@@tinypickle AoE2 esports scene is actually for real nowadays. Of course nothing close to LoL, but they have 5-10 S-tier tournaments a year with 5-6 figures prize money each. They held a tournament in the freaking Heidelberg Castle last year, that site was more epic then most LoL events.
This is a certified top 5 thorin moment. First time i had to pause multiple times because he was spitting interesting points as sidenotes. Also always nixe to see rich
I was on the side of supporting the players and their “cause” but listening to you guys and Dom has really convinced me what an entire shitshow this all is. And not in the shitshow way that Nihilist doomer redditors think. Great vid.
Finally, a based take. I don't think a tier 2 system can exist in a business environment like Cali or LA. Move to a mid-sized city near the servers in Chicago (like Indy, Milwaukee or Des Moines) and operational costs drop and you can buy facilities/real estate cheaper and actually have a healthy balance sheet.
Even then, how come even with the free housing and food, training etc.. they get a salary? They shouldn't be paid a wage when they get all of that, It should be deducted from salary at least
@@ereder1476 americans do love to have their shitty working conditions in check. Not only I have to eat shit in my work, all the people that have it better, must eat the same shit than I do.
You don't even need to centralize tier 2 since the broadcast is not a high quality product. They can run regional online leagues and let the teams choose where they want to live like in the ERL system.
Dude the thing about this general discussion thats been driving me nuts is that not enough people bring up the fact that riot is the patient 0 for this cascade of fuckery happening because they forced teams to stay in LA instead of basing the LCS in Chicago as stewards of the league they've fumbled the bag at every stage and it drives me nuts that there isn't more blame placed at their feet for their utter failure to the financial growth of the scene
I was surprised by his attitude, tone and conduct in that episode. Now it all makes significantly more sense, I totally agree. Still don't think he had to be such a nob about it, but at least now I understand what was going on.
I really felt like Riot was just pushing this problem onto the teams. The whole cancelling LCS and making teams get scabs is just a refusal to play ball with the players. But 100% the players are in the wrong, they get paid so much money to genuinely do f/a
maybe im just a complete hater at this point but like I think everyone has fumbled the bag. the teams chose to use VC as the way to operate their teams. The content they all made with their teams fucking sucks. No marketing no ways to actually generate revenue. Make poor business decisions because they feel they must arms race when that only works if you buy into it. Not saying they could operate in green but you can definitely do a better job mitigating losses than fuckin 8-9 mill for 5 players or paying for swordart and perkz like you did. Riot failed exclusivity streaming deals, forced teams to continue to operate in LA therefore are the reason that t2 players had such a high starting salary, fucked up the high school leagues with playvs and don't give teams any way to make money via in game cosmetics. Players got the bag until they didn't and because they picked this time to actually unify it looks bad because they look like they're crying that they're not getting the bag anymore which I think in a sense could be true but I think on some levels is a bad faith argument. Phil was also totally in bad faith with his argument so maybe im alone in feeling like I don't think I want the NACL to exist in the format it was before but I do want a functional t2 that riot actually gives a fuck about but doesn't mean we have to pay 70k a year for t2 players. They should be able to make a livable wage though.
You know, these guys try to drive this point home a lot, and I still feel like it doesn't get through to a lot of people. And I myself have to get better at this too and I'm still learning, but it's so important to truly listen to people. Especially now that any random person can have their opinion online, if 20 000 other randoms like this opinion it's so easy to just accept it because a lot of people seem to agree. But really try to listen to mutliple perspectives and most importantly to people that actually KNOW what they are talking about. Otherwise you will never be able to see the full picture.
I think it's similar to the football (soccer) ecosystem globally. The MLS (LCS) is watched domestically and has an even lesser Tier 2 in USL (Challenger Series) that no one watches. The best players from the US go to Europe to play anyways. There's nothing wrong with LCS becoming a lesser region.
Not just eSports, sports as a whole, salary needs to come down for the players, and staff. Most sports team aren't profitable, what the lcs,lck,lec are going through is not surprising. However, I think owners thought they sell these eSports teams for more money like art.
Valuation all has to do with supply and demand. Sports teams are money pits and loss leaders but there's only a finite amount of them. When only one of them gets sold once every couple of years the valuations go up and up - like art. But if ownership is constantly queasy and half the league is up for sale at any given time then they will never retain any value. VCs need to nut up and stop complaining about cash flow.
I like the NFL point, the only QB I've seen recently not get the "out of the pocket but still a QB" tackle leeway was Cam Newton and I got to watch him die on the field for my team twice but I think that was more just how big he was no one went easy on tackling him
I like Thorin's points, agree with 99% of them and hope this channel gains more traction. A lil tongue and cheek, but as much as Thorin is great at dishing out his opinions which are entertaining. It would be nice to allow the other panelists a bit more time. Just a small observation from a viewers perspective.
The Leena angle makes too much sense. People in doublelift's video were laughing about how she was intentionally walking about in the background to make it appear as if she wasn't feeding him all his lines. Also I've been wondering for a while now, why doublelift's takes seem SO much dumber than even 4 years ago. I watched his old interviews he was a lot more reasonable back then and was even able to apply some critical thought at times. Now he just seems fucking stupid. Seriously go back and watch some of his interviews with thorin. He was able to articulate reasonable thoughts back then.
