Millions of dollars in the mud. Why is the American esports competition so weak?

In the old days of the professional League of Legends scene, the discussion about the superiority of the European games over the American ones, or vice versa, aroused a lot of emotions. Today we are not in the mood that it is the players of the Old Continent that lead the way when it comes to the Western world of esports. Why is North America lagging behind?

No international achievement

League of Legends’ franchise-based professional esports scene rarely allows teams to compete against rivals from other regions. For the great majority of the year, teams compete in the closed environment of their league. The occasions to play against a team from other corners of the world are only huge tournaments and preceding unofficial training blocks.

The international tournaments for League of Legends don’t happen that very often – actually only twice a year. After the end of the spring games, the best teams will go to the Mid-Season Invitational, and the world championship will end in a year. Both events are attended by the best teams from all leagues, so most of the team remain locked in their region’s heels.

To say that the North American teams were out of luck in the global tournaments would be a very gentle approach. Teams are doing simply disastrously compared to other leading regions – Korea, China and Europe. Their greatest achievement is finau at the 2019 Mid-Season Invitational. At the same time, it must be remembered that the match for 1st place went down in history as the fastest BO5 game, and Team Liquid was outclassed by G2 Esports in a total of just over an hour. The third and final map ended before 20 minutes.

In the World Cup, the potential of the North American teams usually ends when they win a promotion from the group. During the 11th edition of Worldsw, only once a team from this region will go to the finals – that would be 2018. The title after the one-sided final against Fnatic will go to Invictus Gaming, behind Cloud9 the tournament finished in place 3-4. to failures against Europeans.

No fashionable talent

The North American League of Legends isn’t doing well, that’s for sure. The scene did not get to that point overnight. This is the effect of a long-term abandonment of efforts to develop the region, and the effect is known regularly. So what sins can the whole continent be accused of? There are quite a lot of them.

The scene there is mostly closed to the influx of new players. It can be assumed that the franchise model is to blame for this, but it would be too much of an abuse. After all, franchising is not an exceptionally disadvantageous solution, if at the same time structures were created that would allow young talents to show themselves in the eyes of the public and potential future teams.

Europe does not do it le – League of Legends European Championship is the equivalent of LCS. On the other hand, regional leagues are very popular. They are a springboard for the development of young talents who climb the career ladder to finally fight for a place at the highest level of competition.

There is no such solution in North America. Below the LCS we find the academies of the leading teams. These, however, often seem to be neglected. Thus, there remain academic leagues, in which only students of individual universities can participate. This solution does not actually support talent – people who want to follow the path of a professional player rarely go to college, especially when education is expensive, as is the case in the United States.

To make matters worse, apart from the lack of space for the development of an esports career, players from the region in question are not quite where they have to improve their skills. The local ranked games are considered to be one of the weakest, which is openly admitted by professional players who had the opportunity to compete elsewhere in the world.

A place for pensions

North America, unable to develop its own local talent, but having huge budgets, was to pursue imports from other parts of the world. The strategy lasts long enough that some players who emigrated overseas years ago already have Permanent Residence Cards, which, according to the rules, equates them with players born in the United States or Canada. Thanks to this, players do not count towards the limit of players outside the region.

This leads to bizarre situations. In March 2022, Team Liquid is one of the best teams in the region. A team that does not have a single North American born player. The starting five is made up of four Europeans and a Korean. However, this situation is not very scandalous, after all, players such as Bjergsen, Santorin or CoreJJ took off their teeth during the competition in the LCS and is a specific icon of their region.

Outrageous, however, is the approach of some players to the region. North America is treated like a retirement home. A place where players who cannot achieve much in their home country go to. Then a peaceful haven across the ocean is a chance to extend your career and earn little money. Some people treat LCS like an ATM. A Taiwanese SwordArt player will join TSM, proud to be one of the most rewarding players in the world. His two-year contract is worth $ 6 million, but he decided to return to China after just a year with half of his paycheck in his pocket.

Veteran teams

The lack of an influx of fresh players, combined with the frequent import of experienced and often burned out players, leads to a situation where the teams being built are unstable. There are often changes in them. While they are enough to actually make a man in the North America region, they have no chance of facing formations that have dedicated time to training young talents and then gathering them into action teams.

If organizations do not decide to import, they often trade players with each other, and these can enjoy a long career. To come to such conclusions, it is enough to look at the history of the teams of some players: 27-year-old WildTurtle will be entering the LCS for the first time in 2013. Since then, he has been playing Cloud9, TSM, Immortals, CLG and FlyQuest. This is half the team currently playing in the league! It is no different in the case of two years older Aphromoo, whose list also includes five bands.

In the NA region, the world simply lacks the conditions for players to develop their wings. Single instances of incoming young talents have no source to learn from or learn from stronger ones. The average league level is low and at the same time makes up the ceiling for most of the teams.

Will things change?

We should not be deluded. If the average stage observer is able to perceive significant problems of the stage, its organizers have seen them for a long time. So it’s no wonder that in recent months we have been able to see actions from Riot Games to improve the quality of the game.

Recently Jackie Felling was appointed commissioner of the League of Legends Championship Series. The woman spent her years in the esports industry with various Activision Blizzard products. When announcing his transfer to Riot Games, he stated that he intended to focus on developing the North American scene.

The launch of the so-called Champions Queue. It will be a special ranking queue with financial rewards that only the best players can take part in. Initially, players of the LCS, LCS academy and minor competitions will be invited to participate. Additionally, other inexperienced esports players will be able to apply for access. The motivation to play at a high level will not be a cash prize, which will make the game more competitive.

Some organizations are getting on the right track. Cloud9 is among them. The team decided to seek imports, but they did it with due diligence, attracting young, albeit talented players with no potential. Thanks to this, the North American games were enriched with a homegrown of T1, multiple world champions, Berserker.

There is no doubt about it. The bad level of the league will not change quickly. However, we should be glad that the problem has been noticed and steps have been taken to remedy it. However, we will have to wait for the effects – and these are rather long years, more than a few months.