Mark is a breath of fresh air for LCS commish. Wtf were all the past commishes doing before him. Mark's experience as previous coach, analyst, on desk talent, hotline league and passion really shows. If anyone can revive LCS it's him.
mark doesn't have the power to stop or be the deciding factor with any of these changes. none of the other commissioners have either. mark doesn't have any actual employees under him. That lack of power that's given to John Needham/previously Chris Greely and other faceless riot execs. I think all of the other commissioners besides Jackie and Mark were pretty terrible. That being said I do think Mark is doing the absolute best with what he's got and if he were more empowered to bring change he could probably make the LCS a stable, solid product. You see that manifest in getting bo3s and the general positivity in last split (honestly last couple) with the broadcast. Whoever the fuck keeps putting finals on Easter needs to be kicked out of the kitchen
Everyone likes Mark the problem is the people in his role adhere to the suits behind the scene. He won't himself be able to revive lcs since franchising is the direct cause of it's downfall. The players stopped caring when they no longer had their own way into the lcs, the audience stopped caring when the teams stopped behind competitive since no one was able to kick the bad teams out making the region less competitive year by year, and the sponsors stopped caring when the audience left which is where we are now in which they are trying to combine regions for viewer numbers for american sponsors. The league will need to crash before it can grow once again.
Riot needs Mark to provide context for all their pro-play decisions going forward, he's one of the very few people there that actually makes me feel like they know what they're doing. He single handedly turned me from thinking this was going to be a disaster, to actually being kinda excited for the changes.
The last commish took us to week days. There was a period without a commish. The one before that took us to franchising. The commish before that took us to Bo3 on two streams. The ones before that didn’t really have any authority.
Mark is a good at his role and we all like mark but he is a figurehead for the suits behind the scene. Everyone knows franchising was the point in which the league started going down hill and unfortunately the exact changes needed to set this region on the right path again is the one they won't take until everything has completely crashed which we are near to.
I...just wanna give Mark a big fucking hug. He's actually the goat. Im genuinely so satisfied with the answers he gave that i quite literally cant think of anymore questions to ask.
One thing I really appreciated was how the Dive analysts didn't hold back at all. Of course they were respectful and understood that there were many more factors at play besides just Mark making all the decisions by himself but they asked and said exactly the concerns that were on their mind.
Mark is crushing it, and I hope he feels the love from the community. Genuinely appreciate his contributions, transparency, as well as actual passion for the sport/game.
Of course it's utilizing brazilian viewership for American sponsors since the people who took Na from a diamond mine and turned it into a dirt hill are scrambling to hold on to the little power they have left after destroying the league, now they are using brazil to leach and hold on.
Eh, maybe but I wouldn't take the moneybags at the top's word for it. Until we see the actual dollars and cents which they will never ever make public, it's all speculation. Most of the time owners/CEOs don't want you to know the amount of money that are currently being made that they are unhappy with. They use that opacity and fear monger fans into believing change is the only choice... When is really just about trying to make more money.
I really appreciate Azael bringing up a lot of long term concerns with the new format. Honestly having more than 1 rotating team and letting the best performing one keep their spot would plug a lot of the holes
This also helps t2 orgs like DSG that wanted to move up but couldn't. Unless they spent millions of dollars to buy out a slot. Which is really cool actually
Before watching the entire video, the section "why are these changes happening?" really made sense when the focus is on global changes in how they distribute money to teams.
Continually impressed by Mark as the commish, and it shows the team supporting him, and those working with him do an incredible job so he can be so well-informed for public facing events. Kudos.
yeah i feel the most bad for the LLA who are basically getting cut down to 2 tier 1 teams, one north one south. Hopefully they are still able to have a tier 2 league of their own
@@claysmith8840 This does condense the handful of top tier players from that region to actually get on teams that may get more international experience. No offense intended to LLA, but they would just get bodied internationally when they sent their 1 seed. North and South conferences can now have more compact and talented teams. Many of us can agree that many LCS, CBLOL and LLA teams were just always crap and doomed the maybe 1 guy who was actually good on those teams.
@@claysmith8840 Idk how much this would help, but they should extend them an invitation to join the tier 2 league. I know they have the partnership stuff they just started, but I feel like they should get a better deal because they've already invested and existed in the ecosystem for so long. They obviously don't have to take the offer, but if some did, it would bolster NACL (or whatever it's called now), give LLA fans the ability to still watch their team, and allow those players and teams the ability to play with the chance of making it into a tier 1 league if they play well. Idk, maybe there's something I'm not thinking about, but it just seems like a win-win-win situation to me. Not to mention, NACL is remote already anyway; Mexico city is about the same distance from Chicago as LA is.
Korea, China, and Europe still get 3, NA can only get 2, 1 if they really fuck up and the LLA team beats them in the Northern Conference. It's not the same.
people not understanding that this was mainly an econonic decision is lowkey driving me crazy. I'll wait to judge the how its going til we get there, this is such a massive change that it's not gonna be possible to judge how well its working until we've seen a full season.
Ah yes dropping a 500$ ahri skin and then shrinking leagues for Econ reasons is rich.. seems more greed focused. “Let’s make sure our salaries are growing bigly”
@@CB38096 $500 dollars for the premium, bragging rights version of the skin, which looks ridiculous over here and will get you laughed at in game (deservedly) but something that the chinese market players love as a flex and will make money. Obviously its greed focused, corporations don't make any other decision; but burning good will just to burn it doesn't make you money in the long run. This is a totally different discussion than what the league's gonna look like though lol
Competitive LOL has been in an economic decline for years. The bubble already popped and if MarkZ didn't push for changes the whole scene would be gone in 2-3 years. Yeah there is some good and bad here, but this is how we save the league
dammit, even as a markz fan I came into this hoping to catch him saying something stupid but he was so articulate and correct about everything how am i supposed to comment on that.
MarkZ is doing miracle work as commissioner. This new system is very strange but you can tell a lot of thought and care went into it. I think this is the best possible path forward for the LCS.
I'm down to every change that help competitive League to keeps on going, been a fan since start, i love watching lol matchs and events! so i just hopes this really works!
Actually a massive fan of the change - from a format perspective this is really cool. Not too torn up about the lack of slots for LCS - hopefully this will REALLY drive the best possible rosters together so that the 1 team we do send ends up being worthwhile.
It's sad that the change is to bring in brazils viewership for american sponsors. Since the people who got to control this league since franchising turned it from a diamond mine into a dirt hill with the worst level management of a league basically of all time. They somehow made something that could not fail into something that has little to no chance to succeed.
Yeah the loss of 1-2 worlds slots and 1 MSI slot is so overblown. The teams we send all get smashed regardless, basically nothing changes. If we lose to Brazil for the third worlds spot then we would have gotten smashed even harder by Asia. These changes all help domestic play which is the priority.
@@ObiWanShinobi917 Yeah I've only been around since the beginning. If you were there when this region was absolutely massive and flourishing you would understand what was lost through franchising not to mention what this region would have become if not for corporate greed and control.
