00:00:00 Intro 00:13:25 spacepope wants to talk about G2's master class in drafting 00:29:35 podras' take: Riot has catered to team owners far too much with too little return 00:49:38 zac's take: DIG will replace FLY as third seed in Summer if FLY can't fix issues 01:08:30 blade's take: Riot Games NEEDS to bring back Rift Rivals 01:22:38 dj8ninja's take: TL will get first in Summer and perform well at Worlds 01:30:16 carson's take: the LCS needs an all-encompassing docuseries to reinvigorate 01:43:00 Outro
Cubby just works in the NACL so often will side with anything that moves players he likes there up. I agree that almost all the Fly NACL team should be in the LCS but I believe Fly lost the playoffs and got embarrassed at MSI because of the overly aggressive play by Bwipo and Inspired. Adding another rookie to the team will just give the "carnivores" another player to blame for losses.
This has a lot of truth to it… he was bottom three out of mid laners this splits for lane control, which means he was just playing to scale and have good CS and not pushing for leads. This is a serious discussion to be had when you have a veteran mid player sticking around and having meta champ pool issues and when you go to international tourney they are a massive liability because of their play and inability to play certain champs for counter picks…
Not saying he is the problem but the thing is about league, recency actually matters. Games do not hold equal weight. It does not matter how well you play in regular season bo1s. It doesnt even matter that much how well you play in upper bracket bo5s. If you do not perform in the high stakes matches (grand finals vs TL and elimination match vs PSG), that outweighs the less impactful wins
Cubby is right that Riot has failed to help teams monetize. They can't even get an icon in the league of legends client anymore. LCS had seasonal team icons during the relegation era but not during the franchising era???? how does that make sense at fucking all? Shopify paid 10 million for an LCS spot and can't get an icon in the league client?
There are so many ways in which international attendees/winners can in return earn a monetized prize through the game client itself (skins/icons) but its just plainly stupid to not let all teams have their icons in game. When Worlds/MSIs come along, just make the icon look better for qualified teams or something; its just dumb to not let people that engage in this environment willingly then not be able to rep the participating teams they support in the game when they themselves play
Yes. Other formats have been so bad that this is just the best league tournament in forever almost by default. But we also got to see pretty much all the games we wanted, even twice. Doesn't matter if there weren't many big upsets, the quality of play was at its highest and we had the best match ups.
A pure western-region tournament would be sick! It is hard to brag about being the better western region when you play maybe 1-2 best of series against each other every year. It might also give a chance to shine for CBLoL and LLA instead of dropping out in Play-Ins in every tournament.
Their take is that an upset didn't happen therefore not the best :/ It was a great tournament because of quality of games, quality of matchups, and quantity of those matchups. Fantastic tournament in my eyes.
@@numberyithen find a way to make the West better. Not the fault of those who like seeing high level league of legends. You dont like seeing an all East finals. I think it was a waste of my time to watch LCS all split just to see FlyQuest lose in playins to a minor region. Atleast watching the LPL and LCK gave me a rush for the finals and for MSI. Maybe consider watching the LCK or LPL instead of letting LCS brain rot you like cubby
Cubby wants an international tournament where American high school kids can compete and win a chance to get curb stomped by Faker. I feel like that’s where his take was going.
staying up to 2am pst every night to catch the matches when you work a 9-5 is absolute hell it's going to take a week to recover. still really enjoyed being engaged with it though. im just so tired now.
Here me out: My take for the east vs. west tournament is... Condense the summer split playoffs (same format but less breaks, similar to MSI but smaller). Only the top two teams directly qualify for worlds. Same with LEC. Throw in the 3-6 place teams from LEC and LCS to fight for the remaining two spots (basically what would be 3rd seed for EU and NA). Yes this would run close to Worlds but if teams want more rest before Worlds they should strive for top 2 in their region. Lower seeds get harder schedules and thats typically true in all playoff competitions. This would be an 8 team tournament 3-6 from NA and EU. Perhaps start with a bo3 group stage with two groups (2 NA and 2 EU in each group) then top two makes it into a playoff bracket that starts in the semi-finals and third place starts in the lower bracket. If that would take too much time they can get rid of the lower bracket. They can run this same format in LPL and LCK for 4th seeds and maybe include PCS? This is a win win because its east vs west and it has worlds implications.
8:00 epic upsets aren't the only thing that makes a tournament good. We had a great meta with great matchups. If results are the metric for how good the tournament was, then you're judging it based on upset, and not gameplay and matchups. I mean we got blg vs t1 twice! G2vs t1 twice. Those were phenomenal to watch, and no other tournament gave us this many great games.
Yeah i agree idk what he wants more from the tournament. I think thorin and monte said it best “i left this tournament with no questions unanswered” I guess the only question could be how would Elk have performed if he wasnt so sick he puked on stage but still thats something not up to the tournament. Prior years has been so meta dependent and sometimes cheesy with the single elim bracket, but this one theres no excuses if you lost in winners you has your chance in losers on a different day. It showed more of the teams upper ceiling than any other tournament where sometimes if someone was just whack on the day that was it and no one could know. Its indisputable now that Chovy is currently the best midlaner in the world because he fought every top midlaner at this tournament except Caps and didnt faulter even when he absorbed 4 bans he atleast held his own. You wouldnt get that statistic if this tournament wasnt a banger. The extra bracket allowed so many intournament adaptations and it showed in drafts like Nidalee showing up in the tournament towards the top 8
I also loved the format and hope they keep it this way going forward, but I'm wondering how you all feel about finding a way to give the upper bracket winners some sort of advantage. If GenG had lost the final, think of how bad that would've felt - every other team at the tournament gets a chance to fail and comeback through the lower bracket except for them. Maybe if they did a best of 7 final and gave the upper bracket winner a 1-0 start? That way you have 1 extra game max on the day, doesn't seem too challenging to implement.
@@jaydee4177 I'd recommend watching the latest episode of summoning insight. They talk about this (very exaggeratingly) at a fundamental level. Imagine Gen won the finals by winning 3 games and losing 3 games. That would be waaaay worse imo. I don't think the flaw is big enough to warrant drastic changes. You could do something, but maybe not so big as the bo7 imo.
