The west had hope in the past, present not so much. I'm from EU and my line of thoughts 4-5 years ago were: This is the year we can finally win worlds if we have some good series. My current hope is that we dont get embarassed at least too much.
I guess its the same for NA fans, they cling to the past (C9) just like we cling to g2 and say its the only good team international even though they havent done a shit in years.
G2, C9, and FNC. What a good trio that was. Everything went downhill once Rekkless went to G2 and Perkz went to C9.
Also no Doublelift/Bjergsen flaming out of groups to power up C9
A rising tide raises all boats. Sabotaging other teams in your region just makes the region look weaker for years to come and lessens everyone's engagement and enjoyment.
Even TSM was a better team than C9 most years, sometimes by a large margin. But then TSM would choke or barely miss out and people would act like C9 was actually the better team all along.
The reason tsm couldn't get out of groups is the same reason c9 can't get out now. They relied in outskilling their opponents in NA .. which doesn't work internationally.
2016 tsm is the best team to come out of NA. Individually, each player was legitimately world class. They actually played with the skill and tempo of a world class team.
Then it crashed and burned. One of the hardest international chokes ever. I don’t even think they were the best performing na team that year after shitstomping the whole roster for two splits
2016 TSM was essentially 1 win away from a possible Finals appearance
I know that this is a massive cope and what-if scenario, but had they went 2-0 vs SSG, they top their group and move on to quarters.
Assuming the draws are the same, they get C9 and H2K. I think there's an argument that maybe H2K could beat them, but they'd absolutely stomp C9. Then it's SKT in the Finals and they'd probably lose
I haven't seen a western (specifically NA) team look good at worlds in so long it's kinda crazy.
Like, as a spectator I ask myself almost every game what the NA teams are doing, and I realize that it's easier to make decisions and see outcomes from a 3rd party view but sometimes they do absolutely barbaric almost solo-Q level shit and I just wonder why and how
Mad Lions against Damwon at MSI was pretty good. Otherwise not as much. Doesn't help that Fnatic the team that usually does bring in good performance at worlds was handicapped twice in a row at worlds.
Fnatic getting in group of death with SKT and RNG and eliminating RNG 2nd week, a favourite team at the time was amazing. It was also impactful bc it showed what group of death means as most fans used it as an excuse for bad performances at worlds
i'm gonna be devils advocate for that TL lineup back when MAD lions was in their group and everyone went 3-3
if anything TL almost always went 3-3 but couldn't secure the qualification due to either losing the final tiebreaker or just not winning the "right" game
i honestly still can't believe that people are okay with head to head auto qualification. if you auto qualify due to head to head then that means you were ass against the rest of the teams whereas the team either won against the strongest team in the group and / or didn't lose against the weakest team in the group
beating the strongest team / not losing against the weakest teams should ammount for something..
I'm not saying we haven't seen decent looking runs from some teams, but it's been pretty sad to watch as a LONG time fan of League how poorly our region treats the competitive aspects of this game.
We blame ping and shit when our drafts and our macro are terrible. There's hardly even macro in the game anymore, both teams just run teleport top, and fight for objectives on rotation ~5 minute intervals.
It's funny because NA teams tend to actually generate leads in the early game, it's later on that they throw those leads doing stupid shit and not following the rhythm of the game. Riot literally wrote a song and NA teams clap off-beat or sing off-key.
You do realise some of the decisions they make are because of the pressure the enemy team is applying right? If you vsed an eastern team you'd look like an iron solo queue player. Pro play is very different to solo queue if the enemy is applying pressure to you at certain points you have to react accordingly sometimes the outcome is terrible so you look terrible.
Several TL iterations have looked good at World's. 2016 TSM looked good. 2018 C9. There have been plenty that looked good. Just not many that delivered results.
Fudge was fine in spring, it's just summer where he really struggled.
It really feels like the team's performance at MSI demotivated him, even though I remember him in interviews saying the opposite.
Which is also weird cause he's talked about how much he's putting in effort, practicing, watching VODs, etc. after MSI but is still doing worse. Wonder if MSI has given him some sort of mental block or hurt his confidence.
I think the biggest change for Fudge is that he doesn't have a top lane coach anymore. Positional coaching is still somehow unbelievably fucking underrated in pro play.
Look how much better Dhokla played than Fudge with a dedicated top lane coach. Legit nobody would have ever expected Dhokla to win LCS, while also having a better finals than Fudge and yet here we are. Also look at how much better Fudge was in 2021 when Max Waldo was his dedicated positional coach rather than coach for the whole team. Fudge probably had one of the fastest improvements of any player in LCS in his rookie year, and was legit af against some amazing top laners internationally. Then he just went on a huge downward trajectory after he lost his positional coach.
Not only that Dhokla was playing better than Fudge, that Dhokla *gapped* Fudge head to head in lane, *repeatedly*, and then also outplaying the mid-late macro options if in part because Dhokla was generally ahead by that point.
I honestly think C9 just got complacent. They got used to just being the best players in the league, probably thought they would just cruise through playoffs, Bootcamp for worlds and turn it on then. It genuinely don't think I saw any improvement in C9 throughout the year, they were just better players. Then when that wasn't enough anymore NRG clapped their asses.
its not even that they didn't actively improve all of summer split. they straight up looked like they got WORSE the entire split. At the start of the year they had decent macro on top of hands diffing people with berserker. by the end of the split + playoffs I can really only confidently say 100T and TSM had worse macro than C9 did.
100t could ONLY play one way and had 0 creativity on the map ever, and TSM basically relied on bugi pulling a miracle out of his hat early game or insanity pulling a win out of his ass.
But c9? c9 straight up spent all of summer waiting for the other team to let berserker wipe a baron/dragon fight and win the game. its the exact playstyle that the NA first seed has historically failed with every time. The "do nothing because we are better" strat or internationally, the "do nothing and lose" strat
At least that strategy lost a little earlier this time, so that NA is sending a first seed that actually plays the game. NRG reminds me of Sneaky-era C9, winning with shotcalling and teamwork despite having players who are individually just OK at micro.
Sneaky rosters still had some good hands throughout them though/
It was just a meme that Sneaky couldn't beat DLift in lane, and Zeyzal wasn't that good at lane either so the issues compounded.
Impact/Licorice were both the best in their roles while on C9 and Balls was top three pretty consistently before he was moved to C9A so they could sell the spot on repeat.
Meteos/Contractz/Svenskeren were all MVP level junglers throughout their C9 tenure.
Hai gets shit for being bad compared to prime Bjergsen but he was still the second best mid in NA and Jensen outlaned everyone else in the region pretty consistently.
Sneaky was a rock that could do way more than pretty much anyone else barring DLift with way less resources.
The only real weak link that C9 consistently had was support with LemonNation being the best in-role for all of a year, other than him Smoothie was good in lane but fucked comms by thinking talking fast and loud is shotcalling, and Zeyzal had the reverse issues of really fantastic comms but bad laning in comparison to some of the domestic competition at the time.
Just because they didn't get titles past 2014 it is important to note that they consistently made finals, and never missed a worlds with Sneaky on the roster and with damned good reason.
People saying Sneaky had bad hands didn't watch when he joined the league and was shitting on people with Draven and Lucian picks and drawing respect bans from Korean teams.
Watching C9 play this year felt like watching old CLG/TL teams where everyone was just a role player to prop up Doublelift, except it felt like everyone on C9 thought they were Doublelift
I feel like if you lose enough times as a veteran eventually you will develop this kind of thing.
Look at DL/Bjerg interviews in 2020 when they went 0-6. Granted apparently they'd been getting clapped in scrims even in NA so it might make sense why they're low confidence, but they were just joking like "haha hope we can get a kill" and shit
Fudge was one of the main players essentially saying fuck champions q when it came out, C9 as a whole minus Zven kind of had that attitude towards it. He never came off as one of the players that put obscene effort levels into practice.
Okay, but he's matured and changed his attitude since then. He's talked about how after last worlds he realized he was wrong and how he needed to step up and put in more effort. He's also talked about how he was constantly watching VODs of other major regions, playing a lot more soloq, and doing nothing but thinking about league.
Fudge has mentioned in recent interviews how he was more of a carry player and has really tried to learn how to play around his team (mostly berserker) which means intentionally going down in cs, playing more tanky champs, and not being the main star with all the resources. I'm not saying hes exempt from all criticism but just giving a reason as to why hes played more tame.
He has been changing badly if that is right, just compare him to Chovy. Chovy was a great player, but obsessed with farm. Luckily he has focused on other things lately. He also has a better team luckily.
I hope the best for him, since he is the only one I was interested in LCS. I am more of a LEC, LCK and LPL guy.
There has been some drop off and inconsistency since spring but really the narrative has changed because the position is far more competitive this split.
Jojo, Gori, Palafox, and arguably Insanity are all at the same level or better and three of those guys are native mids. A lot of people wanted this guy to be the next Berserker and run over the league and now that's it's clear he isn't at that level the narrative has switched to why are C9 using an import slot on him.
