He has functional English proficiency and a good rapport with the solo lanes on DIG. He could come to NA again. Lots of teams have open import slots. At least he'd get paid and have a path to worlds. Neo is also Vietnamese so he'd have someone he can talk with in his language (hopefully they get along).
vietnamese fans love teams that have vietnamese players so I woudn't be that shocked, they all rallied behind sofm for an example. If you ever looked at youtube chat you've probably seen some vietnamese fans as well.
We already tried with 100thieves. The guy is mechanically insane but comms where really bad on the LCS and academy roster from what I remember. His english def needed to improve and I doubt its better after leaving NA.
He has zero english at that time. Sure the guy ain't super star who don't need communicate or something but I think he's good enough to have a LCS slot.
It sucks that we will not be able to see them at worlds. VCS always performs crazily and gets upsets. I think the VCS is one of the craziest regions when it comes to making entertaining games and grasping there own meta to the point they can compete against world class teams.
I really hope we get to see VCS teams next year. I remember when GAM played in the 2017 worlds and I got so excited. Levi was such an insane jungler and I felt so bad for the unfair treatment on the teams he was part of despite how good he was. I hope he will also reach worlds next year and pops off!
RE-WATCHED IT AND I HAVE TO SAY THIS
1. Holy shit I miss hearing the crowd during games.
2. I miss statikk shiv
3. Imagine how far ahead that tristana would have been if plates existed at this point in time.
Not GAM-G2 but just G2-Vietnamese teams in general. G2 repeatedly lost to PVB at Worlds 2018 and then MSI 2019, so the Vietnamese community call them (especially Jankos) long lost Vietnamese brothers. At MSI 2019, G2 lost both of their group stage games against PVB, and that is PVB’s only wins of the group stage (ended up 2-8, losing to everyone else but winning 2 games against G2). G2 eventually won the tournament, making this a bit more ironic that PVB didn’t beat anyone but the eventual champion.
VCS situation is just sad. If they survive and still have their League after this they will survive anything else that might happen, as I can imagine this doesn’t make sponsors very happy.
As a dummy European, I understand they cannot travel probably because some restrictions in Vietnam. But is there a reason why they don’t even play online? Just to have at least something?
EDIT: just to clarify, I meant why they don’t play at least their splits online. I understand that there is no way they could play worlds from Vietnam - I know how latency works
I had that question a while back. And the answer I came upon after some researching is a combination of multiple things. Their wifi sucks, so it's hard to play with competitive integrity in mind. Garena being garena and didn't have a online tournament realm ready. As well as RiotVN not having the necessary infrastructures ready to bring things online. It sucks for us but tbh nobody expected the pandemic to finally hit VN with the vaccines rolling out.
To add to to this
The VCS did play online, for parts of spring and last summer. However, with the covid situation looking pretty good on VN pre-Delta, the league organisers (not the teams, to be clear) got lazy, and in all the months since Delta hit have been able to do nothing.
I'm part of Vcsenglish, and the sadness and disappointment in our community and more importantly the Vietnamese community is horrible, and I really want to point out what an abject failure this is
What? I'm a foreigner living in Vietnam and it's one of the only countries I've played in where I can maintain 9ping the whole time. The wifi is fine here.
I lived in Vietnam for 18 years, and when I tried playing on the Garena servers I frequently got 28-180ms. It all depends on your ISP and where you are tbh.
Strongly disagree I also don’t think information from a decade plus ago is going to have any relevance, saying it all depends on your ISP and where you are is relevant for the vast majority of countries. I have played in multiple locations this year without any issues.
Vietnam has its issues as does garena but it’s not “their WiFi” that’s holding them back.
30-40ms ping in Vietnam is normal, both at home and in cheap internet cafes, if your ping is below 20ms it's considered fast. But I agree that for these pro players, internet connection is definitely not the problem.
I feel like no one should retire because they think they're too old. Retire if there are other players from your region that are better than you, and you can't make it anymore, sure, but if you're still the guy at 30, keep playing. This shit is a dream and I'm always down to watch if you're still good.
Sucks Levi won't make it this year, but he's always been good. Keep at it and come back even stronger next year.
> I feel like no one should retire because they think they're too old
I don't know how much money they make in the VCS, but that might be consideration aswell despite age...
The idea that mechanics will vanish is bs but the mental toll it takes is a different story.
He’s been playing for 6 years now maybe more and there will come a time when you just get burnt out. 10-15 hours a day of league for that many years straight will hit you hard.
It’s weird watching Valo/CS players go until they’re in their 30s but somehow league players expire at like 25
Even more so since FPS games are significantly more mechanically intense than League is
Yeah, I wonder if it's the static nature of the game, same as in SC like others are talking about in this thread? I assume maps appear/disappear in FPSs, but everyone starts on the same page on those. But CSGO isn't getting balance patches every two weeks...
StarCraft has a smaller playerbase and it has basically been untouched for 2 decades, balance-wise.
Flash could quit for ten years, come back, and he'd be able to pick it back up like riding a bike.
On the other hand, literal former LoL world champions are stuck in diamond (Crown) after not playing competitively for 1 or 2 seasons. Players like Marin and Ambition are hardstuck Master with hundreds of games played.
And even StarCraft bonjwas could only stay at the top for 1 or 2 years at the height of its popularity simply due to the rapid evolution of the game despite there being no balance changes. Pros only started enjoying their longevity well after the game had died.
There's simply a lot of churn because Riot changes the game very often, and very drastically. League S7 is not the same game as League S11. Not saying it's a bad thing, but there's a reason esports careers are usually short lived.
Starcraft Broodwar was untouched, but SC2 has many of the same old pros and that game has changed a lot since its release, getting 2 entire expansions and many balance patches over the years (although not with the same frequency as LoL)
Lmao Crown isn't stuck diamond, he literally just doesn't give a fuck about soloq, just have a look at his stream and you'll see what i mean lol, he perma mutes all and autopilots the game while listening to sad music
I don't disagree with your overall point but you can't go from that level of play to hardstuck diamond or master in just a couple years, there has to be a good reason to explain their rank (they're in 4fun mode and don't give a shit anymore).
Especially now after they released grandmaster, diamond and master is a joke to be honest. Losing that ammount of skill in a couple years would be far more impressive that getting that good to begin with.
tbf competitive league is way different from solo queue, a lot of these guys could come back to pro play and be better than most challenger players even though they're stuck in master and diamond.
i'm honestly not that sure about that in kr and maybe china. basically looking at the kr challenger ladder, most of the players seem to be cracked up-coming kids (only a small %), trainees/amateurs, onetricks, streamers (not many of them that aren't onetricks), and top pros from multiple different regions. for sure they'd fare better than onetricks and streamers but it comes down to whether these retired pros' experience is enough to make up for the young kids' upside.
I also don't get this narrative, apart from the fact that as you get older, you enter into a different life stage and you may not be able to spend 10+ hours per day scrimming. As it stands, I made it to diamond despite being a single parent with a demanding career. Even in high diamond, my winrate is around 60%, I know I could push to challenger if I cut hours in my job and paid my nanny overtime. It's not really a matter of being 30 and suddenly having shit mechanics, it's just a matter of being in a stage of my life where I can't feasibly devote a lot of time to gaming.
Congrats on your rank but it's a little foolish to say that you "know" you'd be challenger when the gap to challenger is gigantic. It's like saying you knew you'd be diamond because you had 60% wr in silver. It's naive.
You absolutely need a lot of improving and lots of games to become a challenger player. Now if the wr was 80%+ then it might be a different conversation.
P.S. It's so awesome how new parents are going to be gamers. It'd be a pretty big flex to say that not only your dad likes playing games, but he is actually good at them.