@@rebornthanos i agree that the region has fallen in recent years and franchising had a lot to do with that, but many of these changes seem meant to reverse course and go back to what works
They really should make team specific skins for regional team winners, that would raise SO much money for teams and raise the incentives to win. Even just the MVP of the winning team would be fine, since Riot probably doesn't want to make 25 skins per year
If they had any data that supported it could make money they would’ve done so already. Aside from some huge regional stars that are well known globally I.e. Caps for EU or DL for NA; the market is going to be way too niche.
@kashtrey go back in the day when call of duty league was actually watchable. I would imagine back in Advanced Warfare days when they started the team skins. They sold a boat load of skins that you could use on your exo skin and weapons. The downside is I don't remember if the teams actually earned any money from it but I know it was quite profitable for them.
@@joshdolan7822 those skins are so low effort and just palette swaps with logos. That would never be a good revenue stream for league. It would sell probably just as well as the team logo emotes.
the overwatch league kind of did that, just like.. a base skin for each character that basically had a recolour for each team. wouldn't work so well with leagues 100+ characters though.
My thought on the tier 2 team that succeeds. Why don't we have two tutu teams that go up? Then the relegation can be for the worst performing tier 2 team while the better one gets assured safety for the following year
Hey @LCS, Markz is killing it with these updates, how open he is, the details he can give. He KNOWS what is going on and shares as much as he can without the feel of "Corporate Slug". This is the kind of person LCS needed, and LoL Esports could definitely benefit from more MarkZ (President of Esports when?)
Very exciting to have different formats across splits. I hope for one of the later split formats they bring back swiss bracket bo3 like 2023 worlds. That format brought so many close matchups.
Really liking adding that third import slot for "Americas" players. Its a nice balance between maintaining regional identity while still allowing movement between the north and south conferences.
@@nickmajora I don't think its laid out officially anywhere, but MarkZ talked about it on the Dive. There are the 2 regular import slots that you are used to, but they are adding a third import slot called the "Americas Import slot" that can only be used by a player from the opposing Americas conference. The only limitation on these rules is you cannot have 3 americas players from the opposing division (A brazil team using all 3 imports on NA players isnt allowed for example, the maximum allowed is 2). LATAM players are considered residents in both the north and south conference, so no need to use an import slot on any of these players.
@@Djfjfjrhhrjrhrhfj Thanks for the explanation. So what you're saying is an NA team could have two Koreans, a Brazilian and two NA players (or even two LLA players instead of NA players)?
@@nickmajora Yes exactly. An NA team can do their usual 2 Koreans but now they can add a top Brazilian player too and then they only have 2 NA players. An NA org could technically do 5 LATAM players if they wanted, but doubtful that there are that many quality players from that region. We also still have the green card rule where anyone that becomes a US citizen is a resident so you can really have more “imports” that way as well. Nothing is set in stone, but this is how I understand the new import rule as of now. They will officially announce it at some point.
Thankful Mark is at least getting in front of this and addressing it. I’m old enough to remember the move to weekdays with no explanation as to why and the following doomer opinions that formed after. Could definitely see something similar happening here if he and the LCS didn’t explain the reasoning behind this move at all
For all the talk about CBLOL being an unknown - if you've ever watched CBLOL games within their own division, it is some of the craziest, most entertaining games. Including the broadcast. I'm not mad we're getting more exposure to a division with real personality. Their ability to perform internationally is completely different, but regionally, CBLOL is a gem.
@@georgeperdis2750 eh our best teams are definitely better than the lck's worst, if you dropped NS in NA right now theyd probably be middle of the pack
@@georgeperdis2750I mean there’s always usually 1 game or series that a random NA team takes off of a Korean team (usually C9 in the past), and that would be their 3rd or 4th seed. Hell if anything they’ve been looking better. Sure TL lost to T1 but it was a lot more competitive than teams have been in the past. And T1 are the defending world champs not a random 10-7th place team.
@@11DaltonB Shows you haven't really watched much LCK. This is the most beatable T1 has ever looked. It wasn't really TL stepping up, but T1 massively underperforming.
I will say I would really love an English cast for CBLOL, similar to how we have one for LCK and LPL. I'm sure the viewer payoff would be low at first but I think it would help build "Americas" unity.
Massive props to Mark for all that he's done as commish, especially considering he's only been here for a bit over a split. But my only question is why is each America region only 8 teams? Having 8 total teams and only 1 LLA team per region feels a bit cramped, surely each region could fit at least 10 teams right?
@@BrontesBC the truth of the matter is that the earning power of fans in CBLOL is lower, they're on laptops or older PCs. they're FORCED to keep playing league because its a game you can run on low specs. NA market has better computers and has moved on to other games. that's the real reason CBLOL has more viewership. the fans can't play other games bc their computers aren't good enough.
The Guest team slot from tier 2 is a great concept but it doesn't go far enough with only one team and one relegation the whole year. I'd remove another LCS slot and replace it with another Guest slot so that there's 2 Guest slots in the league. Then I'd have a relegation/promotion Bo5 each split between the winner of the tier 2 split and the worst performing Guest slot team. This'd allow greater opportunities for tier 2 teams to get into the league _and_ create an instant rivalry between the Guest slot teams leading to more hype matchups and a competition within a competition for those teams. (Great episode btw. Mark doing great.)
I have so much faith in Mark. Like he seems like someone SO genuine just trying to make the best out of all the politics of the system WHILE bridging the gap in communication to fans. I know it's a lot of changes coming up, but I have faith in his long term vision and if it takes us some crazy places along the way, I'm here for it.
So no more NA vs EU for a worlds spot?? With the two regions being so close recently that was the best content to look forward to and now it's gone again? The inter conference is not a substitute.
It’s crazy when the commissioner doesn’t give PR only answers. He definitely redirects the questions he can’t answer, but he does it in a way to still give information and not to shut down the question. Mark is the best thing to happen to the LCS.
I’m just confused on the world’s spots. The americas only have 3 world spots now for 16 teams. That doesn’t make sense to me we double in teams but still only have three slots? Or is there still play in spots?
The Americas are going from 24 teams and 5 Worlds slots to 16 teams and 3 slots so proportionally it's close. Overall the Americas are losing 2 slots and APAC are losing 1-3 depeding on which Worlds years you're looking at. It makes sense since these are the worst performing regions (though I suspect in a couple years APAC will become very competitive again).
So... on one hand, I'm glad to see some of these changes. I think some teams coasted (which makes 0 sense to me) in the LCS and never tried to improve and, even worse, some PLAYERS played just good enough to hold a spot. With spots decreasing, now is the time for players to step up, to make sure their spot is secured. On the other hand... I understand the CBLoL and LLAs frustrations. They've put so much into their region. Yes, they may not perform great internationally (like we can talk), but it's always about the regional experience for them and to lose some of that will be rough. I'm going to assume some of the bottom feeders in CBLoL are going away, which should help improve the quality of the product. There's good and bad here. I'm not as excited for 2025 as I was for 2024, but I think a lot of that comes down to which 2 LCS teams are going away.
