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Region "Tier List" System?

1nfernal2000·2/25/2017, 9:38:39 PM·2 votes·2,500 views

Riot have effectively created a tier list of regions that, at the moment, are:

  1. Korea
  2. EU, China
  3. NA, LMS
  4. Everyone else

This works for giving certain regions advantages in international competiton seeding, and whether these advantages work or not is unrelated to the scope of my proposal. I merely think more transparency in why regions are ranked where they are would be beneficial. To be frank, it doesn't really matter how the scoring systems work, but they should be defined to prevent any allegations of bias to occur. To clarify, I do not think any bias is present, but this proposal would remove any doubt in some people's minds.

E.g. MSI: 1st: 8 Pts 2nd: 6 Pts 3rd-4th: 4 Pts 5th-6th: 2 Pts 7th (Round 3 Play-in loser): 1 Pt

Worlds: 1st: 12 Pts 2nd: 8 Pts 3rd-4th: 6 Pts 5th-8th: 4 Pts 9th-16th: 2 Pts 17th-20th: 1 Pt

Obviously, some sort of system would be needed at worlds to ensure regions with more seeds get similar amounts of points to regions with only 1 seed. Maybe take an average, but give more weighting to higher seeds of a region in taking this average.

Then, to compensate for how the strength of regions changes over time, you could multiply all results from 2 calendar years ago by 0.5. For MSI, simply sum the results from the previous 2 years to get a ranking of regions 1-5, and for worlds just add the most recent MSI results to this, but keeping the MSI results from 2 years ago until the change of year, so as not to overly disrupt seedlings between MSI and worlds. Note that this is an example and could well need some major tweaks to the numbers.

Riot, please at least implement some sort of system, even if it is markedly different from my example. Fellow-forum goers, please help me bring attention to this because I think it would be easy for Riot to implement and answer a lot of complaints with the system.

Thanks for reading the wall of text.

5 Comments

LEBLANKKK TIME2/26/2017, 1:45:22 AM5 votes

I mean switch EU to 5th and then I agree.

GeminiRune2/26/2017, 12:17:47 AM1 votes

Riot eSports division made an executive decision to appoint MSI seeding particularly and Worlds seeding based off of regional success at Riot major events over the past 2 years. It's the community that has assumed and molded that this is what Riot officially thinks and stands by presently. No matter how you put it whether it be points, performance, or success by stage record, controversy will always exist among regional tiers because most of those regions with the categories stated generally fall different to one another (excluding Korea of course as you'd probably be paranoid for saying otherwise against their top placing for any).

I find the proposal to be a bit ridiculous because it would still gradually produce the same results at least for the higher point totals for at least another year or two. Not to mention that this would have to be something that would have to be started now unless you would want to produce some makeshift results based off of the last year and this upcoming one. But how would you be able to do that? You can't group the no longer regarded IWC into a pot; they are their own regions to represent for themselves now. Besides, the format for the year is pretty much set in stone unless a mid season update were to happen. A proposal like this would need time and by then a better idea may come.

Sagan Forever2/26/2017, 4:32:40 AM1 votes

They said they used a point system for MSI and worlds from seasons 5 and 6 to decide ranking. Korea blew the rest out of the water so they took sole number 1. Then EU and China are the second tier in terms of international results. Then NA and LMS have done better than the wild cards basically.

III BAKURYU III 2/26/2017, 7:33:22 AM1 votes

The thing that annoys me about this is -

  1. LCS is too d*mn long
  • So Spring Split Riot made matter after it was completely worthless for about 2 years now with the point system it makes sense but do we really need to see 120+ games span from early January to late August with LCS ?
    7 months of it but when it comes to the biggest tournament of the year and the one pentacle of League of Legends it lasts for like 1 month. With 6 games for each team to define placements among going home and going to the bracket stage.
    Boy, what a honor to play 6 months, 120+ games, patches, and inbetween the splits are cheesy tournaments(IEM) that don't mean anything and are just for $ sake but Worlds isn't even much compared to the amount of regular games.

  1. Riot should have gave the IWC and LMS regions 3 total teams to start with and I'm glad they did but now Riot made gold in 1 hand and S$it in another at the same time with the latest decisions. Adding more teams is fine but when you add more with a crummy system that they did makes 0 sense. Why not just have more groups ? More teams in each group, instead having 4-5 more games with IWC teams is....... ok but what's the point, it's not going to help in any way shape or form on the scope of things. If anything it just adds to the 1 game and out but 6-7 months getting to Worlds.

  2. Doing up the point system was something that is 50/50 for me. It's makes sense it does but at the same time look at NA for example.

