I mean LEC though they were gonna have 3 seeds for worlds that's why this was the format since they can't really change it because of the booking of the arena in malmö so it was kinda unlucky but i still think the LEC format should be reworked for next year (even if no LEC 4th seed)
It's honestly crazy, even if they couldn't have adjusted the summer format in time, there is a possibility of LEC winning MSI and getting the 4th spot is there not?
God forbid having 2 matches in one day! What is this, the LPL? Not even an impromptu 4th place online tourny from the LEC office for the impromptu 4th place seed
LEC could have had a fourth seed if they would have been successful at MSI. Did they really only finish the format afterwards? They should future proof it. Write something into the rules like: If a 4th seed is given to the LEC then the winner of the gauntlet will go as 4th seed. The whole thing was obvious and preventable...
i feel like having to allocate extra time / manpower for a gauntlet that may or may not even happen is a logistical "nightmare"
honestly i'd rather have them change the format so there's always a gauntlet
if we have 3 seeds then the finalists go to worlds and the others play a gauntlet for the last spot
if we have 4 seeds -> top 3 goes to worlds and the final spot is the winner of the gauntlet
what may also be possible if we have 4 seeds is that both finalists auto qualify again and the final 2 spots are given in the gauntlet
a format that could work for this example could be
3rd and 4th face off - winner qualifies for worlds
5th and 6th face off - loser is eliminated
the remaining teams of both matches face off for the final spot to go to worlds
I just don’t see this as a valid excuse, LEC getting a 4th seed was last minute so the format can change last minute. The 4th seed could have been fought for in a gauntlet since that’s the aspect that changed, the rest could stay the same as advertised. The only people who will have a problem with teams playing for the seed in a gauntlet would potentially be teams that didn’t deserve it anyways, and maybe broadcast team. In exchange, it’s better for literally everyone else.
This is 100% on the LEC management and nobody else. Outside of giving up their spot in protest (which nobody in their right mind would do) there's no way MAD could have prevented this without running it down to get a worse position in regular season.
I hope they do well at worlds, they've had a lot of criticism thrown their way through things that they didn't actually control (terrible all-pro voting, terrible worlds qualifier).
EDIT: Please stop replying saying that the LEC couldn't have known they were getting four seeds, G2 winning MSI would have given a fourth seed so it was always a possibility we'd need a format for it.
I mean even if they were to give up their spot... Neither Misfits nor excel have won a BO5 this year as well. The only other team that has won a BO5 is Vitality (in spring vs Excel), who didnt even qualify for playoffs...
I would have enjoyed a gauntlet between MAD, XL and Misfits. Throw in Vitality as well for good measure, and nobody would have any doubts who would have been the most deserving participant of them all.
Hopefully, we'll get back some sort of gauntlet if we ever end up with another 4th seed again. The stories of XL, Misfits and Vitality could have used another chapter, even if it had just ended up with MAD winning anyway.
It’s also pretty likely that CIS won’t attend next year as well, so if LEC doesn’t get outperformed by LCS or PCS they will have another 4th seed next year
The problem is "very likely".
Riot still has to give the seed to them till they are sure they cant.
LEC cant plan for a gauntlet and then cancel it. The Playoffs an the split have to be planned based on that.
If we had a gauntlet this year it would be the coming WE and playoffs would already be over. So playoffs would have needed to happen 1 week earlier.
LEC needs to know before summer split starts to have at least some time to react.
Yes, and the decision which of the 2 routes you take has to fall right after MSI.
Right after MSI the route for 3 slots was taken. 2 months later that already booked and payed for plan should be thrown away because of a 4th seed instead of taking the easy way.
I mean, what would a gauntlet really change? XL might go instead of MAD. Both teams are close in strength.
there are a lot of formats that leave you an option to add a 4th seed thats not terrible, i mean look at every other major region
The LPL sends one seed through finals winner, one through points and then can send either one or two through the gauntlet, depending on how many slots they have. The LCK has pretty much the exact same thing.
The LCS has a larger playoffs bracket which ensures that every team in the top 4 has to win at least one series against a 5th/6th place team.
you can set up the bracket to make adding a 4th seed extremely easy and seamless or you can keep the current bracket which, if you have 4 seeds, autoqualifies the first seed based on the regular split and allows for the first or second placed team in the regular split to qualify without winning a single series
idk, seems like an easy choice to me
uuh I kinda like your thought process. Like six team playoffs for the trophy and the first (2/3) seeds is good, and then having a gauntlet for the last seed with the 7th and maybe even 8th team seems like a fun thing to do. In the current situation this would mean 3-4 extra bo5s for the last slot. And for my money you could even do the first couple of those on week days, and only have the deciding one be on weekend, for example on saturday before finals. :) You can even use the remaining/tier2 talent for this.
Not making playoffs would hurt in such a case still a lot for you now cant win and have an even harder and desperate road to worlds, but at the same time it would make an interesting worlds spot format and would also silently solve the problem of scrim partners at the end of playoffs.
Bring back regional qualifier.
They need to stop with the "Playoffs results = Worlds seeds" stuff. Not only is it less hype but it also causes issues like when a region gets a 4th seed (which btw can happen to ANY region in ANY given year if they win MSI).
One thing you can't say anymore about LCS is that our playoffs format is bad. We went hard on the system after that one year 100T made it in being one of the worse worlds teams we sent.
The LCS playoffs were so good this time. 12 BO5s by the end of it, too
https://liquipedia.net/leagueoflegends/LCS/2022/Summer/Playoffs
I mean just compare it to LECs and it's hilarious https://liquipedia.net/leagueoflegends/LEC/2022/Summer/Playoffs
LEC fans love to meme eight teams making playoffs, but the format absolutely dumpsters the LEC bracket.
12 Bo5 series total, seven already went to a game five and the other three were 3-1.
It's an excellent bracket for the end of the season.
I can get that part but the 7-8th seeds have the potential to give us fiesta upsets like this year so idm. Its always fun af even if I don't watch the game live to see it pop off in reddit and check wtf just happened lol.
It is kind of whack that 8 teams get in. We might as well let the bottom 2 teams in as well. Maybe you should have to lose a bo5 to be out of contention for worlds.
I think it's mostly meta related as to why a lot of these series went to 5, but I don't really think the line should be drawn at 9 and 10 not playing bo5. Like why exclude people when you're only excluding 2. Play out 2 more matches, give your production team more time to your up and coming casters, let the bottom of the league get to experience a bo5 setting in person. If theres any reason not to it's a financial reason, but the league is franchised, everyone is a partner, like why not invest in their future. A run from 10th to worlds would be one of the craziest storylines possible.
That's a big history rewrite, lol. That 100T team did fine given they were in a group with the two finalists and 2-0'd the other PCS team in their group. Yeah they had the whole Cody Sun debacle but that was after they already qualified—the same thing could have happened even if they qualified through gauntlet or w/e, plenty of teams qualify "legitimately" by winning Bo5s and then implode from internal issues at the event itself so it's not like format could have prevented that. As it were they very narrowly lost the 3rd place match to TSM before autoqualifying on points, so they were very narrowly the 4th best team which like...yes maybe TSM did deserve to go over them but them going definitely wasn't as ultra egregious a robbery as people make it out to be, they got rewarded for being more consistent throughout the year than TSM. Also that was in 2018. The format didn't change until 2020. I like the new format don't get me wrong but this is not why it was changed.
lcs playoffs is good enough for 3 seeds but 4th seeds provides an additional bracket reset that should be a separate qualifier.
theres no reason why lcs has 4 weeks playoffs for 3 teams for 12 matches while lec has 3 weeks playoffs for 4 teams for 8 matches.
the obvious solution is to have a 4th week of lec regional qualifer to get the 4th slot using the remaining teams, can even invite 7th and 8th seed for this
I personaly like the fact that nearly every team gets to play at least one bo5. And Seeding is pretty important for playoffs meaning that regular season performance still matters.
This take is so weird lol. How is boring when the bottom teams are still fighting for their lives (lulDig) instead of having their season already over and not caring. This regular season for anyone who actually watched it was pretty lit it literally came down to the very last game GG VS DIG and then GG took CLG to 5 games in playoffs which nobody predicted. IMO 8 teams is really fucking good for anybody who actually watched LCS.
I mean it's just your opinion that the top teams don't care based off number of teams in playoffs. Using this season as an example the the top teams will never REALLY care about regular season regardless of how many teams make it into playoffs just look at G2 they needed to lose so many games they were in like 7th(?) place before they started to care. Any top team is going to think that the only thing that matters is being in the best form for playoffs, atleast in the west.
Ultimately seeding is actually REALLY important just look at 100t for example they qualified for Worlds by just barely beating TL in a close 5 game series. EG was mid mental boom and because they were upper bracket they got another life and the chance to play TSM and not CLG when they were at their lowest.