Reading what everyone posted kind of proves Cubby's point. Everyone liked the matchups we got and that was a result of a better format. The finals were great, but there were a lot of 3-0 matches with zero drama.
cubby consistently has such shit takes that're based in nothing but his own clear biases and it's made the show so much worse than having mark. you could replace him with chatgpt text to speech and just tell it to shill anything remotely related to challenger scene
I feel that too alot of the time. Im only onto his first take but his first take about the tournament being okay because he defines excitment as upsets and not the level of play was cringe coming from someone who is suppose to be analytical of the game. Thats like saying A5 wagyu is overrated because it still taste like beef/steak. Its like bro the level of the dish/gameplay is obviously lost on you. Also his G2 take was so long and circular that it felt like he was filling in a 1000 word essay rather than adding any true analysis of G2 as an org in the tournament. Bro didnt even reference Poppey during his conversation of comfort picks as an easy transition because Mikyx use to be a Poppy support one trick. And its a shame that wasnt even mentioned as a transition from comfort to unique picks drawing bans for g2
We have seen in the past that no one cares about EU-NA rift rivals. International tournaments are a way for western teams to scrim better teams and learn. G2 and TL both played better than expected because they were able to practice against the East.
Give us an LCS 1v1 Tournament run by the teams from their training Facilities during the break. Have teammates or Coaches have live play by play. Run a Bot Lane Arena Tournament where bot lanes battle for a Crown.
after this, i have zero faith or trust in flyquest as an org. papasmithy was my fav caster when I got into league, so I really want to like them, but since 2020 FLY has had dysfunctional roster after dysfunctional roster. the last two years they've put way more money into the teams and they've collapsed at the end of spring twice in a row. completely different rosters full of talented players. something is going wrong behind the scenes. someone is doing a poor job.
As an East Coast watcher I enjoyed the MSI hours. I could watch the games before heading to work and on the weekends I woke up early enough to catch the games and could still have my day to do other things. Hopefully LCS does earlier hours this split as well.
Bro ive been saying this in so many comments but like 40:20 is more proof WHY IS CUBBY HERE. What is this ass take about how Riot should bolster a team store for the teams. How would that increase sales for team merch? If youre buying merch for your team YOU ALREADY FOLLOW THEM ON SOCIAL MEDIA. No one goes “man i really love Team Dignitas awwww but riot doesnt have their merch on the website guess they dont have any” also FNATIC ISNT THE NBA. I worked in a sport store you know how HARD it is to find specific jerseys for players? Half the time in the store we had 60% legacy players, 20% of the best player for MOST sports or teams (things like Hockey didnt get anything unless you were a fan of the local team and a player from the 90s) maybe and 30% local team top picks. You couldnt be in LA looking for a detroit lions jersey for the life of you. But if you were really a detroit lions fan in LA you werent looking for a jersey in stores you would have already bought one online. And if youre in a sport store you dont get upset they dont have a DL jersey instore you only get excited when you see some DL merch because YOURE A FAN OF THE TEAM. Cubby feels like a trend follower like the type of character to be affected by ads and recency biases because the only person going to Riots website to buy a jersey is someone who just watched TL win finals and has now been swayed to be a TL fan to the point they want merch. Which is like less than 1% of viewers. Yes this 1% works for traditional sports because 1% of a million of viewers is 10k. A jersey usually retail around 200 dollars thats 2million dollars off a 1% flip flop viewership. You cant do those metrics when your viewership numbers are the 100k a team jersey for LCS is what like 60 bucks? I would argue less than 1% of the flipfloppers would even buy a jersey but lets say they do its 60k. Earned. That isnt enough to keep the lights on and to run an org. Cubby is trying to capitalize on flash in the pan inconsistancies rather than cater to die hard fans. A die hard fan isnt gonna look to riot for merch drops they will look to the team. Its upto the teams in the league to push their brands out. Riot cant make the team likable and having a warehouse full of their jerseys isnt gonna help anyone either. Also the thing about “why isnt this located on our riot shop” because the teams dont host their shops the same. Some use their own websites some use a third party distributor some sell it out of the back of a van. The issue is Cubby that if they link an external website off LOL esports what does that do for riot. Youre pitching ideas without any logistics. Unless riot directly sells the jerseys advertising people to leave the website decreases the LOLesport shop sales for things because it isnt one big checkout window. And unless teams agree to pay for warehouse space inside a riot distribution center/warehouse they wont have access to inventory to complete sales. If the jerseys dont sell from the warehouse lesser teams are paying rent and losing MORE money due to needing to have things in the shop or riot doesnt require it of them and then it looks like theyre under represented in the league. Bro take a marketing class or something PLEASE.
I feel like every time it’s cubby’s turn to speak he just stream of consciousness chains points together that have very little correlation and doesn’t even think about what he’s saying. How can you possibly believe Jensen had a bad split. You must have not watched the split and been too busy watching challengers
Jensen literally didnt fall off until playoffs and still theres more to the team that just jensen, i can take the reasoning being a lack of mid jg synergy but acting like it was Jensen at fault vs the team is wild. If theres a lack of synergy swapping out the Jg for more synergy with Jensen will also make the team look better. Not saying drop Inspired but acting like Jensen was the weakest link is wild. The reason he was swapped of is because hes the most known variable, being consistant isnt bad and he consistantly shows up its the fact they want a higher ceiling than Jensen. Most people see the mid swap as a side grade interms of value but over all how it affects team synergy is what the swap was for. But cubby just idk. Sees swap thinks player is bad. Im sure he thinks impact was bad until he won playoffs and then swapped his mental narrative even tho Impact has always been the most stable top domestically and internationally.
At this stage, Jensen is just late career Bjergsen. Not bad, not particularly great either. Wants to play sidelanes passively and scale for team fights. It's very obvious that the issue with Jensen is style, not quality, and Flyquest wasn't going to sit on a player of Quads calibre forever. Sometimes improving a team means getting rid of a player even though there's absolutely nothing wrong with the player. Sometimes a team just needs something different, that changes the formula slightly.
Jensen is washed up, but i liked him on Dig. I think hes better than Dove so they should just sign Jensen. Dig shows zero loyality anyways, why not just dump the import you just got? Rich was released for Licorice which might be a downgrwde depending on which Licorice shows up this split.
If we're going to have another international event we really don't need another 'best few teams in the world fight for the top spot'. I'd much rather see more different teams who don't usually get to go international, especially from regions we don't see as often, play teams they don't usually get to play.
That's the Riot games worlds kool aid. Worlds is at this point an objectively inferior format if the goal is to be the premiere tournament that showcases the best the game has to offer. MSI does that better. What Riot preaches with their single elim tournaments like worlds is thwt the variance makes it exciting and very clearly cubby is all in on that message.
