ should have dominated much more, but with a okay 18-10 record it's difficult to say this team was dominate and this trend still exists today. When examining almost every single import that has come to NA it is incredibly difficult for the vast majority of them to maintain form. While you do have the rare examples of Jensen, Bjersen, and now Ssumday, imports do not perform as well in NA as they did in their main region and there is a reasoning behind this: Good players don't leave until they are past their prime. As the Korean Exodus in Season 5-6 showed, players that leave for money often times do not continue to perform at their peak and the players that do continue to perform move back to their original region. Now with almost every player from the Exodus either returned to Korea or retired, it's easy to say the movement in general was a failure for Chinese GM's trying to win worlds. On top of all of that when you examine other big esports titles import restrictions do not exists. Specifically, on the show I noted how despite there being a previously existing Korean league and Korean players dominating the game, only about a forth of the league had Korean dominated teams. While a Korean team may have won the inaugural split, the second place team, the Philadelphia Fusion, was a team compromised of a variety of regions. Simply put, when given the chance most teams do not even opt for a Korean dominated team. Teams want to build a brand, especially with the increasing of franchising in esports.

Tldr: Despite LMQ's underperformance in Season 4 and a constant trend of imports failing in NA, Riot has maintained an import restriction policy that is largely overbearing and harms the overall competitiveness of League of Legends on an international level.

3 Comments

GeminiRune8/17/2018, 1:11:17 PM1 votes

I think the opening basis is looking too much into the import trajectory while forgetting one of the other major factors as to why the restriction rule was applied. Just before the rule, Samsung Galaxy was in the planning to spread teams across all of the major leagues but once that rule came in along with the sister team rule as well, the plan got completely hacked up. Even if the import rule were to be revoked now, the sister team rule would not, which would make it hard for full nationality orgs to coexist in other regions without the fully enforced infrastructure in that region anyway. And who would really have the time and dedication for that?

Over the years, people have constantly said that a specific team would enact a particular performance in another region: "TSM would be 5th in LCK, SKT would stomp EU, etc etc." Is this because of what LMQ did? And if that's the case, does one believe a region to be stupid enough to not have recognized that and compete at their level? Additive, are we carbon copying the infrastructure, scrims, and environment that the team is having in their current region and applying it to another? At that point, you're only making an illogical discussion because then you'd be assuming an LCK team to play the exact same in EU despite their infrastructure, scrims, and environment - the latter which we know is contextually worse. LMQ's case is unique because literally nobody paid it any mind and had to live with it and adapt which they did by the end of the summer.

But you can even take the carbon copy formula and apply it to players as well. As a team game with hella polarizing game environments globally, it's very clear why imports "don't look good" more than most. If you ask me, I don't think I've ever been sold on a Korean import "crushing competition" beyond that of the Fnatic 2015 roster in Huni and Reignover. RO specifically I tunnel in on the most as he was one of the "Incredible Failures" with Smeb and Kuro and you know where their trajectory went locally in comparison in present time. Being good in one region doesn't equate it to being good for every team in every region.

As for the OWL plug: different game, league, infrastructure, and environment. Carbon copy formulas wouldn't do well in applying here either. It actually goes on to prove that League esports is more nationally structured and internationally sound than what fans give off. As for the esports benefits, you're using the Spitfire - backed by Cloud9 and homed in London; I still don't get how that worked - and the Philly Fusion - backed by Comcast Spectacor which isn't even an esports org. So I don't get how that ties to anything. An esports org expands by having the players and rosters (preferably across many games) and notable recognition or success from it; not by the nationality players hail from.