Why does LMS only have 2 seeds?

The Bíg Ticket·Sep 16, 2015·2 votes·4,224 views

NA and EU have 3, but LMS has shown they are better than NA and almost equal to EU at the top.

For anyone who forgot, AHQ stomped TSM and they also beat Fnatic at MSI.

25 Comments

TurquoiseYoshiSep 16, 20152 votes

Watch Group A and you'll probably see why. ahq is so incredibly powerful that they make the rest of the region look better.

Earl EulrichSep 16, 20151 votes

thing is...you can´t even name one NA team this season that makes the region "look better", so it seems hardly fair that NA may send 3 weakish teams to worlds while the LMS is only allowed to send 1top team and 1 mediocre team.

TurquoiseYoshiSep 16, 20151 votes

Do you think a 3rd team from LMS would perform better than a 3rd team from NA UNDER THE SAME CIRCUMSTANCES?

Do you think that the Flash Wolves can beat CLG? I personally don't. Hell, the Wolves could lose to Pain.

Do you think HongKong Esports could beat the NA teams?

You can't judge a region off of its top teams, you have to look at it as a whole. And as a whole, LMS isn't as good as the other regions.

Earl EulrichSep 16, 20151 votes

i wouldn´t even be surprised if flash wolves beat CLG - so yea, I think LMS is slightly stronger than NA this season. But as those regions seldomly clash it´s hard to call...

So what I would want is that all regions actually are allowed to send only 2 teams to worlds. the 8 remaining spots should then get deceided by a qualifier-tournament featuring the 3+4 finishers of all "top"-regions + the top two fiishers of each of the wildcard-regions.

TurquoiseYoshiSep 16, 20151 votes

That would be an interesting idea, but incredibly weird to make happen. They would literally be sending in an equal amount of teams as Worlds to this qualifier. It would take out all wildcard teams from getting the Worlds experience, and would cost Rito a ton for something they might not get a lot out of.

Earl EulrichSep 16, 20151 votes

It would take out all wildcard teams from getting the Worlds experience

I highly doubt that...the 3/4th seats of the main regions aren´t unbeatable for the really good wildcards - and it would make sure that no push-over teams attent worlds.

and would cost Rito a ton for something they might not get a lot out of.

ah well, they already spend a lot of money on esports anyways, so i guess one more weekend won´t make or break it - i mean they don´t have to make some over the top event there. Just 3-4days in the same venue. And they´d at least make sure that competion for worlds will get even better.

TurquoiseYoshiSep 16, 20151 votes

3-4 days? What would this competition be? Would it be single elim? Double elim? Group -> knockout? I could only see it taking 3-4 days if they crammed everything tight.

Earl EulrichSep 17, 20151 votes

all out round robin each team plays each other twice - 2games simultaneous (yea, that´s a new one for an official tournament, but i think that can work out well). The top 8 in the standings earn their place. If they would want they could make another tournament for quarters>semis>finals sometime later to present the qualified teams on a bigger stage, but it wouldn´t be necessary.

TurquoiseYoshiSep 17, 20151 votes

I don't like the idea of having multiple games on at one time. It kinda kills any people who want to watch all the games. It will also put teams through multiple different games more quickly than anything before.

Earl EulrichSep 17, 20151 votes

well anyone that tried to follow lck and lpl this season had to deal with those problems anyway - and for me they are only minor, as the free-vods make it pretty easy to catch up with anything missed. And the main-stream could just be a conference for both games simultaneous. other than that the alternative is to still have some qualifiers to widdle down on the wildcard-teams (though it denies the opportunity for a lot of those teams to at least be seen once a year internationally) and only add the 4th seat off the region that previously won worlds as sort of an additional reward. So we´d end up with 6teams from the major regions (5 3rd seats+4th seat of the prev winner) and 6 wildcards fighting for 8spots, which should be feasable in a round robin with just 1game at a time over at most 4 days.

TurquoiseYoshiSep 17, 20151 votes

One option that could help your idea is to make two stages, eliminate the analyzing after the matches, and just starting on the second stage right after the end of the first one. So we wouldn't get the waiting time, and we could get a bunch of games into a smaller time frame.

Earl EulrichSep 17, 20151 votes

that could work...i guess a 1hour analysis for all games of the day at the very end of the broadcasting should be sufficient (so anyone that doesn´t dig in-depth analysis can skip it easily and concentrate on the actual games).

BIGASIANLOADSep 16, 20152 votes

typical EU fanboy, "almost" equal to EU? theyre either equal or better...

Gaxx DSep 16, 20153 votes

Typical NA idiot. You probably haven't watched a single LMS game this season and refer to the AHQ vs Fnatic game from almost half a year ago. LMS isn't better than EU, and they actually aren't better than NA. They always had 1 or 2 teams that could upset top teams, but that's about it (hell, even in s2 TPA, who won championship lost like 2 months later to Fnatic, that didn't even qualify for the worlds). Anyway, other than those 2 top teams from LMS (GPL earlier) the rest of the league is pretty darn weak. Bad macro play, some VERY poor laning skills from a lot of the LMS players (watch GoDJJ from HKE, a team that was fighting for the spot at worlds - the guy would have problems in NA/EU CS), horrible vision control, and I swear I haven't seen a game (granted, I haven't watched all of them) where someone wasn't overchasing into no-vision-land and dying because of it (even AHQ) - something you'd see a lot in solo queue, but what shouldn't happen in pro play. TLDR; don't comment on things you have no clue about.

