BIG LCS and Worldwide Changes to LoL Esports! | NEW International tournament and Americas region

MonteCristo breaks down the changes that Riot is making to their global League of Legends esports system, including a newly-announced third international event, the creation of a combined Americas league for LCS, CBLOL, and LLA, and a brand new Pacific/APAC league. He discusses the business implications of these moves and speculates on how Riot will buy out established franchises in LCS and CBLOL.
Riot's blog post of the changes: lolesports.com...
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[@leonardoluiz7487]

Hey Monte, while I think you had good takes in general, and you pointed out the "proposed" changes, which most people didn't, I still think you're missing a little bit of the perspective of the brazillian league. 1- The proposed model would end up with almost 1/2 of the current teams being dissolved, and that would most likely include some amount of teams with massive competitive history and / or massive fanbases. I'm pretty sure if the south america split had 8 teams with +2 brazillian slots most people wouldn't mind, but as it is we have a fear among some fanbases that some of their teams might be dissolved. Everybody is fairly certain Loud and Pain Gaming are making it as they are the 2 best teams currently, they both have competitive history, big fanbases and Riot Support (Pain being one of the teams from before franchising to keep it's spot and Loud being a partner in Valorant. Outside of that it's fairly uncertain who is staying. We have teams with huge competitive history and massive fanbases that have either lost their spot in the franchising system in the past, or that is going through a rough patch (be it struggling financially, underperforming competitively or both), we have teams that have better structure and finances but less fanfare, we have younger franchises that have been developing and might lose their chance to get as far as they could. On the other hand, there are some teams that are more stable, but have a much lower fanbase and competitive history. The big name in this discussion is Furia, because it's a huge e-sport franchise in other games, they have a Valorant team already and are in a more stable position then some of the newer teams developing or the older teams with bigger history and fanbases. Even with all those advantages Furia has heavily underperformed in the LOL scene and failed to gather as huge of a fanbase as they should because of that, and still might be higher then other orgs with much higher competitive impact and fanbases. 2- Valorant's model killed the brazillian tier 2 pro scene. People are fearful that this might lead to the fallout of the tier 2 pro scene that have been improving. 3- The financial gap between the brazillian teams and the north american teams is massive and with the changes in the import rules (one free spot for players from the americas) the brazillian teams might lose some of the better players to LCS and even LLL teams. It is speculated that we might be financially behind even the LLL teams, which might even hurt the chances of brazillian teams making into MSI / Worlds as it is possible for the LLL team to win the south american spot and the LCS teams win the remaining american slots. While in general brazillians consider the CBLOL to be stronger then the LLL, it's been debated that the best LLL teams might be at least as strong as the better CBLOL teams if not better, and the 2 LLL teams playing in the conferences might be able to pull together the best talent in the other teams to improve even further. They can also take a player from the americas if they want to (and it can be an North American player, a good player from a brazillian team or even an import player that played long enough in the american regions to qualify for the spot) besides the 2 import spots. This would be the nightmare scenario for the brazillians. Some fans might lose their teams, the LLL might prove to be as strong or stronger then the brazillian teams and win the spot in the internation scene, which might be worsened by the death of the tier 2 pro scene, like in valorant, reducing the talent developed by brazillian teams and with the best performing brazillian players being easily poached by LCS / LLL teams because of the financial gap, effectively killing the brazillian pro scene.

[@Evan2768]

Monte was the first person that ever proposed this as an idea on Summoning Insight, I seem to recall as far back as 2 years ago. If Monte didn't have any inside knowledge of this, that was a very impressive prediction.

[@Evan2768]

(speaking of the combining of NA LCS and South America)

[@checkmate7345]

Most of these ideas, such as another international tournament and region mergers were spit balled on reddit over the last 10 year's so I wouldn't say they were Monte's ideas they've been in the public's physche for sometime. Some even wanted a merger of EU and North American regions back in the day. But that will never happen now.

[@deathkingboss]

LS said it was an internal idea from around 2 years ago , so it probably got leaked to monte

[@Evan2768]

@@checkmate7345 I’m talking specifically about NA merging with South America. Monte was definitely the first notable person to suggest this. I’m not talking about nameless redditors, I’m talking about a notable figure proposing it publicly. I’d love to see a clip of someone else proposing it first.

[@checkmate7345]

@@Evan2768 I understand..Maybe he was one of the first notable people. All I was attempting to communicate was that these ideas have been floating around the scene for a lot longer than 2 or so years. To attribute them to Montecristo specifically sounds bizarre to me just because he's famous.