Ok, here is the problem with Yuumi being a beginner-friendly champ and then getting nerfed into oblivion: You can't have both. You can't give these new players an unplayable champion. Although it would give the new players the instant "Freshmen Shower", if they pick Yuumi with her 35 % Winrate and then get instantly flamed in champ select. It will prepare you for things to come.
They removed it because Rich made some weird trans jokes (Not trolling.) I think both Monte and Thoorin said they'd have to nuke the vod over it, I was watching it live at the time. :P
Lol they gloss over knights teammates in JDG and TES but don’t mention the fact that Showmaker botlane and Canyon were underperforming at MSI and that he hard carried them game after game at MSI
So obviously im not phillip aram, i think i understand the thought behind valorant dtyle league slots being added. It does immediately devalue the slots as theres now 2/4 extra depending on how its done, if it creates a significant enouh increase in viewership, all the slots become worth more, and having the promotion relegation also creates an incentive to run 2nd tier teams for other orgs. IF IT WORKS, it would improve the league and also allow riot to remove the requirements to run t2 orgs from franchisees without rugpulling the whole t2 league. Im not saying it is a guaranteed win, but i can at least appreciate how he thouht it could work
Are there any surveys or anything to back up the fact that no one is willing to pay 5 bucks or is it just that everyone in esport is too scared to try?
I think its totally fair to rip into phil but when Thorin can't frame it in a way that makes it obvious he knows more he does come off like an asshole so it's hard for the casual listener to see through the veil and take his side
Cant lie... I only even glance at the LEC desk to see what Sjoks might be wearing that day so as far as I'm concerned she is the needle. It's creepy to say I know... I'm just curious what % of the audience I speak for 😂
Ah yes In this day almost everything is creepy, u cant even look at the other sex... Anyway, if u dont watch live then ppl probably just skip to games so they dont register Sjokz at all
His point was that Fnatic complained about poaching earlier only because they sucked at it compared to Perkz. Thorin himself has never said he's offended by poaching because anti-poaching rules are basically unenforceable.
One in ten people paying is still better than zero people playing, also if anyone was dumb enough to rebroadcast the stream to twitch or whatever they would have legitimate ways to enforce legal proceedings against them.
Pls we Need a reflection with sjokz if it’s interesting enough for thorin. I don’t follow social media so i have no fucking clue about anything about her xD
I think it's less singular champion burnout/stale and more... it's just a set number of specific champions that fit a very specific mold for a very specific style rotating in and out and it's getting to people. Before dragon souls and shit there were reasons to consider playing like split pushers top and double up junglers and shit. But now its just adc/mage item reworks over and over but all the same really when you break it down
After all the stupidity on twitter, I really appreciated when Monte questioning why DL said anything at all. You would think this is the most obvious thing ever when you are directly taking part in an active 'strike'...
When everyone complains about the stale meta, I just think: Yeah, right, it was a lot better, when it was Ezrael vs Kai'Sa all the time. Or: For how many years did we see Azir vs Corki in Mid? The pro meta has always been stale. It has been way worse. Here is the really awful part with LS and Caedral complying: You then read comments, that people want to see more than the same 20 champs... and then you point out, that over 70 different champs were picked and the final had a really diverse champion pool... but they ignore that.
I think Thorin is missing one of the big reasons why many people complain about the NA orgs. People give them part of the blame for the decline of the LCS because almost every org failed to give anybody a reason to cheer for them. None of them create good content, none of them have key personalities that represent and embody their org. As an EU viewer, it feels like every player in NA has been at every team at some point. TSM used to be synonymous with Bjergsen, CLG with the Rush Hour bot lane of Dlift and Aphro, Cloud9 with Meteos, Sneaky and so on. Part of the reason why these were big personalities in the first place is creating content that people actually watch and enjoy. And while people disliked TSM, at least you felt something towards then. Either you were a fan or you hated them. But most importantly, you tuned in. How do people feel about NA orgs nowadays? I personally feel nothing towards any NA org except the sad feeling that things were more exciting in the past. And I dont think the Orgs are blameless when it comes to overspending for players because there are ways to have a good and relatively cheap roster. The key for that is a competent and effective development program. You set up infrastructure for your NACL team to scout and develop up and coming NA talent. And my god, if you as an org were half decent at that, you would have all that talent for yourself because nobody else is doing jackshit either. Then you can promote good NA talent into the LCS and they will play for you for a low salary because they are new and unproven talent. Of course the more established they are, the higher their salary gets but if once you have a good development program, theres a certain flow in talent signing. While one player you developed performed so well that other teams paid a lot of money to get him, you might already have the next great talent coming up to replace him. There was a chance to be the F1 Red Bull of the NA region. The F1 Red Bull team started to put serious effort into a young driver development program the instance they joined F1 in the mid 2000s. Something no other team has done to that point. That gave Red Bull a complete monopoly on young drivers for about a decade. 2009 is when they got Vettel into the Red Bull after his incredible 2008 season in the sister team Toro Rosso. 2010 is when he won his first title and then proceeded to win 3 more titles to become a 4x World Champion and wrote himself into the history books of Formula 1. Eventually Daniel Ricciardo got into the Red Bull, another extremely talented driver who didnt manage to win any titles but was definitely a top 5 driver for many seasons. And most famously they got their hands on Max Verstappen, current 2x World Champion and very likely to win his 3rd one this season. Red Bulls world champions have all been drivers they developed themselves. It was only in the mid 2010s when other teams started their own development programs with the creation of F2 which also made it more convenient and easier to develop drivers. Red Bull no longer had a monopoly on talent. George Russell comes from the Mercedes program, Norris from the Mclaren program, Piastri from the Alpine program, Leclerc from the Ferrari program. EU orgs like SK actively use their own academy team to scout players worthy of the LEC and have a low cost roster that at least occasionally punches above its weight. And the obvious excuse is that NA has no talent and I simply refuse to believe that. Yes their playerbase is lower but not low enough to justify the pace in which new players are promoted. And let me say this: Disguised Toast has done more for the American Region than any NA org has done the past few years. People ARE going to tune in when this mans team is playing and they will cheer for that team.
