Riot Announces BIGGEST Lolesports Changes EVER 

One thing I regret not addressing in this video is how unfortunate this situation will be for the players and staff in regions impacted by what is, ultimately, a downsizing of the lolesports ecosystem. My focus in this video was mostly on addressing this from an LCS fan perspective, as that is the majority of my audience. After uploading the video (but before setting it live), I realized it lacks empathy for fans of regions like the LLA. I should have made it clear that there are obviously going to be terrible ramifications for many people who have dedicated their time and passion to this sport. That deserves a place in this discussion. On a much smaller note, in rewatching the video here a few hours before it goes live, I also realized I makes it sound like the playins match at Worlds is between the MSI winner and the second best performing region. That wasn't my intent. There is a fight between two teams to determine the final 16 teams at Worlds, but it's unclear to me what the details of that are.

Ah this explains why DIG finally made a good roster

So basically NA became a wildcard region but they sugar coated it.

my immediate reaction is a bit sad that LCS is probably gone. I dont care too much about viewers but i liked watching my little league. It was cozy and fun and I knew all the players and personalities. I dont wnat that to go away

Markz actually had fans excited for summer split. It was the most positive fan sentiment for the LCS that ive seen in years. Then riot has to come in the week the split starts and throw all that good sentiment out the window. Feels like they are intentionally tanking lolesports in the west.

It's kinda crazy that it's basically an article that comes outta no where. Also a bummer that the number of jobs just got smacked as well. Thx for the content brother.

As an European that is fucking stupid changes and just destroys the North American league. Personally im kinda sad about these changes

Oh wow. Combining two giant continents AND reducing the amount of competition again. It really does feel like Riot is plighted with a small selection of powerful and terrible decision makers. Hard to imagine how this is remotely good for either the company's bottom line or the viewers excitement.

A few cents on how the Brazilian community reacted: CBLOL currently has 10 teams and losing 4 spots is HUGE and this part by itself is generating a LOT of backslash towards this new format. Removing 4 teams, means not only 20 players fired, but also all the staff behind them, since cleaners to head managers. There's also an unconfirmed rumor about players max import rules saying it would change from 3 BR players + 2 imports (or 3 NA players + 2 imports in LCS case) to 2 BR players + 2 imports + 1 americas player (2 NA + 2 imports + 1 americas player in LCS case). This could lead to the few good players we still have on the South conference going to the north conference due to currency conversion rates. Another uncertain topic is how the Tier 2 will develop, because today, we have 14 teams on the academy tournament with players being developed for the future and, once the Tier 2 offers the chance of a spot at Tier 1 League, most T2 teams will probably build lineups jut to win it or just to sell players and the spot at the south conference. Of course, people are liking the fact that we'll have guaranteed spots at MSI and Worlds, having more games through the year, the relegation system itself (which puts a little more presssure on franchised teams to perform well). There's another rumour about the global revenue pool which I did not understand pretty well, however, having more money to divide for less teams, could lead into sustainability, together with possible new "monetary fair play" rules in place. Those are the thoughtfull talks happening right now, there's a bunch of unbased comments saying Riot is trying to merge viewership from CBLOL to LCS and other things I don't think it's worth commenting. In summary: we did not like it either

Fortunately we will not realize a lot of the downsides of these changes since it will fundamentally destroy interest and fan engagement so fast that it would be shocking any NA scene is left in year 2 of this.

Not sure how they even try selling it as a merger. This is now just 2 regions fighting for the same spots at international. If it goes through like this, I am probably done watching.

This comes out of nowhere. Im glad Riot Esports is continuing to be as transparent as the bottom of the ocean.

God, it feels like the people in charge have zero clue what they are doing. How to kill a league 101

As an LCS fan since season 4, these changes make me not want to watch LCS any more. You're telling me there's only going to be 6 LCS teams now? Mark was doing such a great job of revitalizing the region, and now the whole region is getting slashed. I watch LCS because it's my home region. Even if I like other LPL/LEC/LCK teams, I don't pull for them the same way because they aren't home teams. So instead of thinking long-term to save what is Riot's greatest marketing tool in the LCS, they're deciding to go for a short-term boost over the long-term health of the region. I do not care about the CBLOL or LATAM, and now we also have to give up a Worlds spot and an MSI spot. Fuck that, with my whole chest, that's absolute bullshit. John Needham is a cancer on the league, and this decision will destroy the LCS. If anyone at Riot reads this, please, reconsider these changes.

