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Current Riot Games Korea caster and former Azubu Frost jungler CloudTemplar believes the LCS is struggling at Worlds 2022 because of a lack of “characteristics” and the “culture.”
It had been nearly six years since the League of Legends World Championships took place in North America, but the LCS is at an all-time low on home soil. After one week in the group stage, the LCS is winless at a collective 0-9 record as many are disappointed at their lackluster performance on the international stage. This prompted a genuine response from CloudTemplar, who outlined the primary issues that the entire region struggles with within the present time.
In the video, he highlighted Cloud9’s draft as a primary issue for their struggles in week one for prioritizing a “strong top side”, according to translations from the Reddit thread.
“LCS is not a region that can utilize sword (strong top side) champs and not even the LCK can,” CloudTemplar said. “Only the selected few teams in the LCK and LPL can do it. So why would a team in a region considered to be weaker than LPL, LCK, and LEC use such a composition?”
Lacking Identity in the LCS
While CloudTemplar primarily emphasized individual reasons for all three teams, he noted that Cloud9’s additional issues were something that fell true for every LCS team at this year’s Worlds.
“I mean this Worlds, not just C9, but LCS as a whole just doesn’t have any characteristics,” CloudTemplar said. “There was a time when LCS had strong color. We would laugh at LCS and call them the ‘FUN LEAGUE.'”
When talking about the LCS before, CloudTemplar highlighted the “creative plays” LCS teams would do at Baron and Dragon before “fumbling” it. That is something that he feels has been lost in the region.
“LCS now, they’re just bad and not even funny anymore. I feel like it’s been like this for some time now. It just hurts my heart when they get such critique,” CloudTemplar said. “There has been a time when LCS region was well-known since they were fun. There were LCK fans who would look at LCS for those reasons. To be honest with you, LEC is much more to look at nowadays.”
One of the main criticisms that CloudTemplar was against was the notion of the LCS needing “new blood” in the League. Instead, he defended the veteran players, believing that the LCS needs a culture change instead of player changes.
”Players like Ssumday, CoreJJ, and Impact are amazing players for having to play in the pro field for so long,” CloudTemplar said. “Truthfully speaking, there are people who say that they are too old and should retire, but you guys need to respect them because when those guys retire, the current LCS might fall down even further. It’s the reason why I keep saying that we need to change the culture and not each individual player or coach.”
The LCS has struggled on the Worlds stage throughout the majority of its tenure in League of Legends. Aside from Cloud9, the last time a North American team made it past the group stages was TSM in 2014. As of right now, the LCS is on track to miss out on the quarterfinals for the third time in four years. Part of that is because of its culture that has existed for years, according to CloudTemplar.
“I hear things from the coaches, workers, and players in the LCS industry and I don’t know which of that information is real and which is not, but some of it is REAL SERIOUS,” CloudTemplar said. “It gets me thinking, it’s no wonder why they are bad.”
That being said, even though the LCS is 0-9 at Worlds 2022, a winless start has not stopped teams from making a miracle run in week two of the Group Stages. In 2017, Europe’s Fnatic qualified for the quarterfinals after starting their Group Stage at 0-4, while C9 achieved such a feat last year when they went 0-3 after week one. Regardless, no team wants to start week one without a single win and it will be quite an uphill battle for all three LCS teams to make it past the group stage portion of Worlds 2022.
Week two of groups will start tomorrow.
