Patience: North America's Lost Virtue
Over the past few years, the North American region has gotten visibly frustrated with its own poor performances internationally at the League of Legends World Championships time after time — the region has lost patience. Fans, analysts, coaches, players, and even owners have portrayed it, and it gets worse each time.
Like clockwork, after a failure of a year, the region always has a moment of clarity, a “self-evaluation” so to speak. Even the years that North America didn’t fail to get past the group stages at Worlds, the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) underperforms, pros, coaches, fans, analysts, casters and even owners take to Twitter and Reddit and begin stating how there needs to be a massive change and the cycle repeats. But no change ever seems to come about. This is one of the four “major regions”, not a new upstart league, not a league that lacks the resources. The LCS has the resources; some might say it has more than enough. Yet the region fails time and time again.
Although in the most recent Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) — dating back to 2019 due to COVID-19 cancelling this year’s MSI — the region did well for itself, sending out Team Liquid who finished second to the powerhouse that was G2 Esports from the League of Legends European Championship (LEC). This would be the region’s last great international performance as every Worlds since then they have severely underperformed.
Click to enlargeIn the past two years, North America has failed to qualify past the group stage at Worlds. In each of those years, they sent out a team who went winless: Clutch Gaming (now Dignitas) in the 2019 World Championships, who were the third seed and qualified through play-ins, and Team SoloMid at this year’s Worlds as the first seed — perhaps the worst international performance the region has ever put out.
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Fan bases, players, teams, and even LCS employees grow impatient, the pitchforks get raised, and heads get called. One would think that the 2019 World Championships were a wake-up call come the 2020 season, but that wasn’t the case. The Spring Split didn’t matter; this even led to pros wanting to cancel it. One of the most dominant teams the LCS has ever seen, Cloud9 in the Spring Split, failed to qualify for Worlds. The teams the region sent out to this year’s Worlds severely underperformed, one could argue that Team Liquid did fairly well seeing how G2 Esports made it to the semifinals and Suning made it to the finals, but that’s not something anyone wants to see. The region doesn’t want a pat on the back; they don’t want a “you did your best”, the region’s sick and tired of being a laughing stock.
Not All Doom and Gloom
The region as a whole doesn’t seem to be trying, but there are outliers. Take 100 Thieves and Cloud9, for example. 100 Thieves' work in the amateur scene is second to none. While Cloud9 has done a stellar job compared to the rest of the teams in the region, cultivating native talent through the Academy Scene. Robert “Blaber” Huang will go onto his second season as a starter now, and Eric “Licorice” Ritchie cemented himself as one of the best top laners the region has ever produced. There are players like Tristan “Zeyzal” Stidam and Juan “Contractz” who showed their merit on the LCS stage. And now, newly promoted David “Diamond” Bérubé, Cristian “Palafox” Palafox Ibrahim “Fudge” Allami get to show what they’re made of. One can even throw Edward “Tactical” Ra from Team Liquid in the mix; he had an amazing performance during his first year of the LCS. There are some in the region who want to be great, but the region as a whole doesn’t seem like they want to.
This is not to say that the region stopped caring - it’s a new season now. A massive turnover for the league has brought a plethora of new faces — over half of the players in the league are new. A new format has been implemented, bringing in multiple tournaments during the year. There are more scheduled matches, giving players more time to hone and perfect their play while it gives more time for teams to gel. Although LCS greats Søren “Bjergsen" Bjerg and Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng have retired, it’s not time for new faces to arise.
This is the time for the LCS to surpass its limits. It's a new era.
A bunch of new faces, a freshly refined format that has been in the works for many years, completely new teams in terms of players and synergies, and a fired-up region should be more than enough. At this point, if a number of brand new changes doesn’t help the LCS elevate itself, nothing ever will.
Images via Riot Games
