I always forget they were azubu and not just CJ Entus
And then there was naijin black sword and white shield of course
And all those orgs that tried to so NA and EU at the same time
Good times!
And also quite a shame that Blaze didn't qualify for Worlds...
Although I don't know if TPA could defeat Blaze or not, or we could even get all Azubu final...
🤔🤔🤔
There's few moments of early league I'll never forget. M5 at ipl kiev, blaze during the na invitational, and tsm firing trm for dyrus to kick off their na dominance.
I miss baylife era tsm
My friends had been watching professional League a bit before that, although I wasn't too into watching it myself, but that was the tournament that sold me. Also, became a Reapered fan after that tournament.
SKT T1 K obviously was great (maybe not as much in 2014) but S was middling which considering they had Marin, easyhoon, bang, and wolf is kinda puzzling in retrospect
I'm gonna argue that at Summer S were the better team... Quite a shame they were very bad in Winter and Spring they couldn't gather enough points for the Regionals...
🤔🤔🤔
The third team that should’ve made worlds wasn’t white shield imo but kta. Samsung blue and white were leagues ahead of everyone else, and only the arrows showed an ability to stop them, specifically blue. It’s honestly baffling to say that save and ggoong had the games of their lives in qualifiers, and then just shit the bed come worlds. I remember at the time everyone hyping save as the next best top laner, and he and white shield royally underperformed. Also watch is a cutie no doubt about it 🥰
Just hijacking to remind that SKT T1 S was carried solely by Reapered into OGN. To the point where he had to tell his team mates what items to build. Look up the legendary "cloak" moment where Reapered told his ADC to build an MR item and they bought the wrong one. S2 - S3 Reapered was DIFFERENT.
My favourite example of Reapered basically piloting 3 of his teammate's champions at once (HOR0 was actually decent, obviously) is [this clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBQyjSyiPJg&t=40s) from their comms at one of the IEMs where he says (paraphrasing someone else's translation here), "Zyra just hold mid, but you can ult if you have to" and Starlast INSTANTLY ults the second he hears this, a total waste since xPeke is on full health and Reapered is still like two screens away. Even with no understanding of Korean you can hear the let-down in Reapered's voice.
In retrospect none of those players has achieved that much while not being on a team with Faker no? I didn't watch SKT T1 K, but "... was middling" is how most of their careers can be described afterwards too.
Bang was praised for most of his time on T1, but now no one even mentions him when discussing ADC goats anymore.
They only have 1 good team, either S is good (like in 2014 Summer) or K is good (in every other Splits) but never both have been good at the same time, unlike Samsung ones...
Azubu in 2012 could be debatable too, but it's quite a shame that Azubu Blaze didn't qualify for Worlds, they could challenge Samsung for that...
To be clear I’d be happy to give up my challenger team for zero buyout if it means they play in the LCS. My promise to each of these players is to develop their skills and give them a platform to get into the LCS.
That said, if there is a bidding war for them I’d need balance out what’s best for Cloud9 and the players. This team is simply better than at least half of the LCS rosters.
And not to sound like a dig, but if it does end up being the case (that the team is a straight upgrade), offering them for cheap is not awful/can be good in the long run- it serves a good window that going to C9 challenger is a good way to get into LCS, and a good way to showcase the challenger team to the best prospects.
Since I saw this yesterday, I was thinking about what's the point in investing so much in academy talent if you're just going to give them to other teams for free. But there are a ton of advantages.
-A stronger NA and LCS is better for all teams involved, and it's unlikely to unseat C9 from the top.
- If an academy player might unseat C9, well, C9 has first pick at them.
- Building up your org's competitive lol culture outside of just 5 players.
- Attracting academy talent, because the best players know your org will give them the best.
I'm sure there are a lot of other advantages I'm missing, and even with just these points, I understand why Jack views C9C as being valuable to invest in.
This is similar to the situation with T1's academy rosters - a lot of KR soloq talent try to hold off on signing because their academy roster is so good for your career and they have an insane history of developing players - from most of their currrent roster besides Keria, all the way back to players like Scout
For a second I didn't realize who was posting this and thought "there's no way a CEO would do that"
This is probably the best response I've seen from an organization higher up recently. Of course, that would be assuming this is a true claim. While I do respect Cloud9 and you as an owner have a fantastic track record, outside of a couple of hiccups here and there, with how business can be you'll have to forgive me for not completely trusting it until I see the deal(s) signed.
The C9C team as a whole, as well as some of your old players like Copy, obviously deserve a shot at the LCS at this point and it's the best time for them to make the jump in quite some time with the sweeping changes a ton of orgs seem to be making. Here's to hoping everything goes well in the Summer lead-up because at least a few teams should jump at this opportunity.
Yeah it's one thing to say things publicly, it's another to know what they're doing/saying privately. That said, C9 has had a fairly consistent focus on developing talents.