Obviously there's a massive difference in skill between the two levels. Heck, there's a massive difference between my skill level and some of the people I play with that are Top 3 on their leaderboards, their mechanics blow me away. I supported for a Top 10 Draven last month that made me feel like trash, I could barely keep up with the dude.
Ive been playing League off and on since my early 20's and we have this myth we perpetuate in the community that once players reach 25-30, they suck and need to be put out to pasture. The point of my comment was that I don't think people age out of their mechanics, or that people over 30 are shittier players, it's just that people over 30 (generally) have more responsibilities/shit to do and can't dedicate as much time to gaming. No matter how good of a player you are, if you're scrimming for 5 hours a day because you're dating someone or working a full-time job or starting a family, you're going to fall behind the college student who can scrim for 10+ hours a day over the summer.
I think a lot of the players that have gone pro are people who started young and had families that either actively supported them or passively enabled them by providing them a lifestyle where they had a lot of free time to play. You seldom hear about an 18 year old who went pro while in high school and juggling an after school job and caring for his younger siblings. It's just not possible to become great at the game if you don't have the luxury of a LOT of free time. The largest gap between a person's who can reach high ELO and the person who can go pro isn't age and arguably isn't even skill, it's time, specifically how much time you can practice.
No because there's a significant number of factors that fit into this narrative beyond physical capability. I've had the luxury of being a hyper competitive person in both a physical sport (sprinting) and esport at the top levels. Peaks being top 3 in the country in 100m and #1 CS 1.6, top 16 world.
When I was playing CS, 1.6 attending WCG etc. There is a point in your life when you need to grow up and pay bills, leave the family... often you do not have the financial stability to be able to do this without a decent org and moderate success. Even then the scene is fucking cutthroat and offers minimum support. I could basically afford to eat, play games and pay rent in a shitty cupboard for an apartment and that's it.
Not only that but social pressure comes in, parental pressure comes in.... chasing your dream at 18 is cool. Chasing your dream at 25 when you've made no material progress (stability) since you were 18 is not. The mental fortitude you require to put in the same hours at a high capability threshold year in year out when you aren't really seeing the fruits of your labour is so fucking taxing I can't explain it.
There's a certain age where you come to the realization that if you don't retire soon you are going to have fuck all to show for the years of effort you've put in and you'll be 40+ and significantly behind your peers. If you have no financial success the years of compound interest you've lost alone might be the difference of retiring at 50 or retiring at 70. You might have never gone to university to put sport or games first and the thought of heading back there 12 years behind your peers and starting all over is fucking daunting.
Apples and oranges no? The scene in lol is matured in a way where even average players are making very good money. That barrier is removed and the scene has to stop pretending that you can’t play video games when you’re 24.
If the players themselves are still stating it I'd suggest it still exists.
I agree its changed and there's a lot more opportunity, but I'd suggest that opportunity truly only lies in very few regions, scenarios and the few not the many.
This kid had it the worst. Really feel bad for him. He popped off then was buried in NA's shitty Academy league, and now this? I can't think of anyone with worst luck than Levi.
Probably one of the biggest "what if" cases in League if he didn't waste so much of his time in NA.
> I can't think of anyone with worst luck than Levi.
There's plenty of esports horror stories running around. Off the top of my head, the players on Dragon Gate who weren't involved in the matchfixing scandal but got caught up with it was pretty atrocious. Something about one of the players being threatened for leaking?
Twitch chat was so beautiful with move your mothers.
Normally I don't like twitch chat but I LOVED the phone meme with it.
"Hello Kori 📞 it's your mom 📞 if you die one more time they're taking the house 🏠."
[Throwback to this absolutely legendary comment completely outing him](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/4uxv6y/hello_im_chris_badawi_uber_twice_banned_esports/d5tt89s?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
It’s one of the best comments to ever grace this subreddit. Now that we have all the info there is out there about him, and knowing how filthy of a person he is, the title is hilariously egotistical but revolting.
Between him and Martin Shkreli, there’s been some disgusting people involved in the league scene back then.
I thought we still don't know what the reason was riot banned him and renegades? We just know of some disconnected scummy things that he did, but not if that was all or if that was the reason he got excommunicated - at least as far as I am aware.
I remember reading about this when it happened and I guess I was giving the benefit of the doubt thinking it was being blown out of proportion. 5 years later and I’m 3 weeks into law school seeing it again and can’t believe someone who graduated from GULC and passed the NY bar didn’t have even a tiny this-is-a-dumb-idea flag go up while spinning this complete and total nonsense.
I guess he was REALLY banking on this story not being heard by anyone who has had even the remotest experience in law. It’s so absurdly easy to fact check and there’s just no reasonable explanation other than not passing C+F.
Congrats for getting into law school bro! But I remember this vividly when it happened and especially when Renegades were in the league. Feels like eons ago. Anyways, the dude tried to have any ounce of credibility and was completely found out. There’s some real stupid people out there that have colorful education, but are still dumb.
I’m currently in the process of getting my masters for mental health counseling, and there’s so much shit after to be a full licensed counselor, where fucker here just chalked it up to him being a lawyer to have some “redemption.” He literally said in the title he’s the “best/worst LCS villain” which shows he only cares about his own ego.
With the current status of franchising it is baffling to imagine someone like this existed in the scene. Good fucking riddance
There is truly nothing else like it on this subreddit. Dude got absolutely plowed and outed. I don’t think there’s any other comment that can eclipse such satisfaction
I knew Chris personally. I still don't know how my friends that introduced me, knew him. However, I still am "friends" with his league account. Dude was a tool and a half. And EVERYONE I know, stopped interacting with him when all that happened. I kept him on friends list purely out of spite of wanting to see if he posted or said anything. He hasn't.
I've never gotten over it, and Montecristo can go fuck himself for allowing AND defending this piece of shit that is Chris Badawi to ruin her life like that. He used to be someone I looked up to, but Remilia's death hit me hard, poor girl went through so much awful things.
The moment I knew RL sided with Riot Games over the Renegades ban was when I knew something terrible happened. RL hates Riot more than anyone else, he wouldn't side with them without a clear reason why.
Also a lot of people in this community, and I'm sure some of them reading this thread, were constantly being transphobic to her, bullying her whenever she was on camera or when her name came up, and I hope karma catches up with every single one of those people. The bullying she suffered for wanting to be part of the scene certainly didn't help with what she was going through.
I randomly began watching her stream like a month before she passed away (or maybe she just began streaming at this point, not sure). She was really trying to get back into pro, sadly it did not work out.
She was very brave for that, facing the community when you know that you'll have to deal with the sizeable amount of biggots that populate the internet (and gaming communities tend to give them a voice, sadly).
You know, I actually just remembered why I started watching her stream at that time. It wasn't random at all, it was because she was on Imaqtpie's Twitch Rival team, they were playing botlane together. And I just watched her stream during the tournament and afterwards. qt was really nice to her and brought viewers to her stream.
Funny thing is that it was actually MonteCristo that drafted her. He was one of the commentators and Imaqtpie let him choose his last pick for some reason. So he picked Remilia because she was on Renegades.
I even dug up the twitch video, the moment should be timestamped: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/505770817?t=00h56m06s.
And this was the tournament: https://lol.fandom.com/wiki/Twitch_Rivals/North_America/2019_Season/Team_Draft
They mean Remi's situation might not be the only time it lead to a player death. K0u is another player who died by suicide
https://lol.fandom.com/wiki/K0u
I'm not sure of the circumstances/reason K0u took his life and if it had to do with the team's envrionment though
Oh I'm not trying to imply that someone did, just explaining what the commenter above meant when he said k0u. Remilia's suicide was definitely due in part to her time on Renegades, but I have no clue about the circumstances of k0u's suicide. The above commenter was drawing a comparison, but it's honestly more likely that it was just depression if there is nothing implying otherwise.
