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One post to end all the arguments on Foreign players playing in our NA scene

Diamonesd·9/1/2014, 6:03:04 PM·4 votes·2,249 views

The Purpose of NA LCS is to have NA players compete to get the best NA team. Then, the best NA teams represent NA at Worlds. Players who are not from Canada, Mexico, or the U.s. Are NOT NA players and should not be able to participate in the NA circuit. (Technically, parts of Central America are in the North American Continent, but since Central America has its own Professional scene, I am leaving those Central American countries out of this designation of North America. I could probably leave out Mexico as well since Latin American North Exist, but I am leaving it in since it is one of the Three largest Countries of the North American Continent).

Some people say, "America is a Melting Pot"

  1. We are not talking about race or ethnicity. If I say, C9 is the only NA team representing NA at worlds, what I mean is every member of C9 is From Canada, U.S., or Mexico (they all happen to be from the U.S., but the statement would be true if they were all Canadian or Mexican). If you take a glance at C9, you will see they are of European and Asian ethnicity, but they are not European/Asian, they are North Americans. This backlash to Riot allowing Foreign players into the NA scene has Nothing to do with race; it has everything to do with the integrity of the NA scene being filled with only NA players.

What about other sports? The NBA drafts players from other countries to play in their teams all the time. 2. The current esports is nothing like the NBA. The NBA is a singular entity. The NBA does not compete in any world tournaments and does not represent North America in any form other than it being located in North America. When the NBA recruits a foreign player (A recent exciting player is Rubio from Spain), they do so for a specific team competing in a closed league. NBA teams do not scrimmage or play any world teams.

Let us take a look at team U.S.A. for basketball. http://www.usab.com/mens/national-team/roster.aspx DeMarcus Cousins: Mobile, Alabama. Stephen Curry: Charlotte, North Carolina. Anthony David: Chicago Illinois. DeMar DeRozan: Compton, California. Andre Drummond: Mt. Vernon, New York. Kenneth Faried: Newark, New Jersey. Rudy Gay: Baltimore, Maryland. James Harden: Los Angeles, California. Kyrie Irving: West Orange, New Jersey. Mason Plumlee: Warsaw, Indiana. Derrick Rose: Chicago, Illinois. Klay Thompson: Los Angeles, California.

All of their Hometowns are in U.S.A. The NBA does not discriminate on who plays in their league, but when it comes to Representing the U.S.A., the NBA is not involved directly. These players come from the NBA and College, but they are all of the U.S.A. You cannot compare the NBA to League of Legends since the NA LCS is not a separate entity from the League of Legends World scene. The NA LCS is directly involved in the world scene and solely represents NA at the world tournament; thus, their players should be 100% of the NA scene.

  1. What if they are applying for citizenship of either Canada, Mexico, or the U.S.? Should they be allowed in the NA LCS?

My Answer is no. It will take them on average 7 years to get citizenship if they are even allowed. We should simply just keep the regions separate. Them becoming a citizen is not a viable option. It will simply take too long to legitimize for it to be a viable option in the League of Legends scene. If they were able to obtain citizenship of NA, then fine. Let them play for NA. The World Cup does the same thing, but Bjergsen is not a citizen of any NA country and neither are any of the other foreigners.

  1. What about talent? Bjergsen is a very good player and he came and rocked Midlane in NA. If we want talent, why not allow people like Bjergsen to play in the NA scene

What is stopping Bjergsen from playing in the European LCS? If these foreign players are actually the best of the best, they should be able to obtain a spot in their own LCS. TSM Amazing failed to make it into the European LCS, but he was allowed a spot in ours after he failed in his. That is not fair to NA players hoping to represent NA. Why is a European player who failed in his LCS promotion series allowed a free pass into the NA LCS? It is about the integrity of NA as a scene. If the perception is NA cannot field good players (which has not been the case. Europe and NA have always been rivals and no side has taken a real lead over the other in the last three years), that is NA's fault and it should not be rectified by seeking talent outside of NA. It is simply not Fair to NA players in Challenger to get passed over by a foreigner. Again, this is not the NBA or MLB. The NBA actively recruits from all over the world for the best of the best to play in their league, but the NBA does not represent a region of the world in a world tournament. You cannot compare the LoL scene and the NBA.

Here is a list of all the foreign players we have contaminating our NA LCS. 16/40 or 40% of the players comprising our NA teams are Non NA players.

TSM: 3/5 Bjergsen: Left NiP (A very weak european team) to compete in the NA LCS. Amazing: Failed to make it into the European LCS, so He came over to the NA scene. Lustboy: Part of CJ Entus (Korean Scene). Came to the NA LCS for a free trip to worlds.

Curse: 1/5 Quas: Moved from Venezuela to the U.S. to compete for Curse.

CLG: 2/5 Seraph: A Sub for a top Korean team. Came to NA for an easy Trip to worlds. Dexter: Member of Lemondogs (Europe) in season 3, came to NA LCS in season for CLG

Dignitas: Possible 1/5 Crumbz (Possibly, need confirmation).

