The disparity between the top teams (G2, SKT, IG) and NAs finest is almost laughable. Watching TL go against those teams was like watching a diamond smurf stomping people in bronze and silver. Will this skill gap ever close between NA and the top regions?
imagine caring about esports
" NAs finest" LOL you activated my trap card and I choose you, Cloud 9......
Tbh i just don't think TL is the best NA team rn. I think c9 or tsm would do better at msi. I doubt either would win but they would at least make it more competitive.
Probablly not. It really is sad. worlds usually ends up going to korea anyways.
It's because no matter how good a team does in NA, they don't play fast enough and aggressive enough to beat the chinese teams, with the game pushed so far forward now due to these, grade A totally not losing millions of players every month changes - korea adapted in the course of one season by grabbing aggressive key players to lead the charge into battle where faker and the rest just have to follow and teamfight well, NA took corejj, a great korean support but it's like grabbing outdated equipment, NA doesn't excel at anything, they've never taken gaming as seriously as china, korea, or EU, even in the days of everquest and WoW at its peak EU was always better and faster at completing things. Until we take it seriously and devote the same time to improving that they do, rather than just trying to make money, we will never win
Nothing surprising, any NA team not named C9 is always a big disapointment at international events.
"Why NA so quiet?" - Twitch chat.
NA just needs to have more and better investment in it, really. Most of these ultimately comes down to how much time and resource investment there are, and how well spent they are.
Here's why Riot needs to invest at minimum TIME and probably money into fixing NA solo-q or just kiss NA goodbye. (They may as well make a "declining region" bracket to go with the "emerging region" bracket and put NA in it)
Hard numbers that prove the problem: Riot's "1st, 2nd & 3rd Team" top players from the spring include: 6 NA original players & 9 imports. They also include MORE players that originated from EU (7) than NA (6). G2's average age is around 21, IG's average age is around 20. Liquid's YOUNGEST player is 24. Licorice is the youngest of the NA born players to be considered "top 3 in his position" from the spring, he'd be the oldest or nearly the oldest player on G2 or IG. In his interview after SKT won Spring Split, Faker himself said he's getting old, ... he's 23, younger than ANYONE on Liquid.
NA solo-q is terrible (the pros all state this, it's telling that NA goes to KR to play solo-q to "train" since the only other real option in the US is scrims). Without a good solo-q we'll NEVER develop homegrown talent. This means our only chance to be competitive is imports. Which would mean we either need to be incredible about scouting imports (get em at 17-18) or we're always going to be getting players on the decline. (CoreJJ was "far and away" the MVP of Spring, and he's "old" in any other region)
The reason NA fails at games like this is Culture. Korea was one of the first regions to adopt E-sports as legit thanks to the High popularity of Starcraft 1, they were holding tournaments all year round for many years and anyone that wanted to play in big SC tournaments had to move to Korea as it was the only region holding them, Eventually NA started to pick up on this and made a push for creating their own Regional tournaments (because NA players couldn't compete with Koreans due to lack of a real pro scene to even practice).
Flash forward to now, where Esports is more popular among the world and now all regions typically have a circuit for their game, However there is still one glaring flaw for NA, we are still living in a shadow of the East when it comes to how we prepare and train due to the culture not evolving around it. See in Korea Teams usually LIVE TOGETHER, they have a manager that see's that they follow a strict schedule of practice, they have rules they have to follow that try to pull them from distractions (like having girlfriends or boyfriends are usually limited to none). Not only that but they also Exercise to make sure they keep their teams with blood flow and higher thinking capability (this isn't true for EVERY team, but these practices and culture have been around since Starcraft 1) and most teams follow a similar process.
However in NA, most our teams DON'T have as strict of a schedule, we are allowed to do more of what "We want" rather than what the team needs, We focus more on entertainment aspect rather than a strict guideline of practice times. we tend to stream more often than korea as its a better source of money for NA players, each player has different schedules they are not in sync with one another as often, we hardly take exercise into account when training even though just like any sport exercise is important as it keeps blood flow and the brain active, we also eat when ever we want because of our loose schedules, koreans eat their meals together at select times to also create a bond with their teammates, Na also doesn't care if we have bf/gf's.