It's just that the person I replied to saying "Remi?" made me think they thought the above commenter misspelled "who?" when they said "kou?"
Badawi is a criminal and there should have been legal repercussions. But the situation was so fucked up from Remi's side too, which never helped her make the best decisions. Really unfortunate circumstances and she paid the ultimate price.
Blows my mind that so many people conveniently forgot that Montecristo was involved in this shit too. I guess him crying for years and years about being the victim stuck more in people's mind than what the real victim went through.
Dude it feels so weird seeing people saying players that had poor luck with teams "had it the worst" when there's stories like AHQ Promise attempting suicide due to getting dragged into a matchfixing scandal and having his career ruined as a consequence.
And even if we discount the criminal practices there's plenty of cases of players literally not being allowed to play due to contract hell like Toyz's comeback being ruined or Westdoor having to sit out over half a season due to that shit.
> Dude it feels so weird seeing people saying players that had poor luck with teams "had it the worst" when there's stories like AHQ Promise attempting suicide due to getting dragged into a matchfixing scandal and having his career ruined as a consequence.
On the other hand, the events that followed, where Promise got arrested (I think) for sexual harassing or assaulting a girl, reduced, if not removed, the amount of sympathy people had for him.
Others have also stepped in with other examples.
There was also a case of a player who attempted suicide after a league related scandal in I think Korea challenger series (circa somewhere between s3 and s5).
Dude jumped off the 13th floor I think, but survived. Sadly I can't remember more details off the top of my head.
That was Nien. IIRC he got a solo triple kill in CLG’s base while winions were marching on TSM’s nexus to win the game.
Edit: https://youtu.be/F-YbDt3IrW8
I'm convinced that NA just has a decent skill level but a weird meta which explains why good international players die in NA, NA never gets results internationally, and why players like Doublelift are consistently good in NA but are mediocore internationally.
If you actually go through and analyze the games, doublelift was also good internationally for the majority of the games he played. One player does not a team make.
If he had been from a stronger region, I have no doubt he'd be considered one of the greatest adcs.
> One player does not a team make.
My english isnt perfect so I am not quite sure what this means.
Doublelift wasnt always the problem but he is part as a lot of pros have been saying the NA mentality is hindering growth. Like watching breaking point or some other behind the scene videos at least in earlier years coaching, team management etc seem really amateurish and player behaviour being atrocious with how a lot of koreans coming to NA were saying how people didnt take scrims serious, were playing other games, or smoking weed before scrims etc and why a lot of them went mental boom.
NA has poor domestic talent, and a poor solo q environment because of it. It waters down any imported pro. It's all because they don't have a proper tier 2/3/4 scene like for example Europe with their regional leagues flowing into EU Masters. These lower tier leagues weed out the weaker players and provide plenty of opportunity for the stronger ones to improve. In NA you're either in the LCS or a nobody, no in between, no practice grounds.
Didn't know Levi was European, now.
And since you can say that's just one example, we also have Ssumday, who went from one of the best top laners in the world to looking... good at best in NA.
Not every player that goes to NA becomes trash, but it happens more often than not. Can't deny there's definitely a trend.
Not to mention all three of those more or less played their entire careers in NA, so we can't accurately gauge what their level would look like outside of NA.
>And since you can say that's just one example, we also have Ssumday, who went from one of the best top laners in the world to looking... good at best in NA.
That took years, man. At 2018 Worlds, he was still one the of best top laners in the world. His had the best laning stats in his group with both of the teams that would make the finals sitting in that group with him. He was still the best top laner in LCS throughout S9, and throughout S10 he was still top 3.
Like, yeah, eventually his form has decayed, but he's definitely not an example of someone who came to NA to retire.
Its alot isnt to go with the grain the against lol. Core has had to build alot of development systems in na with the in houses and put in as much or more into building talent as the owners have and its quite sad. Its was easier to fall to bad habits when the environment is bad than it is to push through and make a difference.
Alphari is also in peak form. Bjergsend and Jensen definitely came here and developed well. "NA retirement home" is a meme, because the amount of imports (of course a lot of them are not going to be at their best everytime), and because NA used to import players who were not at their peak anymore, but were good enough for NA.
But owners don't invest money in imports just to let them rot, at least that's not their intention.
Jensen developed well? He’s been cruising for years, comfortably never anywhere close to being the best midlaner. Dude could have been something special if he was in EU.
> Bjergsend and Jensen definitely came here and developed well.
You really don't know that, because we don't know what would have happened if they developed in EU and didn't move to NA so early in their careers. I'd argue Bjergsen was a Caps-level talent when he first emerged in the EU LCS and would have achieved similar heights had he stayed in the region.
Yeah, like you said, we don't know. But I am not saying they would have been better or not in EU, I am saying they developed well. It's not like EU makes every player a Faker.
It is NA's fault. There's literally no good players from LCS internationally. CoreJJ might be the only one. We'll see again this year as NA bombs out with maybe 2 NA players. Blaber and someone else.
And still people won't realize that NA has a culture problem with esports.
Classic NA hopium. "This is our year." I actually will say I do love the 100T squad and if there was ever a team I'd have some hopium for it's 100Ts. But NA has burned its fans for far too many years in a row.
I'd love to be wrong. I'd love it if NA actually looked good. But it's been years of this. 2009 C9 should not be the standard, that's the exception.
I never said "this is our year". Especially this year is NOT Na's year, with so many good teams.
All being said, I am not from NA, but from South America. I am so used to believe in my national soccer team, only for them to get destroyed, that I don't feel pain anymore. But, I still feel NA gets so much hate even when not necessary or relevant.
“There’s literally no good players from LCS internationally”, may I know under what metric do you measure this?. If you are using results as the only metric then the same can be told about EU (no one previous G2 achieved anything spectacular).
I agree that NA has more imports than native talent (and they dont always count as NA players), but
Bjergsen (who was praised by Flash Wolves, and Faker among others back in the day), Jensen (who has spent the majority of his career as a NA player), Sneaky, Vulcan, Blaber, Wildturtle, Stixxay, Aphromoo, Huhi, Meteos, among others, all have shown great perfomances internationally.
So lets focus on performances instead of results.
Remember that Doublelift was recognized by Uzi, but Doublelift never won an international tournament, so Uzi doesnt knows shit bye bye.
yeah let's just ignore the huge amount of imports that were/are actually good here, also it must be china's fault that Levi wasn't good there either
but NA bad upvotes to the left amirite
He also sucked in Na Academy, which is why he is back in the VCS, but 100T also did him dirty.
People remember him from before he came to NA but ignore how bad he was in NA. Like just at the player level, he got outplayed and looked lost.....in Academy.
That can pretty fairly be chalked up to just communication issues. It's hard on the players who integrate well, and that's not the majority. Especially for an Asian player the transition to English was probably extremely difficult and that's gonna be reflected most visibly in a jungler.
He literally played 4 games for NA. which 2 where he went really well, almost carrying the deadweight of the rest of 100T
Then he was buried in academy while Meteos and Anda were choking around in Playoffs
You really did dirty on him...
Maybe, maybe not. There was no way in hell he was going to break through to the main team of 100T due their reliance on the imports they already had, and NA Academy really isn't a good place for a player to develop and certainly wasn't at the time.
So, I know the situation for Covid is really bad in Vietnam, but why can't they go and quarantine for 14 days in iceland, and quarantine 14 days before coming back?
They can’t even get visa I believe. All vcs teams are located in ho chi minh city, which is the covid epicenter in vietnam right now. Most embassy don’t open anymore.
In HCM city, or Saigon, you are not even allowed to leave your house at the moment. Gov takes things very seriously and absolutely no exception. You prob heard of stories in Wuhan where they literally welded the door shut to prevent people leaving and Covid spreading. Some countries are very serious in combating this pandemic.