DL somehow compromised the position but from what he said he doesn’t even agree with the position - nor did it seem like players were properly informed of the position prior to voting or the consequences it would have.. they felt like I did in high school when we took a anonymous vote to take a ‘stand’, not serious about it but publicly voicing frustration in the hope teachers would be open to listen even if the threat was empty in itself… the PA did a horrible job in organising the walk-out because players seemingly aren’t on board for it NEITHER on the demands nor on the walkout itself
@@johnkirk1772 Dude, if the demands are ready before the walkout vote, and if the demands were done by the players, and the player don't agree with that, what are we even talking about??? There is no PA. There are only the players. Phillip is working for re tar ds, thats what it seems for me.
1:30:20 Monte makes a great point. 5 bucks a month to watch lcs games is as much as a twitch sub to streamers, and the fact that people cant even dish that out without complaining, means that esports was worth nothing in the first place
No one wants to pay for something that used to be free. Its like removing features from the free version of an app and putting it behind a paywall after many years of it being a free feature. This actually happened with MyFitnessPal moving the barcode scanner to the paid version of the app. People still want that feature so much that they moved off the app to a competitor like MyNetDiary. LCS is long past its time for trying to charge people to watch. There are just too many other options for esports entertainment, including other LoL leagues and tournaments. Why the hell would I pay $5 now when the league is less entertaining than it was 5 years ago. It doesnt have player's with personality, all the rivalries have pretty much died, and they got rid of Dash who I have would considered the face of the LCS. Monte also has a terrible point about time spent watching Netflix versus esports, the time spent doing an activity does not equate to the value of that activity. I spend most of my time in a theme park walking around and standing in lines for very long periods of time but can you guess what the best part of a theme park is? The rides that happen in about 3 minutes.
On franchising: "Player per player, NBA is the most lucrative league in the world when you look at the average." NBA is the elite basketball league in the world and rests upon multiple tiers of amateur athletes and semipros. When compared to the elite tier of soccer, NBA players make less and have less freedom on average. Amateurs and semipros also make less (or nothing at all) than their counterparts in soccer. On the higher end, it's even more lopsided to soccer's favor. Messi will have made in a single year more money ($400M) than the career earnings of every single NBA superstar to ever exist besides Lebron James who sits at something like $430M. An open pro/rel system is also just better competitively, which is the point of competition after all rather than making money. It's not like soccer is struggling to pay its bills. Tanking, load management, etc is dogshit for both competition and entertainment and are direct results of closed league franchising. Cartels suck.
The amount of whataboutisms on this show was throught the roof. If you dont walkout for every single injustice you're not allowed to walkout for any? Also just love the liberal defense of free market capitalism that goes like this: When corporations make profits, it's because of their genius investments and they should be allowed to make as much money as they want. When they however fuck up, make studid investments and totally crash the economy, there is zero responsibility. They always wanna "privatize the profits, but socialize the losses".
To say that NACL does not provide talent or help the LCS is too much of a simplification on a bigger problem. THE ORGS DON'T KNOW HOW TO USE IT! Anybody remember C9 from Summer 2018? Svenskeren, Blaber, Jensen, Gondenglue, Keith, Sneaky, Zeyzal, Smoothie? Funny how no org wants to remember when it actually helped to have players from CL and the LCS going up and down and actually going from 10th to Worlds. Would they win Worlds? No, but it showed that there was talent and that it can be used correctly.
Genuinely curious as to what makes Thorin's sources "the best" and everyone else's is shit. I don't hate him... this man had some banger rants and I'm all for it
I don't understand how you can view the walkout/demands as stupid and simultaneously view the Doublelift statement as stupid as well. If you don't like the walkout/demands, then shouldn't you love what Doublelift did? It seems like you are judging Doublelift under the assumption that his intention is to support the player association but as he said himself he would rather just play the split and doesn't even agree with most of the demands, so with that in mind "saying the quiet part out loud" is actually exactly the right thing for him to do. Not for supporting the PA of course but for supporting his own interests. So I don't get why everyone portraits what he did as stupid. I think many LCS players probably share his views and wish they had the standing or the guts to be able to just be open about them like he is despite it not being a popular thing to do in this situation. I think he is kind of a badass for just saying it how he sees it and not caring about public opinion. Sure it sabotages the negotiations but why should he care if he doesn't even agree with them and personally just wants the LCS to continue? It seems like sabotaging the walkout is actually exactly in his interest, so why portrait it as a fail on his part?