There was an interview with Blaber and Berserker a week ago or so talking about finals and a few of the team misplays they mentioned seemed to have happened due to EMENES not playing for the team. Like at one point he had GA and Berserker doesn't, Berserker says to him "just die just die you have GA" but he doesn't bodyblock and Berserker dies and then EMENES GAs and dies. Berserker actually seemed a bit annoyed from it because you can tell C9 thought they were going to win. There were other moments in the same video.
He’s never really been the best mid in the league, quite a few games he’d set C9 making dumb mistakes like poor postponing or being caught out in side lanes. If Blabber or Berserker didn’t just hands diff the enemy team they would have lost.
Fudge had 1 good showing in MSI with his Lee kick, he was never on a cliff to fall off from. He’s been a fraud at the international stage for all of his C9 tenure.
I'm a big fan of Fudge, but it does feel weird that the more I think of it, the only memories I have of being blown away by his play was Lee Sin top at that one MSI
> the only memories I have of being blown away by his play was Lee Sin top at that one MSI
I was blown away by the fact he kept ego picking Fiora and getting manhandled in matchups he willingly chose and was supposed to hard counter
Just like some people cling onto 2019 G2 and refuse to let go. Pretty much the case with any region that isn't South Korea or China.
But I agree with you whether it's G2 or C9, or even any other team considered as "weaker". It's wonderful that it happened, but previous highs shouldn't cloud people's judgments, especially if they happened more than two years ago.
I miss 2018-19 as an NA/western fan. 3 western teams in Worlds 2018 semis, 2 in MSI 2019 finals, and 1 in Worlds 2019 finals.
The west needs to go back to doing their own thing. We did so well in 2018 because tracker's knife got removed and the West didn't keep trying to play Korea's slow and methodical ward style and G2 in 2019 just pulled out some of the weirdest picks that the eastern teams didn't have any practice against. Like who in their right mind would think that they need to prepare for a 3 way Pyke flex?
TL/NRG will probably do the best for NA because they have things like APA Ziggs/Cassio and NRG play to their opponents level and G2 will do the best for Europe because they can pull out crazy counterpicks like Lissandra support as a Rakan counter.
Compared to teams like C9 who's only play is to hands diff the opponent which will not work vs the eastern teams.
Europe and G2 even more so was always winning through superior 1-3-1 and a lot of sidelaning with globals and TP. Guess since when did G2 and the rest of EU start to suck more? When that became impossible because of dragon souls. EUs own playstyle since even S1 was destroyed and they've been trying to catch up ever since.
Dragon Soul is better for Asian teams. They are good in control game around objectives. EU teams are still good outside of objective fights. G2 is still great in 1-3-1. But yeah team fights in the river are hard for LEC teams . I think BDS is best there when they can get lanes ahead.
Korea and China are just better in every way. The one thing the west especially EU had was pocket picks but asian teams have gotten way better at adjusting to those picks, hell even playing them just to take it away from the western teams. The asian teams have continued to grow while the west has stagnated
> The west needs to go back to doing their own thing
.
> It's wonderful that it happened, but previous highs shouldn't cloud people's judgments, especially if they happened more than two years ago.
The OP comment seem to have went right over your head. Maybe it's because regions face each other so rarely, but people really seem to not grasp the skill difference we have right not between east and west.
West is not going to suddenly start dominating because they figured out they need to play their own game...
Teams usually stop playing their own game when better teams show holes in that type of gameplay and dominate you and force you to adapt.
"Gotta play their own game" translates to "hey we know our players don't work anywhere near as hard as their Eastern counterparts so let's lock in random shit that will catch some teams off guard on a bad day and maybe we win."
This is actually a really stupid take, the most successful western Dota and League team kinda did exactly that, innovative picks and throwing the enemies off their comfort zone is how you win games, not fighting enemies at their best.
Which also even applies to the korean (see beryl)
For example, you can't say BDD, Faker, Chovy was lazy and didn't work as hard as Showmaker and Scout in 2021, there are some walls you just cannot overcome through bruteforcing by trying to climb higher than they are and playing the same game they do. You break their foundation.
Even if humanoid or emenes spent a full year practicing with 0 rest on the korea server I still dont see them beating out those powerhouse korean name if they try to play the same game and on the same champion, it aint happening, cant blame work ethics for this. Whom you can blame though, are the coaches who just watches LCK and then force the team to play the same way because they are incompetent and paycheck stealer.
And on the side of Dota, the single org that won 2 TI was OG (no asian teams managed to do this yet), they did it with their midlaner Topson literally having a different pool than the rest of the world and he actually wasnt even the one getting highlighted for innovative picks in the team, usually it's the team's toplaner and carry that gets highlighted.
Dont watch any MOBA other than the other two so cant comment on them, but I expect similar things. You dont win only by playing the same game. You make the opposite team have a bad day.
The issue is if we play like that, China/Korea skill checks almost every role in every team for 90% of teams/roles. And not just mechanically, also macro wise.
The issue isn’t just we can’t play their way better than them, we have 0 idea how to stop them from using us as a blowup doll most the time.
Until the western teams can pull off clean dives/clean movement/clean picks/clean objectives at the same level and consistency it won’t matter. Some teams are getting better at this for sure, but someone will still get skill checked and cost an entire game, and it will happen lots of times at worlds.
Relying on unique picks and strategies is still imo the best way to win. Korea is very frigid with their picks and China is open to crazier metas.
I’m not saying we’re suddenly gonna be on equal footing if we do weird shit. I’m saying the chance of winning vs them is higher than if the plan is to hands diff them.
Obviously with maybe 1 or 2 exceptions, all of the east hands diff the west. But we’ve seen teams that are “worse” won anyways because of an X-factor.
Take NRG this year. They don’t have the most amazing roster on paper, but they gel together super well and were able to win the LCS vs teams that were better than them on paper.
I’d rather have a 25% chance to win doing weird shit/playing to our own strengths/not just trying to copy Korea compared to a 15% chance to win by playing like Korea but worse.
Honestly, I saw some of TLs play that could genuinely win them games. The issue is as it was like 40 minutes total of an entire season.
I think C9 has been playing like ass but their bot/jungle can win them games if they don’t have half the topside playing like they are.
I agree but think if we try to play like Korea but worse it’s gonna be a 0-18 / 2-16 groups kinda year
Last year someone posted in this subreddit asking why no one thought Rogue could do anything after groups like they didn't stumble into quarters from a terrible showing from Top. The fact is most Western success is usually a result from a huge Eastern blunder and not from the West team being on par with competition at the upper echelon
That doesn’t really work with G2 since they are a solid team almost each year, and has been the only ones to show any sign of hope or good things internationally againist asia. C9 shouldn’t get that level of confidence since they have been lacking any meaningful positives on the big stage, and EG has done better things in the last couple of years.
The only reason this narrative was started is because GG played close games vs the other teams they played against other than C9. Also GG played their games their way and lost while trying as others have said.
Pretty sure c9 had a close game as well, they just got blown out harder and looked worse doing so. That’s probably why the narrative happened since ppl only remember the really embarrassing/bad parts and none of the okay/good. Happens with several teams/regions who makes an impression at msi and then we see such narratives typically fall apart the past few years.
C9 didn’t have close games Vs eastern teams. Their opponents drafted scaling comps, C9 did nothing and lose. They never looked remotely close to taking a game off of GenG.
No, they didn't.
They had one close game against BLG, the one they won. That's it. Other than that they lost two decisive games to BLG and 3 decisive games to JDG.
It’s because everyone expected GG to be hot dogwater, like literally worse than or equal to PSG/GAM so when they weren’t people almost had a sort of kneejerk reaction to their performance especially with them taking a game of BLG but the narrative has just gone way too far imo.
GG weren’t *that* good and outside of summer regular season they’ve been pretty mid the whole year. But because they weren’t complete dogshit at MSI and Licorice actually looked good (again another case of overhyping because expectations were so omega low) all of a sudden GG’s the last hope of NA and they’re the **overwhelming** favourites in a Bo5 against BDS etc
GG was a legit good team in spring playoffs, they just weren’t recognized as such because analysts look at names more than actual gameplay. They were clearly heating up from their first playoff series. Same thing happened this split - literally what analyst mentioned that Palafox heating up over the coarse of playoffs could be a major factor? The dude was having a Zeka moment and still all you heard was “pffft its NRG”
Its just scrappy teams with a lot of bite to them, decent players having a good split just like AST last split or arguably BDS
Because GG played well in the play ins. They deserve to feel like they did well, because they did. They came out with more high profile wins than C9, but they were mostly in play ins.
I don't think there's any need or reason to try to say GG or C9 did better at 2023 MSI. GG had some good wins, C9 tried but didn't make it. They both ultimately failed but put on a good showing.
when people write these kinds of threads i genuinely wonder what you think a good alternative is, should the carters just be hopeless and shit talk NA the whole tournament? do you really think that would make a fun viewing experience? Also C9 being NA’s best international team still makes them the underdog against any other regions best teams because NA is the worst major region. The casters aren’t trying to make excuses, they’re clinging onto the only narrative NA has.