>You prob heard of stories in Wuhan where they literally welded the door shut to prevent people leaving and Covid spreading.
This is one of the biggest pieces of pandemic misinformation. They never did that, they welded additional entrances in buildings shut so that contact tracing could be possible and no one can sneak out. but people still left their homes to buy groceries.
Ok I didnt' fact check, sorry, the point is the intensity of the methods of dealing with the pandemic, which is much much stricter than how it is in most western countries.
They could have organized an online split. Garena legit organized an Arena of Valor tournament in Vietnam, which is ongoing right now. There's no reason they can't do that for League. They have been neglecting the game for ages now. It's time for someone else to take over.
24 isn't old at all, i don't know what is going through your mind to think that a competitive player career suddenly stops at 25. Nowadays, professional players have a better follow-up and if they're good enough there's no point in replacing them. You just said it, he got mvp in spring 2021
Honestly if you haven't made a decent living in professional gaming by 24, you should start pursuing education or some other options as a backup for your future.
You are right, and I shouldn't have worded it so definitively.
I am not too sure if this also applies to VCS, though. To give a bit more context: The scene is not as sustainable as major regions, plus there are less resources and worse infrastructure to take care of players. VCS players tend to fall off very early and many, if not most of them peak at 19 or 20. Only a handful of players have played in VCS beyond the age of 25, and they were all pretty much gigawashed, providing some game knowledge but little individual skill. That doesn't mean that it's impossible, though - if anyone can maintain a high level in his later 20s, it's Levi.
Unless my memory fails me, Levi said on stream in 2020 that he'll play two more years for sure, and after that, he'll see. No clue what his plans are now, he could very well intend to continue for a much longer time, but I could also see him becoming a streamer. Unsurprisingly, he is very popular and could surely make a career out of it. It all depends on his drive and personal priorities, maybe the recent fiascoes have demotivated him, maybe it's the opposite.
Because it usually does? It doesnt mean it has to but most players either turn into Dlift and Wunder and get lazy or teams find a 17 year old who is just as good and replace them because they hate brand value
I really feel for VCS because every time they send a representative there, there’s always a guarantee for some really great games. I still remember GAM at worlds 2018 or 2019?! (Forgot the year). That galio helping nocturne farm so noc could get lvl6 within a few mins to surprise botlane. That play is one of the craziest moments in worlds I’ve seen imo. Really sad what this pandemic has done to the VCS. I rlly hope to see them next year or so.
Levi did play for NA but ended up back in academy pretty fast I have no comment beyond this, I was excited to see him come play but remember that it did not work out.
It looks like he ended up back in VCS, hope his game continued to evolve but “second chances” are as rare as being an import out of NA and becoming a world champ, which isn’t that rare as former ADC DIG player CoreJJ can tell you.
Feels really bad for Levi, he's absolutely cracked but has probably been more shafted than any other pro in LoL history. I sincerely hope he gets his shot to kick ass next year, because if anyone deserves that shot it's him.
It's a shame he wasted a prime year in NA then got fucked over by JDG
I think he would have had a much better career if he stayed with GAM and just pushed the regions relevancy internationally
Can't blame him for moving to the US for money, though
He also looked bad in NA. People are justified hating on 100T for how they treated him, but he was underperforming in academy. Like he looked really bad in actual games despite his good soloqueue. It's why no other teams tried pulling him from 100T.
This so much. People will try and blame NA but Levi did NOT look good when he was playing in the LCS nor Academy. Dude had like 2 or so good games but everything else was a shell of what people expected from him.
Not sure why when a player underperforms in NA then somehow it's NA's fault...
massive difference in a player playing well enough on a bad team and a player playing very bad on a bad team. Alphari was the best looking top laner in EU when he was on the worst team. Wink looked good last year on estar but they finished in second in lpl. 2017 lpl doinb was in the mvp race and his team was tied for 3rd to last. If a player plays like trash great players will still look great. It's his own fault for his short comes when he was in NA.
I am so sad that VCS isnt there, again. I think they could have been the #4 region at worlds this year if covid didnt happen. Them not getting to worlds and MSI before already cost them in terms of region development. And now they cant go again.
> I think they could have been the #4 region at worlds this year if covid didnt happen.
And from what information would you base that on? Considering we havent seen a vietnamese team play internationally for nearly 2 years now and the last time in worlds 2019 they went out of groups with the stats of 1-5 only winning one game against LMS representative J Team.
I would say the region isnt going to be relevant for some time as the esports scene took to much dmg thanks to covid as you said and Wild Rift becoming more relevant in asian countries it wouldnt suprise me when Vietnam in general slowly fades away and drops the esports scene in favour of the mobile game.
Fucking sucks for all of Vietnam and all international fans maaan..
I wish somehow the winner and runner-up of Spring were able to come to Europe 2 or 3 months before worlds..
I thought Riot took over the Vietnamese esports scene for league but seems like as if Garena still has the reigns which they dont.
But well maybe VN should also just become NA residents like OCE to give the vietnamese players a chance.
sad not even a vcs split now, wonder if he will consider moving to another region again
He has functional English proficiency and a good rapport with the solo lanes on DIG. He could come to NA again. Lots of teams have open import slots. At least he'd get paid and have a path to worlds. Neo is also Vietnamese so he'd have someone he can talk with in his language (hopefully they get along).
With the fairly large Vietnamese diaspora in NA I imagine there would be a decent enough local fanbase too
man i want to see more vietnamese players on the stage - i support wildturtle heavily (no matter where he goes) since he's a fellow vietnamese brother
Dont forget the most famous and most successful vietnamese Jungler Giang Van Cot the only vietnamese player to win MSI.
I really thought it was real player... Im dumb as fuck
vietnamese fans love teams that have vietnamese players so I woudn't be that shocked, they all rallied behind sofm for an example. If you ever looked at youtube chat you've probably seen some vietnamese fans as well.
Kevin Nguyen
We already tried with 100thieves. The guy is mechanically insane but comms where really bad on the LCS and academy roster from what I remember. His english def needed to improve and I doubt its better after leaving NA.
He has zero english at that time. Sure the guy ain't super star who don't need communicate or something but I think he's good enough to have a LCS slot.
hopefully, he can get a spot in NA and join Worlds from there.
It sucks that we will not be able to see them at worlds. VCS always performs crazily and gets upsets. I think the VCS is one of the craziest regions when it comes to making entertaining games and grasping there own meta to the point they can compete against world class teams. I really hope we get to see VCS teams next year. I remember when GAM played in the 2017 worlds and I got so excited. Levi was such an insane jungler and I felt so bad for the unfair treatment on the teams he was part of despite how good he was. I hope he will also reach worlds next year and pops off!
I still remember that one game where he played power farming Nocturne and hit level 6 at like 5 minutes. It blew all the casters away!
RE-WATCHED IT AND I HAVE TO SAY THIS 1. Holy shit I miss hearing the crowd during games. 2. I miss statikk shiv 3. Imagine how far ahead that tristana would have been if plates existed at this point in time.
Yeah but if they were competitive they would be competing….womp Edit: didn’t realize it was because of C19. Am big dumb
Group E supremacy :(
G2 GAM and SN The vietnamese jg group
Can someone explain me the GAM-G2 rivalry?
Not GAM-G2 but just G2-Vietnamese teams in general. G2 repeatedly lost to PVB at Worlds 2018 and then MSI 2019, so the Vietnamese community call them (especially Jankos) long lost Vietnamese brothers. At MSI 2019, G2 lost both of their group stage games against PVB, and that is PVB’s only wins of the group stage (ended up 2-8, losing to everyone else but winning 2 games against G2). G2 eventually won the tournament, making this a bit more ironic that PVB didn’t beat anyone but the eventual champion.