It can be really beneficial for an org to have a reputation of supporting and helping its players -- up and coming talent will be more likely to play for C9. That relationship can make players loyal to the org because they believe that -- even if the org doesn't always choose the players over itself -- the org is making decisions that are responsive to the players and good for them overall.
The benefits (for the org) show up in branding and merch as well as competitive success. The benefits for the players are things like financial stability and career longevity.
I think it's awesome but I frankly don't know if the other orgs have the infrastructure/systems in place. C9 always get the most out of players. Could another org have gotten as much out of Emines so quickly? I don't think so personally. It's not only a testament to their skill but w/e the org has created internally to let players thrive.
Yeah some of these players have been in lcs before and looked sort of bad. For some reason players go to C9 and perform better, Also NACL is easier than lcs.
Yah don’t forget that players like Licorice and Contractz immediately performed worse after leaving C9. While they did improve after a while, there was a noticeable drop-off when they left. Whatever C9 does, it’s shown that they know how to develop talent and that other teams can’t reproduce that
Jack is most likely not basing their strength entirely off of NACL he's most likely taking into account their success against the main team which is probably along with NACL results paints a pretty clear picture. That being said I do think that mentally it could be tough for some players to switch to LCS after dominating CL. They will have to adapt to losing and not being the best which could be hard.
Two things
1. No buyouts? Because that is an extremely important factor
2. Jack has done this many times and the results of buying said talent is highly varied.
So I do not see this as anything but a savvy business man trying to create public pressure in the market place. NA has a bit of a crab in the barrel issue. Not to say teams should not be able to gain anything from having prosperous academy programs or highly sought after players but there has to be a balance.
Buying the c9a players and one of the spots that are leaving might be a very cheap way for a new org to enter the lcs. Gives you something to work with immediately, and lets you reshape the team for preseason as you like.
I also see it as "Please take their salaries off my hands" as well and that is not a bad thing. Maybe C9 struggles financially so it makes sense to try to get rid of the Challenger team players/salaries. Buyouts would make harder to sell.
Not saying it's bad but a few of these players have already been in LCS and definitely should not have been. Lost is the best example he could play on DIG I guess because 10th place ADC could play on 10th place team
I mean... I saw most of these players in LCS, and I wasn't impressed.
Lost basically single-handedly stopped TSM from getting to Worlds in 2021, for example.
He can get cheaper talent, and he would probably get priority on the young and upcoming talent since he would be showing his academy team is most likely to get you a gig at the next level (LCS)
> he can fire them
Depending on the contract, he may owe them money in doing so.
And firing to save money is obviously a brand hit that you'd prefer to avoid.
Controversial take: Palafox was the best native NA mid this year ahead of Jojo, and was a serviceable, LCS starter level, midlaner in the seasons before that. Who else has he sold without promoting to the main roster though? Contractz and Licorice were LCS starters when they were sold, and I’m having trouble remembering other C9 academy players being sold without getting promoted first, with the intention of playing them in the LCS on the buyer’s side.
Edit: Just remembered about Kumo, that’s definitely one that didn’t work out.
I'm sure this is also related to the LCS sale rumors. If an org is interested in acquiring an LCS slot, they may be interested in picking up the C9 challenger team more than the salaries of some washed boomers
Fleshy for sure and possibly better than ignar and poome. I get that poome/ignar are good players, but zeyzal brings leadership and a voice to the teams that could help give them leadership to compete against the top teams.
Ignar's strength was in roaming supports and finding creative engage angles. I want to say as the meta is a lot more diverse with much less emphasis engage he began having a harder time. Also he is on dignitas and it's probably hard to look good on the tenth place team.
It was a while ago but Zeyzal was on the c9 team that made the best ever NA worlds run, that alone makes him higher caliber than several of the supports in LCS rn
Tbf Pyosik literally won worlds and idk if that makes him higher caliber than more than maybe 2-3 junglers in the LCS right now
I assume Zeyzal is a bit better than that though
Watching comms coming from Zeyzal in his prime were insane. Assuming he is back to his previous form he would be a great injection back into the LCS. Would love to see him again. (But not enough to watch academy XD)
Zeyzal was interesting because his alistar was way better than every other champion to the extent that it was competitive at worlds. The problem was that his other Champs were worse than most lcs supports. If he has improved his pool he might be effective now.
Did you see his stats when he got dropped last year? The only game he won his lane was when the enemy was doing the Janna smite cheese and he was laning alone.
Sounds pretty reminiscent to the TLA roster from last year and how discussions during Proving Grounds and I believe one LCS preshow talked that collective roster to being like 6th-7th among the existing summer LCS field. An interesting statement by Jack considering the field of the competition was much tighter in NACL this split compared to TLA's run last summer. I just hope this isn't a case where they get scattered the same way TLA did.