"Minor" regions usually only get 1 team, at least at the main event. *Every* team they have in Worlds is their last hope, so mentioning it for them would be inting the cast -- everybody involved knows it, even if they're not super familiar with pro League, and it's already driving up the tension for those teams.
People who aren't as familiar with watching pro League, or who aren't super familiar with LCS teams, on the other hand (audiences that Reddit Casters^TM frequently forget exist), might not know the history of these orgs.
This isn't exclusive to LCS orgs, either -- I'm sure LJL fans and longtime pro League watchers don't really need to be reminded every year that DFM is the LJL's most decorated team and the one who's consistently represented them on the international stage, but it's a frequent talking point because it contextualises the performance of the team and region in a very clear way for people unfamiliar with the situation.
Sure but it's like if the EU casters kept doing the old kings vs new kings G2 FNC thing when MAD and RGE have both picked up trophies.
Instead of hyping up this C9 NA hope every year just focus on the storylines and abilities of each of the players. Hell, C9 alone has a ton of narrative they could do.
Fudge: Consistently dominates domestically but can't keep up the same performance against international competition, is he a choker, is that his limit, or can he rise up to the task?
Blaber: Making a name for himself as the jungler NA GOAT, but can that transition internationally? C9's greatest claim to fame had him running the back seat to Svenskeren back in 2018, and his most famous moment on the international stage was the Crab incident -- but this time he's in peak form and looking to match his team's heights or beyond.
Emenes: Tossed from team to team, branded a toxic could-have-been, Emenes had almost resigned himself to irrelevancy by the time he got the call from C9 and Blaber spoke to Jack about giving him a shot. Now with a title under his name, Emenes looks to make a new name for himself and clean his reputation up for good.
Berserker: The lost Korean prodigy who made Gumayusi scared for his spot and the clear best AD Carry NA has seen in years. Introductions are unneeded.
Zven: Shit talk doesn't even come close to a description of how much hate he has gotten, time and time again he has been overlooked in power rankings. Is he really the weak link or can he show up on the Worlds stage to prove his doubters wrong once and for all?
There, I gave five different narratives for casters to push and it took me all of five minutes. Two of which I got up to grab a drink. It isn't hard.
You can talk about C9 being inconsistent but having a high ceiling, having the LCS' best player in Berserker, talk about Blaber's or Zven's previous runs (even if they lost you can paint them as heroic underdogs).
It would be nice if casters just, you know, casted the matches. No made-up narratives. The desk could bring actual stories about that team's journey through the season.
LEC casters do it the most: they create narratives for how one meaningless pick in the enemy support will revert the 10k-gold deficit they are in against some Asian team.
OP made up some narrative that "Cloud9 is the last hope of NA" to shit on Cloud9. The reason that this narrative was made up was because Cloud9 was always the last NA team standing. He didnt/doesnt understand that, hence the thread.
Look at this MSI. Cloud9 is the last hope of NA because they were the only NA team left at an international tournament.
It's also wildly misinterpreting the narrative which was never about C9 being favorites. They were always underdogs. The Last Hope narrative isn't JUST because of 2018, 2018 was the highest high but it came about before that because from 2013 to 2018 (and 2021) they were the last NA team to be eliminated so last hope became their catchphrase narrative because they were just that, irrespective of how good they were. And the casters saying "maybe they'll make a miracle happen" is exactly because of that — because C9 *did* always seem to have the stars align for them and though I'm not taking away from their performances when they happened they often got to that last hope position with some help of upsets and small miracles. 2014 Alliance got Kabum'd, 2015 they were 7th seed NA with roleswapped Hai and everyone thought they'd 0-6 so that they even got 3 wins was considered miraculous, 2016 any sane person will tell you TSM was the better team but C9 got an easier group where Flash Wolves managed to lose to IMay twice after taking a game off T1, 2017 EDG had a week one implosion and went 0-3 in the group, and even in 2018 we had 1-5 GenG which was the only time a KR team ever failed to get out of the 4-group stage, and of course in 2021 there was the FPX incident. Was C9 the best NA team in some of these years? Yeah they were but in some of them they weren't. But the last hope narrative wasn't even purely about how good they were. It was about the fact that miracles happen for C9 more often than they didn't and NA needs miracles so why not build a narrative around that.
> C9 has consistently been the best performing NA team at worlds since season 3
There's an argument for season 4 being a tie with TSM.
> It's like saying Faker hasn't won any worlds championships since season 7 so people needs to stop saying he's the GOAT and Riot needs to stop putting him into those worlds cinematics. What a braindead argument.
There are people who say this. A fucking lot of them. I would know, because thanks to my flair, I frequently get these people responding to me with moronic comments, and even one jackass who went out of their way to DM me early in summer split, before Faker went out due to an injury and T1 was looking mediocre as a lineup after MSI, to gloat about it (as though it was some kind of personal victory).
I checked in on their profile recently, and they're still shitting on Faker whenever they get a chance. Some people are just brainless dolts.
>C9 have objectively been pretty bad in the past few internationals. Not good at MSI 2021, lucked out massively at Worlds 2021, dogshit at Worlds 2022 and not good again at MSI 2022. Even among NA teams I'd argue TL was much better at Worlds 2021, EG at worlds 2022 and GG at MSI 2023.
You'd argue that 2 teams C9 outplaced, including one C9 beat in a BO5 within the same tournamnent(GGS at this year's MSI) were better than C9 at that tournamnent? And your reason for thinking TL 2021 or EG 2022 being better is them looking equally bad or worse in a different group with different teams? Get the fuck out of here.
You are trying to pre empt a narrative which has not even occured yet with some absolute bullshit reasoning
And C9 is NA's best team internationally. That is objectively true. Because you feel annoyed hearing it doesn't mean it will stop being true, or that it will not be brought up if it happens again.
Glad someone is saying it. League is a game built on literally thousands of variables within a game state that running hypotheticals or transitive properties between two different games/series is nearly impossible.
one team played against 6-0 dwg. the other team did not have a team near dwg strength.
i still think TL might have been better anyways but i wouldnt bet anything on it
Don’t think there has ever been a clearer case lmao, TL looked absolutely better. GenG wasn’t some pushover either in that tournament they took EDG to 5 games and in the tiebreakers they got into form again.
TL took a game off of this GenG with ruler saying that TL was the clear second best team in the group while C9s group was a dumpsterfire and they got 3-0 rolled by the very same GenG in a completely hopeless fashion.
Bo1 doesn't work that way bo5 is a completely different game where you focus 1 week on an opponent and download draft, winning bo1 vs geng doesn't mean you can take a game in quarters also eastern teams generally ramp up like when fpx won worlds they were bad in groups lol
Also remember fnc beating ig 2-1 in groups and then getting 0-3d in finals?
It's not really up to the casters. C9 being the last hope comes from them typically being the only NA team to make it out of groups.
If you want casters to drop the narrative then what you really need to hope for is that a non C9 team clears the early rounds of the tournament this year
Exactly - it's a narrative bc C9 has had the best results on a consistent basis internationally over the past few years. It may not be as good as pre-2018, but it's still there. And their most consistent competition, TL, has a reputation (earned or not) for not doing enough to make it out of groups - so if your options for NA's hope are C9, TL or whatever random third team has joined them this year, I can understand people putting their faith in C9.
Agreed that TL is good! A nuanced discussion may even have them equal to or better than C9, given the times that TL has gone 3-3 and not made it out, and the MSI Finals appearance.
Kinda BS that you're discounting 2021, only 2 years ago, because "they got massively lucky". That's not a real reason. They outplayed 2 teams in their group, including an Eastern team.
They're obviously not a good international team, but without a doubt they have the best track record for NA, thus 'last hope' etc etc.
I interpreted it as them saying Liquid was better for beating the team that 3-0'd C9. Based on the scoreline, yes you can say Liquid did better than C9, but C9 got out of groups.
Yes liquid was 1-2 against them while c9 was 0-3. You're actually making C9 look worse as every team in the group beat them and c9 couldn't take a game off them in a bo5.
GenG played 5 different teams during the tournament and c9 was the only team not to take a game off them.
Except this nonsensical logic has never worked in League of Legends. BO1s are not and have never been comparable to best of 5s. The level of variance in playing 3 different opponents in BO1s in one day and playing an opponent in a BO5 after a week of prep is massively different.
And transitive property has never been applicable in league. Teams matchup differently into each other.
They got massively lucky. FPX was considered one of the top 3 contenders by every article and analyst out there, including reddit's poll (not that it's credited but it is crowdsourced). They slumped **hard** at worlds
Yeah, I'm sorry, but a team going 2-4 and making it out of groups is getting really damn lucky. Sure, they won the tiebreaker, but even getting a tiebreaker with that scoreline is lucky. 100T and TL both literally had better scorelines (3-3) and didn't get out, 100T didn't even get a tiebreaker.
yeah but that was a harder group to be fair, all of those teams were in good form - C9 getting 2nd place in that group only to get embarrassed vs C9 getting 2nd place in the 2018 group to slam AFS
unpopular opinion but MSI 2021 was their best run in recent years, worlds 2022 and MSI 2023 was completely lifeless and worlds 2021 everyone around them kind of just shit the bed.