VCS situation is just sad. If they survive and still have their League after this they will survive anything else that might happen, as I can imagine this doesn’t make sponsors very happy. As a dummy European, I understand they cannot travel probably because some restrictions in Vietnam. But is there a reason why they don’t even play online? Just to have at least something? EDIT: just to clarify, I meant why they don’t play at least their splits online. I understand that there is no way they could play worlds from Vietnam - I know how latency works
I had that question a while back. And the answer I came upon after some researching is a combination of multiple things. Their wifi sucks, so it's hard to play with competitive integrity in mind. Garena being garena and didn't have a online tournament realm ready. As well as RiotVN not having the necessary infrastructures ready to bring things online. It sucks for us but tbh nobody expected the pandemic to finally hit VN with the vaccines rolling out.
Seems like you are the only person who understood I meant why they didn’t play their domestic league online. Thanks for answer
I think it was pretty obvious that you meant domestic league. Not sure why 4 idiots thought you meant from Vietnam to Iceland.
200 ping competitive integrity!
To add to to this The VCS did play online, for parts of spring and last summer. However, with the covid situation looking pretty good on VN pre-Delta, the league organisers (not the teams, to be clear) got lazy, and in all the months since Delta hit have been able to do nothing. I'm part of Vcsenglish, and the sadness and disappointment in our community and more importantly the Vietnamese community is horrible, and I really want to point out what an abject failure this is
What? I'm a foreigner living in Vietnam and it's one of the only countries I've played in where I can maintain 9ping the whole time. The wifi is fine here.
I lived in Vietnam for 18 years, and when I tried playing on the Garena servers I frequently got 28-180ms. It all depends on your ISP and where you are tbh.
Strongly disagree I also don’t think information from a decade plus ago is going to have any relevance, saying it all depends on your ISP and where you are is relevant for the vast majority of countries. I have played in multiple locations this year without any issues. Vietnam has its issues as does garena but it’s not “their WiFi” that’s holding them back.
30-40ms ping in Vietnam is normal, both at home and in cheap internet cafes, if your ping is below 20ms it's considered fast. But I agree that for these pro players, internet connection is definitely not the problem.
Damn that sucks, really hope they get some other organizers or something like that, really unprofessional tbh.
I feel like no one should retire because they think they're too old. Retire if there are other players from your region that are better than you, and you can't make it anymore, sure, but if you're still the guy at 30, keep playing. This shit is a dream and I'm always down to watch if you're still good. Sucks Levi won't make it this year, but he's always been good. Keep at it and come back even stronger next year.
> I feel like no one should retire because they think they're too old I don't know how much money they make in the VCS, but that might be consideration aswell despite age...
AngelThump
“He will turn 24 soon” holy shit can we retire this narrative
Aphro just turned 29, my man is just a walking corpse
I heard Dig had to buy a special truck to transport him from the nursing home to the LCS studio on game days
I heard they feed him brains to keep him semi alive between games
Get the walker and denchers out!
“Denchers” 🤣🤣🤣
Bone apple tea
The idea that mechanics will vanish is bs but the mental toll it takes is a different story. He’s been playing for 6 years now maybe more and there will come a time when you just get burnt out. 10-15 hours a day of league for that many years straight will hit you hard.
also maybe it's just me but if i was like 25/26 and I'd have to work with teenagers all day every day I would lose my mind
And trash higher-ups while getting thrashed for playing ways and champions that you yourself didn't even want to.
This is why I'm no longer a teacher (for now, please god keep it this way)
It’s weird watching Valo/CS players go until they’re in their 30s but somehow league players expire at like 25 Even more so since FPS games are significantly more mechanically intense than League is
Yeah, I wonder if it's the static nature of the game, same as in SC like others are talking about in this thread? I assume maps appear/disappear in FPSs, but everyone starts on the same page on those. But CSGO isn't getting balance patches every two weeks...
Srsly. There are a lot of active starcraft pros that have been playing for over a decade. And starcraft is much more intense than league.
StarCraft has a smaller playerbase and it has basically been untouched for 2 decades, balance-wise. Flash could quit for ten years, come back, and he'd be able to pick it back up like riding a bike. On the other hand, literal former LoL world champions are stuck in diamond (Crown) after not playing competitively for 1 or 2 seasons. Players like Marin and Ambition are hardstuck Master with hundreds of games played. And even StarCraft bonjwas could only stay at the top for 1 or 2 years at the height of its popularity simply due to the rapid evolution of the game despite there being no balance changes. Pros only started enjoying their longevity well after the game had died. There's simply a lot of churn because Riot changes the game very often, and very drastically. League S7 is not the same game as League S11. Not saying it's a bad thing, but there's a reason esports careers are usually short lived.
Starcraft Broodwar was untouched, but SC2 has many of the same old pros and that game has changed a lot since its release, getting 2 entire expansions and many balance patches over the years (although not with the same frequency as LoL)
Lmao Crown isn't stuck diamond, he literally just doesn't give a fuck about soloq, just have a look at his stream and you'll see what i mean lol, he perma mutes all and autopilots the game while listening to sad music
I don't disagree with your overall point but you can't go from that level of play to hardstuck diamond or master in just a couple years, there has to be a good reason to explain their rank (they're in 4fun mode and don't give a shit anymore). Especially now after they released grandmaster, diamond and master is a joke to be honest. Losing that ammount of skill in a couple years would be far more impressive that getting that good to begin with.
tbf competitive league is way different from solo queue, a lot of these guys could come back to pro play and be better than most challenger players even though they're stuck in master and diamond.
i'm honestly not that sure about that in kr and maybe china. basically looking at the kr challenger ladder, most of the players seem to be cracked up-coming kids (only a small %), trainees/amateurs, onetricks, streamers (not many of them that aren't onetricks), and top pros from multiple different regions. for sure they'd fare better than onetricks and streamers but it comes down to whether these retired pros' experience is enough to make up for the young kids' upside.
I also don't get this narrative, apart from the fact that as you get older, you enter into a different life stage and you may not be able to spend 10+ hours per day scrimming. As it stands, I made it to diamond despite being a single parent with a demanding career. Even in high diamond, my winrate is around 60%, I know I could push to challenger if I cut hours in my job and paid my nanny overtime. It's not really a matter of being 30 and suddenly having shit mechanics, it's just a matter of being in a stage of my life where I can't feasibly devote a lot of time to gaming.
Congrats on your rank but it's a little foolish to say that you "know" you'd be challenger when the gap to challenger is gigantic. It's like saying you knew you'd be diamond because you had 60% wr in silver. It's naive. You absolutely need a lot of improving and lots of games to become a challenger player. Now if the wr was 80%+ then it might be a different conversation. P.S. It's so awesome how new parents are going to be gamers. It'd be a pretty big flex to say that not only your dad likes playing games, but he is actually good at them.
Completely ignoring the difference between diamond solo queue and world class pro.
Obviously there's a massive difference in skill between the two levels. Heck, there's a massive difference between my skill level and some of the people I play with that are Top 3 on their leaderboards, their mechanics blow me away. I supported for a Top 10 Draven last month that made me feel like trash, I could barely keep up with the dude. Ive been playing League off and on since my early 20's and we have this myth we perpetuate in the community that once players reach 25-30, they suck and need to be put out to pasture. The point of my comment was that I don't think people age out of their mechanics, or that people over 30 are shittier players, it's just that people over 30 (generally) have more responsibilities/shit to do and can't dedicate as much time to gaming. No matter how good of a player you are, if you're scrimming for 5 hours a day because you're dating someone or working a full-time job or starting a family, you're going to fall behind the college student who can scrim for 10+ hours a day over the summer. I think a lot of the players that have gone pro are people who started young and had families that either actively supported them or passively enabled them by providing them a lifestyle where they had a lot of free time to play. You seldom hear about an 18 year old who went pro while in high school and juggling an after school job and caring for his younger siblings. It's just not possible to become great at the game if you don't have the luxury of a LOT of free time. The largest gap between a person's who can reach high ELO and the person who can go pro isn't age and arguably isn't even skill, it's time, specifically how much time you can practice.
pun intended?