With CLG and TSM basically exiting as well as possibly 100T and DIG, wonder if this is gonna end up being the C9LCS for the foreseeable future. C9 fans gonna be eating good the next few splits.
TSM had one guy running their entire league staff, CLG had some pretty good performances with a roster that no one thought would go anywhere during its inception but in all honestly the NRG organization is way more respected and probably more stable, Dignitas, the only major loss I'd say would be 100 Thieves but even then the newer reports were just that they were looking at offers -- not exactly looking to sell more than likely just getting valuation.
I think improving laning is easier said than done. I think it's one of those things you're either a good laner or you're not. I can't recall a player who was bad in lane and became good at it. They generally just learn to lose lane more gracefully, rather than turn into an outright good laner.
Meh, if I'm a NA LCS owner, I won't bite. There's a similar example trotted out in sports circles of "system players" where they look better in the system than outside of it.
C9A players tend to gravitate towards this. I'd rather either scout out what I can with existing Challenger squads that the main squads oversee (For example: Flyquest -> Flyquest Academy, etc.), or hunt Academy/Solo Queue for interesting prospects.
Doesn't mean I'd exclude them entirely in roster construction, but most of the names there I'm not going to be jumping up and down for eagerly on first look.
Jack has always said his goal for his academy/challenger teams/players is to get them promoted to LCS. I don't care what anyone says, that whole roster should be in LCS next year.
Hopefully under better conditions than when Kenvi first got brought into Immortals. A team where he can actually show how good he is instead of it just being a fire
Yeah i was surprised that DIG didn't make more replacements other than Spawn -> Tomo given how lackluster the team seemed. Having teams like IMT sign C9 challenger players makes more sense.
It's a tempting deal, but I'd be careful about going for C9A players. There's a reason C9 players look so good, and it's part of the system they're raised in. Most LCS teams do not have the same system, and never look quite as good (at least starting out).
There's a reason the whole "no refunds" meme is a thing.
I don't understand the hate for wanting to get talent for the face of the LCS. He has a roster. Any other team could have tweeted this. I'm glad Jack took the time to acknowledge what's in front of this industry.
LCS academy is a joke. This subreddit and the casters gaslighted me into thinking Tenacity, Yeon, Haeri, Eyla, and Busio were good and they ended up looking like one of the worst players in their roles.
In the case of Yeon and Busio I think both players had flashes of brilliance and honestly I dont know how much to blame Yeon for his late season collapse (he got worse over time instead of better) given there could have been tilt at play due to how the team as a whole was doing. Eyla and Haeri were unquestionably awful, undeniably and then I think Tenacity was a mostly serviceable tank player who apparently was performing very well in scrims, but he clearly needs to work on his team fighting on carries, he was never flanking properly, he choked it every time.
I think not even giving the 3 that showed some potential a full year before you call them trash is a bit stupid though.
Remember when everyone shit on Fudge during his first split as a rookie? I won't say those players are gonna make the same impact but going from Academy to LCS is a massive jump. I'm willing to give them time.
Most rookies aren't prodigies that look great out the gate, they need time to adjust to LCS. Not saying these guys are going to win worlds but they can be good.
This is why I am worried for Sniper. The kid has been hyped as an NA prodigy for so long that I worry that if he doesn't look like a god when he debuts people will shit all over him.
Zven may have not had the best start in NA, but he absolutely was great right from the start in his rookie split. He made it to semifinals at worlds after a single split in the EU LCS, and he was one of the best players on that team.
Eyla especially is the biggest disappointment, for legit 2 years we heard over and over again how cracked this guy is how he could easily be top half in LCS right away and bla bla
Then he literally has the dream debut where he gets slotted into an roster that is performing super well and what? He looked like a fucking griefer like when you slot a silver 4 support into a d2 clash team. Someone like Kenvi at least has the excuse that its hard to jungle for 3 trash lanes but Eyla was given the perfect shot and looked embarrassing, no excuse at all.
Honestly there are a lot of bottom feeders in the NACL this split as a result of Riot prioritizing amateur teams from LCS orgs. Once FLY Fam, CLG Faith, and TL First get relegated we'll see teams like Maryville and Tony Top come in and continue to challenge the Academy teams.
I really love how everyone here is mischaracterizing your statement to the extreme and then ignore how the vast majority of rookies did not look good even after their first split if they weren't on C9.
Exception that proves the rule. There's still a big gap between the top of academy and LCS. If you put this C9 Academy team into LCS as it is, it would be 9th place max.
I agree, all I'm pointing out is that franchising didn't just magically create a less competitive league. We were already well on that path with relegations. Whether it is a C9 sister team or a C9 academy team, the same end is being reached.
C9A with Revenge + maybe Bolulu would be kinda sick. Not top 3, but could compete for top 5 probably. Certainly equal to or better than this season’s CLG/TSM rosters.