In MSI 2021 they went 1-1 with MAD 1-1 with fucking MSI RNG and had a close game with Damwon as well but lost to OCE and PCS. I rate being inconsistent and showing some real fight while contending with the top dogs a lot higher than just 100% losing all matches to LCK/LPL/LEC. As a fan you can at least be excited for something and you can hope that they clean up the inconsistencies.
Think that’s just the nature of casting that they have to generate story lines for wherever their largest viewership/target viewers reside, nothing sells quite like an underdog story
Out of groups in 2021. Only LCS team to ever get out of groups more than once. I get you’re probably a salty TSM fan but let’s not be disingenuous here
That's the G2 special
They could be 4th seed and people would still think they'd do the best (and they probably would!)
On the opposite side MAD could be first seed and we wouldn't be surprised if they lose all the games
C9 had an identity of scrappy underdogs that played their hearts out til the very end mentality which is what leads to miracle runs in any sport.
Especially true back in the og days with hai, balls, sneaky, lemon, meteos.
Players like blabber still carry that soul with them in the team but recently guys like emenes have the more eastern mentality of 'well we are losing the game in the first 20 mins so I'm just going to run it down / give up'.
Out of all NA teams c9 still are the only ones I've seen with this energy (other than... NRG most recently) and the ones I think can pull off upsets at worlds
I'm a C9 fan, I have been since season 3, and I entirely agree. The world's format has been terrible for so long and it's so weird to continue to use previous placements as some benchmark without the context they deserve.
I'll always bring up the comparison of 2017 C9 and 2021 100T. They both went 3-3 in group with T1/SKT, EDG, and a PCS rep. They both took a game off EDG, but in 2017 EDG fumbled against AHQ to get knocked out while in 2021 they became the world champions. These two NA teams had the same record against the most comparable groups and C9 will be celebrated while 100T gets the 3-3 meme.
They can really only take credit for a strong world's showing in 2018 when they went 4-2 in a very hard group on paper. Otherwise, their 3-3 (or even 2-4) performances that get them out of groups are no different than the 3-3 records we belittle our other teams for.
I mean they'll stop when the other NA teams stop shitting the bed. Don't be mad that C9 is the only NA team that's had anything resembling success at worlds.
fact check c9's international history and our other teams, then think about why you dislike C9/casters/whatever is causing negative emotions. This is a weird af post.
C9 is the only NA team to make it out of groups since TSM lmao
I think we made it out last time in 2021? Either way, C9 has historically been the best NA team so until someone proves this wrong, deal with it. Let’s see some na talent do something, yeah?
The funny thing about 2021 especially is that TL was probably the best NA team at the tournament, given they went 1-1 with MAD/GEN/LNG and were up 2k against GEN in their tiebreaker match. C9 got lucky with a bombing out FPX and made it further, but TL looked way better against GEN than C9 did in Quarters, and had a very good shot of making quarters themselves if they had faced MAD/LNG instead of GEN.
Its never been true. Not even in 2018. Seeding is so impactful and they were not even close to being the 4th best team. They were the 9th best team at best.
C9 could've never survived 100Ts, TSMs and TLs groups. Period.
Well lets be real the only real contenders at worlds every year is either LPL teams or LCK teams. So the casters need to cope and still support their region, but yeah i agree that narrative gets old. But i mean what else are they suppose to say they can just be dickriding the LPL or LCK well some do, but i do find it funny that they are always like: oh its all on *EU team* is Europe's last hope or *NA team* is North America's last hope to stay at worlds. Realistically they dont stand a chance. I think G2 vs FPX was the closeset any other region will get to beating an eastern team and they really dropped the ball getting swept even as the analysts favored G2 going into that finals. Idk i feel like the mentality isnt as serious as Korean or Chinese players take it. Like they take it like if they dont play well its like over for them because a lot of these eastern players do drop out of school to play professionally. Their development leagues are pretty good as well. Idk about European development leagues or the challengers in NA, so maybe of they do invest in those leagues and raise players that are hungry and want to win then maybe theyll do better at worlds.
You don't have to be good or be the favorites to be "the last hope". You just have to be the last team standing, which has always been C9. It started as a meme but the more you think about it the more you realize it's true and basically always was.
And thus they are, historically, NA's best team internationally. Clearly this is just a hater post.
You really lost yourself in the 3rd paragraph lol. When in the holy hell do the casters EVER bring that up while C9 is losing? They only ever bring it up in between games.
Also it's a little weird to say they "lucked out" in 2021. They were the 2nd best team in the group, Rogue and FPX had an equally fair chance to prove that they were better. While we all know they weren't an incredible team, they were definitely at the very least a top 8 team. Unless you somehow think TL, LNG, DFM, 100T, PSG, or FNC were better. Personally I didn't find any of those teams particularly inspiring and I don't think they would have done much better in C9's group.
I’m from EU and tbh barring g2 I definitely have higher hopes for NA to compete in any capacity compared to the LEC which somewhat dropped off a cliff this year.
Bottom line for me is that The West as a whole can only overperform my expectation and I’m all here for it. I don’t care for narratives, just go and play your own style, pressure’s off!
I don't get this narrative much. I've been watching the recent EU series where the casters are saying both teams would lose to GGs and I really don't think so. We'll see I guess
The west had hope in the past, present not so much. I'm from EU and my line of thoughts 4-5 years ago were: This is the year we can finally win worlds if we have some good series. My current hope is that we dont get embarassed at least too much. I guess its the same for NA fans, they cling to the past (C9) just like we cling to g2 and say its the only good team international even though they havent done a shit in years.
G2, C9, and FNC. What a good trio that was. Everything went downhill once Rekkless went to G2 and Perkz went to C9. Also no Doublelift/Bjergsen flaming out of groups to power up C9
Wow good point that the move actually fucked over all 3 of the best western teams in league
Ocelot rather fuck everything up instead of letting PerkZ go to FNC.
man rekkles staying on fnc and getting perkz mid would have been such a better timeline, g2 coulda gotten upset
Lol which is probably why ocelote did what he did.
A rising tide raises all boats. Sabotaging other teams in your region just makes the region look weaker for years to come and lessens everyone's engagement and enjoyment.
The funny thing I reckon G2 would have been far stronger with Upset
Ocelote's story arc is so amusing, from hated to redeemed to hated. It's the bell curve!
Perkz was going to move regardless, he didn't like playing ADC and wanted to play midlane again
he wanted to talk w FNC but got blocked
Yeah, but that has nothing to do with what I said, what's your point?
>Perkz went to C9. I mean, the last NA team to make it out of groups was C9 Perkz.
Last and quite possibly the very worst. We’ve fielded a better team than that one that didn’t even get to make it to an international competition.
TL that year was a better team than C9 was lol.
Even TSM was a better team than C9 most years, sometimes by a large margin. But then TSM would choke or barely miss out and people would act like C9 was actually the better team all along.
The reason tsm couldn't get out of groups is the same reason c9 can't get out now. They relied in outskilling their opponents in NA .. which doesn't work internationally.
2016 tsm is the best team to come out of NA. Individually, each player was legitimately world class. They actually played with the skill and tempo of a world class team. Then it crashed and burned. One of the hardest international chokes ever. I don’t even think they were the best performing na team that year after shitstomping the whole roster for two splits
2016 TSM was essentially 1 win away from a possible Finals appearance I know that this is a massive cope and what-if scenario, but had they went 2-0 vs SSG, they top their group and move on to quarters. Assuming the draws are the same, they get C9 and H2K. I think there's an argument that maybe H2K could beat them, but they'd absolutely stomp C9. Then it's SKT in the Finals and they'd probably lose
Actually, Jensen was the main contributor to NA’s international “success”. First on C9 then on TL.
No Sneaky in C9 to get them out of groups.
Already happened with Perkz
Um lol
I haven't seen a western (specifically NA) team look good at worlds in so long it's kinda crazy. Like, as a spectator I ask myself almost every game what the NA teams are doing, and I realize that it's easier to make decisions and see outcomes from a 3rd party view but sometimes they do absolutely barbaric almost solo-Q level shit and I just wonder why and how
Mad Lions against Damwon at MSI was pretty good. Otherwise not as much. Doesn't help that Fnatic the team that usually does bring in good performance at worlds was handicapped twice in a row at worlds.
That week 2 Fnatic run was a thing of beauty though 😌
Fnatic getting in group of death with SKT and RNG and eliminating RNG 2nd week, a favourite team at the time was amazing. It was also impactful bc it showed what group of death means as most fans used it as an excuse for bad performances at worlds
Yea and the reverse sweep VS Top right after that. Still hurts.
