LoL eSports: A Primer - North America

So, you want to follow LoL eSports. Maybe you had friends talking about doing Fantasy drafts, maybe you've been playing for long enough that you can't help but notice all the buzz about it, or maybe you've got greater aspirations than just solo queue. Either way, we're going to just dip our toes into eSports, and build a little foundation of what's going on, so that we can build discussion on what's going on with the game professionally and internationally.

First things to understand? The game is broken down regionally. There's North America (NA), Europe (EU), China (LPL), Korea (LCK), and Tiawan (LMS). Now, there's other regions, but due to their size, they're often marginalized into regional events leading to a wildcard. Before we go any further, Season 1 was won by a European team: Fnatic. Season 2 by Taiwan's TPA Assassins. Season 3 by South Korea's SKT T1. And last year's world championship was taken home by another Korean team: Samsung White.

So, for those on the outside looking in, what do some other regions have that we don't? What's keeping North America out of that top slot (I'd expect we won't take it this year either)? The answer is twofold in my opinion. Let's start with how we structure season play relative to other regions. In NA and EU, we play one game a day, two days a week. Over the course of our 9 week season, we play each team twice, once on the blue side, the other on the red side. Consider that China's teams play three days of games, and when teams play, they play one game on each side and then the match is recorded as win, loss, or tie. Korea plays four days, with teams still playing two games, but each of their games are best of threes. That's right, Korean teams have to play the equivalent of our playoff games every single week. We aren't playing nearly as many games as other regions. Plain and simple. It doesn't help that competition in our regions doesn't appear as strong as other regions either. In fact, after our poor turnout at MSI, TSM got ranked 20th in the world power standings. Our best team isn't in the top 5, or the top 10, and barely makes it into the top 20.

That addresses where or why or how we've been characteristically weak, but doesn't quite hit why we're so much worse off this season than I feel we've been in the past. For that, I'm going to link a facebook post from Amazing.

Anyway, I wanted to kinda get something off of my chest that has been bugging me for quite a while now regarding my...
Posted by TSMAmazing on Sunday, June 28, 2015

That, for me, hits the nail on the head at every conceivable level. If you haven't been watching the NA teams play, watch the other regions first. Watch their shot calling, their decision making. In a day and age where Faker says the NA mids are among the most mechanically skilled players he's ever seen anywhere, to see us rated where we are is the clearest indicator of what Amazing is talking about, and he's played over here, and for TSM no less. The big ways to track this, watch where and how towers go down. Watch dragon and baron control. NA has become timid, and it's a problem that feeds in on its self. Don't expect a strong showing from us at worlds this year.