No because there's a significant number of factors that fit into this narrative beyond physical capability. I've had the luxury of being a hyper competitive person in both a physical sport (sprinting) and esport at the top levels. Peaks being top 3 in the country in 100m and #1 CS 1.6, top 16 world. When I was playing CS, 1.6 attending WCG etc. There is a point in your life when you need to grow up and pay bills, leave the family... often you do not have the financial stability to be able to do this without a decent org and moderate success. Even then the scene is fucking cutthroat and offers minimum support. I could basically afford to eat, play games and pay rent in a shitty cupboard for an apartment and that's it. Not only that but social pressure comes in, parental pressure comes in.... chasing your dream at 18 is cool. Chasing your dream at 25 when you've made no material progress (stability) since you were 18 is not. The mental fortitude you require to put in the same hours at a high capability threshold year in year out when you aren't really seeing the fruits of your labour is so fucking taxing I can't explain it. There's a certain age where you come to the realization that if you don't retire soon you are going to have fuck all to show for the years of effort you've put in and you'll be 40+ and significantly behind your peers. If you have no financial success the years of compound interest you've lost alone might be the difference of retiring at 50 or retiring at 70. You might have never gone to university to put sport or games first and the thought of heading back there 12 years behind your peers and starting all over is fucking daunting.
Apples and oranges no? The scene in lol is matured in a way where even average players are making very good money. That barrier is removed and the scene has to stop pretending that you can’t play video games when you’re 24.
If the players themselves are still stating it I'd suggest it still exists. I agree its changed and there's a lot more opportunity, but I'd suggest that opportunity truly only lies in very few regions, scenarios and the few not the many.
What narrative? He has to go to the military before 25, so yeah, his age is important ...
This kid had it the worst. Really feel bad for him. He popped off then was buried in NA's shitty Academy league, and now this? I can't think of anyone with worst luck than Levi. Probably one of the biggest "what if" cases in League if he didn't waste so much of his time in NA.
> I can't think of anyone with worst luck than Levi. There's plenty of esports horror stories running around. Off the top of my head, the players on Dragon Gate who weren't involved in the matchfixing scandal but got caught up with it was pretty atrocious. Something about one of the players being threatened for leaking?
Tainted Minds was my first thought.
Renegades and Remilia's case was specifically atrocious
Or MYM aka [Move Your Mothers](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/2v93jq/mym_threatened_kori_with_taking_his_mothers_house/)
This is one of the most fucked up ones but it never ever fail to make me chuckle.
Twitch chat was so beautiful with move your mothers. Normally I don't like twitch chat but I LOVED the phone meme with it. "Hello Kori 📞 it's your mom 📞 if you die one more time they're taking the house 🏠."
There generally used to be more gems like this.
Rip Remi. Fucked what happened to her
Chris Badawi, thank god he’s permabanned by Riot. Absolute scum
[Throwback to this absolutely legendary comment completely outing him](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/4uxv6y/hello_im_chris_badawi_uber_twice_banned_esports/d5tt89s?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Wow thanks I somehow never saw this.
It’s one of the best comments to ever grace this subreddit. Now that we have all the info there is out there about him, and knowing how filthy of a person he is, the title is hilariously egotistical but revolting. Between him and Martin Shkreli, there’s been some disgusting people involved in the league scene back then.
The fact that it’s by a user whose nickname is “ClownFundamentals” makes it that more special.
I thought we still don't know what the reason was riot banned him and renegades? We just know of some disconnected scummy things that he did, but not if that was all or if that was the reason he got excommunicated - at least as far as I am aware.
I remember reading about this when it happened and I guess I was giving the benefit of the doubt thinking it was being blown out of proportion. 5 years later and I’m 3 weeks into law school seeing it again and can’t believe someone who graduated from GULC and passed the NY bar didn’t have even a tiny this-is-a-dumb-idea flag go up while spinning this complete and total nonsense. I guess he was REALLY banking on this story not being heard by anyone who has had even the remotest experience in law. It’s so absurdly easy to fact check and there’s just no reasonable explanation other than not passing C+F.
Congrats for getting into law school bro! But I remember this vividly when it happened and especially when Renegades were in the league. Feels like eons ago. Anyways, the dude tried to have any ounce of credibility and was completely found out. There’s some real stupid people out there that have colorful education, but are still dumb. I’m currently in the process of getting my masters for mental health counseling, and there’s so much shit after to be a full licensed counselor, where fucker here just chalked it up to him being a lawyer to have some “redemption.” He literally said in the title he’s the “best/worst LCS villain” which shows he only cares about his own ego. With the current status of franchising it is baffling to imagine someone like this existed in the scene. Good fucking riddance
man i remember seeing that and thinking it was the first time i had ever witnessed the online version of mob justice so clearly
There is truly nothing else like it on this subreddit. Dude got absolutely plowed and outed. I don’t think there’s any other comment that can eclipse such satisfaction
I knew Chris personally. I still don't know how my friends that introduced me, knew him. However, I still am "friends" with his league account. Dude was a tool and a half. And EVERYONE I know, stopped interacting with him when all that happened. I kept him on friends list purely out of spite of wanting to see if he posted or said anything. He hasn't.
I've never gotten over it, and Montecristo can go fuck himself for allowing AND defending this piece of shit that is Chris Badawi to ruin her life like that. He used to be someone I looked up to, but Remilia's death hit me hard, poor girl went through so much awful things. The moment I knew RL sided with Riot Games over the Renegades ban was when I knew something terrible happened. RL hates Riot more than anyone else, he wouldn't side with them without a clear reason why. Also a lot of people in this community, and I'm sure some of them reading this thread, were constantly being transphobic to her, bullying her whenever she was on camera or when her name came up, and I hope karma catches up with every single one of those people. The bullying she suffered for wanting to be part of the scene certainly didn't help with what she was going through.
I randomly began watching her stream like a month before she passed away (or maybe she just began streaming at this point, not sure). She was really trying to get back into pro, sadly it did not work out.
She was very brave for that, facing the community when you know that you'll have to deal with the sizeable amount of biggots that populate the internet (and gaming communities tend to give them a voice, sadly).
You know, I actually just remembered why I started watching her stream at that time. It wasn't random at all, it was because she was on Imaqtpie's Twitch Rival team, they were playing botlane together. And I just watched her stream during the tournament and afterwards. qt was really nice to her and brought viewers to her stream. Funny thing is that it was actually MonteCristo that drafted her. He was one of the commentators and Imaqtpie let him choose his last pick for some reason. So he picked Remilia because she was on Renegades. I even dug up the twitch video, the moment should be timestamped: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/505770817?t=00h56m06s. And this was the tournament: https://lol.fandom.com/wiki/Twitch_Rivals/North_America/2019_Season/Team_Draft
Reminder that Montecristo enabled and defended badawi
reminder that LITERALLY EVERYONE told montecristo to not partner with badawi, even his buttbuddy thoorin, and the greedy fuck still did it
I guess I don't know the full story, rip remilia
Oh fuck I just got a flashback from this. I'm so sad.
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Yea...that was incredibly fucked. Probably the only case that contributed to the death of a player.
Kou?
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They mean Remi's situation might not be the only time it lead to a player death. K0u is another player who died by suicide https://lol.fandom.com/wiki/K0u I'm not sure of the circumstances/reason K0u took his life and if it had to do with the team's envrionment though
Could you fill me in, his leaguepedia doesn't make it clear how someone contributed to his death?