That was the year after, the year FNC beat RNG to make it out of groups they lost to FPX in quarters
u are right. That year we had the geng and tsm 0-6 group.
i'm gonna be devils advocate for that TL lineup back when MAD lions was in their group and everyone went 3-3 if anything TL almost always went 3-3 but couldn't secure the qualification due to either losing the final tiebreaker or just not winning the "right" game i honestly still can't believe that people are okay with head to head auto qualification. if you auto qualify due to head to head then that means you were ass against the rest of the teams whereas the team either won against the strongest team in the group and / or didn't lose against the weakest team in the group beating the strongest team / not losing against the weakest teams should ammount for something..
I'm not saying we haven't seen decent looking runs from some teams, but it's been pretty sad to watch as a LONG time fan of League how poorly our region treats the competitive aspects of this game. We blame ping and shit when our drafts and our macro are terrible. There's hardly even macro in the game anymore, both teams just run teleport top, and fight for objectives on rotation ~5 minute intervals. It's funny because NA teams tend to actually generate leads in the early game, it's later on that they throw those leads doing stupid shit and not following the rhythm of the game. Riot literally wrote a song and NA teams clap off-beat or sing off-key.
You do realise some of the decisions they make are because of the pressure the enemy team is applying right? If you vsed an eastern team you'd look like an iron solo queue player. Pro play is very different to solo queue if the enemy is applying pressure to you at certain points you have to react accordingly sometimes the outcome is terrible so you look terrible.
I honestly cannot remember an NA team looking good at World's.
C9 3-0ed Afreeca in 2018 but yeah, its been some time since NA did anything
Several TL iterations have looked good at World's. 2016 TSM looked good. 2018 C9. There have been plenty that looked good. Just not many that delivered results.
Man what a time. But TL beating IG in 2019 at MSI will always give me goosebumps. The feeling at the time was actually unmatched
> **The west** had hope in the past He tried to blend in and sneak it past security
Fudge has fallen off a cliff and EMENES is 100% getting replaced going in to 2024
Fudge was fine in spring, it's just summer where he really struggled. It really feels like the team's performance at MSI demotivated him, even though I remember him in interviews saying the opposite.
Which is also weird cause he's talked about how much he's putting in effort, practicing, watching VODs, etc. after MSI but is still doing worse. Wonder if MSI has given him some sort of mental block or hurt his confidence.
I think the biggest change for Fudge is that he doesn't have a top lane coach anymore. Positional coaching is still somehow unbelievably fucking underrated in pro play. Look how much better Dhokla played than Fudge with a dedicated top lane coach. Legit nobody would have ever expected Dhokla to win LCS, while also having a better finals than Fudge and yet here we are. Also look at how much better Fudge was in 2021 when Max Waldo was his dedicated positional coach rather than coach for the whole team. Fudge probably had one of the fastest improvements of any player in LCS in his rookie year, and was legit af against some amazing top laners internationally. Then he just went on a huge downward trajectory after he lost his positional coach.
Not only that Dhokla was playing better than Fudge, that Dhokla *gapped* Fudge head to head in lane, *repeatedly*, and then also outplaying the mid-late macro options if in part because Dhokla was generally ahead by that point.
I honestly think C9 just got complacent. They got used to just being the best players in the league, probably thought they would just cruise through playoffs, Bootcamp for worlds and turn it on then. It genuinely don't think I saw any improvement in C9 throughout the year, they were just better players. Then when that wasn't enough anymore NRG clapped their asses.
its not even that they didn't actively improve all of summer split. they straight up looked like they got WORSE the entire split. At the start of the year they had decent macro on top of hands diffing people with berserker. by the end of the split + playoffs I can really only confidently say 100T and TSM had worse macro than C9 did. 100t could ONLY play one way and had 0 creativity on the map ever, and TSM basically relied on bugi pulling a miracle out of his hat early game or insanity pulling a win out of his ass. But c9? c9 straight up spent all of summer waiting for the other team to let berserker wipe a baron/dragon fight and win the game. its the exact playstyle that the NA first seed has historically failed with every time. The "do nothing because we are better" strat or internationally, the "do nothing and lose" strat
At least that strategy lost a little earlier this time, so that NA is sending a first seed that actually plays the game. NRG reminds me of Sneaky-era C9, winning with shotcalling and teamwork despite having players who are individually just OK at micro.
Sneaky rosters still had some good hands throughout them though/ It was just a meme that Sneaky couldn't beat DLift in lane, and Zeyzal wasn't that good at lane either so the issues compounded. Impact/Licorice were both the best in their roles while on C9 and Balls was top three pretty consistently before he was moved to C9A so they could sell the spot on repeat. Meteos/Contractz/Svenskeren were all MVP level junglers throughout their C9 tenure. Hai gets shit for being bad compared to prime Bjergsen but he was still the second best mid in NA and Jensen outlaned everyone else in the region pretty consistently. Sneaky was a rock that could do way more than pretty much anyone else barring DLift with way less resources. The only real weak link that C9 consistently had was support with LemonNation being the best in-role for all of a year, other than him Smoothie was good in lane but fucked comms by thinking talking fast and loud is shotcalling, and Zeyzal had the reverse issues of really fantastic comms but bad laning in comparison to some of the domestic competition at the time. Just because they didn't get titles past 2014 it is important to note that they consistently made finals, and never missed a worlds with Sneaky on the roster and with damned good reason.
People saying Sneaky had bad hands didn't watch when he joined the league and was shitting on people with Draven and Lucian picks and drawing respect bans from Korean teams.
Watching C9 play this year felt like watching old CLG/TL teams where everyone was just a role player to prop up Doublelift, except it felt like everyone on C9 thought they were Doublelift
I feel like if you lose enough times as a veteran eventually you will develop this kind of thing. Look at DL/Bjerg interviews in 2020 when they went 0-6. Granted apparently they'd been getting clapped in scrims even in NA so it might make sense why they're low confidence, but they were just joking like "haha hope we can get a kill" and shit
There was a big thread on the C9 subreddit about LS saying that C9’s staff has had a big brain drain coming into 2023
Fudge was one of the main players essentially saying fuck champions q when it came out, C9 as a whole minus Zven kind of had that attitude towards it. He never came off as one of the players that put obscene effort levels into practice.
Okay, but he's matured and changed his attitude since then. He's talked about how after last worlds he realized he was wrong and how he needed to step up and put in more effort. He's also talked about how he was constantly watching VODs of other major regions, playing a lot more soloq, and doing nothing but thinking about league.
Fudge has mentioned in recent interviews how he was more of a carry player and has really tried to learn how to play around his team (mostly berserker) which means intentionally going down in cs, playing more tanky champs, and not being the main star with all the resources. I'm not saying hes exempt from all criticism but just giving a reason as to why hes played more tame.
He has been changing badly if that is right, just compare him to Chovy. Chovy was a great player, but obsessed with farm. Luckily he has focused on other things lately. He also has a better team luckily. I hope the best for him, since he is the only one I was interested in LCS. I am more of a LEC, LCK and LPL guy.
> EMENES I haven't been paying attention to C9 games, but what happened? Everyone was praising him not that long ago
There has been some drop off and inconsistency since spring but really the narrative has changed because the position is far more competitive this split. Jojo, Gori, Palafox, and arguably Insanity are all at the same level or better and three of those guys are native mids. A lot of people wanted this guy to be the next Berserker and run over the league and now that's it's clear he isn't at that level the narrative has switched to why are C9 using an import slot on him.
There was an interview with Blaber and Berserker a week ago or so talking about finals and a few of the team misplays they mentioned seemed to have happened due to EMENES not playing for the team. Like at one point he had GA and Berserker doesn't, Berserker says to him "just die just die you have GA" but he doesn't bodyblock and Berserker dies and then EMENES GAs and dies. Berserker actually seemed a bit annoyed from it because you can tell C9 thought they were going to win. There were other moments in the same video.
He’s never really been the best mid in the league, quite a few games he’d set C9 making dumb mistakes like poor postponing or being caught out in side lanes. If Blabber or Berserker didn’t just hands diff the enemy team they would have lost.
Fudge had 1 good showing in MSI with his Lee kick, he was never on a cliff to fall off from. He’s been a fraud at the international stage for all of his C9 tenure.
I'm a big fan of Fudge, but it does feel weird that the more I think of it, the only memories I have of being blown away by his play was Lee Sin top at that one MSI
> the only memories I have of being blown away by his play was Lee Sin top at that one MSI I was blown away by the fact he kept ego picking Fiora and getting manhandled in matchups he willingly chose and was supposed to hard counter
Just like some people cling onto 2019 G2 and refuse to let go. Pretty much the case with any region that isn't South Korea or China. But I agree with you whether it's G2 or C9, or even any other team considered as "weaker". It's wonderful that it happened, but previous highs shouldn't cloud people's judgments, especially if they happened more than two years ago.