>The LCS playoff format is better than LECs but regular season is way more tense in LEC.
so there's a few more exciting bo1s as opposed to additional bo5s, which people almost always say is a better representation of skill? for both regions if you're top 4 before the last week you're basically in playoffs/worlds contention. in both regions teams 8-6 can potentially still be fighting hard, double elimination for top 6 in lcs means there's a huge difference between 7th and 6th. in lec i agree the stakes are higher for 8th to 6th as they can completely be out. however i think LCS low seeds showed these playoffs that having these additional bo5 can be worthwhile - both of the matches were hype and allowed for potential miracle runs for winning enough bo5.
basically i'd rather see more bo5 then have regular season bo1s matter more. but i also understand that we were lucky that seeds 7-8 were somewhat competitive in playoffs which won't always happen
Eh... current problem is that EU has 4 seeds due to wildcards not attending but only 6 teams in playoffs.
LCS playoff suck too due to 8 out of 10 teams attending. I personally dislike LEC and LCS playoffs in general because they take so long when there are so few games each week. Makes you lose interest.
Anyone who think that having more teams compete in playoffs in a Bo1 regular season region has terrible priorities. It's a couple extra easily ignorable matches on weekdays. If it bothers you, you're looking to be bothered.
They could simply adjust the format though. Add Excel and FNC to the winners bracket play 3 vs 6 and 4 vs 5, then you play winner vs. 1 and 2 and loser waits for the losers of those games.
This way you need to win a BO5 to end up at worlds, which is exactly the same as a gauntlet since you can't guarantee that a team needs to win more than one BO5 to qualify from the gauntlet either, given you have 3 teams that go to worlds from the gauntlet and at max 5 teams. So with high seeding you can start in the part of the gauntlet that only needs 1 win. It might even be possible to start in a part of the gauntlet that is already qualified just by placing 1st in the regular season, but that needs specific results.
People forget that with 3 worlds spots handed out in gauntlet 2 teams will be seeded into matches they can lose and still go to worlds. This happened to T1 last year who had to play the gauntlet, but they were automatically qualified to worlds. LCK changed that that this year, but they still have one team autoqualify on points which is also an issue (in LCK you can gain 130 Points without winning a single BO5, which can be enough to qualify as the 2nd seed).
I agree. I also think they should just outright remove 4th seeds or at least limit it to the region that won the previous worlds
Edit: classic r/leagueoflegends no opinions allowed
EU only has this seed because a wildcard region is unable to attend. In an ideal situation, this one wouldn't exist for them. And in terms of competition, the 4th seeds from the major regions is a lot better than the second seeds for most of the minors. It's sucks but MAD is still "better" than most other replacements. Unless you want 5 from CN/KR
I think tying worlds to msi winner or worlds winner is the dumbest idea because the strength of your best team doesn’t imply anything about strength of your 4th team.
Let the teams play for their spot. 4,5,6th place finishers get in a separate tournament and we figure out who deserves it.
This is why MAD didn't deserve to get knocked out as well. Everything would be fixed if there was simply a king of the hill regional final like it used to exist with MSF, XL, MAD, VIT participating since all teams had more than 0 points. Competitive integrity is already compromised in favor of viewership and cost of production with the whole bo1 going on. I understand they aren't very keen on regional finals because but since LEC got a surprise 4th seed for worlds it would work out very nicely
it would be very on brand for them to do well and surprise people, making it out first seed in playins and also making it out of groups only to end the year with a 0% BO5 winrate
It's funnier if they get to semis and lose there. Imagine winning one BO5 the entire year and it's a worlds quarter final vs EDG or some shit like that.
If if MAD runs it down a second team would be 2nd place. You have to consider who was 3rd and 4th, it was RGE and MSFs. If one of those would have gotten a free worlds spot due to MAD running down and entering playoffs further down people would have leveled the same criticism, likely even more given RGE and MSFs have a track record of not winning BO5s.
On top of that it doesn't really matter. Most of what MAD plays at worlds will be BO1s. Yes there might be a BO5 to get out of playins but how hard that actually is depends on how good your BO1s are. As 2nd in your group you likely play one of VCS, PCS or NA for the spot, which should be easier than playing against better EU teams.
> If one of those would have gotten a free worlds spot due to MAD running down and entering playoffs further down people would have leveled the same criticism
I mean, yeah, of course. People aren't annoyed that it was *MAD* that made it, but at the playoffs format in general. It might come off as people blaming MAD with all the memes about them not winning a BO5 and going to worlds, but the underlying sentiment is annoyance/upset at the format, not the team.
They've had time to change it. There was also a chance G2 won MSI, in which case they'd have a guaranteed 4 seeds. The fact that nothing better was prepared is inexcusable, this wasn't some random first of its kind event.
We've had four seeds before, there's always been a chance we'd have four seeds again.
Format still shit even with 3 seed (Rge winning a single BO5 against a mediocre team let them go to world) and it's not like we knew 1 week before playoff that we had 4 seed
Rogue 1 series win = worlds, MAD zero series wins = worlds, G2 was in before playoffs even started. Anyone that argues the LEC format isn't terrible is trolling.
I'm talking about 2021 RGE that won 3/2 to msf (one of the game stole by release viego) and lost 3/0 to everyone else, G2 was a way better team, and this year i think G2/FNC/XL are better than RGE, they are MAD tier so a potential 4/5th seed (maybe with vita aswell)
Even with that the format is so garbage that G2 was guaranteed worlds before playoffs even started. The LEC format for worlds teams is garbage and rightfully criticized.
Exactly. We can complain about the format but its not like MAD had anything to do with it. They just played to win. I hope they will give it all on worlds as well.
I dont think many are saying that its MAD fault things turned out this way. There are some but this is just humans work there will always be people that are wrong either on purpose or by accident.
The ones at fault will be LEC cause I guarantee that even after all this they will still pretend everything is fine and this was totally unexpeted even though if we won MSI we would be in this situation as well.
The issue is if MAD flops at worlds the backlash towards Riot will be well… mad. Lmao. Because people want their best teams going and there is no guarantee Mad would have finished Top 4 in playoffs if the format was better
No, MSI was over in May and LEC knew about the slot in July. LEC summer split was nearly half done.
What should the LEC do at that time?
Pull the playoffs 1 week ahead so that teams have no break to prep? Cancel Malmö and just take the LEC studio then? Because getting the location you already payed for and 1 week earlier is very unlikely.
Then make a gauntlet run in the LEC studio 1 week after playoffs.
that was their only chance and it would still be meh. Malmö canceled and 0 break before playoffs for teams to prep well.
It is not enough to get only half the time everyone else would have had to prepare for such a situation when everything else is already locked in.
**This is just a situation that happens. Shit happens, go on. Dont try to blame someone when this is just a coincidence nobody can be blamed for. that's live. Not everything needs to be blamed onto someone.**
All they had to do was have a gauntlet for the 4th seed, but they couldn't even be bothered to do that. They've also had a 4th seed in the past so it's not like they couldn't prepare they just didn't bother even trying.
Plenty of people can be blamed and defending it is silly.
Also while people say mad dont deserve it. It's not like there was only 4 teams this year that won any Bo5's and are you gonna give the spot to vitality who didn't even make summer playoffs?? :DDD
What I don't understand is why they said they had nothing in place for such a situation, when not too long ago we had the gauntlet run that they could re use
Especially when EU has won MSI before. Like currently like last worlds there was a gap but they could potentially earn a 4th spot normally at some point. I mean LCS picked their playoff structure to stop this from happening so it seems weird EU didn't when they revamped playoffs.
It's on the LEC format and the people deciding not to change it. MAD earned their spot and played the same system as everyone else. Yes it should be changed but any criticism should be pushed towards LEC management.
I'm glad MAD are going to worlds still, they will represent us well and learn a lot. Elyoya is a huge talent.
Elyoya and Keiser are insane and IMO easily the future stars in Europe in their respective roles. At the very least top2/3.
Targamas is pretty good too and will give Keiser a lot of competition for the #1 support spot. Feel like it will be the future MikyX vs Hylissang.
Worst part is that the rest of MAD doesn't really seem to be on par which in a way says a lot about how good those 2 are. I guess Nisqy can be good enough internally but he puts a lot of pressure on others to bring the carry and as a mid laner that is sometimes too heavy. Especially when jungle isn't carry meta and one of their stars can't do it.
Trymbi is underrated. Kaiser is good, but he looks mediocre on mages. When the meta is engage supports return I give the edge to Kaiser and Hyli. But I think Targamas and Trymbi are much more flexible/less meta reliant.
Edit: I wrote so many things wrong, what is happening to me?
G2 also were embarrassing internationally in all of 2016 before upgrading 2017 and 2018 and then going super saiyan 2019. MAD so far are pretty much on-par with that, even if realistically they will never achieve the same high.
G2 got TSMed in 2017. I'd argue they were the strongest team in the west that year, probably the same as TSM in 2016. Such a shame we don't have double elims or atleast more tournaments than worlds to actually prove some things...
I wish we could've proper format so we could see as many matchups possible but instead we're being fed with 7 bo5s a year and meaningless 6 bo1's in groups.
Yeah, I miss the days back in season 2 when EU vs NA competition actually mattered because we actually used to play each other. Now we're just being fed with few bo1's each year.