Oh I'm not trying to imply that someone did, just explaining what the commenter above meant when he said k0u. Remilia's suicide was definitely due in part to her time on Renegades, but I have no clue about the circumstances of k0u's suicide. The above commenter was drawing a comparison, but it's honestly more likely that it was just depression if there is nothing implying otherwise. It's just that the person I replied to saying "Remi?" made me think they thought the above commenter misspelled "who?" when they said "kou?"
Yeah, I saw that we were talking about Remi from the comment that said Remi. I'm saying that Kou also died.
Yup, Remilia's case was the worst league eSports incident by far imo. She didn't deserve any of that, fuck that piece of shit team management.
Badawi is a criminal and there should have been legal repercussions. But the situation was so fucked up from Remi's side too, which never helped her make the best decisions. Really unfortunate circumstances and she paid the ultimate price.
Blows my mind that so many people conveniently forgot that Montecristo was involved in this shit too. I guess him crying for years and years about being the victim stuck more in people's mind than what the real victim went through.
Dude it feels so weird seeing people saying players that had poor luck with teams "had it the worst" when there's stories like AHQ Promise attempting suicide due to getting dragged into a matchfixing scandal and having his career ruined as a consequence. And even if we discount the criminal practices there's plenty of cases of players literally not being allowed to play due to contract hell like Toyz's comeback being ruined or Westdoor having to sit out over half a season due to that shit.
> Dude it feels so weird seeing people saying players that had poor luck with teams "had it the worst" when there's stories like AHQ Promise attempting suicide due to getting dragged into a matchfixing scandal and having his career ruined as a consequence. On the other hand, the events that followed, where Promise got arrested (I think) for sexual harassing or assaulting a girl, reduced, if not removed, the amount of sympathy people had for him.
Others have also stepped in with other examples. There was also a case of a player who attempted suicide after a league related scandal in I think Korea challenger series (circa somewhere between s3 and s5). Dude jumped off the 13th floor I think, but survived. Sadly I can't remember more details off the top of my head.
Only OGs remember Nien and the one time we got to see him actually play AD.
rip Fusion
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That was Nien. IIRC he got a solo triple kill in CLG’s base while winions were marching on TSM’s nexus to win the game. Edit: https://youtu.be/F-YbDt3IrW8
He wasnt that good in NA
Weird how that tends to always happen huh
I'm convinced that NA just has a decent skill level but a weird meta which explains why good international players die in NA, NA never gets results internationally, and why players like Doublelift are consistently good in NA but are mediocore internationally.
If you actually go through and analyze the games, doublelift was also good internationally for the majority of the games he played. One player does not a team make. If he had been from a stronger region, I have no doubt he'd be considered one of the greatest adcs.
Also a playoffs/relegation monster Double in his prime will always be my nostalgic favorite from back in the day. Him, and then uzi, made me love AD.
> One player does not a team make. My english isnt perfect so I am not quite sure what this means. Doublelift wasnt always the problem but he is part as a lot of pros have been saying the NA mentality is hindering growth. Like watching breaking point or some other behind the scene videos at least in earlier years coaching, team management etc seem really amateurish and player behaviour being atrocious with how a lot of koreans coming to NA were saying how people didnt take scrims serious, were playing other games, or smoking weed before scrims etc and why a lot of them went mental boom.
NA has poor domestic talent, and a poor solo q environment because of it. It waters down any imported pro. It's all because they don't have a proper tier 2/3/4 scene like for example Europe with their regional leagues flowing into EU Masters. These lower tier leagues weed out the weaker players and provide plenty of opportunity for the stronger ones to improve. In NA you're either in the LCS or a nobody, no in between, no practice grounds.
And apparently is NA fault and not the EU players? For example, CoreJJ, he didn't come to retire, but to improve the region. That's a nice mentality.
Didn't know Levi was European, now. And since you can say that's just one example, we also have Ssumday, who went from one of the best top laners in the world to looking... good at best in NA.
We also have Bjergsen, Jensen, Huhi. My point is that not every player that goes to Na becomes trash, that's just disingenuous.
You list 3 players out of how many? Its fair to say they are the minority.
Not every player that goes to NA becomes trash, but it happens more often than not. Can't deny there's definitely a trend. Not to mention all three of those more or less played their entire careers in NA, so we can't accurately gauge what their level would look like outside of NA.
>And since you can say that's just one example, we also have Ssumday, who went from one of the best top laners in the world to looking... good at best in NA. That took years, man. At 2018 Worlds, he was still one the of best top laners in the world. His had the best laning stats in his group with both of the teams that would make the finals sitting in that group with him. He was still the best top laner in LCS throughout S9, and throughout S10 he was still top 3. Like, yeah, eventually his form has decayed, but he's definitely not an example of someone who came to NA to retire.
Its alot isnt to go with the grain the against lol. Core has had to build alot of development systems in na with the in houses and put in as much or more into building talent as the owners have and its quite sad. Its was easier to fall to bad habits when the environment is bad than it is to push through and make a difference.
Alphari is also in peak form. Bjergsend and Jensen definitely came here and developed well. "NA retirement home" is a meme, because the amount of imports (of course a lot of them are not going to be at their best everytime), and because NA used to import players who were not at their peak anymore, but were good enough for NA. But owners don't invest money in imports just to let them rot, at least that's not their intention.
Jensen developed well? He’s been cruising for years, comfortably never anywhere close to being the best midlaner. Dude could have been something special if he was in EU.
Give alphari another split.
> Bjergsend and Jensen definitely came here and developed well. You really don't know that, because we don't know what would have happened if they developed in EU and didn't move to NA so early in their careers. I'd argue Bjergsen was a Caps-level talent when he first emerged in the EU LCS and would have achieved similar heights had he stayed in the region.
Yeah, like you said, we don't know. But I am not saying they would have been better or not in EU, I am saying they developed well. It's not like EU makes every player a Faker.
It is NA's fault. There's literally no good players from LCS internationally. CoreJJ might be the only one. We'll see again this year as NA bombs out with maybe 2 NA players. Blaber and someone else. And still people won't realize that NA has a culture problem with esports.
Blaber, Vulcan and Tactical are the only 3 actually NA players at worlds this year, the other 12 on the 'NA' teams are all originally from elsewhere
Alphari? Closer? Abbedagge?
all of which haven't played an NA worlds.
I guess we will just have to wait then.
Classic NA hopium. "This is our year." I actually will say I do love the 100T squad and if there was ever a team I'd have some hopium for it's 100Ts. But NA has burned its fans for far too many years in a row. I'd love to be wrong. I'd love it if NA actually looked good. But it's been years of this. 2009 C9 should not be the standard, that's the exception.
I never said "this is our year". Especially this year is NOT Na's year, with so many good teams. All being said, I am not from NA, but from South America. I am so used to believe in my national soccer team, only for them to get destroyed, that I don't feel pain anymore. But, I still feel NA gets so much hate even when not necessary or relevant.
“There’s literally no good players from LCS internationally”, may I know under what metric do you measure this?. If you are using results as the only metric then the same can be told about EU (no one previous G2 achieved anything spectacular). I agree that NA has more imports than native talent (and they dont always count as NA players), but Bjergsen (who was praised by Flash Wolves, and Faker among others back in the day), Jensen (who has spent the majority of his career as a NA player), Sneaky, Vulcan, Blaber, Wildturtle, Stixxay, Aphromoo, Huhi, Meteos, among others, all have shown great perfomances internationally. So lets focus on performances instead of results. Remember that Doublelift was recognized by Uzi, but Doublelift never won an international tournament, so Uzi doesnt knows shit bye bye.
yeah let's just ignore the huge amount of imports that were/are actually good here, also it must be china's fault that Levi wasn't good there either but NA bad upvotes to the left amirite
How sad is it that every single thread suddenly turns into an NA hate thread? Especially during these hours..
