What Do You Think NA Should Do To Be BETTER? (NA LCS)

Hafa Adai·11/10/2015, 5:28:16 AM·3 votes·3,034 views

As a NA player like many others duh. It's kinda sad to see NA just fall off short by just something as a WHOLE region. I know NA has to be more serious, more focused, more professional, more driven, and basically everything. But like what is it about NA that we just can't do it? We have many many players, we have the "NA Legends" but what I'm meaning is what can we actually do as in creating stronger teams/and having it more relevant when it comes to an international stage? Cause the only thing we have under our belt is winning IEM and that's about it. And Season 5 Worlds looked so nice at the start for NA then we just threw super hard. I've been thinking about it a lot and I just want some thoughts on what LCS as a whole lacks that I don't see. I don't know I just want to stop only having faith in NA and have actual confidence in NA.

What do you think?

48 Comments

xJLx MCHammer11/10/2015, 4:53:23 PM3 votes

It's all about adaption. Look back at worlds! They all had one strategy, after that, they don't have anything. Why is this? Because the entire year, every team in LCS was doing the same strategy. No one was trying to adapt to it, all they did was trying to one-up their opponent using the same strategy.

It's not about creativity. It's about not knowing how to adapt to strategy. It's about being naive and not wanting to try something new. You don't have to be creative,'you can mimic other teams from different regions, Na just did not want to

TurquoiseYoshi11/10/2015, 9:11:11 PM2 votes

NA just isn't a good place for gamers. If you're a gamer in Korea, you're normal, and you're encouraged to game a lot. If you're a gamer in the US, you're made fun of by pretty much all mainstream media and not really given any respect.

Randomonium11/10/2015, 2:04:53 PM2 votes

I think the big thing is NA lacks the infrastructure of other regions. Let's face it, esports is not as big a deal in this country. Even though league is extremely popular for a game only a tiny percentage of our population ever considers being a pro gamer. Competition breeds greatness and there just isn't the same level of high level competition in NA yet. I think this will change though in the next few years as the new generation of gamers grow up.

Also, I feel like NA doesn't have the same depth of strategy as the Korean teams and they don't adapt as well after games. NA mechanically can keep up with Korea, we just aren't thinking enough moves ahead. This is why we saw such a dominant performance by NA in the first week of world's followed by a flop and twitch in the second week.

Durriken11/10/2015, 6:15:28 PM2 votes

I believe its about strong coaches and adaptive players. This worlds more than ever picks and bans won games.

Ale non è male11/10/2015, 2:15:23 PM1 votes

The main problem for NA LCS didn't even relate to LCS, that's the real point, and as long as people won't acknowledge that, NA will generaly remain behind the skill curve of the rest of the world

This is the list of tournament organized throughout all the year http://lol.esportspedia.com/wiki/ESportspedia:Tournaments

Now, exclude LCS, CS and IEM, and look at how many tournaments were held in EU and how much were held in NA - and keep in mind that the list is largely incomplete about Eu tournaments as a lot of local/national tournaments connected to the main videogames/comics espos are not mentioned and even some international future tournaments hasn't been added yet to the list as the ROG tournament 2015 that has just ended the pre-qualifyng round and has a 30000 euro prize pool -

See the difference? How is supposed for potential talents to grow up and become world level players if they can't steadily train and fight strong competition over time even since BEFORE entering CS/LCS environment? This season EU has produced young fresh world class talent like Niels, Febiven, PoE, Hjarnan and others(Pepii, Hylissang, Vizi, Godfred, ecc...) that were all at their first LCS season. This means that, even after a bad season caused by a combination of different unfavorable circumstances (problems into single organizations that trap some top talent, some other strong guy banned for personal reasons, some players declining in skills that are going to retire, etc..) , you are going to get new talent to boost up the level and challenge the guys that were at the top of the standings previously to push tem back to improve, and that means that even if you are losing some of the best players in the region like, for example, an xpeke fore retirement and a freeze because he goes to another region, you have yet their replacements ready to play at very high level

How many rookies of this caliber has NA produced lately? You know the answer. And why NA does not produces these players? Well, how the hell is NA supposed to produce these players if they have no training ground? How are you going to detect what could be the next true talents if you have very few tournaments organized and with a lot of veteran gatekeepers, and "CS ringers" are going to partecipate in those to earn a spot in a pro team, along with occasional teams created just for the event by solo q stars/freaks with no intention to go pro ?

Frigid Ice Storm11/10/2015, 3:18:39 PM1 votes

They need to learn from other regions, adapt to those strats, and wreck everyone with it. In worlds, every NA team lacked superb teamwork and synergy

kJs11/10/2015, 3:21:49 PM1 votes

Creativity and the right environment. Esports is massive in the leading region, that is Korea. The people you play with treat it like any other sport over there. It's not just gaming to them, it's a sport that you have excel at.

EPIKON11/11/2015, 5:51:27 AM1 votes

Practice more against better competition i.e. play ranked in Korean server.