I know traditional sports are all about Live views but this is 2024 and e-sports is streamed to an audience heavily into technology where VODs are commonplace. Why should American viewers be forced to watch this live when they can have an option of watching these games at any time they want, irrelevant of the hosting country. Why are VODs so frowned upon? They should team up with a popular channel or else Riot does this themselves giving REAL incentives to watch on the website, like lane VOD options, analysis data etc...
at 7:09 cubby says he doesnt think this was the best tournament as most people are claiming it to be. let me try to explain why i think hes wrong (or atleast why i think people feel differently). i think they are calling it the best tournament not only because of the format, but because every single match felt very competitive. it was not as one sided as it usually is especially when it comes to the east vs west. all matches were bangers even if the "favored" teams still came out on top. not only that but we didn't get any same region matches at all. each match was different regions so the rivalries all felt like they had larger stakes. each match felt very important and it was great matches from start to finish.
Damn third tournament should be NA vs EU just for pride of who is the best league. Like the leagues would need to work together and just like in fighting games it would be teams in a certain order and it would be the top 8 teams of each league and the team that wins keeps on playing and the looser is eliminated first 4 teams on a side would be best of 1 next 2 bo3 and last 2 bo5. I feel like it would also get people to watch lesser teams and give them practice.
Tbh the real reason TL might actually be better going in to summer split is the coach improvement. I think spawn and the coaching staff know what they need to be more effective or contentious in international tournaments. The reason I see that happening is because of the importantance of pacing and tempo - I believe spawn even noted how big of the difference was when Asian teams played; they played with an entirely different tempo. That and umti legit just needs to show up a little better next time around.
@@michaelsalinas7040 it's his champ pool, you're not getting any big wins at Worlds against top Korea or LPL teams going in with Ziggs and A-Sol. T1 literally left every champ up mid because they weren't worried about it. They dare him to pick comfort and he does and it's always an easy counter. There's to many midlaners to ban against other teams to help him out also so TL couldn't really burn bans on it to help him out nor should they have.
that's a bullshit take that you got from monte. it's just shade he's throwing at the players, he's straight up said that TL won in spite of their players and that 100% of the credit is due to the coaches. spawn was a former caster, all these analysts and casters and commentators are all rooting for him because he's the most like them. that's why they're sucking him off all the time and the rhetoric from that suck-off-a-thon has petered down to you.
@@bayouboyentertainment2106 Asol is meta. Ziggs is fine but the Lillia jungle last pick is what threw everything off. ZIggs Lillia is actually a good combo but t1 had 3 ranged carries that she couldnt catch up with. APA champ pool is fine and hes slowly improving it. Umti and Core didnt have the best tourney. APA and Yeon played very well. Just remember, this is APA's first full split in the LCS.
I agree with the take about rift rivals and I thought that too when I saw TL win against FNC only to have to face T1 in the next round. It took all the excitement out for me thinking that T1 are most likely to win the next series and made it too easy to predict. At this point I think it is fair to say that the top Western teams are at least a step below the top Eastern teams. G2 is the closest and they still got 3-0'd by a staggering T1. Team Liquid didn't fare any better (sure they took 1 game but 3-1 is not close to winning either). Rift rivals would give frustrated western fans a chance to actually have a meaningful rivalry instead of always having to look up at their competition and get excited about winning a game or two. I hope they make it happen!
I personally miss LCS showmatches. If we have another 2-3 week break, I'd enjoy another event similar to the 2015 Urfitationals, Casters vs Doom Bots, and the 2018 Civil War.
not just that brake what about the brake after worlds. Why didnt we get a arena tournament and have former pro streams (its not like you cant find 4-10) with current pros or a fearless draft or all for one.
I'm going to go out and say right now, Rift Rivals EU vs NA should not return. It's simply not fun and its always better including other Regions all mixed together. Seeing all the different playstyles and adaptations from teams its far more rewarding. Teams need to play against the Eastern teams. Only playing against EU is not going to help much and thinking it will because of "G2" is ridiculous thinking. The invitational thing we are getting is good and stuff that needs to happen more. Or let Regions host an invitational each split (2 a year) 1 year it's an NA/LCK inviational, next year EU/LPL, ect.. any combo though. I'd like the All-Stars event return but with some changes to voting on who goes for each role on each regions team. Also, Worlds should go to a Best of 3 format being as best of 1's are trash and MSI went hard cause of the best of 3's
39:00 my issue with the teams is that it felt like they were shopping for talent vs growing it. Riot sure didnt incentive growing talent but i lost faith in the league around the time Sven and Mithy showed up on TSM. Not because Sven or Mithy werent good players it just felt like I was losing the feeling fo NA in my NA league. I mean look at us now we failed to foster talent in 2018-19 and now we have so many nondomestic players that costed soooo much money. How we gonna forget about Huni being worth 2 MILLION dollars after leaving SKT. Like the money got so absurd on team owner sides that you really cant blame riot for the implosion. If the teams were smarter about the way they spent across the board the league would be 1000% healthier. Sure riot couldve implimented salary caps or forced teams to cap the economy but it shouldnt take your parent to tell you not to blow all your money in a casino and to invest some of the new money you just got from sponsors. Esports winter wouldnt be hitting if they had some change in their pocket instead of paying players literal millions for a single year. Something NBA rookies make their first year. Which is allowed for a multi BILLION dollar sport. Where literally teams paid 10 million to buy a slot youre telling me any play was worth 1/10th of a buy in slot? If you fielded 5 of those million dollar players (something liquid was close to doing) you would have lost half an LCS slot. Also remember how Liquid was partnered with disney/marvel? Riot didnt flop that for them…
On the take about having Rift Rivals as the third game, I completely understand Cubby's reasoning, I really respect his outlook on the importance of keeping the competitive integrity and the mindset going, but given the "all or nothing" mindset that fans seem to have, I think having a third, more western focused tournament, while not better skill growth, will be better for Fan sentiment. Not to mention a good way to give Minor and second-tier regions some much-needed quality scrims to level up with.