A few remarks on the video: - Franchising in sports is pretty much a NA thing only, on the rest of the world is much more common to have tournaments with relegations. Also, conferences is not a concept used in the competions in brasil/latin america; - For MSI, the three regions lost 2 slots (since it is down from 1 LLA, 1 CBLOL, 2 LCS to 2 americas); - For worlds, the three regions also lose slots, going from 5 to 6 (3 or 4 LCS, 1 CBLOL, 1 LLA) to 3 slots; Overral it is bad for all the envolved regions. As a brazilian fan, it feels awful to see our region losing 4 of the 10 teams, especially when we see the scene growing every year despite getting dumpstered internationally in every tournament. I mean, there is even an argument that the CBLOL should be expanded because of the amount of orgs and tier 2/amateur teams we have here that are not in CBLOL. Most of the fans don't care about other leagues, they only care about our the CBLOL. So i don't see how these fans, who just care about CBLOL, will have any interest in watching this "north conference", and i believe it would only lead to frustration watching our teams duke it out to found out who is going to get rekt by the NA team. And allegedly, the CBLOL is sustainable on its own. Why our league needs to downsize and get the short end of the stick to fix years and years of mismanagement of Riot NA/NA orgs? For the LLA, it also sucks, because this league is already a product of a merger between central america and south america, and they are struggling to keep the league running for a while, which is sad because there is a bunch of very passionate fans in the region. And for the lcs, they are getting even smaller which is definitly not good for the region, it was already a huge blow to lose 2 teams, and now they are losing two more, making it even harder for the up and coming talent in the region to get spots in the teams. Also for them, it doesn't make any sense to have a finals against a br/lla team where they will just stomp them. It will be super anticlimatic for the players and the fans. I feel like it would make much more sense to somehow expand both the lcs and cblol with the lla teams if the region is not sustainable, and add some guest/tier 2 slots, to move up from 8 and 10, respectively, to 12 and 14. It would be a nice way to keep LLA region engaged in the competitive scene and bring some new and exciting things.

The vast majority of these changes feel so bad as an LCS viewer who's watched since LCS' inception. Your point of "maybe long-time LCS fans might stop caring after these changes" is exactly what I'm feeling right now. I also feel super bad for fans (and players / staff) of the other regions as well who are affected by this. I'd imagine the vast majority of fans from all of the affected regions aren't going to be happy with these changes. Since Mark has come in as commissioner, almost every change has felt VERY fan / player focused, which felt SO GOOD as a longtime viewer. THESE changes feel incredibly corpo, and made by groups of people who don't understand the scene (even if they think they do). Aside from relegation, which I like, all of this is straight up BAD news for me, and makes me lose more hope. Which sucks, because since Mark stepped in I have felt sooo much more positive and happy with the direction the league was heading towards. They are making it REALLY hard for me to keep caring about this scene, and that sucks. Idk how much longer I can continue to be frustrated with dumb decisions before I just tap out and stop caring / watching.

Damn I've been a hardcore fan for 10 years(staying up till 5am to watch na at worlds) and now I honestly don't know if i have interest in watching anymore. They killed our league for real this time :/ I guess the lcs should be dead video was a goodbye tribute 😢

this whole conference thing will exisist for 2 years and then it will be gone as well

Yeahhhhh, i'm out on these changes. LCS Summer sounded cool, but it means the changes dont matter

Been watching for 10 years. This could genuinely be it for me.

LCS being placed closer to CBLOL is a deathblow to the NA viewer base. We want the NA-EU competitions. This model further reduces the probability to see those match-ups.

Few steps forward then we tumble down the whole flight of stairs in NA. I was hyped for the summer changes too.

I'm mostly sad that it seems like LCS is having a bit of a resonance, with better international performances, better official content, and now have almost certainly the best commissioner we've ever had who's willing to shake things up. It's all very exciting to see what may be a come up, and to get suddenly head shot by a reduction in teams, right after we JUST had one, and a reduction in international slots, just feels gross. Like come on, it finally felt like there was a path forward, and now it seems unsure. It's not even that this is necessarily bad, just that if feels like we had sure footing, just to get it ripped out from under us again.

This is so huge and scary I got no idea how this is gonna shake out. Feels horrible to lose more teams which means more players gonna get sidelined.