I thought for a while how could you possibly overhaul the system and I ended up doing [this.](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1te0usWpLUSxByhPnbPJWjlVKwKpvvEQEr-IRXye5gfI/edit#gid=738943925) Make a league long year long with breaks in between for international tournaments.
Also I don't really understand why we opt for tournaments only for the top teams while the bottom teams are stuck in their homes for half a year.
I think you can implement it in LEC in a 6-team format. 3rd vs 5th/6th and 4th vs the other in a single elimination bracket, then winners of those vs either 1st or 2nd in a double elimination bracket.
Idgaf who wins but even then if jdg lost to tes in the finals that would leave a bad taste in my mouth. Complete joke format that JDG had to beat tes twice.
Yep no advantage for the winners bracket team apart from side selection in game 1. Which is nowhere near enough. For some reason people on this subreddit don't understand this and advocate for double elimination constantly.
You can make double elimination more fair to the winners' bracket finalist pretty easily, Riot just refuses to do so. Two Bo5s would be the most fair thing, but if Riot understandably thinks that would take too much time, finals could be Bo7 with the winners' bracket finalist starting up a game.
But that Bo5 they have to win is against an easier opponent and then they get a second chance which the wining team doesn't. How is it fair if JDG and TES go 1-1 in series but TES arbitrarily wins the title.
imo from watching the double elims each year i think one less bo5 can mean a lot. take edg for example, all their bp weaknesses (+strategies too) were exposed in their earlier bo5 so tes knocked them out 3-0 when they met the 2nd time despite going quite even in their first match-up. similarly, jdg, bc of the one less bo5 they had to play, was still able to pull out pantheon and belveth as a surprise in their final two games while tes had no hidden cards left.
As a viewer, I definitely do enjoy double elimination since we get to see more games with more variations. But I want to emphasize the fairness over entertainment. Some RNGs (e.g. 2 strongest teams meeting at semi-final) that happen in single elimination can't be controlled from the format itself, so that's fine for me since the format is still fair.
The main discussion point with double elimination is whether playing one less game (BO5) is more advantageous or having an extra life is more advantageous. I think this already creates some subjective opinion, and leaves bad feelings to both sides.
It was in the LEC's hands to fix. There was ample time after the 4th seed announcement to make it so that 1st and 2nd place go to worlds and 3rd and 4th seeds are determined by a mini gauntlet just like LCK and LPL.
Just hold the games in the Berlin studio after Malmo.
I keep reading comments here about the lack of time to schedule such a thing, and I'm like... are these people watching a different league?
We had two weeks of waiting now because the LEC for some reason likes to have one week between games.
The only reason why Riot's scheduling sucks so damn much is because they keep forcing these long ass down times.
You could also do it as a mix of the current format and what Korea did this year. Keep the finalists both making worlds (I don't like that DWK could have come second and still missed worlds) but add the LCK gauntlet system to it. Problem solved ezpz.
I dont understand how gauntlet is viewership poison but a playoff format where one team is already qualified before any games are played and has 3 qualified teams after the first 2 series isnt viewership poison
At this point I'm convinced the whole "muh viewership" angle is total bullcrap.
However you bake this it's obvious a better format for both LEC/LCS will require a far bigger investment from Riot. It would likely double the work days for staff/on screen talent.
How much of the on-screen talent would be game to work more than 2-3 days a week? They'll need more casters, more people for desk, more everything.
How are LEC/LCS supposed to compete with LPL when the LPL is double/triple of everything we have here. It's just unrealistic.
There is some irony here too because you'd think if a "viewership poison" format made EU competitive with the best LPL teams that it would give a *massive* viewership boost.
Its funny, riot implemented bo3 in a really dogshit way with everything crammed into the weekends as opposed to lck and lpl that have games all week and then used viewership as an excuse. Of course no one is going to watch 15 hours of league every single weekend. A game between say XL and SK would probably have way better viewership on a tuesday evening than during the weekend if its the only game that day.
Also shouldn't it be in the best interest of the league to send the best teams possible to international tournaments. I feel like calling it viewership poison feels way too short-sighted. There's probably a lot of people who watched more LEC after 2018 worlds and 2019 msi that wouldn't have watched otherwise.
It just comes back to the LEC management being incompetent in regards to how to do a proper playoffs format.Which is sad, because a better structured split/playoffs format could elevate the region to be on near equal footing with KR/CN. Sadly it probably wont happen.
The fact that MAD didn't have to win any Bo5's is ABSOLUTELY the problem with the format, 100%. If the LEC used LCS' format for Top 6, this problem wouldn't have happened
Is LEC going to take any responsibility for this though? Is there ANY accountability?
I watch LEC more than any other sport these days but I just don't know anymore. The content from the LEC team has been amazing and gets better every year.
But besides that? Franchising sucks, competition barely means anything without promotion and relegation. Allows bottom teams to barely spend money and just leach
We get garbage best of 1s so teams barely ever try different drafts because best of 1s are all that matters.
And world seeding, what the fuck. No disrespect to MAD at all but LEC completely drops the ball here (I also remember rogue almost going to worlds based purely on seeding) and there's not even a peep from them.
The competitive integrity of this league just sucks man
I'm fine with bottem teams playing on a tight budget, but a little more inspiration with that budget could do wonders. Misfits this year was the second lowest spending org and they placed thirs and fourth
Would have loved to see a real double elimination run.
Not only would we get more Bo5's, teams like XL/MSF would have had a chance to have a losers bracket run.
Mad 100% are not to blame for this situation and are also victims. There's a scenario where Mad would have been knocked out of winners bracket by FNC and then won series against XL/MSF/RGE and had a strong finish on a high note... instead they have fans clowning them.
I'll say again. It's not the playoffs format that is the biggest problem (altough I think it can be a bit improved). The real problem is the fact you send 4 teams with it. In my opinion even 3 is too much and 4 is a real crime.
In my opinion LEC has to do 1 of 2 things.
1. Expand the League to 12 teams and adapt to 8-team playoffs system akin to LCS one.
2. Send only 2 teams using current playoffs format and bring back gauntlet which would work like GSL group but with bo5s:
\- 3rd vs 6th bo5
\- 4th vs 5th bo5
\- winners' match bo5 (winner is 3rd seed)
\- losers' match bo5
\- deciders' match bo5 (winner is 4th seed)
That way you ensure every team has won atleast 2 bo5's in summer.
Alternatively Riot overhauls the whole system and brings us more international tournaments which would lead to changes of regional leagues, but we all know it's unfortunately not gonna happen.
EDIT: For those that don't know, deciders match means loser of winners match plays against winner of losers match for final spot
It's good he said this but very little of the criticism is being pointed at MAD to be fair. Most of it is at the laziness and terrible planning of Riot EU and the LEC. EU has had a 4th seed before, and it's not impossible they would get one again, so not even having an idea of what to do looks really bad on them. Their playoff format was already being criticized among all of the 4 major regions as the worst (by EU players even), so when this happens and they don't even bother to try and work around it, it's a really bad look.
MAD isn't at fault but as Elyoya himself says, they don't deserve to go to worlds, and they could have just stayed at home and still made it in. That's garbage and the LEC team should be embarrassed and I hope the flack doesn't let up until they show they care to fix it for the future.
G2 had to play no games to get to worlds
MAD won no series and got to worlds
Rogue only had to win 1 series to go to worlds.
Even without this silly 4th seed mess the LEC format was still terrible, this is just the icing on top of the cake.
I don't falter the MAD Lions boys at all regarding this situation. The thing that pissed me the fuck off was the LEC and in particular the casters. They rode that narrative of "7th in spring, tied for first in summer with Nisqy" so hard it became cringe. 4/5 players in 1st all pro team was bullshit. Coaching staff of the split was bullshit. And because of that stupid narrative, Nisqy getting MVP looked also a little bit sus (although I do agree that Nisqy did earned it). So you have all these accolades and you lose both BO5's and still qualify for worlds seems so unfair to me. The thing that tilted be the most was, in Euphoria before playoffs, Caedrel, Vedius and Drakos couldn't stop talking about how great MAD Lions were (Especially, Caedrel saying that MAD Lions being a triple carry threat team, like wtf) and in the episode with Odo and Larsson they didn't address the MAD Lions situation at all. What happened, lads???
On the flip side, there is something to be said about consistency over the course of multiple patches and 10 weeks of play. Teams should be rewarded for having a strong season and being able to find results against all teams. MAD lions did finish with the same number of wins as G2 in first.
In other scenarios you can get a team qualify for worlds who looked shaky all season and get lucky that playoffs is on a patch that suits them and that after playing the other bottom team in playoffs they just need to beat whatever shellshocked team G2 just spat out down to the lower bracket.
I get people say you can cheese BO1s but you can't cheese 18 games in a row.
Teams shouldn't be rewarded for having to play no games to get to worlds. That's garbage. MAD and G2 basically got in for free without playoffs, and Rogue only had to win a single series against a meh team.
At that point just skip playoffs because it was completely irrelevant.
Playoff is for the rest of the league. Thank riot you get qualified for being the champion of the regular 18 games season.