Great episode!! Guests are awesome especially when you get somebody like Zven who is really smart about the game and good at speaking but don’t be afraid to have a show without a guest! Sometimes the guests actually suck the oxygen out of the room because they lack speaking skills
F1 is so exhilarating but from a competitive aspect it feels like a joke. If the governing body for F1 required every drive from all teams to use the exact same car (nothing is different) and everything else stayed the same THAT would actually be fun to watch. How good are drivers really if they are all using the same exact car. So crazy how some drivers got a podium because another driver got bumped off the road or had a system or engine malfunction
I can't even watch this "sport" anymore. It's so boring. G2 will remain a fake threat. Asia will stomp the game for years to come. Regional Leagues are boring as shit with 2-3 actual good teams who control all the rosters like the Yankees/Dodgers. The game is a massive time sink / waste of time - which you have to commit to just to understand the sport. Riot are just masters of wasting peoples time with overhyped fancy products. Master grifters. Been watching this shit since 2015. No more! Unsubbed! Uninstalled!
i can't agree with this format being good, it maybe better than previous ones, but not really fair. the result this time wasn't that controversial, as GenG is clearly shown as the best team, but what would happen if GenG lost against bilibili in the rematch? i don't think it would be fair for GenG to be second place. the total score of these two teams in the msi would just be 1 - 1. they would literally have equal score but bilibili will be the winner. if you think about it, every team in this tournament would be allowed to have one free loss except for the winner. a fairer system should give GenG a handicap if they never lost against anyone. like bilibili should be required to win 4 games instead of 3 in their rematch.
But thats because you dont understand league tho. Side selection is such a huge thing in league and tends to define the tempo for the rest of the best of 5. staying on winners not only gives you a day of rest but also give you an advantage for winners. Look at Elk if they one that Finals match against Gen G he would have gotten a day to sleep in and recover. He was so sick he threw up on stage. And the format was hard on him physically from how many games he had to play. The advantage of winning isnt the bracket reset its the control of the next matchup no matter who walks in and being able to come in well rested. And it shows off game one how impactful side selection was which reflected in how BLG was on the backfoot for the rest of the series. Imagine how different this would have been if BLG won in finals vs GenG what the rest would have done for Elk what the side selection would have done for the draft meta for the rest of the series. The format is great. A bracket reset would mean making these guys play at minimum for 8 hrs on stage due to them spreading time between games and that would also make casters and staff including everyone behind the scenes to stay for atleast 8 hrs in a best case scenario of 5 games reset into a 3 game sweep. At the 7th game you would see literal exhaustion in the level of play from most players and from the talent. Also moving the goal post from 3 wins to 4 wins isnt anymore fair than not doing that. Because what if the series is back and forth BLG GENG BLG GENG BLG GENG. That isnt fair due to side selection. Blue side is already the stronger side if teams that are on the winning side only have to win everytime they touch blueside it gives an easy exploit to the system that they only have to win 3/7 games and more than half of those games can be played on the side with the heavier advantage. It ruins competitive intergrity
@@ultraaran15 i don't know why you arguing Blue side OP as if it was by design. while there should be an imbalance of sides it should never be one side gets clear advantage. rito can't balance is not an acceptable reasoning for handicap replacement. if you are arguing the importance of pro players getting rest day then i guess that could make more sense. i have no knowledge on what pro play is like, maybe rest day handicap is more important than a free match loss. but I will argue that bilibili's first match again GenG could literally be counted as a scouting match, if either side knows they can beat T1/g2 then they can just use this match to scout opponent's strategies. and that just compromises the game's integrity.
@@0973davidthat already happens on winner side though. Also it doesnt make any sense to say that makes it any better. We literally get double the amount of great games due to double elim and doesnt leave anything up to “a fluke” type of results
I respect Bjerg for retiring and not just taking money. He realized his time was up. Jensen has been stealing pay checks for almost 2 years now.. and this has a lot of truth to it… he was bottom three out of mid laners this splits for lane control, which means he was just playing to scale and have good CS and not pushing for leads. This is a serious discussion to be had when you have a veteran mid player sticking around and having meta champ pool issues and when you go to international tourney they are a massive liability because of their play and inability to play certain champs for counter picks…
Double elim is great for MSI. Not for Worlds. The best competitions in the world are single elimination and make miracle runs possible. Double elim just gives teams second chances and defeats the purpose of high stakes. At a world championship, there should be high stakes
Disagree. I think it makes the tournament much more exciting when teams have a chance to learn from a loss and come back, plus we get to see more different matchups among the top teams. Lower bracket runs are the best kind of miracle runs.
What are you on? If the two beat teams in the tournament meet in the first elimination round and the loser is out right away you think that's somehow better despite the overall quality of the play diminishing from that point? You've got it backwards. If worlds is supposed to be the important tournament that determines who's best, you want opportunities for the best to demonstrate that and not just get rng draw flipped out round one. MSI now means more than worlds, and casual, stupid opinions like yours are why
![Shenseea - Dating Szn (Options) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/eUePmZFIXUg/mqdefault.jpg)
00:00:00 Intro
00:13:25 spacepope wants to talk about G2's master class in drafting
00:29:35 podras' take: Riot has catered to team owners far too much with too little return
00:49:38 zac's take: DIG will replace FLY as third seed in Summer if FLY can't fix issues
01:08:30 blade's take: Riot Games NEEDS to bring back Rift Rivals
01:22:38 dj8ninja's take: TL will get first in Summer and perform well at Worlds
01:30:16 carson's take: the LCS needs an all-encompassing docuseries to reinvigorate
01:43:00 Outro
"I don't think Jensen was playing well this split"??? Recency bias in full swing here lol
Cubby just works in the NACL so often will side with anything that moves players he likes there up. I agree that almost all the Fly NACL team should be in the LCS but I believe Fly lost the playoffs and got embarrassed at MSI because of the overly aggressive play by Bwipo and Inspired. Adding another rookie to the team will just give the "carnivores" another player to blame for losses.
For real, Jensen actually had a pretty good split, just not a great finals or MSI.
This has a lot of truth to it… he was bottom three out of mid laners this splits for lane control, which means he was just playing to scale and have good CS and not pushing for leads. This is a serious discussion to be had when you have a veteran mid player sticking around and having meta champ pool issues and when you go to international tourney they are a massive liability because of their play and inability to play certain champs for counter picks…
And even with recency bias he'd still be better than bwipo, inspired and busio
Not saying he is the problem but the thing is about league, recency actually matters. Games do not hold equal weight. It does not matter how well you play in regular season bo1s. It doesnt even matter that much how well you play in upper bracket bo5s. If you do not perform in the high stakes matches (grand finals vs TL and elimination match vs PSG), that outweighs the less impactful wins
Cubby is right that Riot has failed to help teams monetize. They can't even get an icon in the league of legends client anymore. LCS had seasonal team icons during the relegation era but not during the franchising era???? how does that make sense at fucking all? Shopify paid 10 million for an LCS spot and can't get an icon in the league client?
