Why NA sucks in international play

While that can be a part of it, I think there's more to it than that. As a whole, it's a lot better to be an esports player in Korea than it is in America, for numerous social and economic reasons.

The problem is that when FOTM picks arrive in NA scene, in Korea, Eu, or China they are yet trying to prepare some new FOTM pick. Literaly Veigar pick on mid lane at Worlds is the biggest contribution made by Na scene in long time, and his success didn't last very long, at least for NA teams

i don´t think SoloQ is really the reason here...most of it has to be the coaching actually.

you´ve seen LGD coming in without a coach at all and well...they went down in flames, despite having about the most talented players you could have managed to grab. And in Semis you´ve just seen that both Korean teams had a much better draft than the EU-teams - as their coach apparently did study their opponents and prepare their junglers for a meta without Gragas, while EU just couldn´t adapt to the Gragas-ban and lost most games due to incredible bad pick-priority.

Also...CLG won 2 gamesi n the first week and started dreaming of becoming world champs...if you compare that to the Korean-Teams (or OG for that matter) staying humble and trying to improve all tournament long you just saw that their coaches had a lot better influence on their mindsets.

All that being said...NA really should start to produce some talent of their own and invest in it - over the past years they´ve mostly tried to "steal" players from other regions and that really didn´t do them much good (same for China this season, albeit they really had some other issues topping it of).

I don't agree with that reason. Why Korea is better is because on average, they just play against much better players very regularly, they face each other in solo queue and skrims all the time and playing against much better players will only elevate your game if you're a great player.

as the saying goes, "steel sharpens steel"

I would argue that NA tilts more when playing against "OP" champs more than anything and having one on your team is inherently valuable even if you aren't particularly good at it. I still have to ban Darius because people on my team still think he's OP and will tilt super hard if the enemy team picks him and does anything at all. "Idiot first pick didn't ban Darius and now he has a kill GG open mid".

I agree that the culture in Korea is better for players who want to be professional gamers, but I disagree that there is a "META" pick abuse that's at the root cause here.

SKT T1 won this year because of their work ethic. They took two sisters teams, merged them together with the best talent from each team and kept all of the players willing to stay and used them interchangeably game to game (active substitute for FAKER). They took advantage of every opportunity they had to scrim teams internationally because they honestly respected that other regions had improved in the game and that there were things they could only learn from playing non-Korean teams.

Keeping the humility may be the hardest part, but you can't remain competitive at the highest level without it.

agree

How about keane's urgot?

I would honestly believe the whole meta thing. I personally try not to play the champs that NA considers "meta" because I feel like it degrades my skill on a personal level, as well as my integrity.

If I had it my way, I would try to build whatever I felt most comfortable with building on my main, , when dealing with mobile enemy threats, because guess what? I actually know how to play my champion, and I also know what i'm vulnerable to, and how to counteract that with certain item choices.

...Yet, unfortunately, I constantly (and consistently) feel peer pressured into not doing what I want to do (aka, what somebody else wants me to do), out of the fear of being flamed and chastised for doing what I know works for my champion and playstyle combination. I get people all the time who try to tell me off for using Runaan's Hurricane on TF, when in reality, they don't even know the first thing about me, or my playstyle (let alone how TF's kit works...). Of course, the brunt of this pressure stems from the fact that i'm already playing a champ whose not considered "meta", so unless some sort of grand fuckin' miracle happens on my side, chances are i'm gonna get instantly flamed the moment my team starts losing because of people looking for excuses (the easiest, in fact).

In all honestly, the core root of NA's problems come from mentality: both personal and mob-mentality. If people would stop harshly accusing other people and talking shit about them, we wouldn't have these problems so god-damned often.

Your second point is pretty much bullshit. "This doesn't really happen in Korea since they have die hard mains on champions regardless of whether they are meta or not" First of all how do you know this? There's no way you can know this. Secondly, the champ pool is the same in every single region, sorry bro. Darius Gnar Renekton Rumble Shen; Lee Sin Gragas Shywana Elise Reksai J4; Mid has like 10 champs so I'm not gonna go into that; ashe tristana sivir jynx kalista; Alistar Naut Shen Janna Morgana Tresh Tahm Kench. So there's really not a lot to talk about champions right there, this shit has been going on for like 1 year, so saying that someone is more prepared is just complete bullshit. Furthermore "the players who were great with him wrecked face to the point where you get the "OMG VEIGAR SO OP"" I'm 100% sure, threads on 9gag and reddit does not effect NA's international plays. Lastly, shall we PLEASE just look at who competed from NA? CLG- zero coaching/ managing staff, they are imbeciles. I mean hotshot doesn't need any introductions, and that ziks guy is 20 years old or something. TSM- 3 out of 5 were looking to leave after worlds, therefore they had no reason to put effort into practicing and getting better. C9- 7th place team, and rightfully so. So that's all there is to it, good topic I just think we should look at it from a different perspective.

No.

No one flame non meta picks in high elo. The issue is koreans practice for like 80 hours a week while NA only 30-40 with most of it being solo q. Also NO ONE has "fun" in solo q, most ranked if not all, are played as if its a tournament.

i stumbled upon a fine article be Eron Rauch on the topic of esports and mobas in general that might be an interessting read for you, it especially highlights the historical difference in professionalism between "the west", Korea and China...

-> http://videogametourism.at/content/demystifying-mobas-grand-spectacle

Could it be that....hmmm maybe...they aren't that good?

Part of it also is that Korea, and to an extent even China/Taiwan all have more games during the regular season splits, so they have a higher amount of experience in matches with those champions. You've also got a modular team like SKT-1, where they can swap in either Easyhoon or T0M(I felt real bad for T0M not being there, as I really like his playstyle) between matches, keeping the other team guessing and forcing opponents to adapt to different styles. The substitutions can likewise be used to give a player a rest between matches, especially if the previous match has been a grueling slobberknocker or drawn out grind. One of the Oriental teams has something like 5-7 substitutes that can be rotated. NA substitutes just....warm the bench...They get no real experience, no real opportunity to mesh with the team on stage. Look at poor KEITH for example. One game with TSM, and that's it.

I get that a lot of NA or EU teams want to have their best players in to win each match, but again, look at SKT-1. They devastated opponents, and sometimes brought out the subs(sometimes for fun), and the subs smashed other teams as well.

Montecristo was right. Infrastructure is a huge part of Korea's success in LoL.

NAH STOP BLAMING META, ITS THE PLAYERS THAT SUCK