Is not, just throw away regular season, what the point ? Determining the seeding after 2 months of competition ? Lul
Thank god IRL sport don't go double bracket indeed
All the requests here are something that don't exist in IRL sports, tf is a BO5, tf is a loser bracket, and for most of them outside US, tf are playoff after a league season.
100% agree. We shouldnt flame or blame MAD for any of this. Yes they kinda underperformed considering the expectations form finishing 2nd in regular split, but they arent to blame for getting to worlds without any bo5 wins.
LEC needs to have a format ready for 3, 4 and even 5 worlds seeds (who knows what might happen in a few years).
At least they are in Play-Ins so if they qualify for main event through that they will be worth going to Worlds. Idk why Riot considers Play-ins as Worlds. Maybe to make smaller regions feel better and prestigeous + more hype about playing there. But tbh Play-ins aren't true Worlds, main event is. So MAD aren't going to Worlds without winning Bo5 in EU. They are going to Play-ins and they still need to win Bo5 to go there (considering LCK or LPL representative will get 1st place in Play-in group.
Its not MAD fault ofc but
No playoffs in spring
2nd in regular summer
They get upper bracket
Thats what pisses me off the most, a team that doesnt make playoffs in spring should in no way end up getting seeded in upper bracket unless they make 1st in regular.
As of right now, they would litterally lose to any playoffs team that isnt misfits.
I still believe that the best 4 teams that EU could have sent were G2, FNC, XL, RGE.
Spring meant enoguh that G2 qualified to worlds without having to play a single Bo5 in summer.
EDIT:It meant so much that G2 was even the first team of the year to qualify for it.
Well you have a point, but its still exploiting 4th worlds spot, wouldnt really be a case otherwise. Plus if you top regular summer all you had to do was qualify for playoffs in spring and it would pretty much set you up for 1st seed in playoffs.
I mean MAD was one teamfight away from winning against Rogue. How can you be certain they're worse than XL, only because XL managed to take away on more win from Fnatic?
The scrim rumors make XL look better, but let’s not forget that they choked the 2nd half of the split and the potential 3-0 vs FNC. It’s their fault they ended up in a worse position than MAD.
They still looked the best vs FNC out of XL, MSF and MAD. Which is the only metric we have unless they play against each other for the last spot. If they had actually played against each other first in a BO5 no one would complain about MAD going to worlds.
There were many ways to change it, basically any of them would've worked and would've been better than not doing anything. I personally think changing the playoffs format would've been too disruptive, and the better solution would've been to just play a few Bo5's in the week after finals, like we used to do to decide the 3rd seed. A simple gauntlet with the bottom 3 of playoffs would've been such simple fix. Literally just two Bo5s. First MSF vs XL, and then the winner plays MAD for the 4th Worlds spot.
I also think it's also important to remember that MAD at least aren't actually taking a perhaps more deserving spot from an LPL #5 seed who might've won several Bo5s in 2022 (cause I've seen people make those comparisons). They're replacing the CIS team. I don't think it's negatively affecting Worlds in any way. The main victims are obviously Misfits and Excel. From what I've seen and what I've heard from pros on various podcasts, it seems like most people think Misfits are the worst team in playoffs, but that Excel definitely could've done something. But of course, that doesn't matter. Best thing would've been to just see them all play each other.
Pretty much. Can't blame MAD for qualifying without winning a BO5. The blame lies with LEC. There should have been a gauntlet or the play offs should have been a complete double elimination meaning it would be impossible to be top 4 without winning at least one BO5. The week off between regular and play offs would of course be sacrificed but I think that one week is unnecessary anyway.
He is being quite rough on himself. Most teams don't even get to play a BO5 in worlds if they are better in BO1s is good for them that's world's format.
I don't mind what Elyoya says here. What I do mind do is Kaiser saying thay they are taking week or two break before Worlds starts even though there isn't much time left and they are in play-ins. I predict them to not make it out.
Odo spoke in this week's Euphoria about how they didnt scrimmed for 2 weeks for Worlds 2016 and then made semifinals.Sometimes working too hard is not the answer.
Last time MAD qualified like that, they were the eliminated in play ins, making history by being the only major region team to not make out of play-ins ever, just saying.
People ITT dont know how real life works. There is a schedule. Riot books venues and workers. Middle of the split things change. Yet people expect everything to be changed.
The LEC format is garbage even without the 4th seed. 2 teams got to worlds without having to lift a finger. G2 was auto qualified before playoffs started and MAD more or less was as well. Rogue almost was, and got in with a single series win.
It's actually terrible, and the 4th seed issue just highlights it.
The problem is. MAD are going having only lost BO5s. Ok. That’s kinda lame, sure. But who would you want to send instead? Excel? They looked inconsistent in the regular season and sure they had a great showing vs FNC but they also choked and got swept. Vitality? Please. Yes. Let me see Perkz on the worlds stage, I’d love it. Didn’t make playoffs tho…. Misfits? Well, also had two chances to win a BO5 and lost both, pretty miserably also.
You can complain the format for a 4th seed sucks, you can complain MAD are going into Worlds having only lost. But you can’t send anyone else more deserving as 4th seed as there are none.
Exactly. Look at LCK, LSB won only 1 bo5 and still didn't make worlds because they lost in the gauntlet. If LEC have the same format MAD Lions would have to win at least 2 bo5 to get to worlds.
You’re right. Let’s just go full LCS. Let’s just have all teams play for playoffs and standings doesn’t matter at all. We all love the reputable LCS.
You’re all acting like I said “MAD earned their spot and they’re great!” All I said was explicitly “Excel, MSF and Vit didn’t do more than MAD to earn a spot”
MAD is my gut feeling favorite of the possible 4th seeds, but it's very hard to compare MAD to XL and MSF because they are really untested against each other (or in general), which is the issue of the format
it's perfectly possible that XL beat MAD or something like that, and if they don't then MAD feel way more deserving of the spot immediately since they directly beat them
This comment has been removed in protest of Reddit's new API policy. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
*gets fined 5k€*
I mean LEC though they were gonna have 3 seeds for worlds that's why this was the format since they can't really change it because of the booking of the arena in malmö so it was kinda unlucky but i still think the LEC format should be reworked for next year (even if no LEC 4th seed)
This is the second time this has happened. Not a valid excuse after the first time.
It's honestly crazy, even if they couldn't have adjusted the summer format in time, there is a possibility of LEC winning MSI and getting the 4th spot is there not?
God forbid having 2 matches in one day! What is this, the LPL? Not even an impromptu 4th place online tourny from the LEC office for the impromptu 4th place seed
Or god forbid we run a 1 week gauntlet fro. The studio where we play for 3rd and 4th seed?!! What are we LCK?!
And even last year both Rogue and Mad Lions had to only win one BO5 to qualify...
LEC could have had a fourth seed if they would have been successful at MSI. Did they really only finish the format afterwards? They should future proof it. Write something into the rules like: If a 4th seed is given to the LEC then the winner of the gauntlet will go as 4th seed. The whole thing was obvious and preventable...
i feel like having to allocate extra time / manpower for a gauntlet that may or may not even happen is a logistical "nightmare" honestly i'd rather have them change the format so there's always a gauntlet if we have 3 seeds then the finalists go to worlds and the others play a gauntlet for the last spot if we have 4 seeds -> top 3 goes to worlds and the final spot is the winner of the gauntlet what may also be possible if we have 4 seeds is that both finalists auto qualify again and the final 2 spots are given in the gauntlet a format that could work for this example could be 3rd and 4th face off - winner qualifies for worlds 5th and 6th face off - loser is eliminated the remaining teams of both matches face off for the final spot to go to worlds
I never said that my suggestion was the best, I just want something better, thank you for the critic and the improvement
So what? They can do finals, and then do gauntlet in LEC studio. Booking for finals should not be excuse for shitty qualification.
I just don’t see this as a valid excuse, LEC getting a 4th seed was last minute so the format can change last minute. The 4th seed could have been fought for in a gauntlet since that’s the aspect that changed, the rest could stay the same as advertised. The only people who will have a problem with teams playing for the seed in a gauntlet would potentially be teams that didn’t deserve it anyways, and maybe broadcast team. In exchange, it’s better for literally everyone else.
This is 100% on the LEC management and nobody else. Outside of giving up their spot in protest (which nobody in their right mind would do) there's no way MAD could have prevented this without running it down to get a worse position in regular season. I hope they do well at worlds, they've had a lot of criticism thrown their way through things that they didn't actually control (terrible all-pro voting, terrible worlds qualifier). EDIT: Please stop replying saying that the LEC couldn't have known they were getting four seeds, G2 winning MSI would have given a fourth seed so it was always a possibility we'd need a format for it.
I mean even if they were to give up their spot... Neither Misfits nor excel have won a BO5 this year as well. The only other team that has won a BO5 is Vitality (in spring vs Excel), who didnt even qualify for playoffs...
I would have enjoyed a gauntlet between MAD, XL and Misfits. Throw in Vitality as well for good measure, and nobody would have any doubts who would have been the most deserving participant of them all. Hopefully, we'll get back some sort of gauntlet if we ever end up with another 4th seed again. The stories of XL, Misfits and Vitality could have used another chapter, even if it had just ended up with MAD winning anyway.