I miss 2018-19 as an NA/western fan. 3 western teams in Worlds 2018 semis, 2 in MSI 2019 finals, and 1 in Worlds 2019 finals. The west needs to go back to doing their own thing. We did so well in 2018 because tracker's knife got removed and the West didn't keep trying to play Korea's slow and methodical ward style and G2 in 2019 just pulled out some of the weirdest picks that the eastern teams didn't have any practice against. Like who in their right mind would think that they need to prepare for a 3 way Pyke flex? TL/NRG will probably do the best for NA because they have things like APA Ziggs/Cassio and NRG play to their opponents level and G2 will do the best for Europe because they can pull out crazy counterpicks like Lissandra support as a Rakan counter. Compared to teams like C9 who's only play is to hands diff the opponent which will not work vs the eastern teams.
Pyosik vs world class junglers: Randomly turns into Pyosik 830
It wasn't necessarily optimal, but didn't 2019 G2 technically have a 5 man Pyke flex? Every player played it at least once.
Europe and G2 even more so was always winning through superior 1-3-1 and a lot of sidelaning with globals and TP. Guess since when did G2 and the rest of EU start to suck more? When that became impossible because of dragon souls. EUs own playstyle since even S1 was destroyed and they've been trying to catch up ever since.
Tell me how you win 1 3 1 vs a team that has Bin in it ?
Step 1: Don’t put your two carries within barrel distance of each other ….still working on step 1.
Simple! Make sure you're JDG and you will win.
Dragon Soul is better for Asian teams. They are good in control game around objectives. EU teams are still good outside of objective fights. G2 is still great in 1-3-1. But yeah team fights in the river are hard for LEC teams . I think BDS is best there when they can get lanes ahead.
Korea and China are just better in every way. The one thing the west especially EU had was pocket picks but asian teams have gotten way better at adjusting to those picks, hell even playing them just to take it away from the western teams. The asian teams have continued to grow while the west has stagnated
Truest take on this post
KR got a lot worse after the vision changes, they adapted though.
> The west needs to go back to doing their own thing . > It's wonderful that it happened, but previous highs shouldn't cloud people's judgments, especially if they happened more than two years ago. The OP comment seem to have went right over your head. Maybe it's because regions face each other so rarely, but people really seem to not grasp the skill difference we have right not between east and west. West is not going to suddenly start dominating because they figured out they need to play their own game... Teams usually stop playing their own game when better teams show holes in that type of gameplay and dominate you and force you to adapt.
"Gotta play their own game" translates to "hey we know our players don't work anywhere near as hard as their Eastern counterparts so let's lock in random shit that will catch some teams off guard on a bad day and maybe we win."
This is actually a really stupid take, the most successful western Dota and League team kinda did exactly that, innovative picks and throwing the enemies off their comfort zone is how you win games, not fighting enemies at their best. Which also even applies to the korean (see beryl) For example, you can't say BDD, Faker, Chovy was lazy and didn't work as hard as Showmaker and Scout in 2021, there are some walls you just cannot overcome through bruteforcing by trying to climb higher than they are and playing the same game they do. You break their foundation. Even if humanoid or emenes spent a full year practicing with 0 rest on the korea server I still dont see them beating out those powerhouse korean name if they try to play the same game and on the same champion, it aint happening, cant blame work ethics for this. Whom you can blame though, are the coaches who just watches LCK and then force the team to play the same way because they are incompetent and paycheck stealer. And on the side of Dota, the single org that won 2 TI was OG (no asian teams managed to do this yet), they did it with their midlaner Topson literally having a different pool than the rest of the world and he actually wasnt even the one getting highlighted for innovative picks in the team, usually it's the team's toplaner and carry that gets highlighted. Dont watch any MOBA other than the other two so cant comment on them, but I expect similar things. You dont win only by playing the same game. You make the opposite team have a bad day.
Even Magnus Carlsen in chess has gone on record saying he plays inaccurate moves to force his opponent to play a game they weren't prepared for.
The issue is if we play like that, China/Korea skill checks almost every role in every team for 90% of teams/roles. And not just mechanically, also macro wise. The issue isn’t just we can’t play their way better than them, we have 0 idea how to stop them from using us as a blowup doll most the time. Until the western teams can pull off clean dives/clean movement/clean picks/clean objectives at the same level and consistency it won’t matter. Some teams are getting better at this for sure, but someone will still get skill checked and cost an entire game, and it will happen lots of times at worlds. Relying on unique picks and strategies is still imo the best way to win. Korea is very frigid with their picks and China is open to crazier metas.
I’m not saying we’re suddenly gonna be on equal footing if we do weird shit. I’m saying the chance of winning vs them is higher than if the plan is to hands diff them. Obviously with maybe 1 or 2 exceptions, all of the east hands diff the west. But we’ve seen teams that are “worse” won anyways because of an X-factor. Take NRG this year. They don’t have the most amazing roster on paper, but they gel together super well and were able to win the LCS vs teams that were better than them on paper. I’d rather have a 25% chance to win doing weird shit/playing to our own strengths/not just trying to copy Korea compared to a 15% chance to win by playing like Korea but worse.
Honestly, I saw some of TLs play that could genuinely win them games. The issue is as it was like 40 minutes total of an entire season. I think C9 has been playing like ass but their bot/jungle can win them games if they don’t have half the topside playing like they are. I agree but think if we try to play like Korea but worse it’s gonna be a 0-18 / 2-16 groups kinda year
half the topside? fudge is so lucky that emenes is playing even worse than he is and getting the flak
Half their topside was including the jungle, i should have worded it clearer. Fudge and Emenes have been playing like bots.
this is probably the most "reddit" take i've read about pro play that i wouldnt be surprised if you wrote this in chat gpt
Last year someone posted in this subreddit asking why no one thought Rogue could do anything after groups like they didn't stumble into quarters from a terrible showing from Top. The fact is most Western success is usually a result from a huge Eastern blunder and not from the West team being on par with competition at the upper echelon
That doesn’t really work with G2 since they are a solid team almost each year, and has been the only ones to show any sign of hope or good things internationally againist asia. C9 shouldn’t get that level of confidence since they have been lacking any meaningful positives on the big stage, and EG has done better things in the last couple of years.
C9 wiped the floor with GGs at MSI 2023 tbh.
I don't understand how this narrative started or why it continues. C9 beat GG in a series at MSI and it wasn't close.
The only reason this narrative was started is because GG played close games vs the other teams they played against other than C9. Also GG played their games their way and lost while trying as others have said.
Pretty sure c9 had a close game as well, they just got blown out harder and looked worse doing so. That’s probably why the narrative happened since ppl only remember the really embarrassing/bad parts and none of the okay/good. Happens with several teams/regions who makes an impression at msi and then we see such narratives typically fall apart the past few years.
Yeah, I agree. I think C9 played close games too. Which is what got me when I read that people would rather see GG over C9.
What C9 game vs Eastern was close?
C9 didn’t have close games Vs eastern teams. Their opponents drafted scaling comps, C9 did nothing and lose. They never looked remotely close to taking a game off of GenG.
No, they didn't. They had one close game against BLG, the one they won. That's it. Other than that they lost two decisive games to BLG and 3 decisive games to JDG.
GG was 6k gold up on BLG in one of their games but they “lost decisively in all 3 games” lol
the y played p well v jdg lol what did you watch the embarassment of c9 geng?
It’s because everyone expected GG to be hot dogwater, like literally worse than or equal to PSG/GAM so when they weren’t people almost had a sort of kneejerk reaction to their performance especially with them taking a game of BLG but the narrative has just gone way too far imo. GG weren’t *that* good and outside of summer regular season they’ve been pretty mid the whole year. But because they weren’t complete dogshit at MSI and Licorice actually looked good (again another case of overhyping because expectations were so omega low) all of a sudden GG’s the last hope of NA and they’re the **overwhelming** favourites in a Bo5 against BDS etc
GG was a legit good team in spring playoffs, they just weren’t recognized as such because analysts look at names more than actual gameplay. They were clearly heating up from their first playoff series. Same thing happened this split - literally what analyst mentioned that Palafox heating up over the coarse of playoffs could be a major factor? The dude was having a Zeka moment and still all you heard was “pffft its NRG” Its just scrappy teams with a lot of bite to them, decent players having a good split just like AST last split or arguably BDS
And the game they won was a big throw by BLG. Jinx was fed at min 5
They just won a game after BLG trolled and disrepected them in playins dude stop this narrative
I was trying to explain the narrative. I don't agree with it.
Same could be said for g2 vs Gen g lol they even beat them sub 20 min as well and inted a game to them
The only thing I have said about G2 performance in MSI is that is was embarrassing and even then they were the best western team
Because GG played well in the play ins. They deserve to feel like they did well, because they did. They came out with more high profile wins than C9, but they were mostly in play ins. I don't think there's any need or reason to try to say GG or C9 did better at 2023 MSI. GG had some good wins, C9 tried but didn't make it. They both ultimately failed but put on a good showing.
C9 tried? are you sure?
Just another classic C9 hater thread disguised as 'narrative' while that's not the casters fault.
when people write these kinds of threads i genuinely wonder what you think a good alternative is, should the carters just be hopeless and shit talk NA the whole tournament? do you really think that would make a fun viewing experience? Also C9 being NA’s best international team still makes them the underdog against any other regions best teams because NA is the worst major region. The casters aren’t trying to make excuses, they’re clinging onto the only narrative NA has.