There are so many ways in which international attendees/winners can in return earn a monetized prize through the game client itself (skins/icons) but its just plainly stupid to not let all teams have their icons in game. When Worlds/MSIs come along, just make the icon look better for qualified teams or something; its just dumb to not let people that engage in this environment willingly then not be able to rep the participating teams they support in the game when they themselves play
Watching this puts me to sleep
same
In a good way*
@@GarredGamingexactly my thoughts
I watch it to sleep all the time
@@SlayaDaPlayasame good night
This is actually the first MSI ever I skipped other than TL vs T1.
Yes. Other formats have been so bad that this is just the best league tournament in forever almost by default. But we also got to see pretty much all the games we wanted, even twice. Doesn't matter if there weren't many big upsets, the quality of play was at its highest and we had the best match ups.
A pure western-region tournament would be sick! It is hard to brag about being the better western region when you play maybe 1-2 best of series against each other every year. It might also give a chance to shine for CBLoL and LLA instead of dropping out in Play-Ins in every tournament.
Cubby's take that tournaments are worse when results roughly match expectations is wild to me.
His stupidity in this part was just too much for me...
Their take is that an upset didn't happen therefore not the best :/
It was a great tournament because of quality of games, quality of matchups, and quantity of those matchups. Fantastic tournament in my eyes.
He’s right tho, I don’t care to see an all east finals
? how is that a hot take. upsets are the most exciting. when the underdog overperforms more so. when the favorite underperforms less so.
@@numberyithen find a way to make the West better. Not the fault of those who like seeing high level league of legends. You dont like seeing an all East finals. I think it was a waste of my time to watch LCS all split just to see FlyQuest lose in playins to a minor region. Atleast watching the LPL and LCK gave me a rush for the finals and for MSI.
Maybe consider watching the LCK or LPL instead of letting LCS brain rot you like cubby
Cubby wants an international tournament where American high school kids can compete and win a chance to get curb stomped by Faker. I feel like that’s where his take was going.
staying up to 2am pst every night to catch the matches when you work a 9-5 is absolute hell
it's going to take a week to recover. still really enjoyed being engaged with it though. im just so tired now.
Yah 100% agreed. (I don't 9-5, I'm flexible but still) legit still recovering as well. Was fun while it lasted but I def was glad it ended
I love this TL roster and can't wait to see them back in the LCS for summer
Here me out:
My take for the east vs. west tournament is...
Condense the summer split playoffs (same format but less breaks, similar to MSI but smaller). Only the top two teams directly qualify for worlds. Same with LEC. Throw in the 3-6 place teams from LEC and LCS to fight for the remaining two spots (basically what would be 3rd seed for EU and NA).
Yes this would run close to Worlds but if teams want more rest before Worlds they should strive for top 2 in their region. Lower seeds get harder schedules and thats typically true in all playoff competitions.
This would be an 8 team tournament 3-6 from NA and EU. Perhaps start with a bo3 group stage with two groups (2 NA and 2 EU in each group) then top two makes it into a playoff bracket that starts in the semi-finals and third place starts in the lower bracket. If that would take too much time they can get rid of the lower bracket.
They can run this same format in LPL and LCK for 4th seeds and maybe include PCS?
This is a win win because its east vs west and it has worlds implications.
Jensen to dig needs to happen..
Jensen already stole paychecks from Dig last year.. I know It is a retirement home.. but Jensen should just retire
8:00 epic upsets aren't the only thing that makes a tournament good. We had a great meta with great matchups. If results are the metric for how good the tournament was, then you're judging it based on upset, and not gameplay and matchups. I mean we got blg vs t1 twice! G2vs t1 twice. Those were phenomenal to watch, and no other tournament gave us this many great games.
Yeah i agree idk what he wants more from the tournament. I think thorin and monte said it best “i left this tournament with no questions unanswered” I guess the only question could be how would Elk have performed if he wasnt so sick he puked on stage but still thats something not up to the tournament.
Prior years has been so meta dependent and sometimes cheesy with the single elim bracket, but this one theres no excuses if you lost in winners you has your chance in losers on a different day. It showed more of the teams upper ceiling than any other tournament where sometimes if someone was just whack on the day that was it and no one could know.
Its indisputable now that Chovy is currently the best midlaner in the world because he fought every top midlaner at this tournament except Caps and didnt faulter even when he absorbed 4 bans he atleast held his own. You wouldnt get that statistic if this tournament wasnt a banger. The extra bracket allowed so many intournament adaptations and it showed in drafts like Nidalee showing up in the tournament towards the top 8
I also loved the format and hope they keep it this way going forward, but I'm wondering how you all feel about finding a way to give the upper bracket winners some sort of advantage. If GenG had lost the final, think of how bad that would've felt - every other team at the tournament gets a chance to fail and comeback through the lower bracket except for them. Maybe if they did a best of 7 final and gave the upper bracket winner a 1-0 start? That way you have 1 extra game max on the day, doesn't seem too challenging to implement.
@@ultraaran15 very well said. 🔥
@@jaydee4177 I'd recommend watching the latest episode of summoning insight. They talk about this (very exaggeratingly) at a fundamental level. Imagine Gen won the finals by winning 3 games and losing 3 games. That would be waaaay worse imo. I don't think the flaw is big enough to warrant drastic changes. You could do something, but maybe not so big as the bo7 imo.
Reading what everyone posted kind of proves Cubby's point. Everyone liked the matchups we got and that was a result of a better format.
The finals were great, but there were a lot of 3-0 matches with zero drama.
cubby consistently has such shit takes that're based in nothing but his own clear biases and it's made the show so much worse than having mark. you could replace him with chatgpt text to speech and just tell it to shill anything remotely related to challenger scene
I feel that too alot of the time. Im only onto his first take but his first take about the tournament being okay because he defines excitment as upsets and not the level of play was cringe coming from someone who is suppose to be analytical of the game. Thats like saying A5 wagyu is overrated because it still taste like beef/steak. Its like bro the level of the dish/gameplay is obviously lost on you.