No, because the point is why did Doublelift sign the list of demands and join the walkout then? What they're saying is DL is stupid because he signed up for something which goes against his own personal interests, then suddenly realised it and flipped. Something he should have realised in the first place, before signing up for the strike and before putting his name/assent on the LCSPA demands list. How did he sign off on that when he disagrees with 4/5 of the demands? Or did he just sign off on it without reading it or contributing to any discussion?
Salary Cap's arn't illegal as a general statement. NHL has Salary Cap. NBA has salary Cap. no reason eSports can't implement salary caps the right way that is legal. there's just a lack of appetite to do that.
I usually love listening to Summoning Insight but for some reason I couldn’t really engage in this episode. About an hour in it dawned on me, much like Monte, that it’s because I couldn’t give a toss whether or not LCS survives. or not.
Why would Riot give up their absolute power by agreeing to not change the rules they've set forth? So long as they are making millions and are profitable as a company they have no incentive to handicap themselves. When they set the table and you're just a guest, they make the rules, you follow them, and they have the power to be arbitrary if it suits their purposes.
Just rework Yuumi's W so she doesn't become untargetable and problem solved. That's the only problem the rest are just normal Support abilities. Abilities with damage immunity should be removed from the game like Vlad's W, Taric ult, Kayle ult, Trynd ult etc🤔🤔🤔
Thanks for having me on guys! Always a pleasure to be in such excellent company!
You're the best!
I enjoyed the football content. My goodness I didnt realize this was a possibility
As the legends foretold - rich, Monte and Thorin in one place!
I haven't watched yet but from what I remember when he was on last time for the dnny situation he was based as shit. W Guest
I love hearing you on podcasts Rich, straight as an arrow and no BS. Great episode again Monte and Thorin. 🤘
I like that thorin has dom's back
100% gotta have crazy over the top ride or die homies like that sometimes
The lead balance designer of Riot being low bronze is the icing on this episodes cake.
Is he actually?
Tbh Phreak is high diamond and the balancing has gotten so utter garbage with forcing all these changes.
@@Gurpreet-sv5zg agreed. It feels like they're funneling the game so that it's only played through bot. It's the most boring it's ever been.
Eager to hear the lads tear into Doublelift and his brain cell
definitely singular in this regard. LMAO
wey
The brain cell did nothing wrong. It’s immoral to blame something that wasn’t even involved.
He is right ,im eager to see all those mornos without a job and lec lck and lpl gaining more spots on worlds
@@douglasluiz2225 would be more fun than watching NA get steamrolled by everyone.
The part where Thorin says "you heard of Dash" and then says no you haven't. He casts AOE games now days if you're into that.
wow that's a harsh reality check
@@tinypickle AoE2 esports scene is actually for real nowadays. Of course nothing close to LoL, but they have 5-10 S-tier tournaments a year with 5-6 figures prize money each. They held a tournament in the freaking Heidelberg Castle last year, that site was more epic then most LoL events.
Monte Cristo has done more than the PA .
best line of the vod
It not being an exaggeration makes it better too.
hasnt he been around like 4x longer makes sense tbh
You know Double Lift screwed up when the league subreddit haven't removed Dom's video on it and are agreeing with him.
Yeah, I like DL and I don't like Dom, but it's pretty obvious here who is making more sense.
Ain't no way, is The Earth flat?
Holy shit - Thorin went to another dimension in this one
That was the greatest Ludwig impersonation I’ve ever heard
"where I like, scientifically prove she is a piece of sh*t" is the best punchline ever bravo Thorin 😂😂😂
‘I don’t even understand how you could function in modern discourse if you haven’t seen the matrix’ made me so happy to hear.
Thorin mentioning Patrice / O&A further cements his place as my favorite person on the internet.
Hey a fellow Patrice fan in the comments!
Only one casting duo I care about. Monte/Doa 🐐
This is a certified top 5 thorin moment. First time i had to pause multiple times because he was spitting interesting points as sidenotes. Also always nixe to see rich
I was on the side of supporting the players and their “cause” but listening to you guys and Dom has really convinced me what an entire shitshow this all is. And not in the shitshow way that Nihilist doomer redditors think. Great vid.
Finally, a based take.
I don't think a tier 2 system can exist in a business environment like Cali or LA. Move to a mid-sized city near the servers in Chicago (like Indy, Milwaukee or Des Moines) and operational costs drop and you can buy facilities/real estate cheaper and actually have a healthy balance sheet.
Even then, how come even with the free housing and food, training etc.. they get a salary? They shouldn't be paid a wage when they get all of that, It should be deducted from salary at least
@@ereder1476 americans do love to have their shitty working conditions in check. Not only I have to eat shit in my work, all the people that have it better, must eat the same shit than I do.
You don't even need to centralize tier 2 since the broadcast is not a high quality product. They can run regional online leagues and let the teams choose where they want to live like in the ERL system.