KallyandranochSep 16, 20152 votes

Honestly, i think LMS should be happy with 2 spots.

The distance between Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao from China and Korea is not that big. LMS could definitively be absorved by either China or Korea, still they aren't, and the region has a total of 8 spots in worlds. That's half of it.

NA gets 3, EU gets 3 and IWC (almost 20 countries spread around the globe) gets 2.

Sounds fair for me, so far.

Earl EulrichSep 16, 20152 votes

it´s mostly due to the stupid tournament-system Riot is running. They really should take a look at Dota: They might have a much better production than Dota - but the double-elimination tournament does a lot better job to make sure the teams that really deserve it get to the final rounds.

KT FanLingSep 17, 20152 votes

It is because of the four-group structure and Riot has to give 2 spots to the wildcard teams from 7-8 developing region instead of one. The argument shouldn't lay on LMS>NAEU or NAEU>LMS

Actually, Taiwan and Hong Kong people regards Bangkok Titan, the winner of IWCQ Turkey, as the 3th seed of LMS. BKT really is, unofficially though. For one who doesn't know, South East Asian teams are in the same GPL league with Taiwan since 2012. At that time till 2014, SEA teams lost 90% of their game against Taiwan power house.

BKT, the constant loser before Taiwan and ranked like 5th-8th in the past, can even win a spot in IWCQ Turkey. If LMS teams went to the wildcard tournament, there is almost no chance for other wildcard teams advancing to the world. Therefore LMS should be given direct spots in order to separate them with wildcard regions.

In 2014 World, TPA, the first seed of Taiwan, played badly. When it comes to the match between wildcard team Dark Passage and the second seed of Taiwan AHQ, a lot of people #DPwin. Then what we had seen is DP got completely destroyed two games in a row (1st match 08-19; 2nd match 02-27).

It is worth nothing to argue LMS>NAEU or NAEU>LMS. What I want to point out is, if LMS got 3 spots, there is only one left for wildcard region, which is not profit-efficient and totally unfair. If LMS got 1, I think the community would not accept it after the MSI-AHQ effect. What if we put LMS teams into the wildcard tournament? Same as the first mentioned situation, which is unfair to wildcard teams, and the nightmare of BKT losing to Taiwan 99 times would happen.

I think, unless the group structure of World changes (maybe 5 teams in a group or extend 4 groups into 6), or unless AHQ and FW play super good in 2015 World, I see no reason LMS earns 3rd spot.

(Actually LMS did have 3rd if you consider BKT which was once in the same league with Taiwan. The Taiwan community is happy to see BKT and cheer for their long-time opponent.)

PoisonedTeaSep 17, 20151 votes

mostly due to size. But the year they won they haven't done that well(single dominate team). They are looking good this year although. But the truth is normally they only make one good team the others have not been comparable. NA and EU can make 3 good teams(sometimes only 2) even if not comparable to China or Korea.

Ale non è maleSep 17, 20151 votes

Because historically only the top team from LMS (ex SEA/GPL) has performed well at world level EU and occasionally NA (well, at worlds it was only S1 with no Chinese/Korean and S4 when EU faltered on their own to be precise, but whatever, it would be fair to count also IEM tournaments for NA) have usually sent more than 1 team past the group stages of biggest international tournaments, actual LMS often had 1 team capable to stand in front of world class teams(and even win like TPA in S2 Worlds), but the other teams...well they haven't done particularly well to deserve to claim a spot from either EU or probably NA

Earl EulrichSep 17, 20152 votes

ah well, to be honest - EU and NA have 3 spots only because they bring in the big fanbase. Other than fnatic and M5 EU hasn´t produced world-class teams for the last years and NA never really had even 1team that you´d rank into international top 5 (not counting S1, as back then lol hadn´t been really international). So it´s somewhat hypocrit to deny LMS that 3rd seat because they haven´t sent more than 1 world-class team per year, when it all comes down to fanbase. If they wanted to make it fair they´d change the qualifiers (see my discussion with turquoise below).

Ale non è maleSep 17, 20151 votes

I don't disagree with you, but I guess LMS would have easily earn their 3rd spot back then if the team other than the top team was really performing that well to force Riot to handle them over that spot. Even when LMS have had multiple teams in international tournaments, generally only one of them performed, while even in IEM, for example, multiple EU and NA teams performed NA and EU have more spots because they bring the fanbase, but also because they have more teams that can compete at international level for the spots behind the top 4-5-6 teams in the world

Guyy FieriMay 6, 20161 votes

Umm Origen???

Ace of BronzeSep 17, 20151 votes

Yoe Flash Wolves is expected to not even get out of the easiest group in Worlds. You think a third seed would have any chance of getting out of groups?

ZeroBlazeitMay 6, 20161 votes

LMS Totally deserve a third seed. They are always performing at a world class since season 2, and remember season 2 they had to fight for 1 wildcard slot.

It's only fair if they have 3 seeds for 2016. Riot please.