Also his G2 take was so long and circular that it felt like he was filling in a 1000 word essay rather than adding any true analysis of G2 as an org in the tournament. Bro didnt even reference Poppey during his conversation of comfort picks as an easy transition because Mikyx use to be a Poppy support one trick. And its a shame that wasnt even mentioned as a transition from comfort to unique picks drawing bans for g2
Happy belated bday Travis
We have seen in the past that no one cares about EU-NA rift rivals. International tournaments are a way for western teams to scrim better teams and learn. G2 and TL both played better than expected because they were able to practice against the East.
I could see the rumored dig roster being in top 3 just due to the spite of some players who werent signed last split. Its a hell of a motivator.
Starting the Hall of Legends with anyone but Faker is an insane take. People giving Travis shit for that is wild.
Give us an LCS 1v1 Tournament run by the teams from their training Facilities during the break. Have teammates or Coaches have live play by play. Run a Bot Lane Arena Tournament where bot lanes battle for a Crown.
Travis! A haven't been able to hear u for month off my monitors speakers turned all the way up! I can hear cubby and all your guest! Turn up fam!
Chime needs to be subbed in
after this, i have zero faith or trust in flyquest as an org. papasmithy was my fav caster when I got into league, so I really want to like them, but since 2020 FLY has had dysfunctional roster after dysfunctional roster. the last two years they've put way more money into the teams and they've collapsed at the end of spring twice in a row. completely different rosters full of talented players. something is going wrong behind the scenes. someone is doing a poor job.
Who cares if there was a surprise 8:53 , please tell which tournament was better
As an East Coast watcher I enjoyed the MSI hours. I could watch the games before heading to work and on the weekends I woke up early enough to catch the games and could still have my day to do other things. Hopefully LCS does earlier hours this split as well.
Bro ive been saying this in so many comments but like 40:20 is more proof WHY IS CUBBY HERE. What is this ass take about how Riot should bolster a team store for the teams. How would that increase sales for team merch? If youre buying merch for your team YOU ALREADY FOLLOW THEM ON SOCIAL MEDIA. No one goes “man i really love Team Dignitas awwww but riot doesnt have their merch on the website guess they dont have any” also FNATIC ISNT THE NBA. I worked in a sport store you know how HARD it is to find specific jerseys for players? Half the time in the store we had 60% legacy players, 20% of the best player for MOST sports or teams (things like Hockey didnt get anything unless you were a fan of the local team and a player from the 90s) maybe and 30% local team top picks. You couldnt be in LA looking for a detroit lions jersey for the life of you. But if you were really a detroit lions fan in LA you werent looking for a jersey in stores you would have already bought one online. And if youre in a sport store you dont get upset they dont have a DL jersey instore you only get excited when you see some DL merch because YOURE A FAN OF THE TEAM.
Cubby feels like a trend follower like the type of character to be affected by ads and recency biases because the only person going to Riots website to buy a jersey is someone who just watched TL win finals and has now been swayed to be a TL fan to the point they want merch. Which is like less than 1% of viewers. Yes this 1% works for traditional sports because 1% of a million of viewers is 10k. A jersey usually retail around 200 dollars thats 2million dollars off a 1% flip flop viewership. You cant do those metrics when your viewership numbers are the 100k a team jersey for LCS is what like 60 bucks? I would argue less than 1% of the flipfloppers would even buy a jersey but lets say they do its 60k. Earned. That isnt enough to keep the lights on and to run an org. Cubby is trying to capitalize on flash in the pan inconsistancies rather than cater to die hard fans. A die hard fan isnt gonna look to riot for merch drops they will look to the team. Its upto the teams in the league to push their brands out. Riot cant make the team likable and having a warehouse full of their jerseys isnt gonna help anyone either.
Also the thing about “why isnt this located on our riot shop” because the teams dont host their shops the same. Some use their own websites some use a third party distributor some sell it out of the back of a van. The issue is Cubby that if they link an external website off LOL esports what does that do for riot. Youre pitching ideas without any logistics. Unless riot directly sells the jerseys advertising people to leave the website decreases the LOLesport shop sales for things because it isnt one big checkout window. And unless teams agree to pay for warehouse space inside a riot distribution center/warehouse they wont have access to inventory to complete sales. If the jerseys dont sell from the warehouse lesser teams are paying rent and losing MORE money due to needing to have things in the shop or riot doesnt require it of them and then it looks like theyre under represented in the league. Bro take a marketing class or something PLEASE.
I feel like every time it’s cubby’s turn to speak he just stream of consciousness chains points together that have very little correlation and doesn’t even think about what he’s saying. How can you possibly believe Jensen had a bad split. You must have not watched the split and been too busy watching challengers
Jensen literally didnt fall off until playoffs and still theres more to the team that just jensen, i can take the reasoning being a lack of mid jg synergy but acting like it was Jensen at fault vs the team is wild. If theres a lack of synergy swapping out the Jg for more synergy with Jensen will also make the team look better.
Not saying drop Inspired but acting like Jensen was the weakest link is wild. The reason he was swapped of is because hes the most known variable, being consistant isnt bad and he consistantly shows up its the fact they want a higher ceiling than Jensen. Most people see the mid swap as a side grade interms of value but over all how it affects team synergy is what the swap was for.
But cubby just idk. Sees swap thinks player is bad. Im sure he thinks impact was bad until he won playoffs and then swapped his mental narrative even tho Impact has always been the most stable top domestically and internationally.
At this stage, Jensen is just late career Bjergsen. Not bad, not particularly great either. Wants to play sidelanes passively and scale for team fights. It's very obvious that the issue with Jensen is style, not quality, and Flyquest wasn't going to sit on a player of Quads calibre forever. Sometimes improving a team means getting rid of a player even though there's absolutely nothing wrong with the player. Sometimes a team just needs something different, that changes the formula slightly.
Jensen is washed up, but i liked him on Dig. I think hes better than Dove so they should just sign Jensen. Dig shows zero loyality anyways, why not just dump the import you just got? Rich was released for Licorice which might be a downgrwde depending on which Licorice shows up this split.
If we're going to have another international event we really don't need another 'best few teams in the world fight for the top spot'. I'd much rather see more different teams who don't usually get to go international, especially from regions we don't see as often, play teams they don't usually get to play.
Nothing unexpected happened so the Tournament wasn't special? What a shit take...