Dude the thing about this general discussion thats been driving me nuts is that not enough people bring up the fact that riot is the patient 0 for this cascade of fuckery happening because they forced teams to stay in LA instead of basing the LCS in Chicago as stewards of the league they've fumbled the bag at every stage and it drives me nuts that there isn't more blame placed at their feet for their utter failure to the financial growth of the scene
Love how the comments in that episode tore Thorin apart but never considered how in bad faith Phil arguments were
I was surprised by his attitude, tone and conduct in that episode. Now it all makes significantly more sense, I totally agree. Still don't think he had to be such a nob about it, but at least now I understand what was going on.
Thanks for answering my question guys. I really love 90s sci-fi and am excited to watch some of these recommendations.
This was actually such a banger episode and honestly a real eye opener, especially since I've been half following the lcs drama.
I really felt like Riot was just pushing this problem onto the teams. The whole cancelling LCS and making teams get scabs is just a refusal to play ball with the players. But 100% the players are in the wrong, they get paid so much money to genuinely do f/a
"scabs" yeah people are so worried about alienating some dogshit "NA" nerds (pros) when 50% of them are from Korea/EU.
maybe im just a complete hater at this point but like I think everyone has fumbled the bag. the teams chose to use VC as the way to operate their teams. The content they all made with their teams fucking sucks. No marketing no ways to actually generate revenue. Make poor business decisions because they feel they must arms race when that only works if you buy into it. Not saying they could operate in green but you can definitely do a better job mitigating losses than fuckin 8-9 mill for 5 players or paying for swordart and perkz like you did.
Riot failed exclusivity streaming deals, forced teams to continue to operate in LA therefore are the reason that t2 players had such a high starting salary, fucked up the high school leagues with playvs and don't give teams any way to make money via in game cosmetics.
Players got the bag until they didn't and because they picked this time to actually unify it looks bad because they look like they're crying that they're not getting the bag anymore which I think in a sense could be true but I think on some levels is a bad faith argument. Phil was also totally in bad faith with his argument so maybe im alone in feeling like I don't think I want the NACL to exist in the format it was before but I do want a functional t2 that riot actually gives a fuck about but doesn't mean we have to pay 70k a year for t2 players. They should be able to make a livable wage though.
You know, these guys try to drive this point home a lot, and I still feel like it doesn't get through to a lot of people. And I myself have to get better at this too and I'm still learning, but it's so important to truly listen to people. Especially now that any random person can have their opinion online, if 20 000 other randoms like this opinion it's so easy to just accept it because a lot of people seem to agree. But really try to listen to mutliple perspectives and most importantly to people that actually KNOW what they are talking about. Otherwise you will never be able to see the full picture.
The quote is from FF Tactics. "If the punishment for breaking the law is money. It is only a law for the poor."
I think it's similar to the football (soccer) ecosystem globally. The MLS (LCS) is watched domestically and has an even lesser Tier 2 in USL (Challenger Series) that no one watches. The best players from the US go to Europe to play anyways. There's nothing wrong with LCS becoming a lesser region.
You know that players go to Europe because those teams are affiliated with the teams in the MLS?
@@nicolasreynares215 ???
@@nicolasreynares215tf u just wrote
I think the 'wrong' thing is that Riot is an american company and for their own region to be... lesser? I imagine it'd hurt their egos
Not just eSports, sports as a whole, salary needs to come down for the players, and staff. Most sports team aren't profitable, what the lcs,lck,lec are going through is not surprising. However, I think owners thought they sell these eSports teams for more money like art.
Valuation all has to do with supply and demand. Sports teams are money pits and loss leaders but there's only a finite amount of them. When only one of them gets sold once every couple of years the valuations go up and up - like art. But if ownership is constantly queasy and half the league is up for sale at any given time then they will never retain any value. VCs need to nut up and stop complaining about cash flow.
OMG THAT VIPER AND MOUNTAIN REFERENCE is perfect
I like the NFL point, the only QB I've seen recently not get the "out of the pocket but still a QB" tackle leeway was Cam Newton and I got to watch him die on the field for my team twice but I think that was more just how big he was no one went easy on tackling him
despite it being funny and everything, face off actually manages to show that travolta and cage are really good actors
This is the greatest first segment I've ever seen of SI
I like Thorin's points, agree with 99% of them and hope this channel gains more traction. A lil tongue and cheek, but as much as Thorin is great at dishing out his opinions which are entertaining. It would be nice to allow the other panelists a bit more time. Just a small observation from a viewers perspective.
The Leena angle makes too much sense. People in doublelift's video were laughing about how she was intentionally walking about in the background to make it appear as if she wasn't feeding him all his lines. Also I've been wondering for a while now, why doublelift's takes seem SO much dumber than even 4 years ago. I watched his old interviews he was a lot more reasonable back then and was even able to apply some critical thought at times. Now he just seems fucking stupid.
Seriously go back and watch some of his interviews with thorin. He was able to articulate reasonable thoughts back then.
1:35:00 i love the frankie mentions so much
Really curious as to why the twitch Vod was removed
Galaxy Quest by Monti was a great one, haven't heardof that movie in years but its a banger for sure!
Thorin is the GOAT honestly
Ok, here is the problem with Yuumi being a beginner-friendly champ and then getting nerfed into oblivion: You can't have both. You can't give these new players an unplayable champion.
Although it would give the new players the instant "Freshmen Shower", if they pick Yuumi with her 35 % Winrate and then get instantly flamed in champ select. It will prepare you for things to come.