Am I understanding correctly? The guest spot gets won every year and then loss as soon as the year is over even if the guest team wins LCS. Is that correct? Seems dumb. If a 2nd tier team does better than a franchised team it doesn't seem right that the 2nd tier gets relegated anyway. I think the setup should be that there are 3 guest slots, but 1 slot opens up per year as needed (up to 3 max). Then the bottom two teams in LCS get relegated IF they are not a franchise team - so year 1 the guest has 2x chances to be relegated. If the guest team doesn't fall into the last 2 places, no team gets relegated and another guest spot opens up the next year. This pattern repeats until all 3 guest spots are filled. If all 3 are filled, the lowest ranked guest team will be relegated even if they didn't come into the bottom two and no guest slots are lost. If two guest teams out of 3 are in the bottom 2, both are relegated and 1 guest slot is loss. If two guest teams out of 2 are in the bottom 2, then both are kicked and 1 guest slot is lost. This is done to only ever allow 1 guest into LCS per year (up to a max of 3). Franchised teams will obviously never be relegated. I think this way there is potential for teams to make it into the LCS and stay if they are good, and also guest teams can be removed and added more organically. Then if a franchised team always makes bottom 2 when there are 3 guest teams they should be kicked from franchise or sell their spot.
i agree with this and hope that further in the future we see a return to 10 teams, with another slot for promo/relegation and possibly more LLA representation
While my personal opinion may be tarnished a bit when I find out what teams will be leaving the scenes; talent being condensed and more cross-culture competition will hopefully make both leagues stronger and more importantly provide a more sustainable esports ecosystem. GRP should mean we also get to bank on the crazy whales in other regions to sustain the league of legends competition as a whole rather than just that specific league. (Assuming it actually does get invested back into the scene as said)
The conference structure (while a much older sport) slowly developed and succeeds in the NFL here in the US. I could definitely see the two conferences slowly build up and allow for even more cross play between conferences as more normal during splits rather than just islands before Internationals
Assuming GRP and the Americas system works, can the conferences grow? Or will we be locked by fear of unsustainability and keep it at 8 teams per conference?
@@xeagaort I mean, I’m not a fan of it myself but they clearly laid out why it NEEDS to happen. League as a whole was not sustainable with that many teams, this was apparently always the next step of the Global Revenue Pool
Something I didn't see mentioned.....is that I am assuming we get technically half of what the other 4 regions are getting for funds in NA and Brazil? Because if the 5 major regions get split evenly with the GRP thing, and we are the only one to split ourselves to make 2 leagues out of it...we get half the resources per "America" than every other league gets...So I assume we pay the least? Have the least to put towards broadcast? etc
@@midgevong41 Yeah, fewer spots means (statistically) we’re only sending our best. NA needs to earn those spots back by showing up vs other major regions.
TBH I think it should be possible for the LCS to have every slot if they earn it. I don't see the benefit of guaranteeing CBLOL the world's slot and denying NA one. It's insulting to both regions and actually lessens the hype for CBLOl teams that would go in the future.
the slot is literally the only thing that is in for CBLOL in this merge. Brazil doesn't gain anything. How is it supposed to work? Making our best players more easily poachable by NA, with a 5x weaker currency and removing 4 of our teams and removing the academy is really supposed to make us more competitive? because we will have 4 more games a year vs NA?
@@igor-qk5by CBLOL should have a bigger budget and hopefully the promo tournament helps Tier 2 in both conferences which is what I'm looking toward. In addition, if we are really counting them as 2 conferences then there needs to be cross play outside of playoffs which should actually be beneficial.
Very big changes, but I think could be very exciting. I'm glad CBLOL will keep a lot of their identity even with the consolidation finally hitting them the way it has hit APAC and other regions with the number of overall teams being reduced. I would have been upset if the CBLOL and LCS had been made into 1, 10-team league or something. This feels like a good compromise, but time will tell
I really like the change, if anything, wouldn't this make our current teams more competitive in worlds? Players from other Americas wouldn't be considered an import, meaning more opportunities.
I, like mostly everyone else, want to thank Mark for doing this. My biggest problem is that I left with more questions than I came into this with. I appreciate the sentiment but Riot on both the LCS and Global scale have not had a great track record on delivering on their promises. There were a lot of half-baked ideas that didn’t have good answers. Fans need assurances when being asked to take such a large leap of faith. How will Riot ensure that the funds being parsed out from the GRP are going to the right places? This applies to the “guest” teams and other regions where infrastructure is lacking to actually give amateur players a fighting chance. What steps is Riot taking to ensure teams have properly managed coaching and internal affairs. Another issue is that LCS feels like they’re losing a lot because there is a lack of assurances that the Americas is being treated as a single region since there is a lack of cross pollination. Riot has shown that they prefer to pull back on travels and expenditures. How are we supposed to believe that the South and North are one region when historically Riot won’t shell out money to sponsor big events and are even making cutbacks locally in non-international events? I’m hopeful for these changes, I love the idea of having a growing story across the 3 splits and I will wait for answers but there do need to be answers.
I feel like giving the Americas region 1 additional worlds slot actually makes sense if we are talking representation. The new Americas region will have 16 total teams playing between 2 conferences, but is still considered 1 region while every other region has 10, 10, 10 and 8 teams each per region. If they have 1 additional slot, the % of representation between the regions will be within acceptable range since Americas will have 4 slots for 16 teams, which is pretty close for the 3 teams out of 10 or out of 8 for the other regions. This would also smooth out issues about the loss of a slot and will fit with each conference getting 1 slot guaranteed. Don't think there are any issues with this, but I'm open to any weaknesses this might have if someone has a counterpoint.
@@RyanBrrr Thanks for letting me know, don't know why LPL has 17, but I wouldn't mind them having another slot too cause it's even weirder that we have 2 regions with more teams, and 3 that have less.
Where is the line drawn for regional representation? The Americas merged, but there's a gaurantee for international spots by conference? Why is this different from APAC/PCS? Taiwan, Japan, OCE, Hong Kong, Veitnam etc merged but there isn't a gaurantee there?
Its because lcs and cblol are franchised leagues so riot cant make sweeping changes without the franchisees consent and theres no way cblol would agree to this without a guaranteed slot, the pcs and ljl and all that are just riot ran so they can do literally w/e they want with them.
24:43 This is exactly what you want, why would Mark be concerned about this? The players are what matters, not the tier 2 orgs. It is called a guest spot for a reason, that tier 2 org was never going to stay in the tier 1 league long term regardless. The goal is for these players to force their way into LCS through the tier 2 guest spot since the franchised orgs didn't give them a chance. You then prove that you belong in the LCS by playing well, and then hopefully you get an offer from a franchised org which would open up that guest spot again for the next wave of up and coming tier 2 pros. Rinse and repeat. The goal shouldn't be to keep these tier 2 players stuck on the guest org. That just clogs the only slot that bridges the gap between tier 1 and tier 2.