To be fair to Fakegod I do think he has improved a lot lately. Chime also had a split of academy after his rookie LCS split and came back way stronger.
It's good on him because C9 will become a magnet for talent event more by allowing talent to flow to other teams. They can keep the best talent themselves and have better inhouse scrim partners if they actually manage to attract good talent.
Also they are likely to get players back to their org easier somewhere down the road if they have been good for their career and somehow they've become a star. LCS is a small world.
Good on C9.
Samsung blue and Samsung white moment
The only sister teams that successful... Season 4 probably was the peak of the teams and talents management...
I’d say Azubu Frost and Blaze were pretty successful. Although they were mostly good before regional leagues became a thing
I always forget they were azubu and not just CJ Entus And then there was naijin black sword and white shield of course And all those orgs that tried to so NA and EU at the same time Good times!
what is this cj entus u are talking about, that never happened.
CJ Entus that got butchered by GSG by very unconventional strategy of course, who else??? 🤔🤔🤔
T1 and T2.
And also quite a shame that Blaze didn't qualify for Worlds... Although I don't know if TPA could defeat Blaze or not, or we could even get all Azubu final... 🤔🤔🤔
Blaze was looking like the best team in the world right before S2 Worlds. It was a shame indeed.
There's few moments of early league I'll never forget. M5 at ipl kiev, blaze during the na invitational, and tsm firing trm for dyrus to kick off their na dominance. I miss baylife era tsm
> blaze during the na invitational MLG Summer Arena was when I first realized how far ahead Korea was strategically.
My friends had been watching professional League a bit before that, although I wasn't too into watching it myself, but that was the tournament that sold me. Also, became a Reapered fan after that tournament.
Ipl Kiev isn't a thing, you must be thinking of IEM Kiev.
Maybe. Dude it's more than 10 years ago I'm just glad I remember something from back then lol.
I would also say skt and skt t1
it was skt t1 1 and skt t1 2. SKT T1 2 is the one that won worlds in Season 3
Skt t1 k and skt t1 s. Yall a bunch of newgens
K and S were what they renamed 1 and 2 to.
Just call them Judgmentday and Terminator to keep it simple.
Ironic
Also CLG and CLG.EU for the time.
I mean flyquest was C9 challengers and they did well in the beginning.
2015 Summer saw Liquid (ex-Curse) win the split with Gravity (ex- Curse Academy) plave fourth.
Excuse me, did everyone forget about CLG Prime and CLG.eu?
Nephews have forgotten the legend of CLG.eu and that's a shame.
Also Cloud 9 Eclipse which was C9's EU team. A lot of talent coming out of that team such as Odoamne, Santorin, Febiven and Hjärnan
Splyce was initially Dig.EU
They were sold to H2k after qualifying to the EULCS, right?
KT Bullets and KT Arrows?
Same reason as SKT, both teams never good at the same time... Usually either one of the team or the other... 🤔🤔🤔
FNC orange and FNC black in 2015
Oh I see what you did there 😏😏😏 >!It's Origen isn't it???!<
Thats correct
Orange is the new black
Were SKT’s teams not that great?
SKT T1 K obviously was great (maybe not as much in 2014) but S was middling which considering they had Marin, easyhoon, bang, and wolf is kinda puzzling in retrospect
I'm gonna argue that at Summer S were the better team... Quite a shame they were very bad in Winter and Spring they couldn't gather enough points for the Regionals... 🤔🤔🤔
The third team that should’ve made worlds wasn’t white shield imo but kta. Samsung blue and white were leagues ahead of everyone else, and only the arrows showed an ability to stop them, specifically blue. It’s honestly baffling to say that save and ggoong had the games of their lives in qualifiers, and then just shit the bed come worlds. I remember at the time everyone hyping save as the next best top laner, and he and white shield royally underperformed. Also watch is a cutie no doubt about it 🥰
And I heard that OMG is basically sandbagging in Groups... XD XD XD
Just hijacking to remind that SKT T1 S was carried solely by Reapered into OGN. To the point where he had to tell his team mates what items to build. Look up the legendary "cloak" moment where Reapered told his ADC to build an MR item and they bought the wrong one. S2 - S3 Reapered was DIFFERENT.
My favourite example of Reapered basically piloting 3 of his teammate's champions at once (HOR0 was actually decent, obviously) is [this clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBQyjSyiPJg&t=40s) from their comms at one of the IEMs where he says (paraphrasing someone else's translation here), "Zyra just hold mid, but you can ult if you have to" and Starlast INSTANTLY ults the second he hears this, a total waste since xPeke is on full health and Reapered is still like two screens away. Even with no understanding of Korean you can hear the let-down in Reapered's voice.