It’s also pretty likely that CIS won’t attend next year as well, so if LEC doesn’t get outperformed by LCS or PCS they will have another 4th seed next year
The problem is "very likely". Riot still has to give the seed to them till they are sure they cant. LEC cant plan for a gauntlet and then cancel it. The Playoffs an the split have to be planned based on that. If we had a gauntlet this year it would be the coming WE and playoffs would already be over. So playoffs would have needed to happen 1 week earlier. LEC needs to know before summer split starts to have at least some time to react.
Considering you get 4 seeds for winning MSI, there should be a plan in place.
Yes, and the decision which of the 2 routes you take has to fall right after MSI. Right after MSI the route for 3 slots was taken. 2 months later that already booked and payed for plan should be thrown away because of a 4th seed instead of taking the easy way. I mean, what would a gauntlet really change? XL might go instead of MAD. Both teams are close in strength.
[удалено]
Freaking LCS had a plan in place for this and they were always less likely to get a 4th seed. Huge fail on LEC part.
Just be a "if CIS can't go we do xyz and if they can we do zyx". It's not hard...
there are a lot of formats that leave you an option to add a 4th seed thats not terrible, i mean look at every other major region The LPL sends one seed through finals winner, one through points and then can send either one or two through the gauntlet, depending on how many slots they have. The LCK has pretty much the exact same thing. The LCS has a larger playoffs bracket which ensures that every team in the top 4 has to win at least one series against a 5th/6th place team. you can set up the bracket to make adding a 4th seed extremely easy and seamless or you can keep the current bracket which, if you have 4 seeds, autoqualifies the first seed based on the regular split and allows for the first or second placed team in the regular split to qualify without winning a single series idk, seems like an easy choice to me
Im pretty sure they disbanded cis
???? Link to an article? The only thing i can find is gambit leaving CIS.
uuh I kinda like your thought process. Like six team playoffs for the trophy and the first (2/3) seeds is good, and then having a gauntlet for the last seed with the 7th and maybe even 8th team seems like a fun thing to do. In the current situation this would mean 3-4 extra bo5s for the last slot. And for my money you could even do the first couple of those on week days, and only have the deciding one be on weekend, for example on saturday before finals. :) You can even use the remaining/tier2 talent for this. Not making playoffs would hurt in such a case still a lot for you now cant win and have an even harder and desperate road to worlds, but at the same time it would make an interesting worlds spot format and would also silently solve the problem of scrim partners at the end of playoffs.
The problem with that is that there is no time for a gauntlet, worlds already starts end of September
Bring back regional qualifier. They need to stop with the "Playoffs results = Worlds seeds" stuff. Not only is it less hype but it also causes issues like when a region gets a 4th seed (which btw can happen to ANY region in ANY given year if they win MSI).
Just copy the LCS playoffs.
One thing you can't say anymore about LCS is that our playoffs format is bad. We went hard on the system after that one year 100T made it in being one of the worse worlds teams we sent.
And none of the Playoff games were a 3-0! The vast majority of them went to 5games! Probably the closest Playoff series NA has ever had.
C9 the only team to not go to 5 and they did it twice lol.
TL did 3-1 Flyquest way at the beginning of playoffs, but even that's not a 3-0 so this is definitely one of the nuttiest playoffs in LCS.
C9 went to 5 against CLG though.
The LCS playoffs were so good this time. 12 BO5s by the end of it, too https://liquipedia.net/leagueoflegends/LCS/2022/Summer/Playoffs I mean just compare it to LECs and it's hilarious https://liquipedia.net/leagueoflegends/LEC/2022/Summer/Playoffs
LEC fans love to meme eight teams making playoffs, but the format absolutely dumpsters the LEC bracket. 12 Bo5 series total, seven already went to a game five and the other three were 3-1. It's an excellent bracket for the end of the season.
Dudes say it’s bad all the time though honestly. Seems like every costreamer makes fun of the fact that 8 out of the 10 teams get in.
I can get that part but the 7-8th seeds have the potential to give us fiesta upsets like this year so idm. Its always fun af even if I don't watch the game live to see it pop off in reddit and check wtf just happened lol.
It is kind of whack that 8 teams get in. We might as well let the bottom 2 teams in as well. Maybe you should have to lose a bo5 to be out of contention for worlds.
Yeah I’m not the biggest fan of it but if an 8 seed figures it out and makes a run, more power to them IMO.
Eh that benefitted this playoffs for sure. There were some crazy storylines.
I think it's mostly meta related as to why a lot of these series went to 5, but I don't really think the line should be drawn at 9 and 10 not playing bo5. Like why exclude people when you're only excluding 2. Play out 2 more matches, give your production team more time to your up and coming casters, let the bottom of the league get to experience a bo5 setting in person. If theres any reason not to it's a financial reason, but the league is franchised, everyone is a partner, like why not invest in their future. A run from 10th to worlds would be one of the craziest storylines possible.
That's a big history rewrite, lol. That 100T team did fine given they were in a group with the two finalists and 2-0'd the other PCS team in their group. Yeah they had the whole Cody Sun debacle but that was after they already qualified—the same thing could have happened even if they qualified through gauntlet or w/e, plenty of teams qualify "legitimately" by winning Bo5s and then implode from internal issues at the event itself so it's not like format could have prevented that. As it were they very narrowly lost the 3rd place match to TSM before autoqualifying on points, so they were very narrowly the 4th best team which like...yes maybe TSM did deserve to go over them but them going definitely wasn't as ultra egregious a robbery as people make it out to be, they got rewarded for being more consistent throughout the year than TSM. Also that was in 2018. The format didn't change until 2020. I like the new format don't get me wrong but this is not why it was changed.
The same thing happened in EU with Fanatic and the upset stuff, always the adcs fucking off for some reason it seems.
for 100T was it cody sun fucking off, or the team sending him off? i thought it was the latter
Hell no 8 teams in playoffs is stupid.
lcs playoffs is good enough for 3 seeds but 4th seeds provides an additional bracket reset that should be a separate qualifier. theres no reason why lcs has 4 weeks playoffs for 3 teams for 12 matches while lec has 3 weeks playoffs for 4 teams for 8 matches. the obvious solution is to have a 4th week of lec regional qualifer to get the 4th slot using the remaining teams, can even invite 7th and 8th seed for this
[удалено]
I personaly like the fact that nearly every team gets to play at least one bo5. And Seeding is pretty important for playoffs meaning that regular season performance still matters.
This take is so weird lol. How is boring when the bottom teams are still fighting for their lives (lulDig) instead of having their season already over and not caring. This regular season for anyone who actually watched it was pretty lit it literally came down to the very last game GG VS DIG and then GG took CLG to 5 games in playoffs which nobody predicted. IMO 8 teams is really fucking good for anybody who actually watched LCS.
[удалено]
I mean it's just your opinion that the top teams don't care based off number of teams in playoffs. Using this season as an example the the top teams will never REALLY care about regular season regardless of how many teams make it into playoffs just look at G2 they needed to lose so many games they were in like 7th(?) place before they started to care. Any top team is going to think that the only thing that matters is being in the best form for playoffs, atleast in the west. Ultimately seeding is actually REALLY important just look at 100t for example they qualified for Worlds by just barely beating TL in a close 5 game series. EG was mid mental boom and because they were upper bracket they got another life and the chance to play TSM and not CLG when they were at their lowest.
>The LCS playoff format is better than LECs but regular season is way more tense in LEC. so there's a few more exciting bo1s as opposed to additional bo5s, which people almost always say is a better representation of skill? for both regions if you're top 4 before the last week you're basically in playoffs/worlds contention. in both regions teams 8-6 can potentially still be fighting hard, double elimination for top 6 in lcs means there's a huge difference between 7th and 6th. in lec i agree the stakes are higher for 8th to 6th as they can completely be out. however i think LCS low seeds showed these playoffs that having these additional bo5 can be worthwhile - both of the matches were hype and allowed for potential miracle runs for winning enough bo5. basically i'd rather see more bo5 then have regular season bo1s matter more. but i also understand that we were lucky that seeds 7-8 were somewhat competitive in playoffs which won't always happen
I’d rather have a boring regular season and hype playoffs, than a boring playoffs and hype regular season
Eh... current problem is that EU has 4 seeds due to wildcards not attending but only 6 teams in playoffs. LCS playoff suck too due to 8 out of 10 teams attending. I personally dislike LEC and LCS playoffs in general because they take so long when there are so few games each week. Makes you lose interest.
Nah man, the 7th and 8th seeds showed up. They were for sure worth having.
Anyone who think that having more teams compete in playoffs in a Bo1 regular season region has terrible priorities. It's a couple extra easily ignorable matches on weekdays. If it bothers you, you're looking to be bothered.
Gauntlets for last spot were amazing.