@@henryeberman6342 Yeah, but Mark made it sound like he didn't want the franchised orgs to be able to freely poach the players from the guest spot team. I believe they should be allowed to steal these players and get them onto permanent rosters.
In the scenario where a guest team wins the league or even does super well I imagine the standing orgs would be incentivized to try and buy those players/their entire roster.
First, I just want to say how much I appreciate Mark coming on this program and answering questions that could not have been easy to answer, and I appreciate his candor with it. I'd also like to ask or maybe say that it feels like CB LOL is having to sacrifice the most just to help a floundering LCS. Is this a correct opinion? Or maybe I just don't understand?
This still feels so over. We've lost nearly half our teams over the past few years. NA gets gutted, Brazil gets gutted, APAC loses like, what 20 fucking teams? Cmooooon....
remember, a lot of these teams were and are just warm bodies, basically inconsequential to the scene. eg and gg left, and the lcs experience got better. a larger number of teams doesn't equate to a better scene.
@@iamslfthere’s really bad teams in every sport in every region. There always will be. Gutting entire regions for this is not the answer. You’re getting rid of different personalities. Specifically CBOL and the VCS. Both those regions thrived because their fans were/are super connected. Look at the FIFA World Cup for example, there is very strong teams and bottom of the barrel teams that get destroyed, yet many people watch. Gutting the regions is not the answer.
god i love mark. in terms of the actual changes announced, i think this is great for lcs but shafts lla and cblol, so i understand if they are upset. as an lcs fan excited for the future.
54:07 I totally disagree. Brazil and NA are not in equal footing, cause USD worth way more than BRL, so NA will have an easy time getting our best players to be the Americas slot, but we'll not be able to do the same cause we don't have the same capital power as NA teams, probably being able to pay only the tier 2 or 3 from NA in a way that don't destroys the team's budget, and this will make it way harder to a Brazilian team to create a good team to win against NA than the other way around. So basically we get nothing but hardship, and now there is even a possibility that the LLA team, depending on the roster, get to win the South Conference, then we from Brazil don't even go to international championships.
As someone whos pretty iffy on these changes, I really hope they don't change the LCS name. Dunno why, but I just really like it and changing that would suck for me.
Honestly kinda feels like the 2 LLA teams should move to LCS and then have 2 rotating spots so that NA stays more competitive and CBLOL gets to keep their community
legacy wise its kind of like how people compare Bill Russell to modern players when the NBA playoffs had 8 teams and to get a ring he only had to win 3 series total vs now where playoffs have 16 teams/20(if you include playins) and you have to win 4 series to win the championship.
So TL and FQ NACL teams are just snubbed and unable to get into the LCS? It sounds like players might want to get off of those teams to get a chance on a team that CAN get bumped up
Don't act like NA wants to be coupled with BR/SA either. We're losing another 2 teams and one of our worlds spots for you. LLA was barely a region already anyways
Idea how about on the off weeks to have a mini tournament against north south of Americas league. Or just have them play against there similar standings. So 1-8 plays there respective standings
Mark is a breath of fresh air for LCS commish. Wtf were all the past commishes doing before him. Mark's experience as previous coach, analyst, on desk talent, hotline league and passion really shows. If anyone can revive LCS it's him.
mark doesn't have the power to stop or be the deciding factor with any of these changes. none of the other commissioners have either. mark doesn't have any actual employees under him. That lack of power that's given to John Needham/previously Chris Greely and other faceless riot execs. I think all of the other commissioners besides Jackie and Mark were pretty terrible.
That being said I do think Mark is doing the absolute best with what he's got and if he were more empowered to bring change he could probably make the LCS a stable, solid product. You see that manifest in getting bo3s and the general positivity in last split (honestly last couple) with the broadcast. Whoever the fuck keeps putting finals on Easter needs to be kicked out of the kitchen
Sadly the LCS is already dead from the merger. I feel like he wasn't given enough time to save it
@@connordeyoung6108 he probably got the job in the first place because they were like fuck it, whole thing's going to die in a bit anyway.
Everyone likes Mark the problem is the people in his role adhere to the suits behind the scene. He won't himself be able to revive lcs since franchising is the direct cause of it's downfall. The players stopped caring when they no longer had their own way into the lcs, the audience stopped caring when the teams stopped behind competitive since no one was able to kick the bad teams out making the region less competitive year by year, and the sponsors stopped caring when the audience left which is where we are now in which they are trying to combine regions for viewer numbers for american sponsors. The league will need to crash before it can grow once again.
@@rebornthanos that's the LCS, what about the changes to all the leagues? viewership numbers for LCK and LPL are healthy.
Riot needs Mark to provide context for all their pro-play decisions going forward, he's one of the very few people there that actually makes me feel like they know what they're doing. He single handedly turned me from thinking this was going to be a disaster, to actually being kinda excited for the changes.
having mark really makes you wonder what the previous commish were doing
makes you wonder what the fuck we've been doing the last 10 years honestly LMAO
The last commish took us to week days.
There was a period without a commish.
The one before that took us to franchising.
The commish before that took us to Bo3 on two streams.
The ones before that didn’t really have any authority.
Mark is a good at his role and we all like mark but he is a figurehead for the suits behind the scene. Everyone knows franchising was the point in which the league started going down hill and unfortunately the exact changes needed to set this region on the right path again is the one they won't take until everything has completely crashed which we are near to.
Not really. I KNOW they haven't been doing shit so it doesn't really leave me wondering about anything
@@rebornthanos hes not hes said publicly that most of the LCS changes were his idea live patch prerecorded draft etc
We better not lose the lcs theme song. It’s so hype.
Second this - Mark don't let that one go!
🎶 The northern conference dududu 🎶
I...just wanna give Mark a big fucking hug. He's actually the goat. Im genuinely so satisfied with the answers he gave that i quite literally cant think of anymore questions to ask.
Mark continually reinforces my happiness/excitement of him being the commissioner
One thing I really appreciated was how the Dive analysts didn't hold back at all. Of course they were respectful and understood that there were many more factors at play besides just Mark making all the decisions by himself but they asked and said exactly the concerns that were on their mind.
Mark is crushing it, and I hope he feels the love from the community. Genuinely appreciate his contributions, transparency, as well as actual passion for the sport/game.
People need to read between the lines: this is not a choice between this change and the LCS of the past. It's an adapt or die situation.
Money is running out, changes need to be made
@@rynejones8513 why?
Of course it's utilizing brazilian viewership for American sponsors since the people who took Na from a diamond mine and turned it into a dirt hill are scrambling to hold on to the little power they have left after destroying the league, now they are using brazil to leach and hold on.
@@rynejones8513good riddance you won't be missed.