Travis, blink twice if MarkZ is being held hostage.

dang licorice went to dig just to eventually lose his job again (like GG disolving)

as a LCS fan since 2020, it really sucks to lose a worlds/msi slot as seeing NA teams at international tournanents was my favorite thing with lolesports

Man this sucks as an LCS fan. I’m for sure upset. Wish we could take a Time Machine back into more fun league :(

The LCS is fan focused mark says, to then losing two more teams and can only send one team to msi. Yea, I dont think Im interested anymore.

They 100% need to do more media coverage. I honestly can't think of a downside of a well-done press conference. It's also sometimes hard to find all of the information and fully digest it so thank you for doing the footwork on that. Transparency helps bring trust to companies and brands, which is important if you want to keep your business afloat. How can people get excited about something they don't understand from a company or brand that isn't telling people *why* they should be excited? If you aren't excited about what changes you are making to improve the situation, why should we be?

idk, but I’m pretty sure this headshots pro league in NA in the long term. Feels impossible to celebrate any of these changes when it means the loss of so many jobs and opportunities. This could be the end of my NA fandom tbh, feels bad.

Hey Travis, I completely agree with all of your negative points and imo as an NA viewer, this is kinda bullshit. I hate that this whole conference thing is being forced on us and that we are being forced to downsize. (Especially in International Tournaments) I just see zero world where NA and SA are competitive at all (expect maybe LOUD) and don't see why they didn't make North America and South America as separate regions. We could still fight them for tournament spots, but I don't think they belong together. I feel like at the very least the LCS branding is dead, but I'm pretty frustrated with this whole thing.

This is a terrible decision. What were they hoping to accomplish here? Boosts in viewers for a split before we lose interest? Absolute dogshit.

This is fucking awful. There is no way to ensure that the best teams are going to international events. I mean NA isn't the strongest region but we have consistently beat CBLOL and LLA but now potentially the second best team from LCS, which could be better than the top teams from the south, will miss out on international events and it waters down the international competition. And it goes both ways. If CBLOL is better then LCS then they should go too. I want the best competition and this isn't it.

14:58 There is evidence that Brazil is doing well in eSports, but not in the competitive aspect. Today, Brazil has the third-largest audience for League (sometimes even surpassing Korea and ranking second), and the numbers for CBLOL keep growing, unlike the LCS. So I think it is fair to Brazil have equal slots like USA.

Something I'm interested in seeing is how the talent is going to be dispersed around the Americas. Once the talent disperses will Brazil and LLA start leveling up with LCS and become a better region altogether with more stakes and play? Or will the pros we know now slowly start going into retirement and make way for newer players coming up? Interested in seeing how this plays out because right now as a NA fan it def feels like we were handed the shortest stick, but maybe it's the correct play in the long run

i'll be watching international events only

Why would Mark do this? On a more serious note, I hope at the very least we get hype North vs South matchups often. Hopefully LCS isn't the top heavy conference and CBLoL can compete. It would be a shame if Brazil's #1 is worse than North America's #3 or 4.