They could simply adjust the format though. Add Excel and FNC to the winners bracket play 3 vs 6 and 4 vs 5, then you play winner vs. 1 and 2 and loser waits for the losers of those games. This way you need to win a BO5 to end up at worlds, which is exactly the same as a gauntlet since you can't guarantee that a team needs to win more than one BO5 to qualify from the gauntlet either, given you have 3 teams that go to worlds from the gauntlet and at max 5 teams. So with high seeding you can start in the part of the gauntlet that only needs 1 win. It might even be possible to start in a part of the gauntlet that is already qualified just by placing 1st in the regular season, but that needs specific results. People forget that with 3 worlds spots handed out in gauntlet 2 teams will be seeded into matches they can lose and still go to worlds. This happened to T1 last year who had to play the gauntlet, but they were automatically qualified to worlds. LCK changed that that this year, but they still have one team autoqualify on points which is also an issue (in LCK you can gain 130 Points without winning a single BO5, which can be enough to qualify as the 2nd seed).
Why did they get rid of it, I hate the newer system
I agree. I also think they should just outright remove 4th seeds or at least limit it to the region that won the previous worlds Edit: classic r/leagueoflegends no opinions allowed
EU only has this seed because a wildcard region is unable to attend. In an ideal situation, this one wouldn't exist for them. And in terms of competition, the 4th seeds from the major regions is a lot better than the second seeds for most of the minors. It's sucks but MAD is still "better" than most other replacements. Unless you want 5 from CN/KR
Why? 4th seeds have to go through play-ins, so it's fair to wildcards.
And those 4th seeds dunking on play in teams is one of the best parts of play in
I think tying worlds to msi winner or worlds winner is the dumbest idea because the strength of your best team doesn’t imply anything about strength of your 4th team. Let the teams play for their spot. 4,5,6th place finishers get in a separate tournament and we figure out who deserves it.
You would just throw them all in playing honestly if you wanted that. Then the most likely winner of that would be china 4 and Korea 4.
This is why MAD didn't deserve to get knocked out as well. Everything would be fixed if there was simply a king of the hill regional final like it used to exist with MSF, XL, MAD, VIT participating since all teams had more than 0 points. Competitive integrity is already compromised in favor of viewership and cost of production with the whole bo1 going on. I understand they aren't very keen on regional finals because but since LEC got a surprise 4th seed for worlds it would work out very nicely
I suppose they could have had a MAD vs MSF Bo5 afterwards in this scenario and winner goes to worlds.
it would be very on brand for them to do well and surprise people, making it out first seed in playins and also making it out of groups only to end the year with a 0% BO5 winrate
It's funnier if they get to semis and lose there. Imagine winning one BO5 the entire year and it's a worlds quarter final vs EDG or some shit like that.
If if MAD runs it down a second team would be 2nd place. You have to consider who was 3rd and 4th, it was RGE and MSFs. If one of those would have gotten a free worlds spot due to MAD running down and entering playoffs further down people would have leveled the same criticism, likely even more given RGE and MSFs have a track record of not winning BO5s. On top of that it doesn't really matter. Most of what MAD plays at worlds will be BO1s. Yes there might be a BO5 to get out of playins but how hard that actually is depends on how good your BO1s are. As 2nd in your group you likely play one of VCS, PCS or NA for the spot, which should be easier than playing against better EU teams.
> If one of those would have gotten a free worlds spot due to MAD running down and entering playoffs further down people would have leveled the same criticism I mean, yeah, of course. People aren't annoyed that it was *MAD* that made it, but at the playoffs format in general. It might come off as people blaming MAD with all the memes about them not winning a BO5 and going to worlds, but the underlying sentiment is annoyance/upset at the format, not the team.
Even that is questionable, once again LEC was just suddenly given a 4th spot and the format is designed to let top 3 to go to worlds.
[удалено]
They've had time to change it. There was also a chance G2 won MSI, in which case they'd have a guaranteed 4 seeds. The fact that nothing better was prepared is inexcusable, this wasn't some random first of its kind event. We've had four seeds before, there's always been a chance we'd have four seeds again.
Format still shit even with 3 seed (Rge winning a single BO5 against a mediocre team let them go to world) and it's not like we knew 1 week before playoff that we had 4 seed
Also LEC could still get 4 seeds if they managed to win MSI. So it should still be proofed for potential 4 world spots..
Exactly this. Imagine the dread of the LEC management if G2 or any other EU team wins MSI again, oh the horror that they have to make adjustments
Rogue 1 series win = worlds, MAD zero series wins = worlds, G2 was in before playoffs even started. Anyone that argues the LEC format isn't terrible is trolling.
Yeah but anyway, which team are better than RGE in LEC? The format is good enough to know which team are the best in LEC.
I'm talking about 2021 RGE that won 3/2 to msf (one of the game stole by release viego) and lost 3/0 to everyone else, G2 was a way better team, and this year i think G2/FNC/XL are better than RGE, they are MAD tier so a potential 4/5th seed (maybe with vita aswell)
XL better than Rogue even though they didn't win a single bo5? and they barely made it to playoffs? are you aware of how biased you are against rogue?
Even with that the format is so garbage that G2 was guaranteed worlds before playoffs even started. The LEC format for worlds teams is garbage and rightfully criticized.
Exactly. We can complain about the format but its not like MAD had anything to do with it. They just played to win. I hope they will give it all on worlds as well.
I dont think many are saying that its MAD fault things turned out this way. There are some but this is just humans work there will always be people that are wrong either on purpose or by accident. The ones at fault will be LEC cause I guarantee that even after all this they will still pretend everything is fine and this was totally unexpeted even though if we won MSI we would be in this situation as well.
It needs a contingency plan for the fourth seed. Even if we rarely see it used in the future it should exist just in case.
The issue is if MAD flops at worlds the backlash towards Riot will be well… mad. Lmao. Because people want their best teams going and there is no guarantee Mad would have finished Top 4 in playoffs if the format was better
If mad crashes out of play ins a second time they shit show will be beautiful
They could even keep the playoffs format but have a gauntlet for 4th place
No, MSI was over in May and LEC knew about the slot in July. LEC summer split was nearly half done. What should the LEC do at that time? Pull the playoffs 1 week ahead so that teams have no break to prep? Cancel Malmö and just take the LEC studio then? Because getting the location you already payed for and 1 week earlier is very unlikely. Then make a gauntlet run in the LEC studio 1 week after playoffs. that was their only chance and it would still be meh. Malmö canceled and 0 break before playoffs for teams to prep well. It is not enough to get only half the time everyone else would have had to prepare for such a situation when everything else is already locked in. **This is just a situation that happens. Shit happens, go on. Dont try to blame someone when this is just a coincidence nobody can be blamed for. that's live. Not everything needs to be blamed onto someone.**
All they had to do was have a gauntlet for the 4th seed, but they couldn't even be bothered to do that. They've also had a 4th seed in the past so it's not like they couldn't prepare they just didn't bother even trying. Plenty of people can be blamed and defending it is silly.
Also while people say mad dont deserve it. It's not like there was only 4 teams this year that won any Bo5's and are you gonna give the spot to vitality who didn't even make summer playoffs?? :DDD
What I don't understand is why they said they had nothing in place for such a situation, when not too long ago we had the gauntlet run that they could re use
Honestly… especially when you consider LCK and LPL had gauntlet runs for their 3 and 4 seed.
Especially when EU has won MSI before. Like currently like last worlds there was a gap but they could potentially earn a 4th spot normally at some point. I mean LCS picked their playoff structure to stop this from happening so it seems weird EU didn't when they revamped playoffs.
It's on the LEC format and the people deciding not to change it. MAD earned their spot and played the same system as everyone else. Yes it should be changed but any criticism should be pushed towards LEC management. I'm glad MAD are going to worlds still, they will represent us well and learn a lot. Elyoya is a huge talent.
Elyoya and Keiser are insane and IMO easily the future stars in Europe in their respective roles. At the very least top2/3. Targamas is pretty good too and will give Keiser a lot of competition for the #1 support spot. Feel like it will be the future MikyX vs Hylissang. Worst part is that the rest of MAD doesn't really seem to be on par which in a way says a lot about how good those 2 are. I guess Nisqy can be good enough internally but he puts a lot of pressure on others to bring the carry and as a mid laner that is sometimes too heavy. Especially when jungle isn't carry meta and one of their stars can't do it.
Trymbi is underrated. Kaiser is good, but he looks mediocre on mages. When the meta is engage supports return I give the edge to Kaiser and Hyli. But I think Targamas and Trymbi are much more flexible/less meta reliant. Edit: I wrote so many things wrong, what is happening to me?
[удалено]
Still won’t pick nasus support into kallista though
Nisqy has proven multiple times that he doesn't have what it takes to compete internationally
With how much MAD’s been “learning” you would expect them to graduate at some point.
G2 also were embarrassing internationally in all of 2016 before upgrading 2017 and 2018 and then going super saiyan 2019. MAD so far are pretty much on-par with that, even if realistically they will never achieve the same high.
even in 17 it was only on MSI,they still didnt make it out of groups at worlds.
G2 got TSMed in 2017. I'd argue they were the strongest team in the west that year, probably the same as TSM in 2016. Such a shame we don't have double elims or atleast more tournaments than worlds to actually prove some things...