Yah I think he just wasn't thinking when he said that lol. Can't be a serious take
That's the Riot games worlds kool aid. Worlds is at this point an objectively inferior format if the goal is to be the premiere tournament that showcases the best the game has to offer. MSI does that better. What Riot preaches with their single elim tournaments like worlds is thwt the variance makes it exciting and very clearly cubby is all in on that message.
@@anthonyricher idk i really feel like if you were to push cubby he would at least elaborate or step back, but yah maybe idk
I know traditional sports are all about Live views but this is 2024 and e-sports is streamed to an audience heavily into technology where VODs are commonplace. Why should American viewers be forced to watch this live when they can have an option of watching these games at any time they want, irrelevant of the hosting country. Why are VODs so frowned upon? They should team up with a popular channel or else Riot does this themselves giving REAL incentives to watch on the website, like lane VOD options, analysis data etc...
at 7:09 cubby says he doesnt think this was the best tournament as most people are claiming it to be. let me try to explain why i think hes wrong (or atleast why i think people feel differently). i think they are calling it the best tournament not only because of the format, but because every single match felt very competitive. it was not as one sided as it usually is especially when it comes to the east vs west. all matches were bangers even if the "favored" teams still came out on top. not only that but we didn't get any same region matches at all. each match was different regions so the rivalries all felt like they had larger stakes. each match felt very important and it was great matches from start to finish.
TLDR: what makes a tournament good is not upsets. its the quality and tension of the games. each match was very high quality and entertaining.
Did Travis forget g2 took out top esports and almost won the first bo5 VS t1? Like did he watch MSI at all?
Damn third tournament should be NA vs EU just for pride of who is the best league. Like the leagues would need to work together and just like in fighting games it would be teams in a certain order and it would be the top 8 teams of each league and the team that wins keeps on playing and the looser is eliminated first 4 teams on a side would be best of 1 next 2 bo3 and last 2 bo5. I feel like it would also get people to watch lesser teams and give them practice.
I stayed up for the matches i cared about for MSI to avoid the spoilers.
I just watched caedral or LS videos next day. Never watched live except for the 9pm game
Great show Travis n Happy Birthday!
Thank you!
There is no way I am older than Travis. I refuse to believe he was born in 1999.
Just looked it up. This guy was born in 1989 lol
Tbh the real reason TL might actually be better going in to summer split is the coach improvement. I think spawn and the coaching staff know what they need to be more effective or contentious in international tournaments.
The reason I see that happening is because of the importantance of pacing and tempo - I believe spawn even noted how big of the difference was when Asian teams played; they played with an entirely different tempo.
That and umti legit just needs to show up a little better next time around.
So does Apa. Reality is that he didn’t really show up as much as people want to believe.
There’s a reason he left the lck
@@michaelsalinas7040 it's his champ pool, you're not getting any big wins at Worlds against top Korea or LPL teams going in with Ziggs and A-Sol. T1 literally left every champ up mid because they weren't worried about it. They dare him to pick comfort and he does and it's always an easy counter. There's to many midlaners to ban against other teams to help him out also so TL couldn't really burn bans on it to help him out nor should they have.
that's a bullshit take that you got from monte. it's just shade he's throwing at the players, he's straight up said that TL won in spite of their players and that 100% of the credit is due to the coaches. spawn was a former caster, all these analysts and casters and commentators are all rooting for him because he's the most like them. that's why they're sucking him off all the time and the rhetoric from that suck-off-a-thon has petered down to you.
@@bayouboyentertainment2106 Asol is meta. Ziggs is fine but the Lillia jungle last pick is what threw everything off. ZIggs Lillia is actually a good combo but t1 had 3 ranged carries that she couldnt catch up with. APA champ pool is fine and hes slowly improving it. Umti and Core didnt have the best tourney. APA and Yeon played very well. Just remember, this is APA's first full split in the LCS.
I agree with the take about rift rivals and I thought that too when I saw TL win against FNC only to have to face T1 in the next round. It took all the excitement out for me thinking that T1 are most likely to win the next series and made it too easy to predict. At this point I think it is fair to say that the top Western teams are at least a step below the top Eastern teams. G2 is the closest and they still got 3-0'd by a staggering T1. Team Liquid didn't fare any better (sure they took 1 game but 3-1 is not close to winning either). Rift rivals would give frustrated western fans a chance to actually have a meaningful rivalry instead of always having to look up at their competition and get excited about winning a game or two. I hope they make it happen!
I personally miss LCS showmatches.
If we have another 2-3 week break, I'd enjoy another event similar to the 2015 Urfitationals, Casters vs Doom Bots, and the 2018 Civil War.
I miss doom bots :(
not just that brake what about the brake after worlds. Why didnt we get a arena tournament and have former pro streams (its not like you cant find 4-10) with current pros or a fearless draft or all for one.
I just wish the lolesports site did a better job of hiding spoilers, i like to watch the games in the morning and the entire site spoils the outcome
I'm going to go out and say right now, Rift Rivals EU vs NA should not return. It's simply not fun and its always better including other Regions all mixed together. Seeing all the different playstyles and adaptations from teams its far more rewarding. Teams need to play against the Eastern teams. Only playing against EU is not going to help much and thinking it will because of "G2" is ridiculous thinking. The invitational thing we are getting is good and stuff that needs to happen more. Or let Regions host an invitational each split (2 a year) 1 year it's an NA/LCK inviational, next year EU/LPL, ect.. any combo though.
I'd like the All-Stars event return but with some changes to voting on who goes for each role on each regions team.
Also, Worlds should go to a Best of 3 format being as best of 1's are trash and MSI went hard cause of the best of 3's
39:00 my issue with the teams is that it felt like they were shopping for talent vs growing it. Riot sure didnt incentive growing talent but i lost faith in the league around the time Sven and Mithy showed up on TSM. Not because Sven or Mithy werent good players it just felt like I was losing the feeling fo NA in my NA league. I mean look at us now we failed to foster talent in 2018-19 and now we have so many nondomestic players that costed soooo much money. How we gonna forget about Huni being worth 2 MILLION dollars after leaving SKT. Like the money got so absurd on team owner sides that you really cant blame riot for the implosion. If the teams were smarter about the way they spent across the board the league would be 1000% healthier. Sure riot couldve implimented salary caps or forced teams to cap the economy but it shouldnt take your parent to tell you not to blow all your money in a casino and to invest some of the new money you just got from sponsors. Esports winter wouldnt be hitting if they had some change in their pocket instead of paying players literal millions for a single year. Something NBA rookies make their first year. Which is allowed for a multi BILLION dollar sport. Where literally teams paid 10 million to buy a slot youre telling me any play was worth 1/10th of a buy in slot? If you fielded 5 of those million dollar players (something liquid was close to doing) you would have lost half an LCS slot. Also remember how Liquid was partnered with disney/marvel? Riot didnt flop that for them…
On the take about having Rift Rivals as the third game, I completely understand Cubby's reasoning, I really respect his outlook on the importance of keeping the competitive integrity and the mindset going, but given the "all or nothing" mindset that fans seem to have, I think having a third, more western focused tournament, while not better skill growth, will be better for Fan sentiment. Not to mention a good way to give Minor and second-tier regions some much-needed quality scrims to level up with.