My League of Legends Journey: I started playing League in college after years of avoiding the game for years even as close friends tried to get me into the game, but I saw how addicted they were to the game, and wanted to avoid it even though it would have been fun to all play together. I later got a girlfriend and by friends got her into League, and then she convinced me to give the game a try, so I did. I enjoyed the game and started playing almost daily between classes with friends and my girlfriend (now wife). Eventually one of my friends (who was a big TSM Fan) introduced me to pro-play with the start of Worlds where I later rooted for CLG, TSM, DIG, CLG EU, Najin Sword (because there name was cool) and Later TPA (underdogs). I remember there were lots of pauses and such which was fine besides the song was really catchy (now known as Silver Scrapes). I really appreciated when Riot came out later and was transparent about the technical difficulties they endured during the tournament, it was a breath of fresh air. I felt the transparency was nice change from the fake corporate gaslighting of usual and I trusted the company due to their transparency. Then after Worlds I wanted to see more of the game, and heard about a young up and coming team called Quantic Gaming (who later became Cloud9) and started watching there games and instantly became fans of theirs. OG Cloud9 was the first team where I liked all the players, and my then girlfriend would also watch with me. For years I watched all EU and NA games from start of EU through the end of NA (yes almost all of my weekends were spent watching League). I then would watch every single Hotline League episode, don’t think I missed a single one (throughout this whole point) although I never called in. After the EU changes I would only watch a few teams from the EU (FNC and G2). Then COVID-19 hit, and it took Riot a lot longer than even traditional sports to begin Streaming LCS, which was weird since they are an online based game. But then DoubleLift, and Bjergsen both retired and Sneaky was kicked off Cloud 9, or retired? 🤷🏿‍♂️ who even knew at this point. At this point I didn’t know if I even wanted to continue watching League anymore (at this point my wife had quit watching already). I held onto hope based on rumors from Hotline League that Sneaky was in talks and would likely be on another team. Then when I heard that the talks had fallen through started feeling kind of ambivalent about the LCS. Soon after I felt a glimmer of hope when I found out that Evil Geniuses was assembling a group with Vulcan who I was a fan of, Impact, and taking a chance on 2 upcoming rookies. Started getting kind of hyped since teams don’t really give NA players much of a chance to make it onto a team, which seems kind of ridiculous as a NA League, and especially seeing as the only teams that have done well internationally were built from a majority of NA players. I became fans of the two EG rookies and especially with the Danny, Pentakill game saving play. Sadly Danny never came back to the league and at this point I believe there was a new commissioner who I was reluctantly optimistic about. But one of the first things she was to implement was weekday LCS claiming it would increase viewership from the decreasing LCS viewership. Felt like more negative news was pilling up and that they were setting her up to fail. Then the news came out that the reason the weekDAYS change was to appeal to other regions timezones and convenience and had nothing to do with the NA viewers that had been longtime fans (yes they slightly moved the time a bit later in the day). But with the rumors of every team at the time pushing for the removal of the import rule, Riot firing the guy that helped implement the import rule. And then now the movement of the LCS to weekdays it felt like Riot was doing everything to kill the LCS, and the dissolving of Academy leagues. It just felt like multiple slaps in the face like Riot no longer cared for either NA players or NA viewers. With all of this, if Riot didn’t want me watching then I might as well oblige, especially since even the pro-players felt bland and seemed to not care for fans anyways. So then I quit watching League all together but would check in on hotline league videos and Travis clips from time to time. I still would play league to get the Victorious Skin for reaching gold. I watched the videos of MarkZ as commissioner and had a bit of hope in giving the LCS and pro play a try again, even though I couldn’t care less about most of the pro players. I watched a few games of the finals, along with a few NA games from international tournaments. When I found out about the Vanguard rootkit requirements to play league, as a privacy minded person I took it as the last straw, the company was no longer the transparent company they once were. They were the same as every other shitty and creepy corporation. But every once in a while though I watch one of Travis’ video to see what made news. After watching this video I really hope Travis is looking more into diversifying his content because although Riot’s suits keep reiterating that they are not trying to kill the LCS it sure seems like besides hiring MarkZ they are quietly killing off the LCS. Seems like the same tactic they used to kill off the Tier 2 league scene.

NA getting completely shit on to let a far inferior product take one of their slots in every tournament is nuts.

This feels like the hunger games for everyone in the region. just a total free for all to see who can stay in the industry and who gets chopped :(

This year has been the most LCS I've watched in years because the quality of the games felt great to watch. As long as the league continues to look competitive regionally, I'm pretty excited to see how this could shake things up. And an extra tournament is just a cherry on top! It almost feels like riot is trying to see what the community thinks first by not covering it with all the full details. They could always tweak things as we get closer to next year. I'm excited to see how it goes.

Less slots at worlds and MSI for NA is a major L expect people to stop watching entirely due to this.

no offense to the south american teams, but the conference finals are going to be blowouts every time, and the people we send to worlds arent going to be the best teams.

RIP LCS. This will be the final nail in the coffin.

Glad I always know where to come to get timely updates on these things. Thank you Travis!

Sadge life as ive been a LCS fan for so long, so many changes... a change of an Era. Lets hope for the best!

Re: 12:19 North America vs Brazil was a massive rivalry in legends of runeterra before riot shuttered the tier 1 competition for the game

me: i support all LCS teams! Travis: two must go me: please be IMT and DIG.

NA has won the last 2 BO5 vs Europe 3/1 in dominant series but we lose a seed to Brazil and LEC gets to keep their seeds. This sucks.

Thank you for you coverage of all of this Travis, always appreciated insight on what's going on.

