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.
みんなが一番待ち望んでた機能のひとつ。ついにお披露目できる日が来て、正直めちゃくちゃ嬉しい。クラン、始動です。 ひとことで言うとこう:普段プレイしてるゲームには「積み重ね」があってもいい。しかも、いつも一緒に回してる連中と一緒に、積み上げていく形で。 クランって何? クランは恒久的なチーム。名前があって、短いタグがあって、自分でデザインできる紋章があって、トレジャリーって呼ぶ共有ウォレットがある。 以上。ほんとにそれだけ。特定のゲームで上手くなる必要もないし、決まったスケジュールもいらない。必要なのは「一緒に遊びたい数人」だけ。 じゃあクランを持ったあとに何が起きるのか、順番に話していこう。
Thomas Ruiz9月1日9分
Solo queue tier lists rank champions on win rate. We ranked all 173 on the prize money they actually earned: $380,308.98 across 523,950 League games in 12 months. The top three are Soraka, Zoe and Jarvan IV, and not one ADC made the cut.
Thomas Ruiz8月30日5分
最低出金額6ドル、決済手数料5%、そしてクレジットは現金じゃない。ほかのプラットフォームなら規約の隅っこに隠す条件を、ここで全部並べる。
Thomas Ruiz8月30日5分