Eh, maybe but I wouldn't take the moneybags at the top's word for it. Until we see the actual dollars and cents which they will never ever make public, it's all speculation. Most of the time owners/CEOs don't want you to know the amount of money that are currently being made that they are unhappy with. They use that opacity and fear monger fans into believing change is the only choice... When is really just about trying to make more money.
I really appreciate Azael bringing up a lot of long term concerns with the new format. Honestly having more than 1 rotating team and letting the best performing one keep their spot would plug a lot of the holes
This also helps t2 orgs like DSG that wanted to move up but couldn't. Unless they spent millions of dollars to buy out a slot. Which is really cool actually
Before watching the entire video, the section "why are these changes happening?" really made sense when the focus is on global changes in how they distribute money to teams.
Mark Z seems to be performing well as commissioner. Truly enjoy the insight.
that LRP to GRP change is by far the biggest change in esports history
Can you explain this? I kinda missed it
Continually impressed by Mark as the commish, and it shows the team supporting him, and those working with him do an incredible job so he can be so well-informed for public facing events. Kudos.
Okay if ALL the major regions are getting 3 slots to worlds I'm not too mad about LCS losing a spot. That's a bunch of minor regions cut out
yeah i feel the most bad for the LLA who are basically getting cut down to 2 tier 1 teams, one north one south. Hopefully they are still able to have a tier 2 league of their own
plus we only ever have one team who does decent anyway
@@claysmith8840 This does condense the handful of top tier players from that region to actually get on teams that may get more international experience. No offense intended to LLA, but they would just get bodied internationally when they sent their 1 seed. North and South conferences can now have more compact and talented teams.
Many of us can agree that many LCS, CBLOL and LLA teams were just always crap and doomed the maybe 1 guy who was actually good on those teams.
@@claysmith8840 Idk how much this would help, but they should extend them an invitation to join the tier 2 league. I know they have the partnership stuff they just started, but I feel like they should get a better deal because they've already invested and existed in the ecosystem for so long. They obviously don't have to take the offer, but if some did, it would bolster NACL (or whatever it's called now), give LLA fans the ability to still watch their team, and allow those players and teams the ability to play with the chance of making it into a tier 1 league if they play well. Idk, maybe there's something I'm not thinking about, but it just seems like a win-win-win situation to me. Not to mention, NACL is remote already anyway; Mexico city is about the same distance from Chicago as LA is.
Korea, China, and Europe still get 3, NA can only get 2, 1 if they really fuck up and the LLA team beats them in the Northern Conference. It's not the same.
people not understanding that this was mainly an econonic decision is lowkey driving me crazy. I'll wait to judge the how its going til we get there, this is such a massive change that it's not gonna be possible to judge how well its working until we've seen a full season.
Ah yes dropping a 500$ ahri skin and then shrinking leagues for Econ reasons is rich.. seems more greed focused. “Let’s make sure our salaries are growing bigly”
@@CB38096 $500 dollars for the premium, bragging rights version of the skin, which looks ridiculous over here and will get you laughed at in game (deservedly) but something that the chinese market players love as a flex and will make money. Obviously its greed focused, corporations don't make any other decision; but burning good will just to burn it doesn't make you money in the long run. This is a totally different discussion than what the league's gonna look like though lol
Competitive LOL has been in an economic decline for years. The bubble already popped and if MarkZ didn't push for changes the whole scene would be gone in 2-3 years. Yeah there is some good and bad here, but this is how we save the league
@@CB38096I mean it’s not hard to understand that having 40+ teams that do absolutely nothing in their own leagues is not sustainable
@@Jack-iu5um I think it's pretty sustainable when you're charging $500 for a skin 🤣
I just hope things finally become truly stable.
Mark #1 best commish
dammit, even as a markz fan I came into this hoping to catch him saying something stupid but he was so articulate and correct about everything how am i supposed to comment on that.
Nah you can’t be teasing me with this short dive episode I need moreeeee
MarkZ is doing miracle work as commissioner. This new system is very strange but you can tell a lot of thought and care went into it. I think this is the best possible path forward for the LCS.
🤣
I'm down to every change that help competitive League to keeps on going, been a fan since start, i love watching lol matchs and events! so i just hopes this really works!
Actually a massive fan of the change - from a format perspective this is really cool. Not too torn up about the lack of slots for LCS - hopefully this will REALLY drive the best possible rosters together so that the 1 team we do send ends up being worthwhile.
It's sad that the change is to bring in brazils viewership for american sponsors. Since the people who got to control this league since franchising turned it from a diamond mine into a dirt hill with the worst level management of a league basically of all time. They somehow made something that could not fail into something that has little to no chance to succeed.
@@rebornthanosokay gloomer
Yeah the loss of 1-2 worlds slots and 1 MSI slot is so overblown. The teams we send all get smashed regardless, basically nothing changes. If we lose to Brazil for the third worlds spot then we would have gotten smashed even harder by Asia. These changes all help domestic play which is the priority.
@@ObiWanShinobi917 Yeah I've only been around since the beginning. If you were there when this region was absolutely massive and flourishing you would understand what was lost through franchising not to mention what this region would have become if not for corporate greed and control.
@@rebornthanos i agree that the region has fallen in recent years and franchising had a lot to do with that, but many of these changes seem meant to reverse course and go back to what works
Cautiously optimistic should be the approach for fans of this regions imo.
Liking what I'm hearing as an LCK fan but have to see how they handle it.
Nah LCS is dead. No one wants this, not CBLOL, not LCS, not LATAM
@@xiaoliu7071 doomer
I've watched since s1 and I'm excited for these changes!
They really should make team specific skins for regional team winners, that would raise SO much money for teams and raise the incentives to win. Even just the MVP of the winning team would be fine, since Riot probably doesn't want to make 25 skins per year
If they had any data that supported it could make money they would’ve done so already. Aside from some huge regional stars that are well known globally I.e. Caps for EU or DL for NA; the market is going to be way too niche.
@kashtrey go back in the day when call of duty league was actually watchable. I would imagine back in Advanced Warfare days when they started the team skins. They sold a boat load of skins that you could use on your exo skin and weapons. The downside is I don't remember if the teams actually earned any money from it but I know it was quite profitable for them.
@@joshdolan7822 those skins are so low effort and just palette swaps with logos. That would never be a good revenue stream for league. It would sell probably just as well as the team logo emotes.
the overwatch league kind of did that, just like.. a base skin for each character that basically had a recolour for each team. wouldn't work so well with leagues 100+ characters though.
My thought on the tier 2 team that succeeds. Why don't we have two tutu teams that go up? Then the relegation can be for the worst performing tier 2 team while the better one gets assured safety for the following year
Hey @LCS,
Markz is killing it with these updates, how open he is, the details he can give. He KNOWS what is going on and shares as much as he can without the feel of "Corporate Slug".
This is the kind of person LCS needed, and LoL Esports could definitely benefit from more MarkZ (President of Esports when?)
All I'm excited for Is the fearless draft! People complain about using the same champs? Here we go!