If the games are still coming on around the same time then I dont really care that they're making these changes since I'd be watching regardless. The best case scenario is that we end up with a more competitive system, with the Souths talent matching the Norths. Worst case is that everything is basically exactly how it is now, just with play-in team for the North. Hopefully, with promotion/relegation comes more support for the tier 2 systems. I dont expect it, but it'd be nice.

Hate so much about this. Finally started breathing in the NA hopium and now I'm considering quitting league again. Why would you do this when the LCS final got some air back in its lungs. Why are we subsidizing these minor regions as the second largest league market?

Latam really got hurt the most here I feel. Excited that Brazil will be essentially getting a boost though, I think that's a place we could get some exciting growth.

This is a bummer. Can't see this ending well down the road but we will see.

Here's my two cents as a fan who has become disillusioned from the LCS. I would actually just prefer an outright merger of all Americas regions even if that only means 10 total teams. If there were fewer teams with a larger recruiting pool then maybe we could actually have a regional identity again while staying competitive, even if that region would be bigger. It's just so hard to root for teams that constantly cycle through has-been talent from other regions. Give me 10 teams with a mix of the top NA, CBLOL, and LatAm players and I'd happily root for them. It may be hard to justify what would be a necessary move to the east (Orlando/Miami maybe?), but that would put it in the exact center of the region in terms of time zones. Not to mention most of the US is in the east anyways.

I also am catiously optimistic. Less international slots sucks but a spotlight on tier 2 having a chance to make the old school miricle run with the return of promotion/relegation for the guest slot is a welcome return. Tier 2 needs more support and this feels like a chance to get it more attention.

Thanks for keeping us updated

You’re exactly right Travis, North America just lost our entire identity. This is a huge blow, feel pretty shitty about all of this honestly.

How did they think this was a good decision? This will just cause a bigger cash deficit between the top teams and the teams who are not as good. Less leagues, less championships to be won, less prize money to be won, also less teams now going to international events which is taking away the opportunity for lesser teams to make big cash wins. How are they going to reimburse Japanese teams who had the chance to play for $77,000 etc...

Definitely seems like mostly terrible changes, I hope I'm wrong but I think there will be a small boost early on then just complete death and obscurity for the leagues involved in this merger.

I wanted a merge but not like this...

Something else to consider is there's a real chance we only lose 1 team initially since they'll need a team to fill the promotion relegation slot, so one might just get that slot for the first split

I think I resonate with your thoughts: an overall, cautious optimism. I like that they are making changes and I think this can poise them to add to the leagues as/if revenue continues to grow. We could be back up to 10 team conferences within the next 3 years if they find a way to make the leagues profitable. That’s my thought at least!

For NA I have 3 concerns: 1. LCS/NA players that speak english being replaced with SA players who dont speak any english and are more difficult to be fans of because of the language barrier. SA will be cheaper than NA players to get. 2. The new Latin American Team in LCS possibly not speaking english at all and/or possibly just being bad compared to other teams so they end up being last place and with no NA fans and just dont provide any value to the league. 3. LCS/NA now is no longer a major region and therefore only gets 1 garunteed worlds spot and competes for a 2nd. We previously had 3 garunteed worlds spots... NA no longer being a major region in itself and losing at least 1 and maybe 2 worlds spot really sucks. I think our joint Americas Major region should have gotten 4 worlds spots since we are so large and NA got dissolved and is no longer a major region in itself. So 2 garunteed NA worlds spots, 1 garunteed SA spot, and a 4th competed over. Then with that the South-Asia Pacific Major Region would get 2 Worlds spots instead of 3 (assuming they are getting 3 as a major region). South-Asia Pacific Region hasnt done enough to justify 3 worlds spots in my opinion unless Im missing something. Im sure China, Korea, and even Europe would bitch about the Americas region getting 4 Worlds spots to their 3 even though they are better. I understand that, but they didnt lose their status as a major region as well as they would be getting 3 garunteed spots to our 2. The most NA is getting is 3 spots anyways which is the same as them. They didnt lose anything with this change. NA is the only one lost here as far as the current major regions. NA went from 3 garunteed spots like Korea, China, and Europe to 1 garunteed...

Competitive League in regions outside of KR and CH is dying, and this is not the play.