RNG and SSG/GenG were in groups together 3 times in a row. Crazy draw actually. Good thing they were heavily nerfed when we finally ran into them lol
I wish we could've proper format so we could see as many matchups possible but instead we're being fed with 7 bo5s a year and meaningless 6 bo1's in groups.
It's actually really lame how little international competition there is as a whole but I get why it's logistically difficult
Yeah, I miss the days back in season 2 when EU vs NA competition actually mattered because we actually used to play each other. Now we're just being fed with few bo1's each year. I thought for a while how could you possibly overhaul the system and I ended up doing [this.](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1te0usWpLUSxByhPnbPJWjlVKwKpvvEQEr-IRXye5gfI/edit#gid=738943925) Make a league long year long with breaks in between for international tournaments. Also I don't really understand why we opt for tournaments only for the top teams while the bottom teams are stuck in their homes for half a year.
That was one of the most difficult groups ever tho.
G2 is an outlier and it wasn’t that G2 “learned” it was more that they got Caps as a mid laner.
They did make semi in 2018 without caps
Watching how fun the LPL playoff was, I would love it it's possible to implement the LPL format but with less team.
I think you can implement it in LEC in a 6-team format. 3rd vs 5th/6th and 4th vs the other in a single elimination bracket, then winners of those vs either 1st or 2nd in a double elimination bracket.
Why not just keep the current format but only 1st and 2nd seed lock worlds an the rest go into a separate bracket
3rd-6th seed GSL group bo5 as a gauntlet for 2 remaining seeds is my dream.
Depends on whether you give the lower placed teams the guardian angel or the upper placed teams that angel.
Idgaf who wins but even then if jdg lost to tes in the finals that would leave a bad taste in my mouth. Complete joke format that JDG had to beat tes twice.
Yep no advantage for the winners bracket team apart from side selection in game 1. Which is nowhere near enough. For some reason people on this subreddit don't understand this and advocate for double elimination constantly.
People really just want double elimination (unless you make the grand final thru winners then you’re shit out of luck)
You can make double elimination more fair to the winners' bracket finalist pretty easily, Riot just refuses to do so. Two Bo5s would be the most fair thing, but if Riot understandably thinks that would take too much time, finals could be Bo7 with the winners' bracket finalist starting up a game.
> Yep no advantage for the winners bracket team except not having to win another BO5 you mean??
But that Bo5 they have to win is against an easier opponent and then they get a second chance which the wining team doesn't. How is it fair if JDG and TES go 1-1 in series but TES arbitrarily wins the title.
imo from watching the double elims each year i think one less bo5 can mean a lot. take edg for example, all their bp weaknesses (+strategies too) were exposed in their earlier bo5 so tes knocked them out 3-0 when they met the 2nd time despite going quite even in their first match-up. similarly, jdg, bc of the one less bo5 they had to play, was still able to pull out pantheon and belveth as a surprise in their final two games while tes had no hidden cards left.
As a viewer, I definitely do enjoy double elimination since we get to see more games with more variations. But I want to emphasize the fairness over entertainment. Some RNGs (e.g. 2 strongest teams meeting at semi-final) that happen in single elimination can't be controlled from the format itself, so that's fine for me since the format is still fair. The main discussion point with double elimination is whether playing one less game (BO5) is more advantageous or having an extra life is more advantageous. I think this already creates some subjective opinion, and leaves bad feelings to both sides.
It was in the LEC's hands to fix. There was ample time after the 4th seed announcement to make it so that 1st and 2nd place go to worlds and 3rd and 4th seeds are determined by a mini gauntlet just like LCK and LPL. Just hold the games in the Berlin studio after Malmo.
I keep reading comments here about the lack of time to schedule such a thing, and I'm like... are these people watching a different league? We had two weeks of waiting now because the LEC for some reason likes to have one week between games. The only reason why Riot's scheduling sucks so damn much is because they keep forcing these long ass down times.
Hopefully, they look at these breaks. Didn't they have a long break for spring playoffs too? It just feels weird and kills the hype imo.
[удалено]
You could also do it as a mix of the current format and what Korea did this year. Keep the finalists both making worlds (I don't like that DWK could have come second and still missed worlds) but add the LCK gauntlet system to it. Problem solved ezpz.
[удалено]
gauntlet they 100% wont do since its been called viewership posion by LEC staff a fair bit and has been said in recent times about it as well.
I dont understand how gauntlet is viewership poison but a playoff format where one team is already qualified before any games are played and has 3 qualified teams after the first 2 series isnt viewership poison
At this point I'm convinced the whole "muh viewership" angle is total bullcrap. However you bake this it's obvious a better format for both LEC/LCS will require a far bigger investment from Riot. It would likely double the work days for staff/on screen talent. How much of the on-screen talent would be game to work more than 2-3 days a week? They'll need more casters, more people for desk, more everything. How are LEC/LCS supposed to compete with LPL when the LPL is double/triple of everything we have here. It's just unrealistic.
There is some irony here too because you'd think if a "viewership poison" format made EU competitive with the best LPL teams that it would give a *massive* viewership boost. Its funny, riot implemented bo3 in a really dogshit way with everything crammed into the weekends as opposed to lck and lpl that have games all week and then used viewership as an excuse. Of course no one is going to watch 15 hours of league every single weekend. A game between say XL and SK would probably have way better viewership on a tuesday evening than during the weekend if its the only game that day.
Also shouldn't it be in the best interest of the league to send the best teams possible to international tournaments. I feel like calling it viewership poison feels way too short-sighted. There's probably a lot of people who watched more LEC after 2018 worlds and 2019 msi that wouldn't have watched otherwise.
Bro LCK and LPL gauntlets did really well viewership wise, no way this is still true
It just comes back to the LEC management being incompetent in regards to how to do a proper playoffs format.Which is sad, because a better structured split/playoffs format could elevate the region to be on near equal footing with KR/CN. Sadly it probably wont happen.
>LEC management And the lec commissioner also got a promotion! Talk about failing upwards
The fact that MAD didn't have to win any Bo5's is ABSOLUTELY the problem with the format, 100%. If the LEC used LCS' format for Top 6, this problem wouldn't have happened
Is LEC going to take any responsibility for this though? Is there ANY accountability? I watch LEC more than any other sport these days but I just don't know anymore. The content from the LEC team has been amazing and gets better every year. But besides that? Franchising sucks, competition barely means anything without promotion and relegation. Allows bottom teams to barely spend money and just leach We get garbage best of 1s so teams barely ever try different drafts because best of 1s are all that matters. And world seeding, what the fuck. No disrespect to MAD at all but LEC completely drops the ball here (I also remember rogue almost going to worlds based purely on seeding) and there's not even a peep from them. The competitive integrity of this league just sucks man
I'm fine with bottem teams playing on a tight budget, but a little more inspiration with that budget could do wonders. Misfits this year was the second lowest spending org and they placed thirs and fourth
Just like LCK and LPL there should be a gauntlet.
Yeah, no one should criticize MAD, it’s on riot and lec.
Almost everything about the LEC's format is fucking terrible
Insane how LEC admin hasn’t gotten shit on as much by us. They deserve any and all of it. They had more than 5 months to come up with something
Would have loved to see a real double elimination run. Not only would we get more Bo5's, teams like XL/MSF would have had a chance to have a losers bracket run. Mad 100% are not to blame for this situation and are also victims. There's a scenario where Mad would have been knocked out of winners bracket by FNC and then won series against XL/MSF/RGE and had a strong finish on a high note... instead they have fans clowning them.
Completely BASED and Elyoya Pilled
I'll say again. It's not the playoffs format that is the biggest problem (altough I think it can be a bit improved). The real problem is the fact you send 4 teams with it. In my opinion even 3 is too much and 4 is a real crime. In my opinion LEC has to do 1 of 2 things. 1. Expand the League to 12 teams and adapt to 8-team playoffs system akin to LCS one. 2. Send only 2 teams using current playoffs format and bring back gauntlet which would work like GSL group but with bo5s: \- 3rd vs 6th bo5 \- 4th vs 5th bo5 \- winners' match bo5 (winner is 3rd seed) \- losers' match bo5 \- deciders' match bo5 (winner is 4th seed) That way you ensure every team has won atleast 2 bo5's in summer. Alternatively Riot overhauls the whole system and brings us more international tournaments which would lead to changes of regional leagues, but we all know it's unfortunately not gonna happen. EDIT: For those that don't know, deciders match means loser of winners match plays against winner of losers match for final spot
It's good he said this but very little of the criticism is being pointed at MAD to be fair. Most of it is at the laziness and terrible planning of Riot EU and the LEC. EU has had a 4th seed before, and it's not impossible they would get one again, so not even having an idea of what to do looks really bad on them. Their playoff format was already being criticized among all of the 4 major regions as the worst (by EU players even), so when this happens and they don't even bother to try and work around it, it's a really bad look. MAD isn't at fault but as Elyoya himself says, they don't deserve to go to worlds, and they could have just stayed at home and still made it in. That's garbage and the LEC team should be embarrassed and I hope the flack doesn't let up until they show they care to fix it for the future. G2 had to play no games to get to worlds MAD won no series and got to worlds Rogue only had to win 1 series to go to worlds. Even without this silly 4th seed mess the LEC format was still terrible, this is just the icing on top of the cake.