Cloud 9: 0/5 No dirty cheaters on this team. Possibly why they are the top NA team right now.

LMQ: 5/5 all 5 from China's League of Legends scene

In Relegation in NA LCS:

Evil Geniuses:Failed in the European LCS, decided to BUY their way into the NA scene. 4/5 Krepo: Part of the original failed team that Bought their way into the NA LCS Helios: Part of a number of High Profile teams in Korea before being let go. Snoopeh: Same as Krepo YellowPete: Same as Krepo

Complexity: 0/5 100% NA players. The exact opposite performance of C9 though

Does anyone have anything else to add?

12 Comments

12tales9/1/2014, 6:16:59 PM5 votes

Amazing: Failed to make it into the European LCS, so He came over to the NA scene.

This is a straight up lie.

Sunfield9/1/2014, 7:14:02 PM4 votes

Sport is about competition and entertainment. There is no place for nationalism. Nations are made of many different people not just majority.

Honestly the only thing that bothers me about the LMQ is that they havent learned English yet so I cant just browse the internet while they are interviewing them.

Deep Terror Nami9/1/2014, 6:14:31 PM3 votes

I watch to enjoy the game. That's it. Doesn't matter if it's the Olympics or LoL Worlds, they are meant for both improving national relationships and entertaining. If you're not competing, imo you should just enjoy the show.

Only Play Nid9/2/2014, 2:29:05 AM3 votes

list of all the foreign players we have contaminating our NA LCS.

This sounds familiar... Yup. Got it:

None but members of the nation may be citizens of the State. None but those of German blood may be members of the nation.

  • Adolf Hitler
LichMazter9/2/2014, 4:48:20 PM2 votes

You are so racist, that it is hilarious. The fact that you distinguish people where they are born itself show your whack attitude. You should try expanding your viewpoint, as in the end, all the people of these different nations are all still humans.

Firefox7119/2/2014, 11:48:35 AM1 votes

LMQ coming over to NA has helped raise the level of play for this summer's split. These playoff matches were much more exciting and closer compared to last spring's playoffs.

So, I'm happy LMQ are here and how the quality of the games have risen. :-)

Lstrike9/9/2014, 2:16:41 PM1 votes

You know what OP, you design a MOBA like LoL, organize a world tournament and you can put all this nonsense in the rulebook.. kthxbai

Diamonesd9/12/2014, 12:25:48 AM1 votes

See? Riot agreed with me. Checkmate to the 5 people who read the Boards

Ansury9/22/2014, 6:50:03 PM1 votes

Crumbz is from Venezuela, so I've read on Leaguepedia. I didn't know till I read this post. I would agree with the above poster but since I am so used to Crumbz, and Chinese team are picking up Koreans as well, and even the casters pick out the EU/Chinese teams, or Korean players in NA when they cast. It all ends in a rule that doesn't apply.

Yeah so NA doesn't have many NA players. Sure not may spots in the NA LCS will have an NA team and if low tier Korean teams come over, NA = Korea2 it just means we have no talent and our LoL scene dies. Is it better to have a NA LCS filled with Korean players or be NA that loses to wild cards like Turkey's Dark Passage? As long as people watch that's all that matters.

Things like NA EU wouldn't matter if it was one world league. Team rosters would just pick the best talent. Then we couldn't keep an unfair advantage that we have now, spots in worlds unearned yet obtained by being a certain region. This might be one reason why we let regions bleed over.

What is being done here is hard to keep up with financially. We could just fly teams around the world and have everyone compete in the same League. Its like American football? NFL has the AFC and NFC, which is like EU and NA LCS. Now we have Chinese, Korean, Taiwan leagues, and wildcard leagues. All them in playoffs for our Super Bowl. It's cheaper to do it locally, then take the top teams for world playoffs.

If someone could make the internet have no lag we wouldn't have this problem. The main problem tho is talent. If NA players were herded off to Korean would anyone one have a problem. Well the Koreans would. The biggest problem could be Rito naming the LCS NA and EU its like taipeichingchong, brings our the racist and nationalist in all of us.

We can show all the pride we want, boastful and brag about anything nationalist but that's a slippery slope. Pumping yourself up then turning that pride into something against others beneath you quickly becomes racist. Wearing Chinese or Korean flags on uniforms also makes it feel more of an Olympic event.

Once you see all that flag waving, I complete understand what the poster is saying about the NA LCS.

He Who is Pale9/22/2014, 7:49:57 PM1 votes

There's a lot to argue here, but this jumped out at me:

CLG: 2/5 Seraph: A Sub for a top Korean team. Came to NA for an easy Trip to worlds. Dexter: Member of Lemondogs (Europe) in season 3, came to NA LCS in season for CLG

CLG's easy trip to worlds huh? You mean as part of the caster teams?

It is really hard to not dismiss all of this as racist/nationalist drivel when you use phrases like "dirty cheaters" for players who are not breaking any rules and describe foreigners as "contaminating" the NA LCS. To be honest, I don't think I should exert the effort to bother not dismissing it, because I probably should.