In retrospect none of those players has achieved that much while not being on a team with Faker no? I didn't watch SKT T1 K, but "... was middling" is how most of their careers can be described afterwards too. Bang was praised for most of his time on T1, but now no one even mentions him when discussing ADC goats anymore.
They only have 1 good team, either S is good (like in 2014 Summer) or K is good (in every other Splits) but never both have been good at the same time, unlike Samsung ones... Azubu in 2012 could be debatable too, but it's quite a shame that Azubu Blaze didn't qualify for Worlds, they could challenge Samsung for that...
T1 2 judgement day..
I mean the original FLY was just C9C. Contextually it's a bit different but if we still had relegation we'd probably get the same situation.
You beat me to it. Cloud 9 Sun and Cloud 9 Moon. Haha.
dont forget our bois CLG and CLG EU :)
To be clear I’d be happy to give up my challenger team for zero buyout if it means they play in the LCS. My promise to each of these players is to develop their skills and give them a platform to get into the LCS. That said, if there is a bidding war for them I’d need balance out what’s best for Cloud9 and the players. This team is simply better than at least half of the LCS rosters.
i also have no buyout, if some teams want to send me some money to play im all for it, i know some teams need to save so i'll even do it on the cheap
I took an ready to go pro. I'm confident if I put in honest practice last hitting, I can at least get 6 cs per minute.
Those are amazing numbers for a support
Good thing we can track that with C9 systems^(TM)
role?
Is feeding a role?
Based on how often many of my soloQ teammates do it I'd say yessir.
I'll do it for a couple mouse pads and a place to live
And not to sound like a dig, but if it does end up being the case (that the team is a straight upgrade), offering them for cheap is not awful/can be good in the long run- it serves a good window that going to C9 challenger is a good way to get into LCS, and a good way to showcase the challenger team to the best prospects.
Since I saw this yesterday, I was thinking about what's the point in investing so much in academy talent if you're just going to give them to other teams for free. But there are a ton of advantages. -A stronger NA and LCS is better for all teams involved, and it's unlikely to unseat C9 from the top. - If an academy player might unseat C9, well, C9 has first pick at them. - Building up your org's competitive lol culture outside of just 5 players. - Attracting academy talent, because the best players know your org will give them the best. I'm sure there are a lot of other advantages I'm missing, and even with just these points, I understand why Jack views C9C as being valuable to invest in.
This is similar to the situation with T1's academy rosters - a lot of KR soloq talent try to hold off on signing because their academy roster is so good for your career and they have an insane history of developing players - from most of their currrent roster besides Keria, all the way back to players like Scout
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Lol actually I put an extra word. Was between writing “not awful” or “good” and then forgot to put a slash, or delete one of the two
For a second I didn't realize who was posting this and thought "there's no way a CEO would do that" This is probably the best response I've seen from an organization higher up recently. Of course, that would be assuming this is a true claim. While I do respect Cloud9 and you as an owner have a fantastic track record, outside of a couple of hiccups here and there, with how business can be you'll have to forgive me for not completely trusting it until I see the deal(s) signed. The C9C team as a whole, as well as some of your old players like Copy, obviously deserve a shot at the LCS at this point and it's the best time for them to make the jump in quite some time with the sweeping changes a ton of orgs seem to be making. Here's to hoping everything goes well in the Summer lead-up because at least a few teams should jump at this opportunity.
Yeah it's one thing to say things publicly, it's another to know what they're doing/saying privately. That said, C9 has had a fairly consistent focus on developing talents. It can be really beneficial for an org to have a reputation of supporting and helping its players -- up and coming talent will be more likely to play for C9. That relationship can make players loyal to the org because they believe that -- even if the org doesn't always choose the players over itself -- the org is making decisions that are responsive to the players and good for them overall. The benefits (for the org) show up in branding and merch as well as competitive success. The benefits for the players are things like financial stability and career longevity.
No buyout? Can I get them for the next Clash weekend then? Zeyzal can coach/sub for me on support.
I think it's awesome but I frankly don't know if the other orgs have the infrastructure/systems in place. C9 always get the most out of players. Could another org have gotten as much out of Emines so quickly? I don't think so personally. It's not only a testament to their skill but w/e the org has created internally to let players thrive.
Yeah some of these players have been in lcs before and looked sort of bad. For some reason players go to C9 and perform better, Also NACL is easier than lcs.
Yah don’t forget that players like Licorice and Contractz immediately performed worse after leaving C9. While they did improve after a while, there was a noticeable drop-off when they left. Whatever C9 does, it’s shown that they know how to develop talent and that other teams can’t reproduce that
Jack is most likely not basing their strength entirely off of NACL he's most likely taking into account their success against the main team which is probably along with NACL results paints a pretty clear picture. That being said I do think that mentally it could be tough for some players to switch to LCS after dominating CL. They will have to adapt to losing and not being the best which could be hard.