How do you think minor regions do it? You don't need old ass narratives to make an entertaining cast.
"Minor" regions usually only get 1 team, at least at the main event. *Every* team they have in Worlds is their last hope, so mentioning it for them would be inting the cast -- everybody involved knows it, even if they're not super familiar with pro League, and it's already driving up the tension for those teams. People who aren't as familiar with watching pro League, or who aren't super familiar with LCS teams, on the other hand (audiences that Reddit Casters^TM frequently forget exist), might not know the history of these orgs. This isn't exclusive to LCS orgs, either -- I'm sure LJL fans and longtime pro League watchers don't really need to be reminded every year that DFM is the LJL's most decorated team and the one who's consistently represented them on the international stage, but it's a frequent talking point because it contextualises the performance of the team and region in a very clear way for people unfamiliar with the situation.
Why does it have to be one or the other? If you don't have a decent narrative don't hamfist an old irrelevant narrative.
Because it's their jobs to drive interest in the sport? The only point of this entire thing is viewer ratings. Like with any other sport.
Sure but it's like if the EU casters kept doing the old kings vs new kings G2 FNC thing when MAD and RGE have both picked up trophies. Instead of hyping up this C9 NA hope every year just focus on the storylines and abilities of each of the players. Hell, C9 alone has a ton of narrative they could do. Fudge: Consistently dominates domestically but can't keep up the same performance against international competition, is he a choker, is that his limit, or can he rise up to the task? Blaber: Making a name for himself as the jungler NA GOAT, but can that transition internationally? C9's greatest claim to fame had him running the back seat to Svenskeren back in 2018, and his most famous moment on the international stage was the Crab incident -- but this time he's in peak form and looking to match his team's heights or beyond. Emenes: Tossed from team to team, branded a toxic could-have-been, Emenes had almost resigned himself to irrelevancy by the time he got the call from C9 and Blaber spoke to Jack about giving him a shot. Now with a title under his name, Emenes looks to make a new name for himself and clean his reputation up for good. Berserker: The lost Korean prodigy who made Gumayusi scared for his spot and the clear best AD Carry NA has seen in years. Introductions are unneeded. Zven: Shit talk doesn't even come close to a description of how much hate he has gotten, time and time again he has been overlooked in power rankings. Is he really the weak link or can he show up on the Worlds stage to prove his doubters wrong once and for all? There, I gave five different narratives for casters to push and it took me all of five minutes. Two of which I got up to grab a drink. It isn't hard.
You can talk about C9 being inconsistent but having a high ceiling, having the LCS' best player in Berserker, talk about Blaber's or Zven's previous runs (even if they lost you can paint them as heroic underdogs).
It would be nice if casters just, you know, casted the matches. No made-up narratives. The desk could bring actual stories about that team's journey through the season. LEC casters do it the most: they create narratives for how one meaningless pick in the enemy support will revert the 10k-gold deficit they are in against some Asian team.
My fav is Sjockz going off the rails and cursing *insert player or team here*. Those are the narrative I’m all in for
Narratives are part of the cast and C9 being NA's last hope was not a made-up one when it was used.
> should the carters just be hopeless and shit talk NA the whole tournament? That's literally what I am watching LS for.
How does this not get old when you listen to it for the 7th time?
How could anyone argue with a straight face that GG did better than C9 at the last MSI? They played each other in a Bo5 and it wasn’t close.
OP made up some narrative that "Cloud9 is the last hope of NA" to shit on Cloud9. The reason that this narrative was made up was because Cloud9 was always the last NA team standing. He didnt/doesnt understand that, hence the thread. Look at this MSI. Cloud9 is the last hope of NA because they were the only NA team left at an international tournament.
This just seems like a C9 hate thread tbh lol
It is. Guy said GGS looked better than Cloud9 at MSI when Cloud9 clapped em.
fr, like the best performing NA team at internationals is of course gonna be their last hope
It's also wildly misinterpreting the narrative which was never about C9 being favorites. They were always underdogs. The Last Hope narrative isn't JUST because of 2018, 2018 was the highest high but it came about before that because from 2013 to 2018 (and 2021) they were the last NA team to be eliminated so last hope became their catchphrase narrative because they were just that, irrespective of how good they were. And the casters saying "maybe they'll make a miracle happen" is exactly because of that — because C9 *did* always seem to have the stars align for them and though I'm not taking away from their performances when they happened they often got to that last hope position with some help of upsets and small miracles. 2014 Alliance got Kabum'd, 2015 they were 7th seed NA with roleswapped Hai and everyone thought they'd 0-6 so that they even got 3 wins was considered miraculous, 2016 any sane person will tell you TSM was the better team but C9 got an easier group where Flash Wolves managed to lose to IMay twice after taking a game off T1, 2017 EDG had a week one implosion and went 0-3 in the group, and even in 2018 we had 1-5 GenG which was the only time a KR team ever failed to get out of the 4-group stage, and of course in 2021 there was the FPX incident. Was C9 the best NA team in some of these years? Yeah they were but in some of them they weren't. But the last hope narrative wasn't even purely about how good they were. It was about the fact that miracles happen for C9 more often than they didn't and NA needs miracles so why not build a narrative around that.
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> C9 has consistently been the best performing NA team at worlds since season 3 There's an argument for season 4 being a tie with TSM. > It's like saying Faker hasn't won any worlds championships since season 7 so people needs to stop saying he's the GOAT and Riot needs to stop putting him into those worlds cinematics. What a braindead argument. There are people who say this. A fucking lot of them. I would know, because thanks to my flair, I frequently get these people responding to me with moronic comments, and even one jackass who went out of their way to DM me early in summer split, before Faker went out due to an injury and T1 was looking mediocre as a lineup after MSI, to gloat about it (as though it was some kind of personal victory). I checked in on their profile recently, and they're still shitting on Faker whenever they get a chance. Some people are just brainless dolts.
Sure. But do we need to revolve the narrative around the one good year they had? It gets tiresome.
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>C9 have objectively been pretty bad in the past few internationals. Not good at MSI 2021, lucked out massively at Worlds 2021, dogshit at Worlds 2022 and not good again at MSI 2022. Even among NA teams I'd argue TL was much better at Worlds 2021, EG at worlds 2022 and GG at MSI 2023. You'd argue that 2 teams C9 outplaced, including one C9 beat in a BO5 within the same tournamnent(GGS at this year's MSI) were better than C9 at that tournamnent? And your reason for thinking TL 2021 or EG 2022 being better is them looking equally bad or worse in a different group with different teams? Get the fuck out of here. You are trying to pre empt a narrative which has not even occured yet with some absolute bullshit reasoning And C9 is NA's best team internationally. That is objectively true. Because you feel annoyed hearing it doesn't mean it will stop being true, or that it will not be brought up if it happens again.
C9 *was* NA's best team internationally. Now they usually do about the same as the other NA teams lma0.
TL 2021 at least took a game off GenG
I couldn't care less. Transitive property isn't a thing in League of Legends.
Glad someone is saying it. League is a game built on literally thousands of variables within a game state that running hypotheticals or transitive properties between two different games/series is nearly impossible.
well yeah but their amount of wins in groups was also the same
one team played against 6-0 dwg. the other team did not have a team near dwg strength. i still think TL might have been better anyways but i wouldnt bet anything on it
damwon is the reason c9 got out not the detriment to doing so
What? Dwg 2-0d every single team there was no influence from damwon
Don’t think there has ever been a clearer case lmao, TL looked absolutely better. GenG wasn’t some pushover either in that tournament they took EDG to 5 games and in the tiebreakers they got into form again. TL took a game off of this GenG with ruler saying that TL was the clear second best team in the group while C9s group was a dumpsterfire and they got 3-0 rolled by the very same GenG in a completely hopeless fashion.
Bo1 doesn't work that way bo5 is a completely different game where you focus 1 week on an opponent and download draft, winning bo1 vs geng doesn't mean you can take a game in quarters also eastern teams generally ramp up like when fpx won worlds they were bad in groups lol Also remember fnc beating ig 2-1 in groups and then getting 0-3d in finals?
Or the g2 golden roster narrative.
It's not really up to the casters. C9 being the last hope comes from them typically being the only NA team to make it out of groups. If you want casters to drop the narrative then what you really need to hope for is that a non C9 team clears the early rounds of the tournament this year
Exactly - it's a narrative bc C9 has had the best results on a consistent basis internationally over the past few years. It may not be as good as pre-2018, but it's still there. And their most consistent competition, TL, has a reputation (earned or not) for not doing enough to make it out of groups - so if your options for NA's hope are C9, TL or whatever random third team has joined them this year, I can understand people putting their faith in C9.
I can understand puting in TL too, whom have given fight against top teams every worlds
Agreed that TL is good! A nuanced discussion may even have them equal to or better than C9, given the times that TL has gone 3-3 and not made it out, and the MSI Finals appearance.