I'm eager to see if the region restructure has an impact on the international performance for Americas South and APAC. PCS and CBLOL looked better than ever at MSI this year and as a long time LCS watcher, you can't tell me that our teams are ever consistently better than the PCS or CBLOL first seeds on their best days. LCS has had a lot of chances; sometimes we make them shine and sometimes they slip through our fingers. Hopefully this pushes our first seeds to work on consistency so they can use their opportunities well and continue to show their best internationally.

thank you for taking the time to go through the changes for us curious europeans

I think I echo a lot of the sentiments in this video. A change of this magnitude is difficult to fully evaluate, but I can see a path forward from this that builds a more exciting international league of legends esports scene. I'm cautiously optimistic as well, and I hav confidence that things will end well if Riot finds a way to maintain the strong identities of teams/regions that are changing while helping them find a space in this new ecosystem.

So North American teams have never lost to a South American team. So North America which already gets crap at international events we lose a slot to a wildcard team so that we can watch them get beat in 3 games and disappear. Would a North American team do the same? Sure historically but why not send the best three teams instead of forcing a Brazil team when we all know that they will not be able to compete with North Americas best three or four or five. This feels like a slap in the face to North American teams. I see some of our players leaving because they will not make it to world if they don’t get top 2 even if they deserve the slot over a Brazil team that may be like the 6th best “Americas” team.

I have watched lcs since season 4 and I’ve also been watching vct since valorant came out, I think their format is very exciting and I am pumped for the fresh new changes.. remember guys riot fixes league mistakes in valorant, maybe this is that?

Why does this season now feel like when your favorite pet is dying so you let them eat some pizza maybe take them out to the beach right before you euthanize them. Not cool Riot.

This seems like a net negative in almost every single way as an LCS Fan. I cannot imagine how badly this will destroy NA talent.

I’m cautiously optimistic about the changes as well but I’m mainly a global fan. I do know NA talent better than the other regions and cheer for them at international events, but as long as the “South American” conference is competitive with the “North American” conference, I won’t really miss the extra NA team at events. It would suck if our “league finals” is just easy sweeps against Brazil so I do really hope it’s competitive between the two eventually. The guest slot is great, something to make the pros more competitive like the money weeks coming up in the NACL. No one wants to be relegated haha. Idc if it’s fearless or another system, I want more champ diversity in games so I’m excited by that becoming more prevalent.

I'm not fully understanding promotion and relegation. Will the guest slot have to fight for their position every year no matter what, even if they someone win the split? Or will the bottom team in Tier 1 always have to fight to stay in league (i.e. traditional promotion/relegation format)? Can anyone shed light on this?

So while getting rid of playins, they gave one of the group spots to cblol taking it away from LCS. And gave APAC 3 WHOLE SPOTS? Tell me how this makes sense.

Travis you are a great content creator. I am really happy that we have relegation back mainly for tier 2. And I like that we shrunk again to 6 teams. I don't want to see 8-10 teams, half of which aren't competitive play. I think in the league we have gotten more competitive and now that there's less teams the matches will be much closer. Like the flyquest vs tl playoff match (not finals) overall I'm happy with the chnages

Plot twist, TSM is now a Brazilian team.

Good summary, thanks. There are pros and cons, but my concern is losing more LCS players who are building up their brand and fan base. If Tier 2 was more financially viable, the whole situation would be better, since players would have a backup option to LCS.

good shake up! it'll be interesting to see how this goes. we can always revert next year if it bombs

Feels like there shrinking it for cost and nothing else. Feels bad all around. They keep saying they aren't giving up on league but boy do their actions say otherwise. I feel so bad for Mark, he just spent a year trying to turn around the narrative and make lcs enjoyable again and now this basically craps on his hard work.

I think this just goes to show people didnt appreciate how special LCS S3 was. Literally a mindblowing esports development. Honestly it sounds like a good change overall. I do think there needs to be a bigger focus on the amateur scene for NA. But with the current state of LoLEsports this honestly seems an exciting move.

I feel terrible for the players who will be affected but looking at the other side of things I just really want to see the best players playing high quality games. If this change makes the rosters more competitive im for it but again it sucks to lose slots and have players that are obviously amazing miss out on games due to lack of spots.