The time spent, invested, and sacrificed by Korean players compared to other regions is unmatched.

iamleburk11/13/2015, 6:15:57 PM1 votes

Actually what they are doing right now. It might not sound like the most patriotic solution, but huge orgs and huge amount of money has been introduced to the NALCS this preseason, including an NBA team (thats a company worth half a billion btw). This means imports. We imported bjergsen, and made a team that challenge Samsung and won IEM. Now? We are importing Freeze, Svenskeren, GBM, Alex Ich, and Kasing and that's just what we know from the first month of off season. NA will be a really competetive region next year, but it wont be because of NA talent. Its also looking like Forgiven wants to go to NA also, and he isn't alone in wanting that. Personally, I dont expect TL, C9, or TIP being very good next year, just off of the sheer amount of talent being poured into the scene that i don't think they will be able to contend with. Unless they manage to pick up some good replacements too.

Main point is, literally half of the teams that will be playing this split are new orgs. Only CLG, C9, TSM, TIP, and TL remain. Everyone else has been bought out by a new org or replaced

Akenero11/13/2015, 6:24:30 PM1 votes

We need to focus on snowballs, like our debt :D But also preventing them

Puynsi11/13/2015, 7:29:36 PM1 votes

http://new4.fjcdn.com/gifs/Git+gud+or+git+rekt+i+saw+this+on+steam_b2dfbf_5136629.gif

YCitizenSnipsY11/14/2015, 9:35:32 PM1 votes

Well for starters the Average LCK split has about 200 games total while the average LCS split has less than 100. So I would imagine the first step is for them to be allowed to put in as much work as KR, as well as China who also has a 200 game split.

There also is just a lack of competition in LCS in general. Look at how well FNC looked compared to all LCS participants, EU and NA, where did that get them shit stomped by KR. There needs to be real challenges for these teams, It still looks like the LCK/OGN are more competitive than worlds.

The Organizations are there to make contenders out of LCS teams for International play but there is just not enough talent and preparation for them to work with.

goodblue11/15/2015, 12:38:02 AM1 votes

dont say "we can win" we lost so long time and experience by this words.

The Bíg Ticket11/10/2015, 9:53:59 AM1 votes

I think they lack creativity and quick adaption to both meta changes and ingame scenarios. Once they have found a good strategy they are good at excecuting it (CLG and C9 did it very well at the first week at worlds) but when you surprise them with sth they rarely manage to deal with it.

Croanin11/15/2015, 10:32:50 PM1 votes

Gbay has a great video on the issue.

Pretty much his most solid comparison is why the Womens Soccer Team is the best team Internationally. Well because in our country there is a law where there must be a womens team for every mens team. Other countries lack this, therefore our infrastructure for Women's soccer is just so much greater because we have a larger talent pool to grab from.

Korea E-Sports are a big deal, therefore a larger amount of the population tries to get into them. There could be a lot of latent talent in NA for League that will never be unlocked because E-Sports just aren't as big here.

Stars Shaper11/10/2015, 9:59:24 AM1 votes

What I saw lacking from all the "Occidental" teams is the lack of a team tactic. All they did was picking champions with who they felt comfortable playing without neither wombo-combos nor actual synergy while their enemies had at least one of those and dictated each teamfight.

Xantak11/10/2015, 10:16:51 AM1 votes

Infrastructure. Coaching. Innovation. SKT-1 and many of the Oriental teams have a great system with multiple subs, and in the case of SKT-1, they swap out their subs on a whim, and devastate the opposing team with Easyhoon and T0M. Not only do you give teammates a breather in between games and time to reflect/learn, but you also give subs that MUCH NEEDED, valuable experience against the opposition, whilst performing on stage.

Be more active in coming up with new strategies, rather than sitting on their collective asses and copying other regions. Utilize a lot of oddball picks(like Keane, Kikis, and PoE did, picks that nobody sees coming in various lanes). Learn how to be more aggressive, dare to take risks and stand by them, win or lose. NA better find their balls fast, because other regions won't wait for you to farm all damn day and get to "late game." Be modular in strategies as well, so that it doesn't become a one trick pony show(I'm looking at you, C9, with your early game push to mid, and reliance on Baron Nashor buff to be relevant, TSM with your Bjergsen and 9 wards focus, and Team Liquid, with your Fenix/Azir crutch), and get torn apart. Rather than being along for the ride in the "meta" clown car, go against it, or break it for something else.

It seems that LCS teams are slow to learn from mistakes, with players that either lack passion, or tilt too easy. Or there are prima donna players on teams.

As far as being "professional," that's a relative term.

The LCS teams need to quicken the pace. Taking 35+ minutes to be relevant in a match is a massive, glaring weakness against the other regions.

Kal Vas Flam11/10/2015, 1:49:02 PM1 votes

Well Doublelift doesn't believe in having any kind of life beyond League and we saw how well that mentality worked for him. To be honest you can only be so good at something, there's a point where maybe 8 hours of practice a day yields the same results as 16 hours of practice a day. There is a cap for everyone. I think NA needs to rely less on individual skill and more on team play. Maybe stretching outside the meta a bit more would help as well. Or, if they are going to rely on one hyper carry to win games then just do a better job of protecting him.