League of legends is a social experiment where you see how trash wea re with othees to be honest, just uninstal brother. Better
Being a nitwit with numbers, I hope they include a chart or visual help for the money discussions. There's too much to digest for how fast they go.
Great episode!
Love me some Rich
rich is perfect for this topic
he has 5.5 times the knowledge of some other people on this subject
Dang I'm 20 minutes in and this is already fire haha
Wait did Thorin technically compare Doublelift to Kobe Bryant by saying they both won't miss out on the Championship/Worlds for a walkout?
Just picked up some Liquid IV with your code, thanks for the content guys!
Please do a reaction for the LCK summer cinematic! Thanks 🙏🏼
Would absolutely listen to an NFL or NBA podcast with you guys
Thanks for the content
I miss those 2 guests episode, where guys from NA and EU can share their opinions.
Thorin reference to how the English "won" the revolutionary war was hilarious
Did this even go live on Twitch I missed it if it did but got no notifications or anytbing and there's no vlod.
Was removed
Where is the twitch vod?
I have the same question. was watching first 2h 1min and when I refreshed the page, the vod was gone.
Maybe it was too spicy at points and we'll get the cut version here.
They usally let them up kinda surprised me too in the middle of my Vod watch session :/
They removed it because Rich made some weird trans jokes (Not trolling.) I think both Monte and Thoorin said they'd have to nuke the vod over it, I was watching it live at the time. :P
More clarification, it was about the weird blue haired deer girl who was on the Twitch safety council.
It is time riot, bring team siren back to save LCS!
Galaxy Quest was sooo good!
"There is no subtext" being used to describe Doublelift is on the nose.
FNC replying to Sjokz' tweet with "we'll see you soon", like they're assuming they'll make it to LEC season finals in Montpellier, is so delusional.
Lol they gloss over knights teammates in JDG and TES but don’t mention the fact that Showmaker botlane and Canyon were underperforming at MSI and that he hard carried them game after game at MSI
So obviously im not phillip aram, i think i understand the thought behind valorant dtyle league slots being added. It does immediately devalue the slots as theres now 2/4 extra depending on how its done, if it creates a significant enouh increase in viewership, all the slots become worth more, and having the promotion relegation also creates an incentive to run 2nd tier teams for other orgs. IF IT WORKS, it would improve the league and also allow riot to remove the requirements to run t2 orgs from franchisees without rugpulling the whole t2 league.
Im not saying it is a guaranteed win, but i can at least appreciate how he thouht it could work
Are there any surveys or anything to back up the fact that no one is willing to pay 5 bucks or is it just that everyone in esport is too scared to try?
The 2 weeks treads was riot setting the timeframe for the talks and removing the ranks was riots saying to pro players that they don't matter
I will never have an opinion without assuming Thorin has unspoken information again. He was 100% right to slightly rip into Philip.
It wasn't "slight" but yeah
Lol, so obvious its corporate talk out of his mouth. Too many people eat it up.
I think its totally fair to rip into phil but when Thorin can't frame it in a way that makes it obvious he knows more he does come off like an asshole so it's hard for the casual listener to see through the veil and take his side
Gattaca is definitely my fav.
Cant lie... I only even glance at the LEC desk to see what Sjoks might be wearing that day so as far as I'm concerned she is the needle. It's creepy to say I know... I'm just curious what % of the audience I speak for 😂
Ah yes
In this day almost everything is creepy, u cant even look at the other sex...
Anyway, if u dont watch live then ppl probably just skip to games so they dont register Sjokz at all
I love how much Carlos benefited from Perkz's pool side recruiting and Thorin's all butt hurt about Fnatic knowing that Perkz wants to join them.
His point was that Fnatic complained about poaching earlier only because they sucked at it compared to Perkz. Thorin himself has never said he's offended by poaching because anti-poaching rules are basically unenforceable.
it was when they overbuffed wukong there was a gold rioter wukong main
As Thorin would say "The joke is... "Doublelift didn't even make worlds, so ruining the negotiations was all for nothing". lmfaoooo
I love the content but just wondering what thoorin adds to the profit of league of legends?
Rich is a really great guest. Doesn't fuck around with riots shit but doesn't fuck with the org shit either
Monte and Thorin who made a career off criticizing Riot. Beautiful
I paid for ProView for every split it was out. I would LOVE to have an avenue to pay for a premium LCS watching experience.
What will happen with the paying to watch thing is that 10 ppl will get on a discord call and one guy who has it will screen share it
One in ten people paying is still better than zero people playing, also if anyone was dumb enough to rebroadcast the stream to twitch or whatever they would have legitimate ways to enforce legal proceedings against them.
Pls we Need a reflection with sjokz if it’s interesting enough for thorin.
I don’t follow social media so i have no fucking clue about anything about her xD
I don't think the meta is stale ngl there's been a tonne of bans and revolving picks in a few roles. I think people are just burnt out
I think it's less singular champion burnout/stale and more... it's just a set number of specific champions that fit a very specific mold for a very specific style rotating in and out and it's getting to people. Before dragon souls and shit there were reasons to consider playing like split pushers top and double up junglers and shit. But now its just adc/mage item reworks over and over but all the same really when you break it down
After all the stupidity on twitter, I really appreciated when Monte questioning why DL said anything at all. You would think this is the most obvious thing ever when you are directly taking part in an active 'strike'...
how funny is it that the executive director of NA player association is called "aram"
When everyone complains about the stale meta, I just think: Yeah, right, it was a lot better, when it was Ezrael vs Kai'Sa all the time. Or: For how many years did we see Azir vs Corki in Mid? The pro meta has always been stale. It has been way worse.