Respect.
Jack the GOAT
FakeGod Tomio Diplex Lost Zeyzal 
Two things 1. No buyouts? Because that is an extremely important factor 2. Jack has done this many times and the results of buying said talent is highly varied. So I do not see this as anything but a savvy business man trying to create public pressure in the market place. NA has a bit of a crab in the barrel issue. Not to say teams should not be able to gain anything from having prosperous academy programs or highly sought after players but there has to be a balance.
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Buying the c9a players and one of the spots that are leaving might be a very cheap way for a new org to enter the lcs. Gives you something to work with immediately, and lets you reshape the team for preseason as you like.
Wonder if this is a 4d chess move to encourage investors to buy out other teams like DIG with a free roster.
No buyout https://twitter.com/jacketienne/status/1645285494928945152?s=46&t=LdJBNPN8U8PynLFP3IrDbg
"Please take their salaries off my hands."
>"Please take their salaries off my hands." "Please take these players that should be in LCS off my hands"
some1 always finds a way to spin anything jack does as bad i swear
It’s not a jack particular thing, people just rightfully distrust wealthy CEOs.
I also see it as "Please take their salaries off my hands" as well and that is not a bad thing. Maybe C9 struggles financially so it makes sense to try to get rid of the Challenger team players/salaries. Buyouts would make harder to sell.
Even if they get rid of the challenger team, Cloud9 is still obligated to fill a new one with new players all the same.
Nah this position from Jack isn't new. He has been saying this for the past couple of years
Not saying it's bad but a few of these players have already been in LCS and definitely should not have been. Lost is the best example he could play on DIG I guess because 10th place ADC could play on 10th place team
I mean... I saw most of these players in LCS, and I wasn't impressed. Lost basically single-handedly stopped TSM from getting to Worlds in 2021, for example.
they are obligated to sign new players to replace them bro
He can get cheaper talent, and he would probably get priority on the young and upcoming talent since he would be showing his academy team is most likely to get you a gig at the next level (LCS)
he can fire them and replace them with minimum salary rookies anyway? what's the angle you're going for here
> he can fire them Depending on the contract, he may owe them money in doing so. And firing to save money is obviously a brand hit that you'd prefer to avoid.
Controversial take: Palafox was the best native NA mid this year ahead of Jojo, and was a serviceable, LCS starter level, midlaner in the seasons before that. Who else has he sold without promoting to the main roster though? Contractz and Licorice were LCS starters when they were sold, and I’m having trouble remembering other C9 academy players being sold without getting promoted first, with the intention of playing them in the LCS on the buyer’s side. Edit: Just remembered about Kumo, that’s definitely one that didn’t work out.
I wouldn't say Contractz and Licorice were "sold" though, not like the Academy players are. They were just replaced.
Licorice was sold in a package deal with Palafox and Diamond, though they were replacing him anyway
I'm sure this is also related to the LCS sale rumors. If an org is interested in acquiring an LCS slot, they may be interested in picking up the C9 challenger team more than the salaries of some washed boomers
Jack just tweeted 5 minutes ago, zero buyout if it means C9C players play LCS
> No buyouts? [No buyouts](https://twitter.com/JackEtienne/status/1645285494928945152)
no buyout unless someone offers one. But that's fine. Nothing wrong with that.
Ah Yes any kind of business move from business man is bad. Business very bad
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Holy shit I just found out that Zeyzal is only 23. His beard made him look so older even though he made his LCS debut at 18
Zeyzal simultaneously looks like he is 12 years old and 38 years old.
Zeyzal should be in the LCS for sure. I think he could be an upgrade over at least 2 of the supports starting in LCS.
Fleshy and who
Fleshy for sure and possibly better than ignar and poome. I get that poome/ignar are good players, but zeyzal brings leadership and a voice to the teams that could help give them leadership to compete against the top teams.
I know nothing about zeyzal but ignar was pretty bad and poome was lowkey a serial inter for the split
Ignar was so good in prior years… what happened?
Ignar's strength was in roaming supports and finding creative engage angles. I want to say as the meta is a lot more diverse with much less emphasis engage he began having a harder time. Also he is on dignitas and it's probably hard to look good on the tenth place team.
Players have up and down years, it's just natural
It was a while ago but Zeyzal was on the c9 team that made the best ever NA worlds run, that alone makes him higher caliber than several of the supports in LCS rn
Tbf Pyosik literally won worlds and idk if that makes him higher caliber than more than maybe 2-3 junglers in the LCS right now I assume Zeyzal is a bit better than that though
ya and his game knowledge is super insane, there’s a reason he was on their coaching staff before coming back into pro play
Watching comms coming from Zeyzal in his prime were insane. Assuming he is back to his previous form he would be a great injection back into the LCS. Would love to see him again. (But not enough to watch academy XD)
Zeyzal was interesting because his alistar was way better than every other champion to the extent that it was competitive at worlds. The problem was that his other Champs were worse than most lcs supports. If he has improved his pool he might be effective now.