  3. The system is pretty much putting NA behind the 8 ball to start with their points from previous tournaments so it makes MSI worthless for NA since they are already in the point gutter and going 5-6th at MSI this year won't make much of a difference. You can't be eliminated from Worlds by Region performances but you can be shafted from previous splits and tournaments from Riot that didn't get discussed and mentioned until this past year.
    Look at the College football they made a Playoff format and informed the league about it but didn't utilize it until 1-2 years later not just shove it in everyone's face 8 months before and made it a past seasons accomplishments.

  4. With all of the regions having 3 teams gives a total of 18 teams; 18 can't go into 4 groups evenly but if you add 1 more team from each region and the importance of MSI going something like this. EXAMPLE from 2016 MSI for an EXAMPLE!!!!!

GROUP A ( LCK # 1 IWC EU # 1 NA # 4 LPL # 3 LMS # 4 LCK # 1 - Korea won the 2016 MSI and which ever region wins the 2017 should get the "easier" group IWC - They normally got placed in tough groups in the past so why stop now I suppose. EU # 1 - Out of the big 4 regions they placed the lowest so their best seed and chance at winning Worlds goes into the "toughest" group NA # 4 - Needs to be placed in the "hardest" group even as the runner up mainly because of the two already # 1 seeds from LCK and EU. LPL # 3
LMS # 4

GROUP B ( NA # 1 IWC EU # 2 LCK # 3 LPL # 2 EU # 4 ) NA # 1 - They were the runner ups to MSI so they get the second "easiest" group same goes for the 2017 runner ups IWC- Each IWC team are placed in EVERY group! EU # 2 - Same with the LCK - NA gets EU's second best not much of a "Thank you" for coming in second but like Group A and the LCK they too get a even playing field with not only winning MSI but also getting EU's # 1 seed. LCK # 3 - With the # 1 LMS team getting EU #3 seed and NA's # 2 seed NA needs to have a seed/region that didn't come in 5-6th place at MSI 2016 to balance the runner ups and the 3rd place. LPL # 2 EU # 4 - EU # 2 seed are already in so why another, NA was the runner ups so they get the second to last " worst" region so get it's # 2 best team but also their # 4 as well.

GROUP C ( LMS # 1 IWC EU # 3 NA # 2 LCK # 4 LPL # 4 LMS # 1 - Let's say the LMS and LPL played each other in a 3RD place match and the LMS team at MSI won. IWC EU # 3 - Eu's # 3 faces the again " HYPOTHETICALLY" 3rd place MSI winners NA # 2 - Runner up to the 2016 and similar to LCK they get the next to easiest group as far as MSI goes. LCK # 4 - Can't be in Group A or D LPL # 4 - The fourth place LPL region and their # 4 seed goes against the 3rd place MSI region and their # 1 seed.

GROUP D ( LPL # 1 IWC LCK # 2 NA # 3 LMS # 3 LMS # 2 ) LPL # 1 - again, hypothetically they lost to the LMS team back in the 2016 MSI. IWC EU # 4 LCK # 2 - The winning region gets the bottom group or closest to the "easiest" NA # 3 - NA suffers as the runner up to face LPL's # 1 and LCK's # 2 but beats out the LCK in Group C. LMS # 3 - Next to LPL's # 4 for reasons. LMS # 2 - Now I can see 2 same region teams are in the same group however since LMS won the 3rd place between LPL and they are in LPL's # 1 seed group it can be difficult but the LMS has a decent chance to have not just 1 of the region teams make it out by 2 instead.

Explaining again ...............................

Each IWC team are put into EVERY group instead of just the harder ones it seems each year or are consider weak or a bonus for the # 1 seeds as a free pass to continue on with Worlds. To make the groups look as far as possible I will add a number sequence LCK won MSI so they are considered # 1 but their # 1 seed counts as 2 as 1 + 1 = 2 and their # 2 seed is 3 points.

  • EU came in second to last or 5th so their # 1 seed is actually 6 points as 5 + 1 = 6
  • IWC teams are all considered 6 points total since they all have different regions or something around the world; IDK sorry!

LCK 1 NA 2 LMS 3 LPL 4 EU 5 IWC 6

So adding up the numbers goes something like this GROUP A 34 points, GROUP B 35 points, GROUP C 36 points and GROUP D 30 points.
The higher the total points the easier the group is mathematically

This doesn't make much sense I'm sure to anyone but to me it does ;[ but hey, better than a 1 hour fish bowl show that focuses on player's hands more so than actually talking about the groups.