Go back and watch some of those early LCS playoffs, circa 2014-2017, the war between TSM and CLG, Cloud9 in top form, so many awesome personalities and players, teams that had a chance at competing with the east. Now go watch the most recent GRAND FINALS for spring playoffs. theres like 75 people in the room MAX, theres no hype, no juice, the scenes dead and its been dead for a while, sadly. watch LEC for western LoL, ideally just watch LCK because the level of play is soooo much better and you still get an English broadcast. GG Riot you ruined competitive league in the cradle of its own inception. Sad but we will probably never get those days of OG LCS hype back.

I worry that dedicated fans for the LCS are going to really hurt from this. In my house, I am a C9 fan and my girlfriend is a FLY fan. We don't follow other regions. Even though the outlook was grim, we always could cheer on each other for international events and in other matches. Now, there isn't really a chance we both can go international, kinda in worlds. Feels bad as a dedicated fan of the LCS in my opinion. Going to take time to adapt if we can.

Do we know if there's any cross-conference play outside of the msi qualification? Visiting matches, or something during playoffs?

I like the changes! And since we are losing a spot to international championships, that gives us more competition from the south region. Making things more competitive for sure and another international event early in the year is awesome.

this is an utter disgrace. As an LEC and LCS fan, i cant believe this. So bonkers

Imho, conferences work when deciding a single best team. It doesn’t work as well when deciding the best group of teams to send to a larger event. I expect Worlds to be better in this regard, but if one of the conferences has a better top end, then the representatives heading to MSI could be skewed.

It's basically LCS using CBLOL viewers to survive

It may or may not be a long shot here, but I wonder if the FTX deal had anything to do with this in the broader picture of this. I could also be very wrong as I don't know the specifics from the deal.

Nail in the coffin for me. I'm going to exclusivley watch NACL and and LPL/LCK. Why combine three regions that have less than 10% crossover in fandom. Makes no sense. Then dissolving a league entirley and forcing their two teams into other regions. I'm sure that will go great in NA twitch chat :). This doesn't even mention the costs for these teams. Riot is going to force two teams to move to different regions where they will have to essentially restart their fan bases, all while being in an enviornment that is typically toxic to anyone not native to NA. Doesn't sound like a good business move for the teams. Wouldn't be surprised to see them dissovled shortly after. This is looking soley like the new head of riot americas just wants to put his stamp on the scene, no thought for the native fans of any region.

I'm from Argentina. Our region not only has been shutting down gradually (we have only 6 teams this split, so sad), but we are also ruining other regions now? We're really sorry. God, I wish I could forget that latam Teemo top from Worlds 2022.

I love a fearless draft competition. I love the merger between NA and Brazil and LLA I think it will help competition greatly. I hate this whole conference north south bs it seems so tedious and will ultimately not crown the best team I feel. Cool that the LCS is dying honestly it needs to be redone and a super merger would be the best result. If they made America's like the Chinese super server that would be ideal and get best results competitively. Sad only 16 teams between all 3 servers would love to see 24 or even 18 if they couldn't support 24 but between that many regions with actual active players you could support 24

This idea seems cool from the perspective of seeing different games. I just can't help, but feel like this doesn't solve any of the problems w/ the Orgs not trying their hardest to make world winning rosters. Idk if it's on Riots end or the teams end, but it doesn't feel like the region wants to win internationally. Feels like they just want to win locally for the cheapest team possible unless your TL who only buys washed up LCK players for too much money.

i personally am looking forward to fearless draft. already been watching it in LPL, its much better than seeing the same 2 champions an entire series. Better for the viewing experience and flexes actual skill across champions instead of one tricks or players doing well in a specific meta. Coaching will also matter significantly more.

I'm hugely bummed by this, I loved the direction Mark was taking the league and I really loved our underdog league (except immortals). The last year or so have been so rough and it finally looked like things were getting better for it all to be torn down

One of the big problems for NA Esports is the biggest event of the year WORLS is almost never in our time zone. Imagine if the super bowl was on at 3 am 3 out of every 4 years it would not be as popular. I did not even watch worlds this year because I just didn't want to wake up at 4 AM.

Not surprised since all of those merging regions since TCL and lately LJL too But now since every region is gonna have three splits I wonder what changes are they honna bring for LCK and LPL

I remain hopeful that this is good for the league. Makes me want to watch the South American conference more, and I'm excited to see about the guest spot and LLA team that will join. I don't mind losing Immortals and Shopify Rebellion, sadly. So in one regard, I'm excited for a fresh change. The overall shrinking of the ecosystem - and the related loss of jobs - is definitely a sadness.