So until our CULTURE around esports change to treat it more as a sport / hard work and less of an entertainment aspect WE WILL NEVER WIN WORLDS and typically also lose most other high end tournaments when ever we face other regions who take it more serious like the east.
I expect C9 to make it into the elimination stage at worlds so all is good. All the other NA teams are jokes on the world stage.
Based off my first point, EUW should theoretically have 2x as many good native players as NA. Because of point 2, EUW actually has like 3x as many good native players as NA.
SoloQ is so much worse in NA that EUW players become worse players over the course of 1-3 seasons. Believe it or not, Bjergsen and Jensen would be even bigger beasts if they stayed in EUW playing EUW SoloQ and versing players like Perkz, Caps and Nukeduck week in, week out.
Oh boy did not age well. Best searies ive seen from na in a looong time.
The longer I've been in the LoL eSports scene, the more this thought of team representative performance = region's potential has begun to no longer matter.
TL isn't "all" NA's got. I don't think it's depressing cause it's all NA's "finest" getting molly whopped out there. It's depressing cause TL specifically amped you up for change only to have delivered the same product they always have on what's now their third attempt in a row...and still gets molly whopped. And in the NA fandom case, its like baseball: three strikes, gtfo. Take off a strike sometimes if you narrative that cursed superteam card or do something like butcher your roster a good time or two.
Has it manifest itself once again to Liquid playing not to lose rather than playing to win?
And frankly, NA's case just falls ever so slightly different because of the frequency of its same representatives. Other regions fall kinda different by the opinion said with few exceptions. One not of that exception is the "Seiya team" in Latam: but that's usually been chalked up to bad luck. But that's been well past out of steam.
TL:DR - NA doesn't disappoint me. TL disappoints me just as TSM has before it speaking of its four most frequent major representatives. That being said, I'm not depressed really. It's just a predicted possibility.
This didnt age well chief
Look at NA solo queue. Straight trolls all the time. The culture just isn't the same.
I have a friend from NA play on EUNE. His solo ranked on NA is around P4, EUNE solo rank is B2.
Now, not saying he can't climb, but he's saying that NA is a much more skilled region than EU(W/NE) and because our players are so incompetent he can't solo carry them as he does in NA.
(Tho I rarely see him carry, if at all)
Should NA even play anymore in the LCS? Should Na just have it's own tournies? Because i feel like when an Asian team is in the match up, the outcome is pretty predictable.
Just MSI?
I honestly think it's a problem on the coaching or organizational end of NA's current talent. The player's themselves seem to be pretty good. Maybe not as good individually but surely close to the competing regions. I think the gaming culture overseas and how they go about everything on a macro scale is overall significantly better than here. Until we can get like them in that regard and then find a way to improve upon it further, then NA may very well never win.
It seems that way, but in reality that is the state of the game right now, win hard or lose hard, every game ends with a stomp..
C9: can't beat TL ever, yet is clearly better than TL
Ok, I have to say, finally a good show from TL VS G2 in their last game of the group stage. This is the level of play they need to keep if they want to have any chances at all in knockout.
Kinda true , what's the reason for that thought ? Why is Eu better than NA? and why Koreans are the strongest? Thought I get it Koreans usually play on 9 MS while we have to play on 40 MS
But NA's situation feels awkward
TL just beat G2 and went 1-1 vs them. So looks like that Gap closed a bit. Yes we have quite a bit of work to do to handle Invictus but so too does everyone else. And I think we all knew that going in considering it was IG's perfect meta and quite far from Liquid's going in. And the most important thing is we got into the top 4 and earned NA a genuine #1 seed for our #1 at worlds team guaranteeing our #1 won't see China, Korea, or EU's number 1 in their bracket at worlds. I don't see what is so bad about that.
This aged well.
The disparity between the top teams (G2, SKT, IG) and NAs finest is almost laughable. Watching TL go against those teams was like watching a diamond smurf stomping people in bronze and silver. Will this skill gap ever close between NA and the top regions?
I'm sooo depresssed right now!!!! Liquid just can't compete with IG. Brtonzie Vs Diamond. Oh wait. Open mouth, insert foot.
I hope that TL recognized that this "just pick for late" strategy is eating them alive and start speeding the game up before they wash out before semis.
