I've been a huge fan of the NA lcs and always root for na teams at international competitions. Been in denial at how bad the region is but after watching tl at msi I guess it finally sunk in. I honestly dont even look forward to the summer split anymore it honestly doesnt feel like it matters na gonna suck at worlds no matter what so its basically a wildcard region or worse. Idk guess the lcs has lost its magic to me.
Tbh any region that uses the best of one format isn't worth watching imo
Welcome to the life of a Vikings fan.
Well, think of it this way: If that's the mindset to go into watching this, then it's not worth watching for ANYBODY aside from the Koreans.
The truth of the matter is, the Koreans beat everybody's asses in this game as far as the current and the foreseeable future are concerned. So if you have to go in with the "faction" mentality while not being on the side of the Koreans, of course you're going to be disappointed, because the status quo is not changing any time soon and currently there is simply no such thing as "competition" for any region whenever they're pitted against the Koreans.
Yes, all the teams from the non-KR regions need to seriously git gud. But as a spectator/viewer/audience giving advice to another fellow viewer, atm I'd recommend going into it with the mindset of just watching simple competitions, like tuning into a sport event you're not familiar with so you won't pick a favourite and you cheer on anybody who's winning and pad on the backs of anybody who's losing.
By that mentality, nothing wiuld be worth watching unless it's of a winning region. And even then, what all would you be genuinely interested in that you can grasp and not ridicule? The way I see it, you watch the domestic season to see who has their act together in time for internationals. But this past MSI definitely showed fans that anything can happen and that recency bias can mean jack!
KZ: Best in the world. Nigh unstoppable. Same old Superteam Syndrome.
RNG: written out after beating IG because "IG was the only team that could contest KZ." They pretty much became meme material until Uzi won finals and even then it was still shrouded in doubt.
FNC: All about highs then Soaz got injured. It was a complete shrug off from there.
FW: Nobody gave a damn
And then there's TL where when you look at their ENTIRE spring season, you wouldn't have been as burned as just playoffs. The cracks showed when you look at how they win and won and how badly their losses could have been. You can plug the logic to every other region as well but wouldnt that make it even more interesting to see what develops?
Sure TL failed. But how exactly were you basing your hopes and expectations? Like what if they blew out in semis without as much of a flinch? My point is don't take the fallout too hard. Just think back to what people said come Day 3 in Group Stage and what came out in the end? The less strict you are as a region fan the better it feels sometimes.
Honestly, only watch if you wanna get some good laughs out of the fiesta games that happen there. If you want to watch real competition, watch LCK. That's the really strong teams who know what they're doing. EU and NA are just way too bad, with EU being slightly better than NA. Most players there are no-namer challengers and like it or not, EU and NA challenger are easy to achieve if you put time and effort into the game, while Korean challenger is actually hard.
Teams in NA specifically don't really care. Most players go there for the money, and most teams don't care, because they know they have their spot in the league. Free money. It's all about money and exposure there, whereas in Korea, they do care as a tradition.
What I do is I watch LCK full games, and I try to watch all teams, even the lower ranked ones. For NA or EU, I only watch the highlights on Youtube mostly to pass time. It's very rare if I watch a full game, and that's probably something like FNC vs G2, and maybe just the finals or something. Anything else is just random clown fiesta crap.
What 7-8 years of failure too long for you?
League of Legends in general is boring to watch and play if you ask me.
As far as the pro scene goes/NA LCS yes, don't continue to watch that garbage and spend your time doing something else.
Watching NA LCS is like writing a love letter to a girl each and every day rewriting such letter so it can be perfect then when you finally build up the courage to give her such letter to the girl at prom; the biggest event for students,you then see her(NA) getting butt-f#cked by pretty much everyone(LCK/LPL/EU/LMS) and it's like "Do I even want her now". 1-2 days go by and she's now cleaned up and you see her again(NA LCS Trailers) and you start the yearning for her.....again
End NA's misery and yours!
The answer is no. It has become abundantly clear exactly how NA shapes up internationally now. Cloud 9 can be good enough to usually escape a Group stage at Worlds and get taken out in Quarters. TSM, TL/IMT (because most of TL werr IMT players last year) and CLG can't get their act together. Maybe they could under old IEM or other tournaments where they weren't facing top teams from other major regions, but in MSI or Worlds? Nope.
China pretty regularly has a team or two appear as a major threat. EU regularly has a team make quarters and a little less often appear in semifinals. Korea is Korea.
Combine the repeat international fails and teams now can comfortably suck and the Best of 1 trash format, NA isn't worth watching at all.
Personally, I can't wait for summer split to begin. The new Bo1 format is exciting and the winner take all mentality each game brings out the best in the teams. Also, as a spectator, I get to see every team play each game day.
I understand the dread of losing at worlds, but worlds doesn't matter when the LCS is in session. If you don't enjoy watching, then don't watch, but losing at worlds does not diminish the competition in the LCS. I'm rooting for #C9WIN, but I honestly couldn't tell you which 4 teams will be playing the last weekend of playoffs.... and that is a good thing for any competitive sport. Having Cavs vs GS AGAIN is boring as hell. We all knew they would make it when the season started. That is not what we have in the NALCS. Enjoy the parity of competition.