Very exciting to have different formats across splits. I hope for one of the later split formats they bring back swiss bracket bo3 like 2023 worlds. That format brought so many close matchups.
Really liking adding that third import slot for "Americas" players. Its a nice balance between maintaining regional identity while still allowing movement between the north and south conferences.
Is there somewhere the new import slot rules are laid out because I don't understand how it works now between LCS, LLA and CBLOL?
@@nickmajora I don't think its laid out officially anywhere, but MarkZ talked about it on the Dive. There are the 2 regular import slots that you are used to, but they are adding a third import slot called the "Americas Import slot" that can only be used by a player from the opposing Americas conference. The only limitation on these rules is you cannot have 3 americas players from the opposing division (A brazil team using all 3 imports on NA players isnt allowed for example, the maximum allowed is 2).
LATAM players are considered residents in both the north and south conference, so no need to use an import slot on any of these players.
@@Djfjfjrhhrjrhrhfj Thanks for the explanation. So what you're saying is an NA team could have two Koreans, a Brazilian and two NA players (or even two LLA players instead of NA players)?
@@nickmajora Yes exactly. An NA team can do their usual 2 Koreans but now they can add a top Brazilian player too and then they only have 2 NA players. An NA org could technically do 5 LATAM players if they wanted, but doubtful that there are that many quality players from that region. We also still have the green card rule where anyone that becomes a US citizen is a resident so you can really have more “imports” that way as well. Nothing is set in stone, but this is how I understand the new import rule as of now. They will officially announce it at some point.
Thankful Mark is at least getting in front of this and addressing it. I’m old enough to remember the move to weekdays with no explanation as to why and the following doomer opinions that formed after. Could definitely see something similar happening here if he and the LCS didn’t explain the reasoning behind this move at all
I'm also old enough to remember last year.
@@driccyXD. Like bruh I'm old enough to remember concerns over moving to franchising and I'm not even OG.
I'll be honest maybe my age is getting to me but Mark really addressed my fears and calmed some of the building negative feelings about the changes.
For all the talk about CBLOL being an unknown - if you've ever watched CBLOL games within their own division, it is some of the craziest, most entertaining games. Including the broadcast. I'm not mad we're getting more exposure to a division with real personality. Their ability to perform internationally is completely different, but regionally, CBLOL is a gem.
Thank you. Vampetaso is comming
"Is the LCK fourth seed better than this...?"
Deft and Co. made a statement there.
LCK 8th seed would be competitive in LCS...
@@georgeperdis2750 eh our best teams are definitely better than the lck's worst, if you dropped NS in NA right now theyd probably be middle of the pack
@@georgeperdis2750I mean there’s always usually 1 game or series that a random NA team takes off of a Korean team (usually C9 in the past), and that would be their 3rd or 4th seed. Hell if anything they’ve been looking better. Sure TL lost to T1 but it was a lot more competitive than teams have been in the past. And T1 are the defending world champs not a random 10-7th place team.
I'm pretty sure they'll still have a fourth seed, since the top 2 regions at MSI will get an extra seed AFAIK.
@@11DaltonB Shows you haven't really watched much LCK. This is the most beatable T1 has ever looked. It wasn't really TL stepping up, but T1 massively underperforming.
I will say I would really love an English cast for CBLOL, similar to how we have one for LCK and LPL. I'm sure the viewer payoff would be low at first but I think it would help build "Americas" unity.
Totally agree, maybe costreamers could help with this!
There is the cblolenglish twitch channel, they started it last year 👍🏼
Massive props to Mark for all that he's done as commish, especially considering he's only been here for a bit over a split. But my only question is why is each America region only 8 teams? Having 8 total teams and only 1 LLA team per region feels a bit cramped, surely each region could fit at least 10 teams right?
LLA and CBLOL literally got eliminated as fast as possible at MSI…
Shhhhhhh you're not supposed to point this out.
It’s a proposal. They need approval from the franchises here first. They could all refuse to be bought out.
And yet CBLOL has more viewers than LCS... almost like being successful internationally doesn't equal being profitable...
@@BrontesBC the truth of the matter is that the earning power of fans in CBLOL is lower, they're on laptops or older PCs. they're FORCED to keep playing league because its a game you can run on low specs. NA market has better computers and has moved on to other games.
that's the real reason CBLOL has more viewership. the fans can't play other games bc their computers aren't good enough.
@eric4892 as interesting as that would be, they will almost certainly find 4 teams willing to take the fat check.
40:14 is this a cut? Did they cut in post for this question?
Lmaoo Mark leaked 2 much
I appreciate Mark coming to the Dive and being transparent
The Guest team slot from tier 2 is a great concept but it doesn't go far enough with only one team and one relegation the whole year. I'd remove another LCS slot and replace it with another Guest slot so that there's 2 Guest slots in the league. Then I'd have a relegation/promotion Bo5 each split between the winner of the tier 2 split and the worst performing Guest slot team. This'd allow greater opportunities for tier 2 teams to get into the league _and_ create an instant rivalry between the Guest slot teams leading to more hype matchups and a competition within a competition for those teams. (Great episode btw. Mark doing great.)
I have so much faith in Mark. Like he seems like someone SO genuine just trying to make the best out of all the politics of the system WHILE bridging the gap in communication to fans. I know it's a lot of changes coming up, but I have faith in his long term vision and if it takes us some crazy places along the way, I'm here for it.
If impact wins next three splits, and you change the name from lcs, graphic can say 6 time lcs champ 3 time north conference champ
So no more NA vs EU for a worlds spot?? With the two regions being so close recently that was the best content to look forward to and now it's gone again? The inter conference is not a substitute.
Azael grilling MarkZ and MarkZ providing answers. Love it.
It’s crazy when the commissioner doesn’t give PR only answers. He definitely redirects the questions he can’t answer, but he does it in a way to still give information and not to shut down the question. Mark is the best thing to happen to the LCS.
Mark surpasses my expectations every time. This guy is an impressively effective communicator.
I’m just confused on the world’s spots. The americas only have 3 world spots now for 16 teams. That doesn’t make sense to me we double in teams but still only have three slots? Or is there still play in spots?
The Americas are going from 24 teams and 5 Worlds slots to 16 teams and 3 slots so proportionally it's close. Overall the Americas are losing 2 slots and APAC are losing 1-3 depeding on which Worlds years you're looking at. It makes sense since these are the worst performing regions (though I suspect in a couple years APAC will become very competitive again).
So... on one hand, I'm glad to see some of these changes. I think some teams coasted (which makes 0 sense to me) in the LCS and never tried to improve and, even worse, some PLAYERS played just good enough to hold a spot. With spots decreasing, now is the time for players to step up, to make sure their spot is secured.
On the other hand... I understand the CBLoL and LLAs frustrations. They've put so much into their region. Yes, they may not perform great internationally (like we can talk), but it's always about the regional experience for them and to lose some of that will be rough. I'm going to assume some of the bottom feeders in CBLoL are going away, which should help improve the quality of the product.