Great episode!! Guests are awesome especially when you get somebody like Zven who is really smart about the game and good at speaking but don’t be afraid to have a show without a guest! Sometimes the guests actually suck the oxygen out of the room because they lack speaking skills
I hope TL continues to improve
F1 is so exhilarating but from a competitive aspect it feels like a joke. If the governing body for F1 required every drive from all teams to use the exact same car (nothing is different) and everything else stayed the same THAT would actually be fun to watch. How good are drivers really if they are all using the same exact car. So crazy how some drivers got a podium because another driver got bumped off the road or had a system or engine malfunction
God I miss Mark.
I can't even watch this "sport" anymore. It's so boring. G2 will remain a fake threat. Asia will stomp the game for years to come. Regional Leagues are boring as shit with 2-3 actual good teams who control all the rosters like the Yankees/Dodgers.
The game is a massive time sink / waste of time - which you have to commit to just to understand the sport.
Riot are just masters of wasting peoples time with overhyped fancy products. Master grifters.
Been watching this shit since 2015. No more! Unsubbed! Uninstalled!
click 👈👉
i can't agree with this format being good, it maybe better than previous ones, but not really fair. the result this time wasn't that controversial, as GenG is clearly shown as the best team, but what would happen if GenG lost against bilibili in the rematch? i don't think it would be fair for GenG to be second place. the total score of these two teams in the msi would just be 1 - 1. they would literally have equal score but bilibili will be the winner.
if you think about it, every team in this tournament would be allowed to have one free loss except for the winner.
a fairer system should give GenG a handicap if they never lost against anyone. like bilibili should be required to win 4 games instead of 3 in their rematch.
100% agree.
But thats because you dont understand league tho. Side selection is such a huge thing in league and tends to define the tempo for the rest of the best of 5. staying on winners not only gives you a day of rest but also give you an advantage for winners.
Look at Elk if they one that Finals match against Gen G he would have gotten a day to sleep in and recover. He was so sick he threw up on stage. And the format was hard on him physically from how many games he had to play. The advantage of winning isnt the bracket reset its the control of the next matchup no matter who walks in and being able to come in well rested. And it shows off game one how impactful side selection was which reflected in how BLG was on the backfoot for the rest of the series.
Imagine how different this would have been if BLG won in finals vs GenG what the rest would have done for Elk what the side selection would have done for the draft meta for the rest of the series.
The format is great. A bracket reset would mean making these guys play at minimum for 8 hrs on stage due to them spreading time between games and that would also make casters and staff including everyone behind the scenes to stay for atleast 8 hrs in a best case scenario of 5 games reset into a 3 game sweep. At the 7th game you would see literal exhaustion in the level of play from most players and from the talent.
Also moving the goal post from 3 wins to 4 wins isnt anymore fair than not doing that. Because what if the series is back and forth BLG GENG BLG GENG BLG GENG. That isnt fair due to side selection. Blue side is already the stronger side if teams that are on the winning side only have to win everytime they touch blueside it gives an easy exploit to the system that they only have to win 3/7 games and more than half of those games can be played on the side with the heavier advantage. It ruins competitive intergrity
@@ultraaran15 single elim is the best solution. Its a 50/50 for side selection with a coin flip.
@@ultraaran15 i don't know why you arguing Blue side OP as if it was by design. while there should be an imbalance of sides it should never be one side gets clear advantage. rito can't balance is not an acceptable reasoning for handicap replacement.
if you are arguing the importance of pro players getting rest day then i guess that could make more sense. i have no knowledge on what pro play is like, maybe rest day handicap is more important than a free match loss.
but I will argue that bilibili's first match again GenG could literally be counted as a scouting match, if either side knows they can beat T1/g2 then they can just use this match to scout opponent's strategies. and that just compromises the game's integrity.
@@0973davidthat already happens on winner side though. Also it doesnt make any sense to say that makes it any better. We literally get double the amount of great games due to double elim and doesnt leave anything up to “a fluke” type of results
Jensen's a journeyman midlaner, he's not going to carry against anyone better than him. He should've retired when bjergsen did.
I respect Bjerg for retiring and not just taking money. He realized his time was up.
Jensen has been stealing pay checks for almost 2 years now..
and this has a lot of truth to it… he was bottom three out of mid laners this splits for lane control, which means he was just playing to scale and have good CS and not pushing for leads. This is a serious discussion to be had when you have a veteran mid player sticking around and having meta champ pool issues and when you go to international tourney they are a massive liability because of their play and inability to play certain champs for counter picks…
Double elim is great for MSI. Not for Worlds. The best competitions in the world are single elimination and make miracle runs possible. Double elim just gives teams second chances and defeats the purpose of high stakes. At a world championship, there should be high stakes
Did you think the bracket of this msi was lower stakes?
Disagree. I think it makes the tournament much more exciting when teams have a chance to learn from a loss and come back, plus we get to see more different matchups among the top teams. Lower bracket runs are the best kind of miracle runs.
@@jonathanleake6611 yes? Lmao 😂. If you lose, you are not eliminated. You have to lose twice
What are you on? If the two beat teams in the tournament meet in the first elimination round and the loser is out right away you think that's somehow better despite the overall quality of the play diminishing from that point? You've got it backwards. If worlds is supposed to be the important tournament that determines who's best, you want opportunities for the best to demonstrate that and not just get rng draw flipped out round one. MSI now means more than worlds, and casual, stupid opinions like yours are why
@@0973david So would you support single-elim Bo1 games all the way up the bracket? Otherwise the first few games of a series aren't "high stakes".
Who caaaaaares anymore? LCS is a lost cause….