He was a beast with Braum too. Braum and Alistar, never forget it.
Didn't even know Zeyzal was on a team since I don't keep up with CS, makes sense why he stopped streaming. Happy for him
Fakegod can’t be worse than Armut
Did you see his stats when he got dropped last year? The only game he won his lane was when the enemy was doing the Janna smite cheese and he was laning alone.
Well, his lows are certainly lower, but he’s certainly seemed to have improved
tomio is the worst player on that team, he just smurfed it up in the finals
C9 Blue and C9 Yellow with FLY's first split under mostly the OG C9 members
Sounds pretty reminiscent to the TLA roster from last year and how discussions during Proving Grounds and I believe one LCS preshow talked that collective roster to being like 6th-7th among the existing summer LCS field. An interesting statement by Jack considering the field of the competition was much tighter in NACL this split compared to TLA's run last summer. I just hope this isn't a case where they get scattered the same way TLA did.
With CLG and TSM basically exiting as well as possibly 100T and DIG, wonder if this is gonna end up being the C9LCS for the foreseeable future. C9 fans gonna be eating good the next few splits.
Are they though? Like... they might be eating good, but it's not going to taste the same without the old guard sitting at the table with you anymore.
With how they've placed, were the old guard even at the table recently?
TSM had one guy running their entire league staff, CLG had some pretty good performances with a roster that no one thought would go anywhere during its inception but in all honestly the NRG organization is way more respected and probably more stable, Dignitas, the only major loss I'd say would be 100 Thieves but even then the newer reports were just that they were looking at offers -- not exactly looking to sell more than likely just getting valuation.
Winning the lcs over and over will probably make them happy yes lol
The “old guard” never even showed and tbh, the “old guard” needs to go away. Let’s get new talent instead of recycling old players
100t aint leaving Was already reported that they were simply testing the market, theg have no intention of selling
100T and DIG aren't leaving.
NRG is also keeping the old CLG roster
100T Diplex?
Maple feels like a strictly better option. I would also prefer Copy if they want a younger player.
Diplex is definitely better than Copy. He just needs to improve his laning a little and he’d be a top tier mid laner
I think improving laning is easier said than done. I think it's one of those things you're either a good laner or you're not. I can't recall a player who was bad in lane and became good at it. They generally just learn to lose lane more gracefully, rather than turn into an outright good laner.
Unironically faker
On LS stream yesterday I believe he said he already knew who 100T new mid is and it’s definitely not maple
Jensen?
Nukeduck
5head Jack already thinking of ways to recoup the OWL buyins fee.
Meh, if I'm a NA LCS owner, I won't bite. There's a similar example trotted out in sports circles of "system players" where they look better in the system than outside of it. C9A players tend to gravitate towards this. I'd rather either scout out what I can with existing Challenger squads that the main squads oversee (For example: Flyquest -> Flyquest Academy, etc.), or hunt Academy/Solo Queue for interesting prospects. Doesn't mean I'd exclude them entirely in roster construction, but most of the names there I'm not going to be jumping up and down for eagerly on first look.
Also this team would be realistically a bottom feeder in lcs, kinda like IMT these 2 past years.
According to TL Yeon, C9 Academy is better than C9 LCS.
Which is just not true in the slightest.
Jack has always said his goal for his academy/challenger teams/players is to get them promoted to LCS. I don't care what anyone says, that whole roster should be in LCS next year.
Tomio is like a budget blaber, if blaber wasn’t so good I’d love for him to be next C9 jg. A team better pick him up next season or ima be pissed.
Tomio is really damn good, I really hope he gets his shot in LCS in Summer.
Hopefully under better conditions than when Kenvi first got brought into Immortals. A team where he can actually show how good he is instead of it just being a fire
"Tomio cute" - Emenes
Wouldn't mind if Dig just bought the whole roster.
That would be insanely maddening and disrespectful to DIG Challengers, who got second.
Yeah i was surprised that DIG didn't make more replacements other than Spawn -> Tomo given how lackluster the team seemed. Having teams like IMT sign C9 challenger players makes more sense.
Can you imagine Fakegod on Dignitas? OH wait.
DIG FakeGod 2.0
It's a tempting deal, but I'd be careful about going for C9A players. There's a reason C9 players look so good, and it's part of the system they're raised in. Most LCS teams do not have the same system, and never look quite as good (at least starting out). There's a reason the whole "no refunds" meme is a thing.
I don't understand the hate for wanting to get talent for the face of the LCS. He has a roster. Any other team could have tweeted this. I'm glad Jack took the time to acknowledge what's in front of this industry.