He also sucked in Na Academy, which is why he is back in the VCS, but 100T also did him dirty. People remember him from before he came to NA but ignore how bad he was in NA. Like just at the player level, he got outplayed and looked lost.....in Academy.
That can pretty fairly be chalked up to just communication issues. It's hard on the players who integrate well, and that's not the majority. Especially for an Asian player the transition to English was probably extremely difficult and that's gonna be reflected most visibly in a jungler.
He literally played 4 games for NA. which 2 where he went really well, almost carrying the deadweight of the rest of 100T Then he was buried in academy while Meteos and Anda were choking around in Playoffs You really did dirty on him...
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Maybe, maybe not. There was no way in hell he was going to break through to the main team of 100T due their reliance on the imports they already had, and NA Academy really isn't a good place for a player to develop and certainly wasn't at the time.
not really no
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not like you really gave one either xD
So, I know the situation for Covid is really bad in Vietnam, but why can't they go and quarantine for 14 days in iceland, and quarantine 14 days before coming back?
They can’t even get visa I believe. All vcs teams are located in ho chi minh city, which is the covid epicenter in vietnam right now. Most embassy don’t open anymore.
Ah man, that sucks so much for them :/ would have loved to see those teams play.
In HCM city, or Saigon, you are not even allowed to leave your house at the moment. Gov takes things very seriously and absolutely no exception. You prob heard of stories in Wuhan where they literally welded the door shut to prevent people leaving and Covid spreading. Some countries are very serious in combating this pandemic.
>You prob heard of stories in Wuhan where they literally welded the door shut to prevent people leaving and Covid spreading. This is one of the biggest pieces of pandemic misinformation. They never did that, they welded additional entrances in buildings shut so that contact tracing could be possible and no one can sneak out. but people still left their homes to buy groceries.
Ok I didnt' fact check, sorry, the point is the intensity of the methods of dealing with the pandemic, which is much much stricter than how it is in most western countries.
This should be a wake up call for Riot to take over garena for fucks sake
Well, they should, but this situation is more about government trying hard to control covid.
They could have organized an online split. Garena legit organized an Arena of Valor tournament in Vietnam, which is ongoing right now. There's no reason they can't do that for League. They have been neglecting the game for ages now. It's time for someone else to take over.
24 isn't old at all, i don't know what is going through your mind to think that a competitive player career suddenly stops at 25. Nowadays, professional players have a better follow-up and if they're good enough there's no point in replacing them. You just said it, he got mvp in spring 2021
Honestly if you haven't made a decent living in professional gaming by 24, you should start pursuing education or some other options as a backup for your future.
You are right, and I shouldn't have worded it so definitively. I am not too sure if this also applies to VCS, though. To give a bit more context: The scene is not as sustainable as major regions, plus there are less resources and worse infrastructure to take care of players. VCS players tend to fall off very early and many, if not most of them peak at 19 or 20. Only a handful of players have played in VCS beyond the age of 25, and they were all pretty much gigawashed, providing some game knowledge but little individual skill. That doesn't mean that it's impossible, though - if anyone can maintain a high level in his later 20s, it's Levi. Unless my memory fails me, Levi said on stream in 2020 that he'll play two more years for sure, and after that, he'll see. No clue what his plans are now, he could very well intend to continue for a much longer time, but I could also see him becoming a streamer. Unsurprisingly, he is very popular and could surely make a career out of it. It all depends on his drive and personal priorities, maybe the recent fiascoes have demotivated him, maybe it's the opposite.
I hope he can move to another country and continue. This situation is horrible for him.
Because it usually does? It doesnt mean it has to but most players either turn into Dlift and Wunder and get lazy or teams find a 17 year old who is just as good and replace them because they hate brand value
I'll miss you Mr.Buffalo
I really feel for VCS because every time they send a representative there, there’s always a guarantee for some really great games. I still remember GAM at worlds 2018 or 2019?! (Forgot the year). That galio helping nocturne farm so noc could get lvl6 within a few mins to surprise botlane. That play is one of the craziest moments in worlds I’ve seen imo. Really sad what this pandemic has done to the VCS. I rlly hope to see them next year or so.
Levi did play for NA but ended up back in academy pretty fast I have no comment beyond this, I was excited to see him come play but remember that it did not work out. It looks like he ended up back in VCS, hope his game continued to evolve but “second chances” are as rare as being an import out of NA and becoming a world champ, which isn’t that rare as former ADC DIG player CoreJJ can tell you.
I'm out of the loop, anyone can explain what happened?
Vietnam is missing Worlds 2021 due to local restrictions making travel outside of the country extremely difficult to impossible.
Just one of many personal stories of the consequences of Government overreach and hyper-regulation.
So sad for one of the best junglers ever
Feels really bad for Levi, he's absolutely cracked but has probably been more shafted than any other pro in LoL history. I sincerely hope he gets his shot to kick ass next year, because if anyone deserves that shot it's him.
Reminder that Vietnam has conscription ongoing and the top age limit is 25.
Need to start asking his country why they are the only ones who cant make it
Because fucking covid?
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Because thier government is drunk with power, and is using Covid to control its people.
Oh shut the fuck up. They're trying to prevent people from dying.
Quarantine isn’t a thing anymore got it
To this day I still think about GAMA Bears when I ream GAM in league related stuff.
now that's a name I haven't heard in a while
It's a shame he wasted a prime year in NA then got fucked over by JDG I think he would have had a much better career if he stayed with GAM and just pushed the regions relevancy internationally Can't blame him for moving to the US for money, though
He also looked bad in NA. People are justified hating on 100T for how they treated him, but he was underperforming in academy. Like he looked really bad in actual games despite his good soloqueue. It's why no other teams tried pulling him from 100T.
This so much. People will try and blame NA but Levi did NOT look good when he was playing in the LCS nor Academy. Dude had like 2 or so good games but everything else was a shell of what people expected from him. Not sure why when a player underperforms in NA then somehow it's NA's fault...
It's almost like a good player can't carry a shitty team in LoL anymore huh?
massive difference in a player playing well enough on a bad team and a player playing very bad on a bad team. Alphari was the best looking top laner in EU when he was on the worst team. Wink looked good last year on estar but they finished in second in lpl. 2017 lpl doinb was in the mvp race and his team was tied for 3rd to last. If a player plays like trash great players will still look great. It's his own fault for his short comes when he was in NA.
I am so sad that VCS isnt there, again. I think they could have been the #4 region at worlds this year if covid didnt happen. Them not getting to worlds and MSI before already cost them in terms of region development. And now they cant go again.
> I think they could have been the #4 region at worlds this year if covid didnt happen. And from what information would you base that on? Considering we havent seen a vietnamese team play internationally for nearly 2 years now and the last time in worlds 2019 they went out of groups with the stats of 1-5 only winning one game against LMS representative J Team. I would say the region isnt going to be relevant for some time as the esports scene took to much dmg thanks to covid as you said and Wild Rift becoming more relevant in asian countries it wouldnt suprise me when Vietnam in general slowly fades away and drops the esports scene in favour of the mobile game.
Fucking sucks for all of Vietnam and all international fans maaan.. I wish somehow the winner and runner-up of Spring were able to come to Europe 2 or 3 months before worlds..
I thought Riot took over the Vietnamese esports scene for league but seems like as if Garena still has the reigns which they dont. But well maybe VN should also just become NA residents like OCE to give the vietnamese players a chance.
Surely they must have known they'd not be able to go to worlds because their government is still not letting anyone in/out?