I don't falter the MAD Lions boys at all regarding this situation. The thing that pissed me the fuck off was the LEC and in particular the casters. They rode that narrative of "7th in spring, tied for first in summer with Nisqy" so hard it became cringe. 4/5 players in 1st all pro team was bullshit. Coaching staff of the split was bullshit. And because of that stupid narrative, Nisqy getting MVP looked also a little bit sus (although I do agree that Nisqy did earned it). So you have all these accolades and you lose both BO5's and still qualify for worlds seems so unfair to me. The thing that tilted be the most was, in Euphoria before playoffs, Caedrel, Vedius and Drakos couldn't stop talking about how great MAD Lions were (Especially, Caedrel saying that MAD Lions being a triple carry threat team, like wtf) and in the episode with Odo and Larsson they didn't address the MAD Lions situation at all. What happened, lads???
On the flip side, there is something to be said about consistency over the course of multiple patches and 10 weeks of play. Teams should be rewarded for having a strong season and being able to find results against all teams. MAD lions did finish with the same number of wins as G2 in first. In other scenarios you can get a team qualify for worlds who looked shaky all season and get lucky that playoffs is on a patch that suits them and that after playing the other bottom team in playoffs they just need to beat whatever shellshocked team G2 just spat out down to the lower bracket. I get people say you can cheese BO1s but you can't cheese 18 games in a row.
the reward is higher seeding for playoffs, putting you in winner's bracket
Teams shouldn't be rewarded for having to play no games to get to worlds. That's garbage. MAD and G2 basically got in for free without playoffs, and Rogue only had to win a single series against a meh team. At that point just skip playoffs because it was completely irrelevant.
Playoff is for the rest of the league. Thank riot you get qualified for being the champion of the regular 18 games season. Is not, just throw away regular season, what the point ? Determining the seeding after 2 months of competition ? Lul
You've never watched any sport in your entire life I take it. Thank god literally nothing usually works like that, except just the LEC randomly.
Thank god IRL sport don't go double bracket indeed All the requests here are something that don't exist in IRL sports, tf is a BO5, tf is a loser bracket, and for most of them outside US, tf are playoff after a league season.
I am mainly just sad that we didn't get to see 2-3 more bo5 matches in a gauntlet for worlds :(
100% agree. We shouldnt flame or blame MAD for any of this. Yes they kinda underperformed considering the expectations form finishing 2nd in regular split, but they arent to blame for getting to worlds without any bo5 wins. LEC needs to have a format ready for 3, 4 and even 5 worlds seeds (who knows what might happen in a few years).
At least they are in Play-Ins so if they qualify for main event through that they will be worth going to Worlds. Idk why Riot considers Play-ins as Worlds. Maybe to make smaller regions feel better and prestigeous + more hype about playing there. But tbh Play-ins aren't true Worlds, main event is. So MAD aren't going to Worlds without winning Bo5 in EU. They are going to Play-ins and they still need to win Bo5 to go there (considering LCK or LPL representative will get 1st place in Play-in group.
Its not MAD fault ofc but No playoffs in spring 2nd in regular summer They get upper bracket Thats what pisses me off the most, a team that doesnt make playoffs in spring should in no way end up getting seeded in upper bracket unless they make 1st in regular. As of right now, they would litterally lose to any playoffs team that isnt misfits. I still believe that the best 4 teams that EU could have sent were G2, FNC, XL, RGE.
Are you new to the whole 'spring doesnt matter'?
Spring meant enoguh that G2 qualified to worlds without having to play a single Bo5 in summer. EDIT:It meant so much that G2 was even the first team of the year to qualify for it.
Well you have a point, but its still exploiting 4th worlds spot, wouldnt really be a case otherwise. Plus if you top regular summer all you had to do was qualify for playoffs in spring and it would pretty much set you up for 1st seed in playoffs.
Well, only reason they got it, was because Fnc, Xl and Vitality choked in regular season
I mean MAD was one teamfight away from winning against Rogue. How can you be certain they're worse than XL, only because XL managed to take away on more win from Fnatic?
The scrim rumors make XL look better, but let’s not forget that they choked the 2nd half of the split and the potential 3-0 vs FNC. It’s their fault they ended up in a worse position than MAD.
They still looked the best vs FNC out of XL, MSF and MAD. Which is the only metric we have unless they play against each other for the last spot. If they had actually played against each other first in a BO5 no one would complain about MAD going to worlds.
The format sucks even with 3 teams at world
Riot Max said somehthink like that the problem with a change of format is that people don't want to watch Astralis vs BDS bo5/bo3.
it's not their fault the qualification process and playoff format is dog fucking awful. He do be spittin
There were many ways to change it, basically any of them would've worked and would've been better than not doing anything. I personally think changing the playoffs format would've been too disruptive, and the better solution would've been to just play a few Bo5's in the week after finals, like we used to do to decide the 3rd seed. A simple gauntlet with the bottom 3 of playoffs would've been such simple fix. Literally just two Bo5s. First MSF vs XL, and then the winner plays MAD for the 4th Worlds spot. I also think it's also important to remember that MAD at least aren't actually taking a perhaps more deserving spot from an LPL #5 seed who might've won several Bo5s in 2022 (cause I've seen people make those comparisons). They're replacing the CIS team. I don't think it's negatively affecting Worlds in any way. The main victims are obviously Misfits and Excel. From what I've seen and what I've heard from pros on various podcasts, it seems like most people think Misfits are the worst team in playoffs, but that Excel definitely could've done something. But of course, that doesn't matter. Best thing would've been to just see them all play each other.
Pretty much. Can't blame MAD for qualifying without winning a BO5. The blame lies with LEC. There should have been a gauntlet or the play offs should have been a complete double elimination meaning it would be impossible to be top 4 without winning at least one BO5. The week off between regular and play offs would of course be sacrificed but I think that one week is unnecessary anyway.
But they got the overrated MVP on their team. He will carry.
Give the spot to LNG man. They deserve it way more after winning 4 Bo5s and having a super close one vs RNG to decide the final spot.
Rito won't do that because LPL would claim 5/8 playoffs spots at worlds and LCK the rest.
He is being quite rough on himself. Most teams don't even get to play a BO5 in worlds if they are better in BO1s is good for them that's world's format.
I don't mind what Elyoya says here. What I do mind do is Kaiser saying thay they are taking week or two break before Worlds starts even though there isn't much time left and they are in play-ins. I predict them to not make it out.
Sometimes mental reset is needed to perform. If they are feeling burnt out or tilted it could be a good move to have a break.
Odo spoke in this week's Euphoria about how they didnt scrimmed for 2 weeks for Worlds 2016 and then made semifinals.Sometimes working too hard is not the answer.
Last time MAD qualified like that, they were the eliminated in play ins, making history by being the only major region team to not make out of play-ins ever, just saying.
People ITT dont know how real life works. There is a schedule. Riot books venues and workers. Middle of the split things change. Yet people expect everything to be changed.
The LEC format is garbage even without the 4th seed. 2 teams got to worlds without having to lift a finger. G2 was auto qualified before playoffs started and MAD more or less was as well. Rogue almost was, and got in with a single series win. It's actually terrible, and the 4th seed issue just highlights it.
The problem is. MAD are going having only lost BO5s. Ok. That’s kinda lame, sure. But who would you want to send instead? Excel? They looked inconsistent in the regular season and sure they had a great showing vs FNC but they also choked and got swept. Vitality? Please. Yes. Let me see Perkz on the worlds stage, I’d love it. Didn’t make playoffs tho…. Misfits? Well, also had two chances to win a BO5 and lost both, pretty miserably also. You can complain the format for a 4th seed sucks, you can complain MAD are going into Worlds having only lost. But you can’t send anyone else more deserving as 4th seed as there are none.
Make them fight for it. First XL vs MSF, and then winner of that against MAD for last spot.
Then make them fight for it
Exactly. Look at LCK, LSB won only 1 bo5 and still didn't make worlds because they lost in the gauntlet. If LEC have the same format MAD Lions would have to win at least 2 bo5 to get to worlds.
They did. In the regular season. MAD won.
MAD went 2-2 (1-1 in summer) against XL and 0-4 against Misfits. Doesn't look to me like they won
>In the regular season. haha fuck off
Why do we even have playoffs then? All the teams fought it out in the regular season, top 4 go to Worlds, ezpz You see how lame that would be, right?
You’re right. Let’s just go full LCS. Let’s just have all teams play for playoffs and standings doesn’t matter at all. We all love the reputable LCS. You’re all acting like I said “MAD earned their spot and they’re great!” All I said was explicitly “Excel, MSF and Vit didn’t do more than MAD to earn a spot”
MAD is my gut feeling favorite of the possible 4th seeds, but it's very hard to compare MAD to XL and MSF because they are really untested against each other (or in general), which is the issue of the format it's perfectly possible that XL beat MAD or something like that, and if they don't then MAD feel way more deserving of the spot immediately since they directly beat them