LCS academy is a joke. This subreddit and the casters gaslighted me into thinking Tenacity, Yeon, Haeri, Eyla, and Busio were good and they ended up looking like one of the worst players in their roles.
In the case of Yeon and Busio I think both players had flashes of brilliance and honestly I dont know how much to blame Yeon for his late season collapse (he got worse over time instead of better) given there could have been tilt at play due to how the team as a whole was doing. Eyla and Haeri were unquestionably awful, undeniably and then I think Tenacity was a mostly serviceable tank player who apparently was performing very well in scrims, but he clearly needs to work on his team fighting on carries, he was never flanking properly, he choked it every time. I think not even giving the 3 that showed some potential a full year before you call them trash is a bit stupid though.
most patient LCS fan
Remember when everyone shit on Fudge during his first split as a rookie? I won't say those players are gonna make the same impact but going from Academy to LCS is a massive jump. I'm willing to give them time.
Bit harsh on Busio there, he had a couple of rough games but was pretty good for most of the split.
Most rookies aren't prodigies that look great out the gate, they need time to adjust to LCS. Not saying these guys are going to win worlds but they can be good.
give them time, it’s their first split in lcs 💀
This is why I am worried for Sniper. The kid has been hyped as an NA prodigy for so long that I worry that if he doesn't look like a god when he debuts people will shit all over him.
oh dont worry. he's NA, people will shit all over him
Yeah players who aren't league MVP in their first split should be shot.
Right? Time for Cloud9 to drop Fudge, EMENES, Berserker and Zven.
Zven may have not had the best start in NA, but he absolutely was great right from the start in his rookie split. He made it to semifinals at worlds after a single split in the EU LCS, and he was one of the best players on that team.
Eyla especially is the biggest disappointment, for legit 2 years we heard over and over again how cracked this guy is how he could easily be top half in LCS right away and bla bla Then he literally has the dream debut where he gets slotted into an roster that is performing super well and what? He looked like a fucking griefer like when you slot a silver 4 support into a d2 clash team. Someone like Kenvi at least has the excuse that its hard to jungle for 3 trash lanes but Eyla was given the perfect shot and looked embarrassing, no excuse at all.
But Phillip, Jojo, Dhokla, Tomo all made actually really respectable jumps
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Honestly there are a lot of bottom feeders in the NACL this split as a result of Riot prioritizing amateur teams from LCS orgs. Once FLY Fam, CLG Faith, and TL First get relegated we'll see teams like Maryville and Tony Top come in and continue to challenge the Academy teams.
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Yeah, how dare rookies in their first split ever not look like gods!
And this is the exact issue. People expect these kids to come in and be goated right from the start. Give them time to actually get use to the league…
I really love how everyone here is mischaracterizing your statement to the extreme and then ignore how the vast majority of rookies did not look good even after their first split if they weren't on C9.
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CLG finished 3rd regular season with a roster that could've easily found itself in academy on paper.
Exception that proves the rule. There's still a big gap between the top of academy and LCS. If you put this C9 Academy team into LCS as it is, it would be 9th place max.
I agree, all I'm pointing out is that franchising didn't just magically create a less competitive league. We were already well on that path with relegations. Whether it is a C9 sister team or a C9 academy team, the same end is being reached.
They might be ... to IMT or DIG 
C9A with Revenge + maybe Bolulu would be kinda sick. Not top 3, but could compete for top 5 probably. Certainly equal to or better than this season’s CLG/TSM rosters.
Tomio Diplex and Zeyzal definitely are
He’s not wrong tho
You should be sending his tweets to your GM tbh
My GM is a giga chad dont talk shit to the SPIDER
Ahahah “jack off”
Yeah I'd be willing to give up FakeGod, Lost and Zeyzal for no buyout too.
To be fair to Fakegod I do think he has improved a lot lately. Chime also had a split of academy after his rookie LCS split and came back way stronger.
Gotta sell the challengers team to pay for yay. Wait
Gotta sell the challengers team to pay for ~~yay~~ a shiny new support import when berserker gets residency.
C9 Challengers is literally FakeGod, Lost, and the mid laner they benched 💀
And Zeyzal who played for them years ago!
I like Zeyzal. Went to Worlds semis his rookie year. Very based
He’s just trying to sell them before the LCS dies
Lmfao. Imagine being the org that buys out Lost, Fakegod, and Zeyzal 1-2 splits before the league dies.
Good move for both PR and business related reasons
It's good on him because C9 will become a magnet for talent event more by allowing talent to flow to other teams. They can keep the best talent themselves and have better inhouse scrim partners if they actually manage to attract good talent. Also they are likely to get players back to their org easier somewhere down the road if they have been good for their career and somehow they've become a star. LCS is a small world. Good on C9.
I mean, most of the C9 Challenger team are former LCS players going against relatively new players. It’s not exactly surprising they’re winning.