[@michelsss625]

MonteCristo, you did a great job telling about the financial aspect of this change. But I will help you understand why brazilians are saying "cblol is over". First, we don't care about international result if it means killing part of our history. All of the 10 teams in CBLol have their own history and they add value to the stories of each split. Most of the teams in Brazil has thousands of supporters that been following their team for years (some more than 10 years, like INTZ and Kabum). It's just like you are a Green Bay Packer fan and the next day you wake up with someone saying "Packers are out of NFL due to low viewership in Europe". Second, brazilian fans are afraid that what happened in valorant also happen in Cblol. With VCT, our best brazilian team (LOUD) got dismatled in their first year joining the VCT. Also, our tier 2 was really big and right now it almost doesn't exist anymore, resulting in less talents playing the game. Also, we don't know how tier2 is going to be, but if North American teams can have brazilian in their roster it will be even worse to compete for the top brazilian players.

[@roditimotheo]

@ggMonteCristo I believe there is a point that you Americans are not considering: the loss of regional talent that is likely to happen in CBLOL. Within the new rules, there is a new status for competitors, the 'American'. This status will be an intermediary between imported and regional players, allowing them to move between the regions that make up their league. In practice, this means that Brazilian players, who are very skilled mechanically, can be acquired by any American team for a third of the salaries typically paid in the region, even in tier 2 leagues. Considering that Brazil has a player base perhaps even larger than that of the USA, it is unlikely that the best Brazilian players will continue playing in CBLOL. I believe this is something worth considering.

[@Pyrrha_Nikos]

I find it so funny that they got rid of the old MSI format for being boring and not competitive, and immediately made a new international tournament with the same awful format. That's such a Riot move

[@Xzibitfreek]

its probably a much shorter tournament. MSI does take a few weeks to complete. Only so much you can do in a limited amount of time

[@sebasluis38]

Don’t know how to feel about this “proposal” yet. Currently I feel like the CBLOL will be hurt by this as I assume this means that LCS teams will now be able to use Brazilian players without using import slots making the “South” conference weaker. So riot would need to somehow address the disparity in finances between the two conferences. Also don’t know how much LCS fans (the few that remain) would care about beating or even losing to CBLOL in a tournament qualification. Last thought is why make this change and only have the conferences play twice a year, how will that help the LCS’s viewership? Won’t viewership continue to be abysmal until playoffs? Just some thoughts I’m having.

[@MadeagoestoNam]

I 100% noticed that in the announcement video. They referred to all these changes as "proposed" which to me means that all the parties involved have to agree to this. I think that means that we will probably see some changes in the proposals as different parties have different demands they need met. I also think this means that the public announcement video was kinda a "call out" by Riot. Instead of talking about this behind the scenes where any organization who opposes it can be sneaky and try to oppose it in private. Now that they've made it all public everyone will know if any one team is holding up the process. They're putting teams in the hot seat to approve this plan and give the fans what Riot just promised and if it fails Riot can publicly blame them.

[@steelhammer103]

Monty I rly appreciate you going into the business side of things with the money and stuff, because i haven't too many people rly talk about. I know everyone has been talking about which 2 teams from the current LCS gotta go, but what happens when you got 3 or 4 of the six remaining teams running min salary rosters and taking money off the top for profit with the new stipend? Like I don't want a bunch of mediocre teams in this new Americas League because that'll just kill the excitement and we'll be back to square one like we are now with the LCS.

[@Ythiro]

They gonna butcher the Brazilian LoL League which has the 2nd best viewership with this move, NA is way better then the other 2 Americas Regions combined because of all the imports (even homegrown talent is better), for viewership this is going to be a disaster... so whats the move about? shaking the status quo? for me like you said this is going back to square one or even worse if the Brazilians stop watching it because 4 of their teams are going to get the boot.

[@zaphod4245]

I don't get why they didn't just not give an extra slot to the 2nd placed team in MSI, then you'd have 3 teams per region = 15 + the MSI champion = 16 teams, no need for playins at all.

[@IOSALive]

ggMonteCristo, great video my guy

[@hardlo7146]

It's not popular with anyone, not just Brazilians. LLA got dissolved, NA got demoted to a minor region, and CbLOL got cut in half

[@mildlyannoyedmilk]

But NA deserves to be a minor region jk

[@dontask3613]

I mean no one actually gives a shit about NA anymore. They systematically undermined the region for the past 5 years and now as a last ditch effort after losing so many viewers, sponsors and players they fucking finally try to do something. So fuck them, I still won't watch man ain't nobody gave a shit years ago when fans and people like Monte were sounding alarms.