There's good and bad here. I'm not as excited for 2025 as I was for 2024, but I think a lot of that comes down to which 2 LCS teams are going away.
What is going to stop the LLA team from becoming just another NA team one split later?
Am I understanding correctly? The guest spot gets won every year and then loss as soon as the year is over even if the guest team wins LCS. Is that correct? Seems dumb. If a 2nd tier team does better than a franchised team it doesn't seem right that the 2nd tier gets relegated anyway.
I think the setup should be that there are 3 guest slots, but 1 slot opens up per year as needed (up to 3 max). Then the bottom two teams in LCS get relegated IF they are not a franchise team - so year 1 the guest has 2x chances to be relegated. If the guest team doesn't fall into the last 2 places, no team gets relegated and another guest spot opens up the next year. This pattern repeats until all 3 guest spots are filled. If all 3 are filled, the lowest ranked guest team will be relegated even if they didn't come into the bottom two and no guest slots are lost. If two guest teams out of 3 are in the bottom 2, both are relegated and 1 guest slot is loss. If two guest teams out of 2 are in the bottom 2, then both are kicked and 1 guest slot is lost. This is done to only ever allow 1 guest into LCS per year (up to a max of 3). Franchised teams will obviously never be relegated.
I think this way there is potential for teams to make it into the LCS and stay if they are good, and also guest teams can be removed and added more organically.
Then if a franchised team always makes bottom 2 when there are 3 guest teams they should be kicked from franchise or sell their spot.
i agree with this and hope that further in the future we see a return to 10 teams, with another slot for promo/relegation and possibly more LLA representation
Agree with you, but the franchise teams could not be relegated.
Guess team dont have to pay for spot is what i heard thats 10-20m so its FAIR
Oh snap its the GOAT COMMISSIONER MARKZ
So we will see games like Brazil team vs na team throughout the season ?
There will be a mini tournament between Brazil and NA twice a year. Once after first split and again after the third.
While my personal opinion may be tarnished a bit when I find out what teams will be leaving the scenes; talent being condensed and more cross-culture competition will hopefully make both leagues stronger and more importantly provide a more sustainable esports ecosystem. GRP should mean we also get to bank on the crazy whales in other regions to sustain the league of legends competition as a whole rather than just that specific league. (Assuming it actually does get invested back into the scene as said)
Where IS Riv?
mark is pretty good at talking. good person to have speaking on the behalf of your company.
Mark needs to be the PR person for Riot. This man makes SO much sense.
The conference structure (while a much older sport) slowly developed and succeeds in the NFL here in the US. I could definitely see the two conferences slowly build up and allow for even more cross play between conferences as more normal during splits rather than just islands before Internationals
Assuming GRP and the Americas system works, can the conferences grow? Or will we be locked by fear of unsustainability and keep it at 8 teams per conference?
I'd say look to valorant for next steps
I hope it doesnt work, horrible change.
@@xeagaort I mean, I’m not a fan of it myself but they clearly laid out why it NEEDS to happen. League as a whole was not sustainable with that many teams, this was apparently always the next step of the Global Revenue Pool
Do we have English casts of the Brazil games? (sorry not sure what they will be called)
Something I didn't see mentioned.....is that I am assuming we get technically half of what the other 4 regions are getting for funds in NA and Brazil? Because if the 5 major regions get split evenly with the GRP thing, and we are the only one to split ourselves to make 2 leagues out of it...we get half the resources per "America" than every other league gets...So I assume we pay the least? Have the least to put towards broadcast? etc
Losing international spots for lcs is what makes this extra bad. Why combine na and Brazil, no inherent rivalry, just not a good change
I love LCS, but you could send every LCS team to worlds and it wouldn't make us qualify any higher lol
@@midgevong41 Yeah, fewer spots means (statistically) we’re only sending our best. NA needs to earn those spots back by showing up vs other major regions.
@@CameronPrice2 but the 3rd seed is the best like 80% of the times.....
@@Darkstormsun9865 Brazil will have to carry that torch now.
Mark speaks so fast hahah, i thought I had my video on 1.5 speed
You are just slow.
@@metalheadofmordor9169 relax bro, it was a joke
They were working really hard to not have a 3 hour podcast xD
TBH I think it should be possible for the LCS to have every slot if they earn it. I don't see the benefit of guaranteeing CBLOL the world's slot and denying NA one. It's insulting to both regions and actually lessens the hype for CBLOl teams that would go in the future.
I hope the changes to the LCS/CBLOL level up both regions and your fears of CBLOL of staying at a lower international power level are salved
@@cedrichofstetter4057 have you seen what happened to Valorent? lol. This won’t work
the slot is literally the only thing that is in for CBLOL in this merge.
Brazil doesn't gain anything. How is it supposed to work? Making our best players more easily poachable by NA, with a 5x weaker currency and removing 4 of our teams and removing the academy is really supposed to make us more competitive? because we will have 4 more games a year vs NA?
Because if that were the case, CBLOL would never make worlds or MSI. They'd die as a region.
@@igor-qk5by CBLOL should have a bigger budget and hopefully the promo tournament helps Tier 2 in both conferences which is what I'm looking toward. In addition, if we are really counting them as 2 conferences then there needs to be cross play outside of playoffs which should actually be beneficial.
Meteos is such a bundle of energy and enthusiasm! 😄
And a man of few words.
Very big changes, but I think could be very exciting. I'm glad CBLOL will keep a lot of their identity even with the consolidation finally hitting them the way it has hit APAC and other regions with the number of overall teams being reduced. I would have been upset if the CBLOL and LCS had been made into 1, 10-team league or something. This feels like a good compromise, but time will tell
I really like the change, if anything, wouldn't this make our current teams more competitive in worlds? Players from other Americas wouldn't be considered an import, meaning more opportunities.
I got to say, this is extremely exciting. I am fully on board with those changes and I really enjoy direct communication like Mark Z has been doing
I, like mostly everyone else, want to thank Mark for doing this. My biggest problem is that I left with more questions than I came into this with. I appreciate the sentiment but Riot on both the LCS and Global scale have not had a great track record on delivering on their promises. There were a lot of half-baked ideas that didn’t have good answers. Fans need assurances when being asked to take such a large leap of faith. How will Riot ensure that the funds being parsed out from the GRP are going to the right places? This applies to the “guest” teams and other regions where infrastructure is lacking to actually give amateur players a fighting chance. What steps is Riot taking to ensure teams have properly managed coaching and internal affairs. Another issue is that LCS feels like they’re losing a lot because there is a lack of assurances that the Americas is being treated as a single region since there is a lack of cross pollination. Riot has shown that they prefer to pull back on travels and expenditures. How are we supposed to believe that the South and North are one region when historically Riot won’t shell out money to sponsor big events and are even making cutbacks locally in non-international events? I’m hopeful for these changes, I love the idea of having a growing story across the 3 splits and I will wait for answers but there do need to be answers.
