With Rogue's crushing defeat to JDG in the quarter-finals, there are no Western teams left in the tournament. It's been 3 long years since a Western team made a meaningful run into an international knockout stage, and the gap between Eastern and Western League has never felt more vast.
It's been a difficult couple of years for LEC and LCS fans when it comes to international competitions. Since G2's run to the Worlds finals in 2019, the West has been unable to produce a team capable of making it past the quarter-finals.
This year has been a particularly rough year for the West, with only two teams earning the chance to face Eastern teams in a best-of 5. Rogue and G2 were crushed by JDG and T1, with neither team managing to take a game off their opponents.
There are a plethora of reasons why the gap exists, ranging from playerbase size, money and cultural differences, and pros have provided some further insight. Rekkles suggested the East have superior drafts and fewer misplays, while Closer believes Western teams imitate Eastern teams but are unable to best them at their own game.
The discussion surrounding the gap's true size has been reignited over the last few years. This is partly due to how well the West had performed between 2018-2020; the 2019 MSI finals was a Western battle between TL and G2, and the LEC made back-to-back Worlds finals in 2018 and 2019.
After year of Eastern dominance, these tournaments felt like a turning point for competitive League when we dared to hope that the West was finally catching up. However, did we just get caught up in the hype and overvalue a few excellent outliers from the West?
Many look to FNC and G2 – Worlds finalists in 2018 and 2019 – as the pioneers for the West. But perhaps these rosters were just a case of a couple of players coming together and creating true magic, instead of solid proof the West was catching up with the East.
Whether the LCS and LEC will be able to catch up with the LCK and LPL remains to be seen. However, with rumours circulating of huge format changes coming to next year, perhaps this is the first meaningful step to the gap finally shrinking and more competitive clashes at international tournaments.
On vous l'avait promis, on a pris notre temps, et aujourd'hui ça y est : les clans sont là. L'idée tient en une phrase : les jeux auxquels vous jouez déjà devraient finir par compter pour quelque chose — et compter avec les gens avec qui vous les jouez déjà. C'est quoi, un clan ? Un clan, c'est une
Thomas Ruiz1 septembre9 min
Les tier lists de solo queue classent au win rate. Nous, on a classé les 173 champions à l'argent qu'ils ont vraiment rapporté : 380 308,98 $ sur 523 950 parties de League en 12 mois. Le podium ? Soraka, Zoe et Jarvan IV. Pas un seul ADC à l'horizon.
Thomas Ruiz30 août5 min
Le minimum de 6 $, les 5 % de frais de traitement, et pourquoi les crédits ne sont pas de l'argent. Les conditions que la plupart des plateformes enterrent au fond de leur FAQ, publiées ici en entier.
Thomas Ruiz30 août5 min