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SUGGESTION: How to Improve the LCS for the Longterm

MachinaMe·5/27/2018, 6:03:34 PM·2 votes·850 views

Hi,

A bit about me: I used to play League (I was never that good at it), but the past six months just watch the LCS and other Leagues. I see a few concerns that should be dealt with and have a suggestion on how to fix it.

Currently you hear a lot about how the LCS teams scrim with other teams. Practicing an esport is a very difficult thing in general, and I can understand the lack of foresight, however when you only have other teams to practice with, you are limiting your talent pool. If you are not an LCS player, the only way to reach LCS calibre is to somehow get picked to join a team and play as a rookie in the LCS. If you are not in the LCS, good luck getting team practice against an LCS team. This is really bad for growing the talent pool and for the longevity of the LCS scene. If you only expect League to last in the esports scene for under 5 years then no worries. If you want it to last longer you need to get concerned about your talent succession.

The solution I have is a fairly simple one. LCS teams are not allowed to scrim other LCS teams. LCS teams are only permitted to scrim their own Academy teams, and Academy teams are only permitted to scrim with their own LCS teams. Academy teams can scrim other 5-man squads from the same Academy team as the player limit is uncapped. Academy teams can have as many players as you wish, but each player can only join one Academy team per split. LCS teams are only able to swap out players from their Academy teams - they cannot acquire a new player mid-season for use that split. Traditional sports practice against themselves, and sometimes even have players that are only used in practice.

First thing this does. This forces you have have a very deep talent pool in your Academy team. You need to be able to provide your LCS team with multiple different team styles to play against (1-3-1, protect the ADC, top carry, etc). The talent pool in your Academy team will very quickly begin to spike to an LCS level, and you will notice an increase in the quality of players across the board. This will not happen on day 1, however with so much practice against a quality LCS team, it will not take long for them to be up to near LCS levels.

Second thing this does. This prevents different teams from forming metas with other teams. This allows certain picks to be practiced at an LCS level (again, not on day 1, but reasonably fast), without letting any other teams see that pick. This also makes teams take a certain level of risk in playing a champion like that. The other team may have their own pocket pick to counter that as well.

Third thing this does. This holds professional teams accountable for ensuring the longevity of the game is taken care of. Currently Academy league is not really taken seriously by anyone. It just isn't the LCS, and there is not variation in the players you see. If you increase the Academy teams to have significantly more players, you will start to see new players up-and-coming consistently.

That's all I can think of right now, but I hope you get what I'm trying to say.

Thanks for reading.

TLDR: Just read it, lazy.

4 Comments

Crispy0Snake5/27/2018, 7:21:55 PM1 votes

Lazy indeed

III BAKURYU III 5/27/2018, 7:34:59 PM1 votes

Not sure about the whole " LCS teams are only permitted to scrim their own Academy teams, and Academy teams are only permitted to scrim with their own LCS teams ".

  • Echo Fox a year or so ago tried something like this and it didn't turn out so well, matter of fact, they did so and came in like 10th place 3 or so splits in a row.

I get somewhat the idea but overall, I don't see how it could help the A-tier LCS rosters when only facing off their B-tier rosters.

" Academy teams to have significantly more players, you will start to see new players up-and-coming consistently".

  • Something I talked about when the LCS was a Best of 3 was combining the Spring and Summer Split together in which in turn, will make teams bring out their full rosters so their starting lineup wouldn't get drained through a long season(108 max games possible or 72 least amount of possible games). Having a long split + the safety net of being secured in the LCS now(franchising), teams/players shouldn't have a problem in using off meta champions that could give them multiple losses when looking at the grand scheme of things- having a longer split/season.
    For example - Would you bring out a possible off-meta pick in a 18 game split when your team is currently at 0-2? Or would you bring out such off-meta pick and possibly continue to do so when the split/season is much, much longer than just 18 games?

Long story short and it's going to be brutally honest-

1.) NA Challenger level players are TRASH! Why would NA continue to buy LCK/EU/LPL players if it wasn't? NA LCS has been dominated by Doublelift, Sneaky, Aphromoo, Wildturtle all whom have been playing since 2011/2013(professionally) and players such as Big, Fabbyy, Lourlo, Matt etc can't even stay consistent for 1 split, nonetheless actually be good.

No matter what, when it comes to NA talent and watchability it comes down to this - Who will NA grab next from the Korea/China/EU pool?

2.) IDK nor have I looked up the streams/views etc # of people watching LCS but to me and in my opinion, league is dying - I don't see many people continue to watch the same thing over and over - Riot prides themselves with having 150+Champions but when it comes to LCS/Pro scene it's literally the same 10 champions across all Leagues!
Same winners across the board - Besides 1-2 splits the pro scene has been dominated by - SK TELECOM T1, TEAM SOLOMID, CLOUD 9, FNATIC, EDWARD GAMING, ROYAL NEVER GIVE UP -for the past 7-8 years.
You also have to look at the news - with everything and everyone being "offended" and looking at League of Legends it's really not the best place when it comes to an non-toxic community. All it takes is 1 bad case or someone having just a small chance to sue Riot for some stupid reason and BAM Bye-bye League, Bye-bye Riot, bye-bye predictable lcs outcomes and winners.

3.) The games are 1 sided and boring

  • I personally love watching and playing 40+ min games but now, now games are 1 sided and 20 min stomps! Who finds playing or watching league enjoyable now? 2011-2014 - Win or lose an average 40+ min game " man, I lost but X team earned that win" 2015-now " Got stunned for 40 secs within the first 2 mins of the game died and now X team are up 1-0 in kills.......GG"

I'm a bit biased but it's really the truth when it comes to League and NA LCS.

ImNDNile5/29/2018, 4:28:42 AM1 votes

One way to ensure the future of the esport would be to make a segment before each stream to help new fans. I just started watching League broadcasts at the beginning of the Spring split. My daughter had just started playing so I watched with her. I really enjoyed the games but I had no clue what was going on. Over the split I did start to pick things up but most of that was from me researching things on the internet. TBH most people who don't play aren't going to put the time in that I did. Even now I still don't know which runes are best for each champion.

League of Legends is definitely one of the most difficult sports to learn. Watching things like "Breakdown with Zirine " helps and so does the draft analysis but even with those the learning curve is steep. I've tried to get other people around my age (40 - 50) to watch but they get frustrated because they can't understand the action and aren't motivated like I was. If my kids didn't play I would probably have rage quit watching also.

Like I said before I know that there are resources around but finding them can feel like homework for a non-player. I really enjoy league and I want it to succeed but I think to expand in the future the broadcasts have to become more accessible to the non-playing and older potential fans. By gaining new fans them the franchise system can grow. I could see a baseball type setup with multiple levels of academy (baseball has AAA, AA, A, and rookie). With that system in place the options for new players would improve.

Admiral Howe6/3/2018, 10:33:11 AM1 votes

Echo Fox and 100 Thieves do the Academy scrims already, which is good when you see how their seasons went. As for the learning, Hai retired to start something like that, he said he wanted to teach people the game. Id honestly like it if there was a former LCS player such as Hai, or Dyrus, or TheOddOne to do an in depth talk about certain roles that will be focused on during the game. Say Team Liquid and Echo Fox were playing, the Jungle matchup will be hype since Dardoch and Xmithie are 2 of the best junglers in NA. We can have, during the Countdown show, someone like SaintVicious with TheOddOne to give multiple perspectives on what Dardoch and Xmithie might do to win the jungle. That will also give new players or just fans little nuggets of knowledge from former pros as well to better their own game.