Who does Rift Rivals benefit?

ChompyWulf·Jul 7, 2017·4 votes·842 views

If you were expecting a discussion about bragging rights for teams or a region, that is not this topic. Instead, let's consider the impact of a mini-tournament in the middle of a split. First, is this good for the teams involved? Maybe not, because the flight, jet lag, and the clash of different metas can't really help them feel like they are building on what work they have been doing for the Split. Well, maybe winning the event could be a morale boost for that team. If a team falls flat mid split in an international showdown, that could set their morale back as well.

The real winners have to be the teams not involved. They have an extra week to playtest, scrim, watch tape, get to see extra games and strategy from competitors, and take a little extra time off to unwind. I think this most benefits CLG and IMT, one able to work at keeping their lead, the other have extra time to rebound from a bad week.

12 Comments

III BAKURYU III Jul 7, 20173 votes

I'm enjoying RR for the most part, but if I'm being honest, I really wanted teams not named ( TSM/G2/C9/FNC) to have been apart of RR. While it may not be very watchable or cared - Having the bottom 3 teams from NA and EU would actually somewhat help both regions. It would give the bottom feeders experience on stage while record isn't an issue and possibly help motivate them in turn could strengthen the whole region.
And/or When I first heard about RR I thought it was more " random" at the time so I figured teams that were in the standings #1-3 would go NA at the time was IMT/CLG/NV around week 2 or so. Point is I would have rather watch the bottom tier teams face off against each other over the top tier teams knowing at the end it's not going to matter much anyhow, so why not just let other teams grow in which helps everyone in the end?

Warlord ScrapJul 7, 20171 votes

Theres monetary prizes i believe so winning is worth money.

Theres regional bragging rights which is a huge thing same as msi and worlds. The split champs are still the best in there region for that split.

Theres knowledge of the other metas for the other international tournaments.

Theres the ability to grow you fan base outside your native country(this is more important to the marketing people)

It pads there career stats for a future that riot might introduce a hall of fame if league lasts that long.(No im not doomsaying lol is getting crappy im just saying there is a potential lol might not last long enough to actually have a hall of fame)

Also you gotta think tournaments are more competitive than scrims.

Sure theres cons but theres definately positives out of it

Miror BJul 7, 20171 votes

Rito. Because of events like these, they can diversify their sole "honey-horse" and make it look more appealing to potential investors. Teams sorta break even as while they do get prize $ it's still a giant pain in the rear for them due to the fact that they gotta go back and finish their summer season after this. Fans arguably lose out massively, as although you get to potentially see teams that wouldn't be at worlds compete (P1, MVP, UOL) the lack of true korean teams in all but 1 of these means that there's literally no benefit to watch should you want to see stuff that could affect your bias towards what will happen at worlds.

Walmart PornJul 7, 20171 votes

??? what does an kr team not being in the eu vs na matchups have to do with anything? we all know how worlds is going to go anyway. One wild card team is going to get an upset win over an Eu or Na number 1 seed and mabye get out of groups, c9 will get out of groups MABYE then lose in quarters tsm will get group of death and clg or p1 which ever goes will fail to show up anything impressive. Chinas number one seed will come in and get super hyped but fail to do anything worth notice, then finals will be kr vs kr/lpl and end in an skt win. Or possibly second seed kr team. This whole match up is just for fun. Not only that but kr does have their own rift rivals. its just not featured with na/eu.

Miror BJul 7, 20171 votes

Whole matchup is for fun, and thus is unable to be taken at all seriously when it comes to competitive value. For the casual fan who bothers dealing with the whole "I like this player because he's cute" thing, it caters to them. For the ones that want to see this game being played at the highest possible level, anything outside of the LCK/LPL/LMS one becomes thoroughly unwatchable. While the concept is nice and all, very little information can be actively gained from this aside from the notion that current not-best NA teams (CLG/IMT not being involved in this) are still better than the 2 unequivocal best teams in EU and one slumping one.

Ultimately, the only real tidbits that can be gathered from watching the NA/EU one is this: one region is a tiny bit stronger than the other, but both regions will probably massively lose to the korean ones, something that kinda could've been noted without having the event in the first place. Nice concept, but for someone like me who enjoys picking a part the analytical side is something to kinda avoid paying attention to.

Walmart PornJul 7, 20171 votes

And the thing is it dosnt even mean one region is better than the other it just means they have diffrent strengths and weaknesses. Na plays a more fast paced chaotic style that messes with eu so we are picking up wins. Eu plays a more controlled sit there and farm style. Neither one is bad theyre just diffrent. Na's works better at getting into peoples heads and snowballing while eu's is more consistant. But in the end all that matters is who gets rekt by kr. Thats why i never cared about the eu vs na rivalry much because it literally dosnt matter. Id be happy if any western team beat kr in worlds.

Miror BJul 7, 20171 votes

I've actually been watching more of the gpl one than the na/eu one (they have australia vs japan vs taiwan, with everyone's favorite "TSM-Cucker" gigabyte marines showing that their experience at MSI wasn't a fluke and they are actually quite decent). I'll sum up what's happened so far for those who haven't been paying attention:

-Gigabyte Marines chose to start archie (their support at MSI) top, where he plays quite well and gets a decent amount of jungle focus -rest of the teams in gam's region were super terrible and won like 2 games vs the other teams, forcing gam to "Carry" them into the second part of the event -Sin Gaming apparently had a chance to secure australia into the second part of the event, but their teams chose to pay tribute to C9's week 2 of 2015 worlds by losing every game afterwards before being entirely eliminated by gam who has now decided to show off a pretty high-quality macro game

Virgin RayJul 7, 20171 votes

I mean honestly, be it EU or NA coming out as the champions of RR the winning team will be even more cocky at worlds. Cocky+Worlds=Failure

sirwaterflesJul 7, 20171 votes

P1 gets a nice morale boost. G2 depends because morale got to be taking a hit but they can try out a lot of shit here before going back to lcs. RITO because moneys.

FableBlazeJul 20, 20171 votes

An old thread, but maybe some retrospective view is nice.

Actually i believe that Rift Rivals may have benefited EU the most, because it has exposed a lot of weaknesses of EU teams and has left enough time for EU to fix these weaknesses before the next worlds

ChompyWulfJul 21, 20171 votes

You may be right, but that will be proven come Worlds, especially in the EU vs NA match-ups. Some humble pie in RR after G2's MSI run will remind EU to work for wins, not just slack.

FableBlazeJul 22, 20171 votes

That is true. Some of the matches that i have watched did not seem to be very promising unfortunately.