I feel like giving the Americas region 1 additional worlds slot actually makes sense if we are talking representation. The new Americas region will have 16 total teams playing between 2 conferences, but is still considered 1 region while every other region has 10, 10, 10 and 8 teams each per region. If they have 1 additional slot, the % of representation between the regions will be within acceptable range since Americas will have 4 slots for 16 teams, which is pretty close for the 3 teams out of 10 or out of 8 for the other regions. This would also smooth out issues about the loss of a slot and will fit with each conference getting 1 slot guaranteed. Don't think there are any issues with this, but I'm open to any weaknesses this might have if someone has a counterpoint.
LPL has 17 teams, not 10
@@RyanBrrr Thanks for letting me know, don't know why LPL has 17, but I wouldn't mind them having another slot too cause it's even weirder that we have 2 regions with more teams, and 3 that have less.
I'm from latam and only really watch lcs for you guys, i'm down for getting invested in teams from my region and watching you talk about them
Wonder if Mark will be commissioner of both the overall Americas Region or if he will be a conference commish and Brazil have their own?
Mark = best commissioner yet
Where is the line drawn for regional representation? The Americas merged, but there's a gaurantee for international spots by conference? Why is this different from APAC/PCS? Taiwan, Japan, OCE, Hong Kong, Veitnam etc merged but there isn't a gaurantee there?
Its because lcs and cblol are franchised leagues so riot cant make sweeping changes without the franchisees consent and theres no way cblol would agree to this without a guaranteed slot, the pcs and ljl and all that are just riot ran so they can do literally w/e they want with them.
Damn I’ve never been this early to the dive
Just thinking this
It was a great move to speed up Mark to 1.5x to fit the show into an hour! 👍
😉
The guest spot is so cool I love this change
I like the changes overall. Hoping it leads to a more sustainable ecosystem. MarkZ is the best Commisioner
24:43 This is exactly what you want, why would Mark be concerned about this? The players are what matters, not the tier 2 orgs. It is called a guest spot for a reason, that tier 2 org was never going to stay in the tier 1 league long term regardless. The goal is for these players to force their way into LCS through the tier 2 guest spot since the franchised orgs didn't give them a chance. You then prove that you belong in the LCS by playing well, and then hopefully you get an offer from a franchised org which would open up that guest spot again for the next wave of up and coming tier 2 pros. Rinse and repeat. The goal shouldn't be to keep these tier 2 players stuck on the guest org. That just clogs the only slot that bridges the gap between tier 1 and tier 2.
That’s a really good explanation of the system.
@@henryeberman6342 Yeah, but Mark made it sound like he didn't want the franchised orgs to be able to freely poach the players from the guest spot team. I believe they should be allowed to steal these players and get them onto permanent rosters.
THANK YOU MARK FOR THESE NEW CHANGES 🔥🔥🔥
In the scenario where a guest team wins the league or even does super well I imagine the standing orgs would be incentivized to try and buy those players/their entire roster.
First, I just want to say how much I appreciate Mark coming on this program and answering questions that could not have been easy to answer, and I appreciate his candor with it.
I'd also like to ask or maybe say that it feels like CB LOL is having to sacrifice the most just to help a floundering LCS. Is this a correct opinion? Or maybe I just don't understand?
Damn I wanted Immortals and Shopify Rebellion was the 2 to go!
This still feels so over. We've lost nearly half our teams over the past few years. NA gets gutted, Brazil gets gutted, APAC loses like, what 20 fucking teams?
Cmooooon....
ngl i kinda get gutting lesser teams if that means more quality games from the better ones
The cold reality of E-Sports Winter
remember, a lot of these teams were and are just warm bodies, basically inconsequential to the scene. eg and gg left, and the lcs experience got better. a larger number of teams doesn't equate to a better scene.
No one WANTS this to happen. From a financial aspect there is literally no other recourse.
@@iamslfthere’s really bad teams in every sport in every region. There always will be. Gutting entire regions for this is not the answer. You’re getting rid of different personalities. Specifically CBOL and the VCS. Both those regions thrived because their fans were/are super connected.
Look at the FIFA World Cup for example, there is very strong teams and bottom of the barrel teams that get destroyed, yet many people watch. Gutting the regions is not the answer.
Does the first split eliminate the Kespa Cup?
Where's my Champion skin for TL & 100T?
god i love mark. in terms of the actual changes announced, i think this is great for lcs but shafts lla and cblol, so i understand if they are upset. as an lcs fan excited for the future.
Fearless is going to be so good for everything
54:07 I totally disagree. Brazil and NA are not in equal footing, cause USD worth way more than BRL, so NA will have an easy time getting our best players to be the Americas slot, but we'll not be able to do the same cause we don't have the same capital power as NA teams, probably being able to pay only the tier 2 or 3 from NA in a way that don't destroys the team's budget, and this will make it way harder to a Brazilian team to create a good team to win against NA than the other way around. So basically we get nothing but hardship, and now there is even a possibility that the LLA team, depending on the roster, get to win the South Conference, then we from Brazil don't even go to international championships.
As someone whos pretty iffy on these changes, I really hope they don't change the LCS name. Dunno why, but I just really like it and changing that would suck for me.
Honestly kinda feels like the 2 LLA teams should move to LCS and then have 2 rotating spots so that NA stays more competitive and CBLOL gets to keep their community
legacy wise its kind of like how people compare Bill Russell to modern players when the NBA playoffs had 8 teams and to get a ring he only had to win 3 series total vs now where playoffs have 16 teams/20(if you include playins) and you have to win 4 series to win the championship.
Dang, it seems MarkZ actually has a chance to win best commissioner divey award this split.
Pplease give Meteos more moments to talk, I know you guys were the three amigos but Meteos is the goat and I see him in the corner being so quiet :(
So TL and FQ NACL teams are just snubbed and unable to get into the LCS? It sounds like players might want to get off of those teams to get a chance on a team that CAN get bumped up
Look at Mark savin the LCS
I believe in MarkZ. Trust the process
So, NA is moved from a 8 teams region to... a 8 teams region
BR got 4 teams cut
LLA got melted.
And the only fail region was NA. Amazing
NA will lose 2 teams as well and 1 worlds slot
Don't act like NA wants to be coupled with BR/SA either. We're losing another 2 teams and one of our worlds spots for you. LLA was barely a region already anyways
Failure as a product but they are much better competitively
@@blami8 being more competittive clearly didn't save your asses from bleeding money
@@theovanhurtere I'm French I don't care about NA lol
Idea how about on the off weeks to have a mini tournament against north south of Americas league. Or just have them play against there similar standings. So 1-8 plays there respective standings
Trophy's always mean something Azael. Even LCS Trophies are sought after and very hard to obtain. So many players have never lifted one.
Also, Mark is doing an amazing job IMO. He's stirring things up, but... in a good way. I appreciate it. It's what LoL needs.