[@dontask3613]

If anyone should be happy it is brasil though because now their teams will have a much bigger chance to make international showings at least.

[@Pyrrha_Nikos]

I'm latin american and I'm excited about this. LLA was boring, not competitive and most of the teams are actually horrible. We don't have enough good players to fill a good competitive scene with 10 teams, and our best teams can't improve with the quality of teams they have to face. This might actually help our 2 best teams improve and maybe can compete in some play-ins someday

[@LeninPPinheiro]

​@@dontask3613 the thing is, we already had a way to show off, and we , most of the time, didn't, we take pride on being the entertainment region and different from NA, we care about our orgs and players, so when 40% of our league just fucking dies for no reason, of course we will get mad

[@dontask3613]

Wow. Im so excited. Only 4 years too late and after losing a massive chunk of NA fans, sponsors and players.

[@Daniel-bc5yq]

If we assume that the Americas' League is something to help LCS's viewership. Then the conference model is a move that makes no sense. You just decrease the amount of teams and the international games (top teams from north vs top teams from south) will be basically bringing back a soft version of the International Wildcard. This will not make southern fans start watching the northern conference and vice-versa. Unless there is some more cross-conference play, which can be super costly, I don't understand this move. Now if this assumption is wrong, than this looks like it's just a move for reducing teams and concentrating the money so that the ones who stay can actually survive, as all would die out in the current model

[@tcufrogsfan45]

I feel like the Split 3 regional championship will be more similar to NFL/NBA playoffs, with conference tournaments leading to a regional final + 3rd place match for last spot. Would feel really bad to have a 6th place team make worlds because all the LCS teams lose early in a cross-regional bracket

[@finntate5874]

I saw a take that this is going to be too much league of legends for the players in one year, which is crazy because some of them couldn't be playing less.

[@kinggrantking]

As long as this finally puts the bolt through Immortals' head I'm so down with it.

[@aakashdabas2370]

Immortals own mibr so they will be in south conference

[@fr33ko]

They gutted away any relevance to msi when they went to the swiss format of worlds. Next thing you know they will make worlds a useless event with double elimination just to undo any good they may have built toward. The reality of it all is that lcs is a propped up region that has zero home grown talent to begin with. remove the overpaid imports and you have one (if that) viable team left. Want to fix the lcs? install infrastructure like eu masters instead of buy out team slots. riot made their bed with this awful franchise model, so now they can sleep in it.

[@florisbackx1744]

Why invest to get promotion when you'll be kicked after 2 years anyway?

[@raymondandsweetheart7150]

It was like monte knew about this for weeks. But keep the secret laws.

[@Xzibitfreek]

should be really good stuff and im rather surprised about the reactions to this. not just brazilian fans but also LCS fans, at least the ones that are left. I just wish they could do some changes to EU, bring back relegation and give the ERLs higher stakes because winning the EMEA Masters isnt that much of a deal. Riot gave no shits about the EMEA Masters in spring, it was awfully organized and produced, for many teams and orgs this is the highest achievement they can get and its kinda sad to see it being treated that badly by Riot. unfortunately LEC is doing well enough for the franchise spots to be worth a decent amount of money still, so Riot isnt that interested in paying 30-40m for a spot back. Theres plenty of ERL teams that would add far more value to the LEC than some of the actual LEC teams. Some decent players actively avoid bottom LEC teams to compete in the ERLs such as PowerOfEvil or Abe but at least Riot is moving into the right direction. Better late than never I guess

[@cnflxx]

Very good video, Monte!

[@lucasc88]

24:49 how to say u dont know anything about brasil without actually saying it lol

[@lucasc88]

bro can't see anything in other perspective besides lcs vision

[@danielsarkovas]

League is ruined, I MISS OGN and the TIME RIOT wasnt TENCENT'S dog

[@deathkingboss]

riot was always tencent's dog

[@Pandoso01]

11:15 sure you can possibly lose more teams than necessary, but isn't that good? you could go give those spots to someone else. why does the new league have to be composed of only existing teams... 14:38 "at least one team from each conference" i hate that line. I know br fans are already mad, even having this "guarantee" spot. I HATE the possibility of their team sucking and still going to worlds... (guarantee in quotes because it could technically be an LLA team that gets the stop lol)

[@deeozful]

goat

[@DirkStruan]

LCS will lose like 15% viewers as Caedrel said he wont costream this season

[@michelsss625]

If Baiano decide he wont costream either LCS will lose around +10% hahah