Here is the really awful part with LS and Caedral complying: You then read comments, that people want to see more than the same 20 champs... and then you point out, that over 70 different champs were picked and the final had a really diverse champion pool... but they ignore that.
1:47:45 REASONABLE
I think Thorin is missing one of the big reasons why many people complain about the NA orgs.
People give them part of the blame for the decline of the LCS because almost every org failed to give anybody a reason to cheer for them. None of them create good content, none of them have key personalities that represent and embody their org. As an EU viewer, it feels like every player in NA has been at every team at some point. TSM used to be synonymous with Bjergsen, CLG with the Rush Hour bot lane of Dlift and Aphro, Cloud9 with Meteos, Sneaky and so on. Part of the reason why these were big personalities in the first place is creating content that people actually watch and enjoy. And while people disliked TSM, at least you felt something towards then. Either you were a fan or you hated them. But most importantly, you tuned in. How do people feel about NA orgs nowadays? I personally feel nothing towards any NA org except the sad feeling that things were more exciting in the past.
And I dont think the Orgs are blameless when it comes to overspending for players because there are ways to have a good and relatively cheap roster.
The key for that is a competent and effective development program. You set up infrastructure for your NACL team to scout and develop up and coming NA talent. And my god, if you as an org were half decent at that, you would have all that talent for yourself because nobody else is doing jackshit either. Then you can promote good NA talent into the LCS and they will play for you for a low salary because they are new and unproven talent. Of course the more established they are, the higher their salary gets but if once you have a good development program, theres a certain flow in talent signing. While one player you developed performed so well that other teams paid a lot of money to get him, you might already have the next great talent coming up to replace him.
There was a chance to be the F1 Red Bull of the NA region. The F1 Red Bull team started to put serious effort into a young driver development program the instance they joined F1 in the mid 2000s. Something no other team has done to that point. That gave Red Bull a complete monopoly on young drivers for about a decade. 2009 is when they got Vettel into the Red Bull after his incredible 2008 season in the sister team Toro Rosso. 2010 is when he won his first title and then proceeded to win 3 more titles to become a 4x World Champion and wrote himself into the history books of Formula 1. Eventually Daniel Ricciardo got into the Red Bull, another extremely talented driver who didnt manage to win any titles but was definitely a top 5 driver for many seasons. And most famously they got their hands on Max Verstappen, current 2x World Champion and very likely to win his 3rd one this season. Red Bulls world champions have all been drivers they developed themselves. It was only in the mid 2010s when other teams started their own development programs with the creation of F2 which also made it more convenient and easier to develop drivers. Red Bull no longer had a monopoly on talent. George Russell comes from the Mercedes program, Norris from the Mclaren program, Piastri from the Alpine program, Leclerc from the Ferrari program.
EU orgs like SK actively use their own academy team to scout players worthy of the LEC and have a low cost roster that at least occasionally punches above its weight.
And the obvious excuse is that NA has no talent and I simply refuse to believe that. Yes their playerbase is lower but not low enough to justify the pace in which new players are promoted.
And let me say this: Disguised Toast has done more for the American Region than any NA org has done the past few years.
People ARE going to tune in when this mans team is playing and they will cheer for that team.
Wow I’m an Eagles fan and the last thing I expected to hear was about Jalen Hurts and the BIRDS 🦅 🦅🦅🦅🦅
Imagine thinking that Phillip made the requests and not the players committee...
DL somehow compromised the position but from what he said he doesn’t even agree with the position - nor did it seem like players were properly informed of the position prior to voting or the consequences it would have.. they felt like I did in high school when we took a anonymous vote to take a ‘stand’, not serious about it but publicly voicing frustration in the hope teachers would be open to listen even if the threat was empty in itself… the PA did a horrible job in organising the walk-out because players seemingly aren’t on board for it NEITHER on the demands nor on the walkout itself
@@johnkirk1772 Dude, if the demands are ready before the walkout vote, and if the demands were done by the players, and the player don't agree with that, what are we even talking about???
There is no PA. There are only the players. Phillip is working for re tar ds, thats what it seems for me.
1:30:20 Monte makes a great point. 5 bucks a month to watch lcs games is as much as a twitch sub to streamers, and the fact that people cant even dish that out without complaining, means that esports was worth nothing in the first place
No one wants to pay for something that used to be free. Its like removing features from the free version of an app and putting it behind a paywall after many years of it being a free feature. This actually happened with MyFitnessPal moving the barcode scanner to the paid version of the app. People still want that feature so much that they moved off the app to a competitor like MyNetDiary. LCS is long past its time for trying to charge people to watch. There are just too many other options for esports entertainment, including other LoL leagues and tournaments. Why the hell would I pay $5 now when the league is less entertaining than it was 5 years ago. It doesnt have player's with personality, all the rivalries have pretty much died, and they got rid of Dash who I have would considered the face of the LCS. Monte also has a terrible point about time spent watching Netflix versus esports, the time spent doing an activity does not equate to the value of that activity. I spend most of my time in a theme park walking around and standing in lines for very long periods of time but can you guess what the best part of a theme park is? The rides that happen in about 3 minutes.