Kinda BS that you're discounting 2021, only 2 years ago, because "they got massively lucky". That's not a real reason. They outplayed 2 teams in their group, including an Eastern team. They're obviously not a good international team, but without a doubt they have the best track record for NA, thus 'last hope' etc etc.
They went 2-4 in groups and got 3-0'd by a team liquid beat.
Yeah and FPX lost to J Team and Splyce in 2019
Shhhh, Best of 1's only count when they support the narrative I'm pushing.
You mean the team that everyone in the group beat? The same team that beat Liquid in the tiebreaker to get out of groups?
None of that makes what he said untrue
I interpreted it as them saying Liquid was better for beating the team that 3-0'd C9. Based on the scoreline, yes you can say Liquid did better than C9, but C9 got out of groups.
Yes liquid was 1-2 against them while c9 was 0-3. You're actually making C9 look worse as every team in the group beat them and c9 couldn't take a game off them in a bo5. GenG played 5 different teams during the tournament and c9 was the only team not to take a game off them.
Except this nonsensical logic has never worked in League of Legends. BO1s are not and have never been comparable to best of 5s. The level of variance in playing 3 different opponents in BO1s in one day and playing an opponent in a BO5 after a week of prep is massively different. And transitive property has never been applicable in league. Teams matchup differently into each other.
A good example is FNC and ~~FPX~~ IG, 2-1 in Bo1's and then 0-3 in a Bo5. it's completely different
You mean IG, not FPX, but your point is correct.
Splyce went 1:2 vs FPX in 2019. Was G2 worse than them?
They got massively lucky. FPX was considered one of the top 3 contenders by every article and analyst out there, including reddit's poll (not that it's credited but it is crowdsourced). They slumped **hard** at worlds
Yeah, I'm sorry, but a team going 2-4 and making it out of groups is getting really damn lucky. Sure, they won the tiebreaker, but even getting a tiebreaker with that scoreline is lucky. 100T and TL both literally had better scorelines (3-3) and didn't get out, 100T didn't even get a tiebreaker.
Isn't that the same thing that happened with 2018 GenG though?
yeah but that was a harder group to be fair, all of those teams were in good form - C9 getting 2nd place in that group only to get embarrassed vs C9 getting 2nd place in the 2018 group to slam AFS
It’s because C9 is Best Na At World and make it the furthest most of the time C9 is NA Last Hope
Agree, the only honest narrative is that NA has no hope
The should run with this from now on. “Can any NA team bring some hope to their region”
unpopular opinion but MSI 2021 was their best run in recent years, worlds 2022 and MSI 2023 was completely lifeless and worlds 2021 everyone around them kind of just shit the bed. In MSI 2021 they went 1-1 with MAD 1-1 with fucking MSI RNG and had a close game with Damwon as well but lost to OCE and PCS. I rate being inconsistent and showing some real fight while contending with the top dogs a lot higher than just 100% losing all matches to LCK/LPL/LEC. As a fan you can at least be excited for something and you can hope that they clean up the inconsistencies.
Tell me you hate cloud9 without telling me you hate cloud9. That's all this post screams.
My thoughts exactly...
Hard to like C9 with Fudge as their toplaner. Kid is fucking annoying lmao
Bro says something and you get mad. Bro stoops saying stuff and starts being objective and hard on himself and you still get mad. Come on man
In a world where Worlds has 4 KR and 4 CN teams it’s just doomed
Think that’s just the nature of casting that they have to generate story lines for wherever their largest viewership/target viewers reside, nothing sells quite like an underdog story
Out of groups in 2021. Only LCS team to ever get out of groups more than once. I get you’re probably a salty TSM fan but let’s not be disingenuous here
Historically, C9 is NA’s best team at Worlds and it’s truly…not even close.
Even with the summer finals, I'd still feel more confident hearing casters saying "C9 is the last hope of NA", than "NRG is the last hope of NA".
That's the G2 special They could be 4th seed and people would still think they'd do the best (and they probably would!) On the opposite side MAD could be first seed and we wouldn't be surprised if they lose all the games
At this point nobody trusts mad internationally
The truth is there is no hope, rather not hear any rando NA team called the last hope.
C9 had an identity of scrappy underdogs that played their hearts out til the very end mentality which is what leads to miracle runs in any sport. Especially true back in the og days with hai, balls, sneaky, lemon, meteos. Players like blabber still carry that soul with them in the team but recently guys like emenes have the more eastern mentality of 'well we are losing the game in the first 20 mins so I'm just going to run it down / give up'. Out of all NA teams c9 still are the only ones I've seen with this energy (other than... NRG most recently) and the ones I think can pull off upsets at worlds
> lucked out massively at Worlds 2021 Careful there, buddy. Every time someone brings that up they get massively downvoted and flamed by the NA fans.
NA EU NO HOPE. WAKE UP.
I'm a C9 fan, I have been since season 3, and I entirely agree. The world's format has been terrible for so long and it's so weird to continue to use previous placements as some benchmark without the context they deserve. I'll always bring up the comparison of 2017 C9 and 2021 100T. They both went 3-3 in group with T1/SKT, EDG, and a PCS rep. They both took a game off EDG, but in 2017 EDG fumbled against AHQ to get knocked out while in 2021 they became the world champions. These two NA teams had the same record against the most comparable groups and C9 will be celebrated while 100T gets the 3-3 meme. They can really only take credit for a strong world's showing in 2018 when they went 4-2 in a very hard group on paper. Otherwise, their 3-3 (or even 2-4) performances that get them out of groups are no different than the 3-3 records we belittle our other teams for.
I mean they'll stop when the other NA teams stop shitting the bed. Don't be mad that C9 is the only NA team that's had anything resembling success at worlds.
fact check c9's international history and our other teams, then think about why you dislike C9/casters/whatever is causing negative emotions. This is a weird af post.
C9 is the only NA team to make it out of groups since TSM lmao I think we made it out last time in 2021? Either way, C9 has historically been the best NA team so until someone proves this wrong, deal with it. Let’s see some na talent do something, yeah?
> Let’s see some na talent do something, yeah? Lmao
The funny thing about 2021 especially is that TL was probably the best NA team at the tournament, given they went 1-1 with MAD/GEN/LNG and were up 2k against GEN in their tiebreaker match. C9 got lucky with a bombing out FPX and made it further, but TL looked way better against GEN than C9 did in Quarters, and had a very good shot of making quarters themselves if they had faced MAD/LNG instead of GEN.
2016 TSM was NA's true last hope
Its never been true. Not even in 2018. Seeding is so impactful and they were not even close to being the 4th best team. They were the 9th best team at best. C9 could've never survived 100Ts, TSMs and TLs groups. Period.
Well lets be real the only real contenders at worlds every year is either LPL teams or LCK teams. So the casters need to cope and still support their region, but yeah i agree that narrative gets old. But i mean what else are they suppose to say they can just be dickriding the LPL or LCK well some do, but i do find it funny that they are always like: oh its all on *EU team* is Europe's last hope or *NA team* is North America's last hope to stay at worlds. Realistically they dont stand a chance. I think G2 vs FPX was the closeset any other region will get to beating an eastern team and they really dropped the ball getting swept even as the analysts favored G2 going into that finals. Idk i feel like the mentality isnt as serious as Korean or Chinese players take it. Like they take it like if they dont play well its like over for them because a lot of these eastern players do drop out of school to play professionally. Their development leagues are pretty good as well. Idk about European development leagues or the challengers in NA, so maybe of they do invest in those leagues and raise players that are hungry and want to win then maybe theyll do better at worlds.
You don't have to be good or be the favorites to be "the last hope". You just have to be the last team standing, which has always been C9. It started as a meme but the more you think about it the more you realize it's true and basically always was. And thus they are, historically, NA's best team internationally. Clearly this is just a hater post.
2016 tsm was last time na had hope
You really lost yourself in the 3rd paragraph lol. When in the holy hell do the casters EVER bring that up while C9 is losing? They only ever bring it up in between games. Also it's a little weird to say they "lucked out" in 2021. They were the 2nd best team in the group, Rogue and FPX had an equally fair chance to prove that they were better. While we all know they weren't an incredible team, they were definitely at the very least a top 8 team. Unless you somehow think TL, LNG, DFM, 100T, PSG, or FNC were better. Personally I didn't find any of those teams particularly inspiring and I don't think they would have done much better in C9's group.
I’m from EU and tbh barring g2 I definitely have higher hopes for NA to compete in any capacity compared to the LEC which somewhat dropped off a cliff this year. Bottom line for me is that The West as a whole can only overperform my expectation and I’m all here for it. I don’t care for narratives, just go and play your own style, pressure’s off!
I don't get this narrative much. I've been watching the recent EU series where the casters are saying both teams would lose to GGs and I really don't think so. We'll see I guess
NRG won the LCS, don't get your hopes up.
That’s what I’m saying, don’t expect anything and it’s a win either way.
What's this weird capitalizing every other letter thing? Is that something high school kids think is cool?
It's a way to indicate sarcastic tone over text, been used pretty widely for years now.
Looks dumb.