On franchising: "Player per player, NBA is the most lucrative league in the world when you look at the average."
NBA is the elite basketball league in the world and rests upon multiple tiers of amateur athletes and semipros. When compared to the elite tier of soccer, NBA players make less and have less freedom on average. Amateurs and semipros also make less (or nothing at all) than their counterparts in soccer. On the higher end, it's even more lopsided to soccer's favor. Messi will have made in a single year more money ($400M) than the career earnings of every single NBA superstar to ever exist besides Lebron James who sits at something like $430M. An open pro/rel system is also just better competitively, which is the point of competition after all rather than making money. It's not like soccer is struggling to pay its bills. Tanking, load management, etc is dogshit for both competition and entertainment and are direct results of closed league franchising.
Cartels suck.
Thorin, thank you for calling out Hasan and those grifters. They're so shameless.
I knew na pros/ coaches were paycheck thieves but DAMN
The amount of whataboutisms on this show was throught the roof. If you dont walkout for every single injustice you're not allowed to walkout for any? Also just love the liberal defense of free market capitalism that goes like this: When corporations make profits, it's because of their genius investments and they should be allowed to make as much money as they want. When they however fuck up, make studid investments and totally crash the economy, there is zero responsibility. They always wanna "privatize the profits, but socialize the losses".
To say that NACL does not provide talent or help the LCS is too much of a simplification on a bigger problem.
THE ORGS DON'T KNOW HOW TO USE IT!
Anybody remember C9 from Summer 2018? Svenskeren, Blaber, Jensen, Gondenglue, Keith, Sneaky, Zeyzal, Smoothie? Funny how no org wants to remember when it actually helped to have players from CL and the LCS going up and down and actually going from 10th to Worlds.
Would they win Worlds? No, but it showed that there was talent and that it can be used correctly.
Thorin and a kazoo, lmfao thats a good image
how do they know if RIOT is losing money from the LCS?
Bro thorin went off 😂😂
God damn I love Thorin
Genuinely curious as to what makes Thorin's sources "the best" and everyone else's is shit. I don't hate him... this man had some banger rants and I'm all for it
I know they're right because they have the opposite opinion of Travis
I don't understand how you can view the walkout/demands as stupid and simultaneously view the Doublelift statement as stupid as well. If you don't like the walkout/demands, then shouldn't you love what Doublelift did? It seems like you are judging Doublelift under the assumption that his intention is to support the player association but as he said himself he would rather just play the split and doesn't even agree with most of the demands, so with that in mind "saying the quiet part out loud" is actually exactly the right thing for him to do. Not for supporting the PA of course but for supporting his own interests. So I don't get why everyone portraits what he did as stupid.
I think many LCS players probably share his views and wish they had the standing or the guts to be able to just be open about them like he is despite it not being a popular thing to do in this situation. I think he is kind of a badass for just saying it how he sees it and not caring about public opinion. Sure it sabotages the negotiations but why should he care if he doesn't even agree with them and personally just wants the LCS to continue? It seems like sabotaging the walkout is actually exactly in his interest, so why portrait it as a fail on his part?
No, because the point is why did Doublelift sign the list of demands and join the walkout then? What they're saying is DL is stupid because he signed up for something which goes against his own personal interests, then suddenly realised it and flipped. Something he should have realised in the first place, before signing up for the strike and before putting his name/assent on the LCSPA demands list. How did he sign off on that when he disagrees with 4/5 of the demands? Or did he just sign off on it without reading it or contributing to any discussion?
I hope we switch to the subscription model, if you truly cannot afford that you shouldn't be using your free time to watch esports anyway
Thorin would Play the Hurdy Gurdy
I wonder if Thorin will ever mature beyond his ego. Getting pretty tough to see someone that old still acting like a 15 year old
I will pay 10 bucks to wath LCK / LPL streams with independant english casters , monte, doa , LS , dom , sneaky, deficio, krepo.
Salary Cap's arn't illegal as a general statement. NHL has Salary Cap. NBA has salary Cap. no reason eSports can't implement salary caps the right way that is legal. there's just a lack of appetite to do that.
I usually love listening to Summoning Insight but for some reason I couldn’t really engage in this episode. About an hour in it dawned on me, much like Monte, that it’s because I couldn’t give a toss whether or not LCS survives. or not.
I wonder if IDW was on the potential Scab list, lmao. Just for lulz.
Why sneaky getting the random jabs lmao
Just a notable native NA adc who might get a call if all imports are gone I suppose
His bitchboi thats why
Why would Riot give up their absolute power by agreeing to not change the rules they've set forth? So long as they are making millions and are profitable as a company they have no incentive to handicap themselves. When they set the table and you're just a guest, they make the rules, you follow them, and they have the power to be arbitrary if it suits their purposes.
Just rework Yuumi's W so she doesn't become untargetable and problem solved. That's the only problem the rest are just normal Support abilities. Abilities with damage immunity should be removed from the game like Vlad's W, Taric ult, Kayle ult, Trynd ult etc🤔🤔🤔